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
-
What is the impact of HTTP/2 on SEO ?
I think it's good for the user experience and speeds up websites, especially if your site has a lot of requests. But i'm not sure if there are other side effects, and if there's an impact on SEO or technical configuration. Most of my websites are built with Wordpress, some with Joomla.
Algorithm Updates | | Croco_Web_Solutions1 -
Ranking Well in Google But Not Bing - Why?
Hello Moz Community, I'm ranking well in Google (#2-#6 for various keywords) but on the second page of Bing. Are there certain differences that I should be aware of? Thanks, Cole
Algorithm Updates | | ColeLusby0 -
Google domain search
Hello all, I'm a newbie to SEO, so you'll have to bear with me. I just started a website LangleyHomeSaerch.com a few months ago and am having trouble ranking with google. When I search "Langley Home Search" with Yahoo or Bing, it comes up on the first page. However when I search it with google it doesn't seem to rank even in the first few hundred pages. The only way I can get a match from google is if I search "Langley HomeSearch" or "LangleyHomeSearch". I know due to google's newer algorithms that there is less importance put on domain name matches, but is this normal, or is there anything I can do to improve it? Thx, Colby Langley, BC
Algorithm Updates | | colbygedak0 -
Panda Updates?
Anyone aware of any algo updates/refreshes today? Been seeing some serp movements on .co.uk
Algorithm Updates | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
How do you get photo galleries indexed on Google News?
I work for a news site and some of our photo galleries get indexed by Google News while others never do. I'm trying to determine why some are more successful than others even though they all follow the same guidelines regarding keyword-rich headlines & copy, h1s, etc. When comparing what's been indexed in the past with current galleries, there doesn't appear to be an obvious pattern. Can anyone share some insight into this?
Algorithm Updates | | BostonWright0 -
Google Panda Update - google.com.br ( brazil )
Hello folks, Someone know if google run their panda update in brazil ( www.google.com.br ), this week? Coz I can see a interesting boost in my google traffic sources. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | augustos0 -
Difference in which pages Google is ranking?
Over the past two weeks I've noticed that Google has decided to change which pages on our site rank for specific keywords. The thing is, this is for keywords that the homepage was already ranking for. Due to our workload, we've made no changes to the site, and I'm not tracking any additional backlinks. Certainly there are no new deep links to these pages. In SEOmoz dashboard (and via tools/manual checking with a proxy) of the 24 terms we have first page ranking for, 9 of them are marked "new to top 50". These are terms we were already ranking for. Google just appears to have switched out the homepage for other pages. I've noticed this across a couple of client sites, too, though none to the extent that I'm seeing on our own. Certainly this isn't a bad thing, as the deeper pages ranking means that they're landing on the content they want first, and I can work to up the conversion rates. It's just caught me by surprise. Anyone else noticing similar changes?
Algorithm Updates | | BedeFahey1 -
Why would my product pages no longer be indexed in Google?
Our UK site has 72 pages in our sitemap. 30 of them are product pages which take a productid parameter. Prior to 1st Feb 2011, all pages were indexed in Google but since then all of our product pages seem to have dropped from the index? If I check in webmaster tools, I can see that we have submitted 72 pages and 42 are indexed. I realise we should have some better url structuring and I'm working on that but do you have any ideas on how we can get our product poages back into googles index http://www.ebacdirect.com
Algorithm Updates | | ebacltd0