Google Algorithm Update
As we like to be up to date with all the changes in the world of Google SEO, we kept track of the latest chats regarding Google updates and the effects this possibly had on the metrics of some sites.There have been rumors of a Google algorithm update since February, most of the talk has been around SEO and drops that people have experienced in rankings.
From the chatter we have followed, some people are leaning towards a Google SERP (Search engine Results Page) change. A lot of users have experienced drops but also good shifts in keywords ranking on Google SERP at the same period of time but this was not confirmed as an update by Google yet.
Is there really an algorithm update?
There are also a lot of complaints regarding spam sites which are now being listed at the top of search results. It seems like low quality, and even off-topic sites are cluttering search.
Another user complaint was referring to his site has an up to 15{8e70974195c48f015656ec00029c2bf559b83ca472845d96d7b604466648386d} drop on the 1st of March. As they have an average of 12 million monthly visits this update hurt them. He stated that no significant changes have been made to their site in some time so this change is not due to one of their own updates. They also went to check and this is not an error of reporting or a technical issue from the site. They are leaning towards a hypothesis of a quality update from Google.
As there are people saying they have experienced drops and others gains, we are thinking this could be a slow rollout but at the same time, it might just affect people from a specific niche as there are a number of users saying they haven’t experienced significant changes in the Google rankings.
Conclusions
So it seems this month has been quite busy in the Google SEO area with the two rumored Google algorithm updates on the 20th of February and the 1st of March even if none of the two have been confirmed by Google.
Other changes have occurred in the meanwhile: Google started to roll out multifaceted featured snippets, the view image button has been removed in image search, the blog search ping feature has also been removed and, because of spam and abuse, the request indexing feature has been changed.
So, reporting from the Google SEO and webmaster world, there has been a lot going on this past month.
Have you experienced any changes? Let us know in the comments.
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