New Algo Update?

[bgs]

Is there a new algo update happening now with Google? I am seeing a big change in the SERP's for many keywords over the past two days.

[Dr-Pete]

Days, weeks, months, or sometimes never It is a very inexact science, and we're unaware of the vast majority of the 500+ updates Google makes every year.

[Dr-Pete]

I think there's some of that in play. If Google can make us afraid of bad links so that we all rush to remove them, for example, that's a whole lot easier than actually creating and testing an algorithm update, especially one of the complexity it would take to do the job.

I also suspect that the 10-day Panda roll-outs and "multi-week" update are, in small part, meant to obfuscate updates. More of us are tracking them, and Google is not a transparent company, IMO.

Finally, I think they're getting into territory that's just more difficult. So many complex updates have collateral damage. I really do think that the multi-week update consisted of rolling out and rolling back changes, and I'm not sure they landed on much of an answer.

[bgs]

Dr Pete,

How long does it normally take for the SEO community to understand a specific algo change when there is very little guidance from Google?

[rayvensoft]

Hi Dr. Pete,

That brings up an interesting possibility.

< start conspiracy theory>

Is it possible that Google is actually going through this summer of volatility to weed out the people who are not following their policy.  By this I mean that every time they make a change, anybody who is doing even the slightest "grey hat" SEO runs to their site and gets rid of it if they can.  I am guessing that with just this uncertainty alone google forcing people to clean their own sites.

People who are sure their sites are clean, there is nothing they can do even if they want to, so Google may figure that after this turbulence they can just eliminate this turbulence, run the previous algorithm from before the summer (or at least a more stable one than now) and the good sites will automatically float to the top since most sites will be "clean" again thanks to all the webmasters cleaning house all summer.

I am not a conspiracy theorists, nor do I play one on TV.  

[Dr-Pete]

We saw a Saturday spike on MozCast, but to be honest, the last few weeks have been a wild ride. I'm going to be actively analyzing the "multi-week" update the next few days (probably posting next week), which looks like it did settle down during the July 4th weekend. There's been increased volatility since Penguin 2.0, and Google claims that Panda data updates are now rolling out roughly 10 days out of each 30 (I don't completely believe that line, but that's what they're telling us).

Now clear reports of webmaster chatter about this past weekend, but rankings have been so volatile that I'm not sure anyone knows what to make of the patterns right now. Unfortunately, I think that uncertainty and noise is exactly what Google wants.

[bgs]

I'm seeing the same changes. I would say the SERP's are returning to pre-penguin position for almost all the effected terms in a very competition travel niche. Ditto your fingers crossed.

[rayvensoft]

Big changes in my rankings.  For the first time in the last 3 months, this update is actually helping the rankings.  So far, I have recovered most if not all of what I lost for Penguin 2.0 (5-20 positions).  Of course, this may just be the google dance and I may loose it again by tomorrow morning.  Fingers crossed.

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi BGS,

There are always updates and Jesse is right however this is a great spot to check for major updates

http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

[jesse-landry]

Always!

That said, I haven't noticed anything big in my SERPs.