In early May, many people noticed significant ranking changes, which led to the rumor that Google had run a Panda update or a spam-related update. However, Google denied this, leaving many stumped by what could have mysteriously caused these rankings changes. Now, Google has finally confirmed that the “Phantom Update” actually included changes to how content quality is ranked, leading some to call it the “Quality Update.” However, exactly what changes were made and how quality is now assessed by Google is still being kept top secret.
Microsoft announced its plans to make Windows 10 cross-device friendly with a new Cortana “Phone Companion” application that will connect your Windows PC to mobile devices, including iPhones. This app will take Apple’s “Continuity” feature to the next level by not only syncing across devices, but by syncing across devices regardless of your operating system. Stay tuned for the Android version of Cortana at the end of June; iPhone users will be on hold for the app until “later this year.”
Say goodbye to the name Google Webmaster Tools and start becoming familiar with the term Google Search Console in its place. After 10 years of offering the beloved Webmaster Tools, Google announced the rebranding change last week. The company stated that there were many types of Google fans using the tool, from small business owners to marketers to true webmasters, and the goal is to make sure that the “product includes everyone who cares about Search.” No drastic changes to the tool’s functions were announced with the new name. Contrary to speculation, Bing says that renaming its Webmaster Tools is “not on the radar.”
Google mobile search results can now display Twitter content for branded searches, which provides a great place for local businesses to increase their visibility and positive brand message while also pushing competitors further down on the search engine results page. This also gives local businesses another platform for sharing content, which can easily be synced to a Facebook page, and more ways to control front-page content for reputation management.
Tuesday, May 26 would have marked the late Sally Ride’s 64th birthday. Google remembered the birthday of the first American female astronaut in space with a series of Google Doodles inspired by her life’s many accomplishments. On June 18, 1983, Sally became the first American female in space—and the youngest still to date! After another successful mission, Sally founded Sally Ride Science, where she focused on educating young people, especially girls, about careers in science, technology, math and engineering. As a woman in the technology field, I would like to say “thank you” to Sally Ride for all she has done to pave the way for those who have come after her.
The topic of manual actions disappearing from Google Webmaster Tools is not a new issue, but it has come up a few times in the last week, which automatically deems the topic worthy to write about.
Do manual actions have expiration dates?
Manual actions do expire, and when they expire, they disappear from Webmaster Tools. The expiration date is not published in Webmaster Tools, but Matt Cutts states in this older video that manual penalties do expire and that the length of the penalty is dependent on the maliciousness of the problem.
In my experience, I have seen these disappear from GWT most commonly at one year, but that is not an absolute expiration date.
If the penalty is gone, is the problem is still there?
It looks like the manual action that was applied by the webspam team on your site expired. Right now there are no manual actions affecting your site in Google’s search results. However, even when a manual action expires, if the reason for the original manual action is still relevant, it’s possible that the manual action will return later on.
I’d strongly recommend that you continue removing any inorganic links to your site to prevent any future manual actions on your site.
While manual actions will expire at some point, I would strongly not recommend sweeping them under the carpet and hoping that they go away on their own – at least if you’re interested in having your site be optimally represented in our search results. Even when a manual action expires (which might take quite some time), if the reason for the original manual action is still relevant, it’s always possible that the manual action is returned later on. In my opinion, if you’re aware of issues that are negatively affecting your site’s performance in search, and if its performance there is important to you, then resolving those issues is often a good use of time.
Should I still submit a disavow file?
If a website had a manual action, and that manual action notice is gone, a disavow file should absolutely still be submitted. The site likely still has the unnatural links, thin content, or other problems that originally warranted the manual action. It’s just basic cleanup and common sense. You want to rank in Google, but Google has directly told you that your site has signs of unnatural behavior. Go clean up your act, and you may win a little favor back from Google.
Also, note that it is possible for a manual action to return. If it returns, Google is generally stricter this time around and requires much more cleanup. If you get two manual actions, Google tends to no longer trust your site, and you have to work a little harder to earn back that trust.
What will happen to my rankings?
It’s worth noting that after an MA is lifted, rankings don’t always increase, especially if you just had a partial match manual penalty. Sometimes rankings won’t increase because the site also had a hit from a Panda or Penguin filter or there aren’t enough quality references to get to the top of the SERPs.
If the pages of your site were ranking from unnatural behavior before, what’s left now that those tactics are edited and the bad behavior is fixed? Among other factors, the site needs some new, engaging content and some strong, relevant backlinks as first steps on the path to bouncing back.
Do I need to submit a reconsideration request?
If a manual action disappears from Webmaster Tools, a reconsideration request cannot be submitted because the submission goes through the manual action message, which is now gone. All you can do is edit the unnatural behavior you have on the site, remove or edit the links that you can, then submit a disavow file.
It’s curious how when you’re looking so intently at one thing, something so much bigger sneaks up behind you. Like when you’re a six-year-old kid all excited at your birthday party opening presents, your mom buzzing around taking lots of pictures demanding everyone to “smile,” and your dad sneaks in behind you rolling in a bright shiny new bicycle!
That’s how I have been feeling the last week or so. Like I just got a bright shiny bicycle with a horn and a bell and handlebar fringe!
I have been head down, concentrating on a project with numerous Excel spreadsheets, lots of cups of coffee, data overload, and a glazed look in my eye. When I was poking around in yet more data, I found that Google snuck up behind me with a big bright shiny present. I gotta say, it’s a pretty exciting surprise when I see the majority of our clients have an increase in January’s organic traffic; and not just any increase, impressive increases that makes big smiles all around the office.
So, was there a Google update when I wasn’t looking?
Because the increases in Analytics are seen across so many clients, across so many industries, there had to be an algorithm shakeup. Lo and behold, on January 9th, Barry Schwartz announced the chatter on it “Is Google Search Updating?”
The post’s comments express some winners and losers as expected with any update. I had to dig to find some excitement similar to my own:
Vibhu Gauba
• 16 days ago
“Tracking almost like 700-800 clients of ours and all have moved up !!!!”
and …
SAJID
• 16 days ago
“Wao… Thats gonna be a wonderful update… My traffic rose about 250% from last few day”
Barry Schwartz’ post drove me over to Algoroo. Algoroo was developed by Dejan SEO, and they say “Algoroo tracks Google algorithm changes by observing turbulence in rankings of thousands of keywords. When the bar is high, it’s likely that Google has made a tweak to their algorithm.”
They posted on recent, significant algo updates which is interesting and related to the topic. This unannounced, unacknowledged January update is the 6th most strongest update since May 2013 Penguin.
When we look at the Algoroo chart for more recent dates, we see some definite turbulence in keyword rankings:
The chatter indicates that there was an unannounced update, and a fellow blogger commented, I’m going to enjoy it while I can.
Crawl Rate as an Indicator?
Some of the commenters on the webmasterworld forum had a short burst of discussion around crawl rates trying to find some commonality among websites’ changes, or at least as an indication of “something” happening.
White Dove says, “I’ve seen an increase of crawling activity, including pages that don’t exist anymore.”
Shai comments, “Although no major changes in rankings, I can see some strange crawling occurring on around 30 sites. Not found anything in common between any of them yet.”
I want to check this out, so I’m looking at clients who I know have improved organic visits in January and scoping out their crawl rates. (Screen shots are Google organic visits Jan 1, 2014-Jan 27, 2014 Compare to: Dec 5, 2013-Dec 31, 2013. Crawl rate charts are showing last 90 days.)
Client A has fantastic organic increases in January. I will take 27% organic increase any time.
A’s crawl rate shows a clear uptick in crawl rate, but not in January. His crawl rate started picking up in late November.
Client B had a 37% increase in Google organic traffic.
His crawl rate picked up in early December.
Client C had great improvements.
If anything, I would say his crawl rate slowed in January.
I had to dig around to find these somewhat obvious examples of the above crawl rate changes. Most of the clients within this same industry had crawl rates like Client D.
Client D has exciting organic visit increases in January.
The crawl rate doesn’t indicate any clearly obvious trends.
All of the clients looked at above are in the same industry, so let’s look at another industry to see if the trends are widespread.
Client E is enjoying a 34.32% increase in Google organic traffic in January.
Their crawl rate also picked up in late November.
Client F has a 20% increase in Google organic.
His crawl trends seen in Google Webmaster tools show a slight decrease in crawl rate in January.
I poked around at other clients in GWT, and I’m not real sure we can pull any decided trends from the crawl rate theory. I didn’t check every Search Influence client, nor did I create elaborate charts of crawl rates per month. I’m comfortable seconding Shai from the webmasterworld forum, “Not found anything in common between any of them yet.”
Search Queries
I’m not seeing any huge changes in rankings data for the keywords we are tracking. We have some ups and downs, but nothing out of the ordinary. We update tracking information regularly, so until the next keyword ranking report is updated, Google Webmaster Tools can tell me some great information, too.
Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries data shows a lot of keyword data that we don’t track in our keyword reports. So for the example clients noted above, I see they all had an increase in Google search results shown in GWT.
When we look at the Queries data for the same comparisons as the organic search data at the top of this post, we see they all had an increase in showing up for searches. Google defines Queries as: “The total number of search queries that returned pages from your site over the given period.”
I interpret this as our websites are ranking for more varied keywords and more than we are tracking. It’s typical for a website to rank for more than you are actually tracking. It’s unreasonable to track for all of the possibilities.
I want to acknowledge that there is seasonality in January search for some industries. Some of the organic increases can be attributed to seasonal search trends, but never at these levels. Also, last week I spoke with client F telling him about the January organic goodness, and his response was January was usually dead for him, and the phones this last month have been ringing. Yes, seasonality is often a factor for any month-to-month increases or decreases, but these data are suggesting something bigger.
Bottom Line
Any time there is any Google algorithm update, whether announced or perceived, there will be winners and losers. I’m happy our client sites are on the positive side of whatever changes were implemented. Yes, it’s good to be a winner today, but it’s not without effort. I can repeat what everyone has been talking about for months and months:
Clean fresh content on a regular basis
Encourage client engagement on Google+
Cleanup any residual devalued links
Earn links with great content and local community participation
These are just a few actions to take in earning trust and traffic from Google search.
If you’ve noticed any changes in search traffic or rankings in January, we would love to hear about it in the comments below.
