Big shuffle of Google search results..?

[T J Madigan]

I was checking some of my client's search results earlier (Yeah, I know it's a public holiday but I just can't resist) and I saw what I consider to be a Huge shuffle of the local search results.

Sometimes things like that happen for a few hours or so, but this time the change in rankings has stayed all day. A few of my clients main competition seem to have dropped completely off the radar across various niches and others that didn't rank high previously seem to have appeared from nowhere to replace them.

I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

[T J Madigan]

Yup! I was right:
http://forums.hkseo.us/Thread-The-sk...r-algo-changes

And from googlewebmastercentral:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...h-quality.html

[seocourse]

The changes are crazy

Seriously, and show how google is broken....

Example: Ranking for 'Cooking Schools"
1st position in google places: an ATM .
Yep and ATM from ANZ.

Ranking for Viagra worldwide, in a 1st page a hacked university site.

Ranking for make money online, some sites with NO CONTENT.

Yep Google... you are clearly aallll about "quality"

Now if you Google "SEO" and find the top position, look at the website ranking in 1st for Australia.
Then do a link analysis .
You will find:
Over 600 domain names owned by them.
Registered with different names, hostings and ABNS
All of them sending high Page rank links for "SEO"

So yes.. it's all about "quality" right?

[seocourse]

1st position for "Cooking Schools"

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/place...d=0CI8BEK8LMAA

[GailH]

This is an interesting read: http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/04/g...orithm-change/

[WebBinny]

Originally Posted by seocourse

The changes are crazy

Seriously, and show how google is broken....

Example: Ranking for 'Cooking Schools"
1st position in google places: an ATM .
Yep and ATM from ANZ.

Ranking for Viagra worldwide, in a 1st page a hacked university site.

Ranking for make money online, some sites with NO CONTENT.

Yep Google... you are clearly aallll about "quality"

Now if you Google "SEO" and find the top position, look at the website ranking in 1st for Australia.
Then do a link analysis .
You will find:
Over 600 domain names owned by them.
Registered with different names, hostings and ABNS
All of them sending high Page rank links for "SEO"

So yes.. it's all about "quality" right?

I hear you! "Quality content is of the no 1 importance..."

I actually recently went to a meetup that had some guy from Google Quality team there who said that 'spamming' in Australia is alot less prevalent and policed. He said once it hits a certain 'threshold' then more penalties will start happening...interesting to hear his thoughts though

[bridiej]

Judging by the majority of comments on Google's official blog posting this update has thrown up all sorts of irrelevant content.

I think Google need to be very careful. They may not be the number one search engine for much longer...

[Aidan]

Hi Gab,

Absolutely agree with you we are seeing some truly awful organic results right now from G, I really hope they are working on it and this will be sorted quick smart.

If you're talking about the SEO result I'm seeing, they have some serious linkjuice from lots of high authority independent domains which is likely driving their results. Personally I don't think their own sites are a huge part of the equation in this case but I'm happy to be corrected by anyone who knows more?

[clintmaher]

It has been an interesting 24 hours to say the least.

[lutrov]

Originally Posted by seocourse

Example: Ranking for 'Cooking Schools" 1st position in google places: an ATM. Yep and ATM from ANZ.

Something must have changed in the last three hours 'cause I don't see that at all. I'm seeing seven Google Places entries at the top, with "William Angliss Institute" being the first one.

I assume you weren't logged into Google at the time of the search?