Have there been any google algorithm updates in the past 2 weeks?
-
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
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
Thanks Marie. Strange though as competitors have not been affected at all. Time will tell.
Thanks
P.
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Reviews - Google & Third Party
Hi We have reviews on our product pages & service reviews on Feefo, but how important is it to also drive customers to review your company on Google? I'm guessing we should be doing both, but it proves difficult when you already ask them to review your company through a third party? Any tips moz?
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
What happened on September 17 on Google?
According to mozcast: http://mozcast.com/ and to my own stats, Google had a pretty strong algorithm update on September 17. Personally I have experienced a drop of about 10% of traffic coming from Google on most of my main e-commerce site virtualsheetmusic.com. Anyone know more about that update? Any ideas about what changed? Thank you in advance for any thoughts! Best, Fab.
Algorithm Updates | | fablau1 -
How Does Google Treat External Links to URLs with # Anchors?
Here are two URLs to explain this example: **Original URL: **example.com/1/ **URL that points to anchor within the webpage above: **example.com/1/#anchor Does Google treat these two URLs as separate entities or the same? For example, does an external link to the anchor URL pass full PageRank value to the original URL? How does Google handle this? Is there anything negative about this situation? Are there any risks associated with links to the anchor URL? Finally, is it more valuable for an external link to point to the URL without an anchor?
Algorithm Updates | | SAMarketing0 -
Has Bing rolled out an algorithm update?
Hi everyone, Does anyone know if Bing has rolled out an algorithm update recently? I have noticed a decent change in Bing/Yahoo results recently. Searching online only produces results for Google's updates. Thanks in advance for your help.
Algorithm Updates | | DirectiveSEO0 -
How to show your ratings in the Google SERP
I've noticed that some organic search results are showing ratings just above the meta tag. How are these sites doing this? Example: If you search "cash advance", there is a result between #4 and #6 in the organic results. The site is "goldcashadvance.com". It's showing a 5-star rating in the result.
Algorithm Updates | | sparagi0 -
More youtube results from the past 2 days
Hi, Did anyone see changes in their serps? There are more youtube videos appearing in the organic results?
Algorithm Updates | | Indexxess0 -
How Do I Make My Google SERP "SiteLinks" more relevant?
I have a shopping website with thousands of products, and the sitelinks that google has chosen for me (for a long time) are random product pages, which makes no sense to me. I do not emphasize those products on the home page, and I have a sitemap that clearly lists the directory of all the categories. I also added a "nofollow" attribute to almost every link on the home page that is not important. These products in the site links seem completely random and there isnt even a sitelink for "about" or any of the footer content! What gives? Also, my sitelinks never updated to the new, better version. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | cDNAInteractive0 -
SEO updates and rank changes
We have been updating page titles and meta descriptions for a client (not changing ANY links and the content we are replacing is "fluff," no major keywords or any relevant information) yet in the past few weeks, rankings have plummeted. I used the SEOMoz grader to check and make sure we have the keywords in there, in the right places for the updated page source info, and we're getting A's yet for those same keywords, the website is nowhere to be found. For example for the phrase "organic t shirts," we get an A for this page: http://greenpromotionalitems.com/organic-t-shirts.htm but when searching organic t shirts, no Green Promotional Items... Ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | laidlawseo0