Google Algo Update starting Sept 30, 2010
 

So, now that the Epass fiasco is somewhat fading away, thanks to the folks at St Kitts, I wanted to see if anyone else is seeing some very weird results in the serps at google?

I watch the serps fairly closely and try to keep up with SEO. Starting September 30th and still going on today, I'm amazed at what I'm seeing.

Search for "Lesbian Sex" and a youtube video is in the top ten of two teenage girls (fully clothed and obviously just some normal girls cutting up at home) dancing and jumping on a bed like it is a trampoline. I'm sure if the girls parents found out that their home video was in the top 10 on google for a term like Lesbian Sex they'd be outraged...they might even try to sue google.

Another thing I'm seeing is a site in the first 10 results and then when you click on the 2nd 10 results that site is there too, not a subdomain, or directory, or even a different page...same everything. Either the results are changing fast or google is having problems.

Youtube videos are prevalent for a lot of adult terms, like one for "blowjobs" about a guy making a joke about blowjobs on an airline. Youtube videos showing up for adult terms is very weird considering youtube doesn't allow porn.

I'm also seeing sites that have not done well in about 4 years having their category pages jumping back up in the serps. Alot of these pages are mostly text.

Lastly, I've noticed a prevalence of sites where the keyword phrase is in the domain name showing up in the top 10, even though those sites are not really about the term searched, don't have alot of backlinks, have bad time on site and bounce rate. An example: blowjobs.com showing up in the top 10 and it's not about blowjobs. Take a look, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Weird.

Anyone else noticing weird stuff that they'd care to share?

Any thoughts as to what is going on with google from some of you SEO folks?

looking over stats yup big change since the 30th. no idea what is happening.

I have some thoughts that I will share, but I am hoping some other folks will jump into this thread and share what they've seen, and their thoughts, before I do that.

The big change has been happening since the 7th of september. They have really fucked up something. Google images sucks now too it was perfect before. There is such a thing as over developing something.

Yep, I saw changes beginning around the 7th, thought they were good back then. Then on the 30th, a complete reversal. Since then, lots of wild fluctuations.

I'm thinking there's been a heavier shift towards domain age and trusted domains. I'm seeing a lot of article directory pages and other similar things move into high ranks on competitive terms lately, where they normally weren't not that long ago. I won't mention where as they're areas I'm exploring at the moment, but they weren't there in mid-September. A lot of results on the first page are total garbage, just held on trusted domains. Could be a good time to pillage the parasite hosts again.

I recently brought back a domain that had been out of use for months, 4 years old, previously well ranked on a competitive term, and within 2 days I am back in #4 position, where I expected to take weeks to regain any thing even close to the first page.

Strange things are afoot with Google. I don't think Youtube videos ranking is really surprising. On adult terms a little bit so, but they always ranked well...

I thought of the domain age being a factor, but I don't believe that's it. I have a lot of old domains and haven't seen any big jumps. I'm thinking some of the old domains that we're seeing are mostly text, vs images and videos, and hence they load faster. Could be bump for page speed because textual pages just load faster. Along that same line of thinking, if Google made on-site factors, especially text on the page, more relevant that could do it for some of these domains.

The only reasons that I can think of youtube videos doing well (other than the fact that google owns youtube) is because of the time spent viewing the videos coupled with the pr bump they get for just being on youtube. Of course, if they've gone viral on facebook and twitter, that could help too. Again, with youtube not allowing actual porn, those videos just shouldn't show up for adult searches.

exactly same here!!!!!!

Same here

I don't pay much attention to google images, what's going on with that?

Just a new layout all around. I'm not completely impressed with it, I actually find Google Images is slow as fuck now, but I do think the layout is an improvement. It is a start towards something better, give them time.

Everybody bitched about the changes that took place at Youtube a while ago when they started, and I said wait. Look at Youtube now, i think it's the best it's ever been with some great improvements in usability.

I'm pretty sure Google owning Youtube IS the only reason you're seeing them rank on so many terms now. I have a feeling Google is just upping the exposure to their video outlet. This is a new age for media, and video is king, so when people search, why not go straight for a video on the subject? They've already been beefing up Youtube, so why not feed the traffic into it? It may still have some flaws, like with these adult terms, but if it's new it probably just needs tweaking.

First make sure you are not logged in with your google account.. also the cache is doing something strange lately..

The funny thing is when you write "site:yourdomain.com" and see let's say: 150 pages cached...

but the truth is that maybe around 900 pages are cached, and you can just test it by going to each page and hit cached.

Very strange, really..

Didn't you see all of the articles about what YouTube is doing?

Google was probably tired of getting all kinds of shit for illegal mainstream content so they are opening up an adult section on YouTube because the adult industry doesn't really care if their content is pirated. Let's face it, no adult company is really going to take down Google and they are hedging on that.

I did hear that you'll have to do one of those stupid screens where you enter your age or have to sign in to your YouTube account before you can access the adult videos. Gay.

Trolling?

Fuck, it only took until the next post?

That's why I don't try it often. FML

It's an art...

I miss the google search box at the bottom of the search results page. Why make me scroll back up to change my search? Pisses me off.

1 of my sites lots quite a bit on Sept 30th on

i agree weirdness

Where's the source that the algo updated on 30th of sept?

Are you being serious? I have not heard about this. Do you have a link to any of those articles? I did a quick search and did not come up with anything on it.

There's 77 instances of the word 'blowjobs' on that blowjobs.com site. :1orglaugh

According to google's cached copy of that site: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: blowjobs." That is what google has to say about it regarding the term that it is #5 for.

I also searched the page for the word "blowjobs" and it is not there. The word blowjob (singular) only appears once. All that said, google claims to be all about delivering what the surfer is searching for and that site does not deliver anything about blowjobs, no pics, no videos, no text, nothing.

This is a weird set of SERPs all right, but it's behaving the same way they usually do... refining itself based on user click behavior.

I have a group of <keyword>blog.com blogs. Years ago they were solidly #1 in the SERPs for <keyword>, year after year. Then Google started the periodic SERP shuffle, which would always dump them (and most of the other frequently-updated sites with porn on them) several pages down. (It's my opinion that at least one of the factors in the shuffle is a deliberate porn site penalty to get porn sites off the front page of the SERPs.) Every time this happens, you get bizarre results on the front page, usually including a few ancient pages that date back to the internet's prehistory but haven't been updated since the Clinton years.

But here's the thing. When this happens, my search traffic logs show that people start finding me with two word searches: "<keyword> blog". Yeah, I lose some traffic, but the amount remains substantial. And over a period of weeks, my site starts climbing back up the SERPs, because porn site penalty or no porn site penalty, there's also an adjustment BONUS for sites that get clicked on.

Which means that in a few weeks, my <keyword> blog blogs will be back on their respective front pages ... until the next shuffle, or until Google changes how it does business again.

It seems as if they are taking the algo designed for Caffeine and mixing it into the main search algo. Ill post more as soon as we get clarification from one of our contacts. I do know that since mid Sept, Google started doing some test changes and right around and or on the 30th, it kicked in.

I'll pose a theory today. Take a look at Bing results, the top 20 to 30, and compare them to the same Google results. With the exception of the youtube videos which are not on Bing, the results are similar for some of the more competitive porn searches. My theory: Google is either reacting to something they've seen Bing do, or more likely they are just trying something out that they've seen Bing do to see how it works with the rest of their Algo.