Have there been any google algorithm updates in the past 2 weeks?

[Globalgraphics]

Hi guys - we have noticed a site we work one has taken a hit on its rankings over the past week.

We have been through all the usual reason - hacking, duplicate content, back links, other sites copying text etc - but can not find any reason why its rankings have been affected.

Has any one else noticed unexplained changes in rankings with sites about a week ago?

Thanks in advance!

Phil

[ThomasCenterInc]

To what degree if any would the loss in traffic be offset by the gain in strong inbound links from apparently authoritative domains doing the republishing?

[EGOL]

We had a bunch of "made in China" websites that all copied our product descriptions verbatim.  There were a lot of them copying a lot of pages.  Our rankings tanked.  This was before we began submitting DMCA complaints at scale.  If they did this today, we would fight back with DMCA to Google, hosting and Adsense if they use it.

[brettmandoes]

Anyone attacked by a scraper can agree that Google isn't foolproof. We have one website that has turned invisible even though it was ranking strongly for years. The scraper copied everything exactly with one exception - they changed all the links on the site so nothing would point back to ours. It was a pretty nasty hit. Still waiting on the DMCA takedown.

[EGOL]

Yes.

To expand on that...

If you have a strong site and publish a new article on it, there is a very high probability that google will give you top rankings for it if a couple weaker sites republish it.  However, if you have a weak site and other sites stronger than yours republish it, then there is a very good chance that they will get the traffic for that article.

[whiteonlySEO]

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Just to confirm, you're saying that although Google can sometimes recognize where the content originated, they may give preference to stronger sites, and that it isn't foolproof?

[EGOL]

Google says that they are good at attributing content to the first website to publish.  However, I have found that is not true.  They often give ranking preference to the strongest site to publish.  Also, if lots of weak sites grab that content and publish Google can get confused as to who owns it.

[whiteonlySEO]

Just wanted to point out that, to the best of my knowledge, you don't need to be concerned about other sites copying your content, since Google knows where the text first appeared and will only penalize subsequent appearances of the same text.

[Globalgraphics]

Thanks Marie. Strange though as competitors have not been affected at all. Time will tell.

Thanks

P.

[MarieHaynes]

There has been a lot of turbulence over the last month. One thing that I've noticed on a couple of sites is that they will drop dramatically for a few days to a week and then suddenly pop back up again. It's terrifying when it happens, but the good news is they usually pop up again higher than they were before.

If you haven't made any significant changes on this site I'd ride it out for a few more days before hitting the panic button.