Google changes: when rankings get crazy
Jordi Ordóñez
01/08/2019
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Sometimes your SEO rankings fall down heavily as it happened in August 2018. Do you know why these Google changes take place? Let´s see all this in detail.
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Since the beginning of August there has been a huge shock in the world of SEO. Pages that had good rankings, suddenly fall down heavily, while others rise in the same proportion. What is going on?
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Changes in SERPs
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Let's see, the first thing to make clear is that this is nothing new. Google and the rest of search engines spend their lives playing with their algorithm to try to adjust to the fullest the relevance of their results.The result of these adjustments is that the SERPs (also known as results sheets) become volatile and unstable while they are being adjusted.We cannot forget the fact that Google is a private company whose business are searches (actually the advertising that appears on them). They do not have to give us any explanation and are totally free to change the rules of the game.Annoying? Can it cause a serious problem even for the viability of a company? Evidently, and their praxis is not the best, but do not forget that we, as websites, are not their client. To be honest, we are closer to being their product because we will always have to pay.
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Why do they change their algorithm that much?
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These are the ones with the greatest impact:As you already know, we also refer to SEO as organic positioning, right? If we consider the definition of organic or natural. The algorithmic changes aim to preserve this naturalness.When we work on SEO, in Google´s eyes, to a great extent what we are looking for is to change the organic order of the results which is something Mountain View´s guys dislike .If you know a little about this subject, you know that Google has been bringing to light some filters with the intention of penalizing those users who try to take advantage of the of the software´s vulnerabilities
- Panda: It came up as a filter that pursued duplicated and low quality content. Thus, the rankings of those pages that created different URLs with a virtually identical content just to position fell.
- Penguin: As Google uses the external links that receives a page as signs of authority, they decided to establish order and penalize those pages that were forcing getting these links.
- Fred: Another update that pursued the content of low quality and texts generated automatically. This update is quite similar to Panda but it focuses on quality.
Over time, filters like Panda and Penguin end up integrating within the core of the algorithm and act in a more efficiently. Also peaks are not more seen as occurs when an update is released.In addition to these ones that are recognized by Google, there are others that are not that important but have an effect. This is the case, for example, of the so-called Phantom Updates which no explanation was given about.Sometimes, there are also updates that point to niches and specific areas of activity where there is a high rate of SPAM. One case is the so-called Payday Loan (already in its version 3.0) and affects pages that try to position with black hat techniques words related to gambling, certain medications such as Viagra or sites with pornographic content. -
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Who does Google August update affect?
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Force of habit, we can say that Google has been quite opaque and, when asked, they limit to good practice.As SEO community has been able to infer contrasting different projects, it seems that those"graceful"have been basically some sectors such as health and financial ones.During this phase of research two acronyms have been important. In fact, theyprecisely appear on Google´s guidelines:
- YMYL (Your money or your Life): those pages that can affect the health or happiness of the user (topics related to "your money or your life "). Here we include financial services, loans, investments... and health side.
- EAT (Epertise Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness): pages that have a great authority when it comes to generate content on any topic, but especially in the cases of YMYL pages.
The combination of both aspects makes the pages included in the categories YMYL that do not have a good EAT have suffered great falls. It sounds a bit like a tongue twisters but it is understood. -
How can I be up to date with these changes?
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If your business has a high dependency on SEO you will realize as soon as they occur. Before that it is impossible because they do not let us know about it.
Usually when you monitor your rankings, you see sharp changes in the results. This does not always happen for an update, maybe a very strong competitor has just entered in your niche. A good way to have, at least one first idea, is to check Mozcast, a very simple tool of Moz which as it was the weather forecast, shows you the records of the last 30 days. -
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The information is very extensive, but it helps you detect whether the trend is global or is another factor that affects only you.
Another good sign is the visibility index of Sistrix. In this case, we talk about a payment software but that usually publishes any significant change in both its social networks and blog. If you have access to the control panel you can measure yourself and your competitors to find out who the winners and the losers are. -
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And the basic recommendation: Visit Twitter as it is where most SEO moves and information flows(although sometimes it misleads a bit).
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How are your rankings? Have you noticed any fall at the beginning of the month?
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Images | Fotolia, Sistrix and Moz.