Google UK Algorithm Change
There has been a lot of chat about Google changing its SERPS for UK based searches and bringing in many more non-uk hosted sites into the top results.
The algorithm change happened around the end of June. Some are calling this Vince, however it is unclear, as previously Vince was attributed to a Brand algorithmic change by Matt Cutts, not a locality or regional search one.
If you have ever wondered what the Google algorithm shuffle looks like check out the chart below. Here we see a consistent set of results for the search Travel Insurance, each site happily sitting in its same position. Then all of a sudden at the end of June Google has changed its Algorithm, and mayhem ensues. But its happy days for the Post Office on the term “travel insurance”.
google algorithm change
July 17th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Interesting – a good demonstration of how we’re all at the mercy of Google’s algorithm changes.
Would you be able to provide any insight into this? i.e. does looking at this data give you any idea what it is about the Post Office website that Google now likes better than moneysupermarket.com?
July 17th, 2009 at 11:47 am
My websites have been hit bad and I put it down to an error in the geo targeting filter. Drop Google and go for Bing!
August 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I hear that internally they have hundreds of R&D and development groups that do not speak or interact, it is only a matter of time before this results in a cock-up.
With the growth of SEO experts looking at Google UK every day, the reaction to change increases. Off-site becomes more and more important with Google and the end game of this is Brand Power. The concern is that to get your content read or interactived with you need to do this through a selected few communities of content distribution. e.g. View your video content at youtube but you’ll be lucky if Google will let viewers view it from your site!
Come on Bing, COME ON!!! Make us all happy and put a marginal dent into this overwhelming gravitational body called Google
August 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
it’s done, google has changed it’s algo
August 12th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Look, you lot. Although I am aware that advertising is what pays for the internet, SEO experts, better known as bait and switch merchants are making the search system fail for your customers customers. Google is not there for the benefit of SEO professionals, it’s there to help your customers customers find what they want. Algorithms only needs to change because SEO people, who whilst ostensibly doing a needed job, end up competing with each other and it becomes more and more difficult to find the information one is searching for. The tradgedy of the commons is what results. You must realise that the days are numbered for the SEO professsional? Algorithms will get smarter and faster than it’s possible to make changes to sites, blacklisting will become more widespread and everyone will have to go back to what they were doing before this madness. And yes, I am an internet marketing person who deals with SEO but I wish I didn’t have to.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:21 am
[...] Google UK Algorithm Change | SEO News [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 9:35 am
[...] here in the UK, picked up my iphone to check my tweets and found that Matt Cutts had completed a YouTube video regarding the changes made within Google UK since the start of June. Shocked and amazed that he even considered answering a question that had a number of SEO [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Johnny T,
SEO professionals on the whole work to enhance the visibility of content. This critically works to enhance the user experience. No real SEO professional is complaining about the new results, they are simply passing comment. Accessibility is central to Google and should be central to content and web development.
However we could take the standard web marketing professional’s viewpoint and build flash websites that require 1min to download, followed by a further 10 mins to find the content you want while trying hard to ignore the fact that the buttons do a dance every time you roll across the screen…..and hey what’s more you are going to spend a large amount of money on PPC and flash banner advertising to promote it.
Like what Albert Einstien said about God, SEO is with us, whether you invite it or not.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Johnny T – correct Google is not there for SEO professionals. It is there for the One Trillion searches done every year.
As someone who works in marketing you should understand the needs of the customer. As with a shop on a high street, the clever shop managers want their customers to have a comfortable useful journey through their store. They want their products to stand out and be seen from the street. They want more people to come in their store who have never heard of them before.
In this modern world (where stores and businesses have websites), the shop manager still needs this advice while he gets on with dealing with his customers.
That is the SEO job. We are not cheating anyone, or manipulating results, if the site doesn’t get clicked on, or the bounce rate is high, then google will push these results down the serps.
Cheating the Serps or attempting to get pages high for results that they have no right to be there for will not work in the long run.
We help our clients optimise their sites for the search engines which in turn helps them understand their customer needs and what products they are actually offering. If the SEO company that you work with does not do that, and indeed is using techniques that don’t tell the full story to their customers, then I would suggest you don’t work with them anymore. Thanks for the comment.