Google just pushed an algorithmic ranking change - Per Matt Cutts

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Tweeted by Matt Cutts about a half hour ago:

Google just pushed an algorithmic ranking change: http://goo.gl/At3SB Coverage at Search Engine Land: http://goo.gl/TISZ1

http://twitter.com/#!/mattcutts/stat...06294669426688

[weegillis]

Aside: My takeaway from the SEL article is,

We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites.

We (white hat or no SEO) are not the ones this update is targeting. Anyone whose site is a 'three-per-center' (my words) is in for a surprise in the coming weeks, one would expect.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, @HTMLBasicTutor.

[d marks]

I fell in the 3% bucket on several sites, although I have not received any notifications, and would not consider these to be anywhere near black hat monsters...not feeling good about what google is doing without more transparency on their end either..

[HTMLBasicTutor]

...not feeling good about what google is doing without more transparency on their end either..

Ya want Google to spill their guts so you don't have a hope in hell against those who manipulate the info available already?

Thinking you need to get yourself a RSS feed reader and follow some of Google's blogs plus SEO blogs my friend. Doesn't hurt to follow these guys on Twitter and Google+ also. There are always hints on what's coming. Like the over optimization thing came out in March.

SEOs get wind of something, and run with it. SEOs ♥ Drama: Why Our Industry Thrives on Gossip and How the Over-Optimization Issue is a Perfect Example

[innominds]

Its again another blow to some of my sites.
I don't understand Google repeatedly does these changes.
Does it really bring any high quality sites to the page 1?
I'm really fed up with its behaviour.

[claybutler]

Yeah, I took a big hit on some of my most coveted keywords yesterday. I went from page one to page five. I'm not going to freak out about it though. I've been around long enough to know that when Google is wrong it's best to just ride it out and continue marketing as usual and assume it will revers itself over time.

Heck, one time my entire site was virtually eliminate from the SERPs only to come back stronger than ever six months later. Off one day, on another. No penalties and Google was even indexing new pages through this six months.

I have a few pages which truly are some of the top examples of their subject on the web, have good PR and quality links. So when they slip dramatically, past experience has told my that algorythmically I will recover eventually.

Still irritating though. I've noticed that when I'm searching for specific information the quality has slipped a bit since Panda. It used to be that the first three results were spot on. No I have to look a bit further. Right now I think Yahoo may be fetching better results.

I think in a couple of months the growing pains will pass and the SERPs will sort themselves out and a lot of the wildcard results with drop out..

[d marks]

What I dont get is how so many sites that rely only on blog spam comment continues to out rank many sites, yet this latest algo change did little to remove these sites, but instead targeted sites that use more middle of the road techniques (article posting, social bookmarks, directories)

[Shaun.p]

I am quite sure that the time has came that we should look for other alternatives to get traffic to your website. Because ultimately it is the traffic that we need, Not 'traffic from Google'. And there are good options like facebook, yahoo answer, twitter, forums etc to get traffic to our websites.

Moral of the story, we should not completely depend on Google traffic.

[Crum]

Just wanted to make sure everyone knows about the complaint form Google has set up for those who feel they've been unfairly hit by the Penguin update: http://www.webpronews.com/google-pen...mplain-2012-04

[ozsubasi]

Google have today provided a feedback form for anyone who feels their site has been unfairly hit by the now named Penguin update:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...THZkaTBQbkE6MQ


---------- Post added at 06:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:25 PM ----------

I take HTML's point but I do try to keep informed and was aware that something was coming. I hadn't received the unnatural links warning but had a look at my site and wasn't concerned about there being anything that could cause what was to happen. My site's position and PR had improved throughout the Panda updates and in fact I had the highest number of keywords on page 1 that I'd ever had the day before Penguin hit. The only one that remains on the first page now is the one that is the same as my domain name, all the others are nowhere.
I agree that things will probably normalize over time but it is pretty frustrating right now as this should be my busiest period of the year and until a few days ago I was going into it well positioned.