Google Page Layout Updates - October 2012

Matt cutts has come up with another update

Tweets from MATT CUTTS: PAGE LAYOUT UPDATE
Minor weather report: Update of http://t.co/kcDiRUjclaunching today. ~0.7% of English queries noticeably affected.

Page Layout update is referred to as the “above the fold” update.

Sites which doesn't have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. So if you place more adds on top of the page rather than the actual content then this algo will be applied. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

solutions:
Newer place adds above the fold so that you can give users a better experience for what they are looking for.

Google EMD Updates: Exact Match Domain Update Algo

Google EMD Updates: Called Exact Match Domain Updates

Google’s Matt Cutts just announced a new Google algorithm change via Twitter. He says it will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.

TWEETS from MATT CUTTS:

New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.

NOTE Here:

EMD update is not going after all sites. Its only after low quality sites much like Panda updates

Google tries to find out relevant sites based on

quality sites

off site values

domain authority

keyword relevance

Google Algorithm Changes 2012 August & September: 65 Changes

65 Changes for August & September 2012 - Google Algorithm

Here’s the list for August:

#82862. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#83197. [project “Autocomplete”] This launch introduced changes in the way we generate query predictions for Autocomplete.
#83818. [project “Answers”] This change improved display of the movie showtimes feature.
#83819. [project “Answers”] We improved display of the MLB search feature.
#83820. [project “Answers”] This change improved display of the finance search feature.
#83384. [project “Universal Search”] We made improvements to driving directions in Turkish.
#83459. [project “Alternative Search Methods”] We added support for answers about new stock exchanges for voice queries.
LTS. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We improved our web ranking to determine what pages are relevant for queries containing locations.
Maru. [project “SafeSearch”] We updated SafeSearch to improve the handling of adult video content in videos mode for queries that are not looking for adult content.
#83135. [project “Query Understanding”] This change updated term-proximity scoring.
#83659. [project “Answers”] We made improvements to display of the local time search feature.
#83105. [project “Snippets”] We refreshed data used to generate sitelinks.
Imadex. [project “Freshness”] This change updated handling of stale content and applies a more granular function based on document age.
#83613. [project “Universal Search”] This change added the ability to show a more appropriately sized video thumbnail on mobile when the user clearly expresses intent for a video.
#83443. [project “Knowledge Graph”] We added a lists and collections component to theKnowledge Graph.
#83442. [project “Snippets”] This change improved a signal we use to determine how relevant a possible result title actually is for the page.
#83012. [project “Knowledge Graph] The Knowledge Graph displays factual information and refinements related to many types of searches. This launch extended the Knowledge Graphto English-speaking locales beyond the U.S.
#84063. [project “Answers”] We added better understanding of natural language searches for the calculator feature, focused on currencies and arithmetic.
nearby. [project “User Context”] We improved the precision and coverage of our system to help you find more relevant local web results. Now we’re better able to identify web results that are local to the user, and rank them appropriately.
essence. [project “Autocomplete”] This change introduced entity predictions in autocomplete. Now Google will predict not just the string of text you might be looking for, but the actual real-world thing. Clarifying text will appear in the drop-down box to help you disambiguate your search.
#83821. [project “Answers”] We introduced better natural language parsing for display of the conversions search feature.
#82279. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We changed to fewer results for some queries to show the most relevant results as quickly as possible.
#82407. [project “Other Search Features”] For pages that we do not crawl because of robots.txt, we are usually unable to generate a snippet for users to preview what's on the page. This change added a replacement snippet that explains that there's no description available because of robots.txt.
#83709. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change was a minor bug fix related to the way links are used in ranking.
#82546. [project “Indexing”] We made back-end improvements to video indexing to improve the efficiency of our systems.
Palace. [project “SafeSearch”] This change decreased the amount of adult content that will show up in Image Search mode when SafeSearch is set to strict.
#84010. [project “Page Quality”] We refreshed data for the "Panda" high-quality sites algorithm.
#84083. [project “Answers”] This change improved the display of the movie showtimes search feature.
gresshoppe. [project “Answers”] We updated the display of the flight search feature for searches without a specified destination.
#83670. [project “Snippets”] We made improvements to surface fewer generic phrases like "comments on" and "logo" in search result titles.
#83777. [project “Synonyms”] This change made improvements to rely on fewer "low-confidence" synonyms when the user's original query has good results.
#83377. [project “User Context”] We made improvements to show more relevant local results.
#83484. [project “Refinements”] This change helped users refine their searches to find information about the right person, particularly when there are many prominent people with the same name.
#82872. [project “SafeSearch”] In "strict" SafeSearch mode we remove results if they are not very relevant. This change previously launched in English, and this change expanded it internationally.
Knowledge Graph Carousel. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change expanded theKnowledge Graph carousel feature globally in English.
Sea. [project “SafeSearch”] This change helped prevent adult content from appearing when SafeSearch is in "strict" mode.
#84259. [project “Autocomplete”] This change tweaked the display of real-world entities in autocomplete to reduce repetitiveness. With this change, we don't show the entity name (displayed to the right of the dash) when it's fully contained in the query.
TSSPC. [project “Spelling”] This change used spelling algorithms to improve the relevance of long-tail autocomplete predictions.
#83689. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#84068. [project “Answers”] We improved the display of the currency conversion search feature.
#84586. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change improved how we rank documents for queries with location terms.

Here’s the list for September:

Dot. [project “Autocomplete”] We improved cursor-aware predictions in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. Suppose you're searching for "restaurants" and then decide you want "Italian restaurants." With cursor-aware predictions, once you put your cursor back to the beginning of the search box and start typing "I," the prediction system will make predictions for "Italian," not completions of "Irestaurants."
#84288. [project “Autocomplete”] This change made improvements to show more fresh predictions in autocomplete for Korean.
trafficmaps. [project “Universal Search”] With this change, we began showing a traffic map for queries like "traffic from A to B" or "traffic between A and B."
#84394. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#84652. [project “Snippets”] We currently generate titles for PDFs (and other non-html docs) when converting the documents to HTML. These auto-generated titles are usually good, but this change made them better by looking at other signals.
#83761. [project “Freshness”] This change helped you find the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant for a given search query.
#83406. [project “Query Understanding”] We improved our ability to show relevant Universal Search results by better understanding when a search has strong image intent, local intent, video intent, etc.
espd. [project “Autocomplete”] This change provided entities in autocomplete that are more likely to be relevant to the user's country. See blog post for background.
#83391. [project “Answers”] This change internationalized and improved the precision of thesymptoms search feature.
#82876. [project “Autocomplete”] We updated autocomplete predictions when predicted queries share the same last word.
#83304. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change updated signals that determine when to show summaries of topics in the right-hand panel.
#84211. [project “Snippets”] This launch led to better snippet titles.
#81360. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] With this launch, we began showing local URLs to users instead of general homepages where applicable (e.g. blogspot.ch instead of blogspot.com for users in Switzerland). That’s relevant, for example, for global companies where the product pages are the same, but the links for finding the nearest store are country-dependent.
#81999. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] We revamped code for understanding which documents are relevant for particular regions and languages automatically (if not annotated by the webmaster).
Cobra. [project “SafeSearch”] We updated SafeSearch algorithms to better detect adult content.
#937372. [project “Other Search Features”] The translate search tool is available through the link "Translated foreign pages" in the sidebar of the search result page. In addition, when we guess that a non-English search query would have better results from English documents, we'll show a feature at the bottom of the search results page to suggest users try the translate search tool. This change improved the relevance of when we show the suggestion.
#84460. [project “Snippets”] This change helped to better identify important phrases on a given webpage.
#80435. [project “Autocomplete”] This change improves autocomplete predictions based on the user's Web History (for signed-in users).
#83901. [project “Synonyms”] This change improved the use of synonyms for search terms to more often return results that are relevant to the user's intention.

Recovery Tips Google Penguin Updates

Recovery Tips for Google Penguin Updates

I have collected some tips here.

1. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

2. Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

3. Don’t send automated queries to Google.
4. Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
5. Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
6. Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
7. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

8. If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

One of the Point which is not clear to me:

Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Answer:

Normally many SEO's use rank checker or different types of software to check rankings, so will checking ranking via software will affect rankings ?

MY suggestions:

To build links natural way, to build via quality content rather than sticking to the actual keywords. Its hard but that's the only option as of now. What i also feel is that google considers fresh pages, fresh content, fresh links, old quality based links which has content related to your subject.

Google Penguin Reconsideration Request Form

Feedback on our recent algorithm update ("Penguin")

Google has launched a Feedback Reconsideration Request form for sites those who have been affected https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEVxdmdRWFJRTjRoLWZVTHZkaTBQbkE6MQ&ndplr=1

This is a form where you can submit a site if your site is not ranking. Do share here your updates if after submissions has the rankings come back?

Latest Google Algorithm: Penguin Algo Update

PENGUIN UPDATE! Latest GOOGLE ALGORITHM Update as on APRIL 2012 24 Update

There has been widespread reports about the latest algorithm called "webspam update" which is now said to be called as the PENGUIN UPDATE.

I have found that many say this algo is a total failure as webspam update was released to fight webspam and spam sites to reduce rankings for such sites. But in the process many legitimate sites rankings have gone down or have vanised from the top 100 lists.

Other updates that had taken place in April:
April 19 - PANDA UPDATE 3.5
Domain Classifier update - MISTAKEN Update by google which google then clarified
Webspam update: Penguin Update : APRIL 24, 2012

Google's spam update has done much damage to legitimate sites than spam sites. I have also discovered that ecommerce sites are less hit by the udpate than the service sector sites.

Google Algo Penguin Updates Questions ?

Is off page more important than on page ?
Is backlinks from social bookmarking sites like folkd.com will be devalued? As many social sites have lost traffic during this update.
Is Blog commenting termed as spam ? Does blog commenting from legitimate sites is also spam?
Is Forum signature links completely dead
If a website doesn't do SEO then also will a site rank ? ( Becz as per matt cutts he says that even if one doesn't do SEO then also its better)

As per updates have found
Google is behind wordpress themes links in the footer sections

More updates to be followed. Send me your reactions to latest update - What you think about the current updates and issues faced?

Google Algorithm Updates - 2012 Latest January

Hi everybody in SEO Industry,

I have noticed that Google has come up with several new updates and changes in there algorithms. This time is gona be on a vast scale. I expect some more great changes in the coming months as Google would be experimenting with +1 Button to expand there social network.

Google has now come up with latest algorithm updates:

Image Search landing page quality signals
More relevant sitelinks.
Soft 404 Detection
More accurate country-restricted searches.
More rich snippets.
Better infrastructure for autocomplete.
Better spam detection in Image Search.
Google Instant enhancements for Japanese.
More accurate byline date
Live results for NFL and college football.
Improved dataset for related queries
Related query improvements.
Better lyrics results.
Tweak to +1 button on results page
Better spell correction in Vietnamese
Upcoming events at venues
Improvements to image size signal.
Improved Hebrew synonyms.
Safer searching
Encrypted search available on new regional domains.
Faster mobile browsing.