Did Google Release Penguin 3.1 On Thanksgiving?

I can't believe what I am seeing and hearing - a Google Penguin refresh that hit on Thanksgiving, Black Friday weekend? No way!

Google would actually release an update on Thanksgiving weekend, the busiest shopping weekend all year round? Google has told us time and time again, they wouldn't push out major updates during busy holiday seasons. So this cannot be true.

Google has not confirmed it but the black hat forums are going nuts about Penguin recoveries over Thanksgiving day.

We have dozens of threads at Black Hat World on the topic, tons sharing their stats and ranking changes for sites hit by the Penguin 3.0 release. We even have discussion on WebmasterWorld and Twitter on this pattern over Thanksgiving day.

I've been trying to get confirmation from Google since yesterday late morning, but they are all offline for the Thanksgiving weekend. Which makes this even more surprising, who at Google would have pushed this out on a holiday? Was this a mistake? Is this some weird bug webmasters and SEOs are seeing?

Check out Goralewicz blog for some of what he reported on the changes. The data is there to show significant changes.

The WebmasterWorld administrator even wrote:

We may have a refresh going on right now. Anyone with Penguin 3 penalties care to report. 

I'm also seeing too much clustering in the SERPs right now.

Goralewicz wrote:

Today, while checking my customer’s rankings; I noticed a huge pattern of movement in websites belonging to my customers. Basically, sites that we were trying to recover after Penguin 3.0.

Virtually all these guys are seeing recoveries on their Penguin sites. I don't see many complaining about being hit by Penguin as a negative hit but mostly recoveries. So this would be a nice Thanksgiving treat for those who were hit but for all those who rank higher now, someone must rank lower.

Did you notice changes in your Penguin sites and data?

Could Google have dared to update Penguin on Thanksgiving day?

Forum discussion at Black Hat World, WebmasterWorld and Twitter.

Google Analytics Updates Account Limits

Google quietly announced on Google+ that they've changes how they manage the limits within your Google Accounts account structure.

Previously Google limited every account to fifty views and didn’t consider how those views were distributed among properties. Now, Google is removing that restriction and enforcing limits that represent the hierarchy by allowing each account can have up to fifty properties and each property can have up to twenty five views.

What if you don't qualify for this now, no worries, Google grandfathered all existing accounts that already exceed those default limits.

To make this more transparent, Google added functionality to display how much of your quota you’ve used:

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google: Your Content In Tabs & Click To Expand May Not Be Indexed Or Ranked

The other day, I covered a thread around click to expand content not being indexed or ranked by Google. So I decided to ask John Mueller of Google that question in a live hangout on Google+ about a week ago and I was a bit surprised by his response.

In short, he said content within "click to expand" menus or "tabs" may be "discounted" since Google knows you are hiding it from users. Google may not rank the page for the content within those sections because Google knows users do not see the content by default.

Here are two examples of tabbed content from major e-commerce sites, B&H Photo and AJ Madison:

Seems like Google is saying the content within these tabs will be discounted.

Amazon use to use a lot of tabs but now they seem to output most of the content directly on the page, making the user scroll and scroll to see the content.

Google's own help documents does use click to expand but only to see the questions. Clicking on a question itself does bring the user to a new page, with the answer listed, as opposed to the answer beneath the question - as you may see in click to expand content:

John answered this question at 10 minutes and 55 seconds into the video:

Here is the transcript:

I think to some extent, we've been doing that for quite awhile now.

So I saw your blog post about that, and I sent the team that works on this a short email before the Hangout, but I didn't hear back from them on time to actually have a definitive answer for you there. 

But I think we've been doing something similar for quite awhile now, where if we can recognize that the content is actually hidden, then we'll just try to discount it in a little bit. So that we kind of see that it's still there, but the user doesn't see it.

Therefore, it's probably not something that's critical for this page. So that includes, like, the Click to Expand. That includes the tab UIs, where you have all kinds of content hidden away in tabs, those kind of things. So if you want that content really indexed, I'd make sure it's visible for the users when they go to that page.

From our point of view, it's always a tricky problem when we send a user to a page where we know this content is actually hidden. Because the user will see perhaps the content in the snippet, they'll click through the page, and say, well, I don't see where this information is on this page. I feel kind of almost misled to click on this to actually get in there.

So that's kind of the problem that we're seeing. And some of that-- I think we've been picking up on that for quite some time now to kind of discount that information. It might be that we've gone a little bit further now to actively ignore the information that's not directly visible.

And Barry, I'll get back to you on the Click to Expand stuff to see if we have something more specific that I can tell you.

John never did get back to me.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google: Sites Lose Loads Of Pages Over Misuse Of 403 Status Codes

Gary Illyes from Google posted on Google+ that he sees many large sites lose a ton of their pages in the Google index for misusing 403 status codes when they should be using 503s.

He said:

We've seen huge sites lose load of their pages from our index because they were serving them with a 403 status code instead of a 503.

A 403 status code will pretty quickly remove your content from Google's index. A 403 stands for a forbidden code:

The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. Authorization will not help and the request SHOULD NOT be repeated. If the request method was not HEAD and the server wishes to make public why the request has not been fulfilled, it SHOULD describe the reason for the refusal in the entity. If the server does not wish to make this information available to the client, the status code 404 (Not Found) can be used instead.

While a 503 status code is more temporary and normally doesn't lead to immediate removal from the Google index. A 503 stands for a Service Unavailable code:

The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.

So don't make mistakes with your server status code, it can be seriously damaging to your Google traffic. Unless you want to try the 418 status code ;-).

Forum discussion at Google+.

Conversion Estimates Added To Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool

Google quietly announced on Google+ that they've upgraded the Keyword Planner tool to support conversion estimates.

Now you can use a slider to see how varying bids may influence your campaigns’ performance differently for desktop and mobile devices. Specifically you can enter in your conversion rates and values and Google will show you in this tool the estimated conversions, ROAS, average CPA, and total conversion value for both desktop and mobile campaigns.

Here is a picture of it in action:

Here is the practicality of this, as per Google:

Let’s say you’re an online retailer gearing up for the busy shopping season with a cost-per-acquisition target of $25. In the example image below, you can see how varying your bids may influence your average cost-per-acquisition based on the conversion rates and values that you’ve entered. 

Now let's say you realize that people who search on mobile devices are twice as valuable to you as people searching on desktops. You’ll be able to see how changing the mobile bid adjustment will help you get the best ROI from your campaign.

Advertisers/developers are already excited about this added feature and want it built into the APIs.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google: Your Site Didn't Recover From Penguin Maybe Because...

So Google's Penguin 3.0 roll out came and went (well, we are not 100% confident it is done rolling out). In any event, not everyone who was hit by previous Penguin penalties notices a recovery.

Google's John Mueller responded to one such webmaster who as in that exact situation.

The webmaster posted in the Google Webmaster Help forums and John responded as follows:

I think sharing the disavow file (as well as its history) would make it a lot easier for folks here to notice some of the things that may be worth mentioning. For example, sometimes it shows that changes were made recently, perhaps after the most recent refresh. These kinds of changes can take time to be reprocessed (recrawling the URLs alone can take several months, and then it would require an update of the algorithm's data), and you wouldn't expect to see changes based on those submissions to be visible until the next refresh takes place. Especially because these things take so much time to be recrawled & reprocessed, I think it really helps to have as many critical eyes on those submissions as possible. Maybe you have everything covered already, or maybe there are still some issues that you didn't realize, which others could help you resolve as early as possible. The people active here in the forums are not out to get you for things done in the past, they want to give pointers based on things they've seen over the years, so while I can't guarantee that they'll be able to flag "that one thing that's holding your site back" (usually it's not just one thing anyway), they usually have a really good eye for things that are commonly forgotten (purposely or not).

So let me pull out the highlights from here, if any:

• When you submitted your disavow file matters
• How quickly Google processed the file, the links and when the algorithm ran is important
• You may have missed critical and harmful links when disavowing

This is one of those very generic responses from Google that is not always that helpful but gives you some background on how these algorithms work a bit.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google: We're Experimenting With Mobile-Friendly Ranking Factors

A single line added to Google's announcement about their mobile-friendly labels rolling out to mobile searchers said that Google is experimenting with using mobile-friendly criteria in their ranking algorithms.

Google wrote:

We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.

What does that mean? Only Google knows for sure. But we do know Google already has a mobile ranking demotion for the mobile search results. Google may currently demote a site that is not mobile friendly or is misconfigured when it comes to being mobile friendly.

This new experiment, I'd assume, is more about looking at the user experience around your mobile site. Stuff I said was coming in early October.

Google has come out with a new mobile friendly test application that will clearly show you what UX features they are looking at around your site. Plus their mobile usability report within Google Webmaster Tools. Look at those two tools and score well on them, that is what, in my opinion, this ranking experiment is all about. If you pass, you probably get promoted. If you fail, you probably don't rank as high.

Which Factors Would Be Included In This New Google Mobile Ranking Signal

The factors around this likely include some, all or more then what I list here:

• Flash not supported
• A defined viewing area (or viewport) that adjusts to the device’s screen size.
• Content that flows in the viewport, so that users don’t have to scroll horizontally or pinch the screen in order to see the entire page.
• Fonts that scale for easier reading on small screens.
• Links are too close together
• Easy-to-touch elements (e.g., buttons) that are well-spaced from other touch elements.
• Visual design and motion driven by mobile-friendly technology.

Will it be released? I honestly think so. How soon? I have no idea.

Forum discussion at Google+ and WebmasterWorld.

Google Not Crawling "Click To Expand" Content Now?

A few months ago, Google acknowledged that render your full page as a normal user would and this is something webmasters picked up on.

So if Google is seeing what the user sees, then what about content that is hidden within one of those "click to expand" links that show a snippet of content and then show you more when you click it?

Some users at WebmasterWorld are saying Google is no longer indexing and ranking such content.

A WebmasterWorld member said:

It seems google are no longer indexing any content in my “read more” panels that are hidden during the “onLoad” event.

Shame because this is a user friendly way to display content and prevent unnecessary scrolling if the user isn’t interested in certain sections of a page.

It may be how this webmaster implemented it or it may be how Google wants to now index content. One webmaster likes the new approach saying if a user clicks through, they should see the content they searched for immediately without clicking a link to show more content.

But at the same time, keeping web pages clean and neat is something designers like to do.

I personally have not tested this but do let us know if you see the same behavior from Google.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Answers Now With "Show Me How" Links

Google Answers is pretty controversial amongst webmasters but Google has said time and time again, why they source certain places and it does not substitute the web page itself. In any event, it looks like Google may be getting more click friendly with their answers.

Tommy Sands shared a picture on Google+ of a query for [adwords negative keywords] that shows the answer and a bold blue link with an arrow that reads "Show me how." Clicking on that links takes you to the Google AdWords web page FAQs.

I have not been able to replicate this behavior for any other query outside of this AdWords example. I tried close to 25 different answer related queries and nothing yet.

I do hope Google does add more encouragement for users to click over to the web page, like they do with the AdWords example.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google Penguin Updating Or Google Panda Refreshing This Morning?

I am seeing early but significant chatter this morning around Google algorithm and search results changes. Some are saying it is Penguin related and some are saying it is Panda related. It is too early to tell.

Panda does tend to refresh every few weeks or so but Penguin may still be rolling out and updating. So it is unclear.

Folks at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World are are speculating either Penguin or Panda. Here are some quotes from the threads:

Yes, somethig happened in the UK late last night or this morning. I think it may have been Panda related but it's getting very difficult to tell.

Yea im still noticing a good amount of dancing over past few days, still steady link building but hoping things will settle soon.

Starting to see quite a bit of shuffling again... not sure what to make of this anymore. At least the crazy results from Tuesday have not made a reappearance!

Yes, my site which went from page 2 to 12, got back to page 7 like 5-6 days ago, yesterday got back on page 2-3, dancing between 2 and 3. So I guess I didn't get penalized. Maverick was right.

This may be normal flux or it may be a sign that Panda is refreshing, once again or that Penguin 3.0 is settling down?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.

Watch Matt Cutts Respond To If He Will Return To Google Search

Last night on episode 274 on This Week In Google, Matt Cutts was a guest. And he was able to talk about his announcement about extending his already long leave with Google.

Here is the video:

At around 9 minutes and 50 seconds into the video, they ask him... If he goes back to Google, would he go back into the same role, in search? Watch how Matt Cutts answers the question.

He first praises the team there, explains he is not needed in that role because they do an awesome job. He says, "well, we will have to see how it goes." He did say he loved the part of the job keeping tracking of the news around search but he wasn’t sure being lightning rod for unhappy black hat SEOs is a good use of anyone's time. Like I said originally, it takes a toll on even people like Cutts.

It seems to me that if Matt returns, he would not return to the same role.

Now, will he return? Skip to 13 minutes and 44 seconds in, where Leo asks, "You won’t leave Google, Matt?" He immediately answers, "Well, I'll always have a connection and soft spot for Google."

Forum discussion at Twitter & WebmasterWorld.

Google Quality Score Algorithm Update?

A couple savvy advertisers posted in WebmasterWorld that they noticed major changes to their quality score metrics for a nice number of keywords in mid-October, specifically around October 14th or 15th.

The first advertiser wrote:

I do have the feeling that something happened with the Quality Score around October 14-15 (give or take).

I have many accounts I handle, and a lot of them got their Quality Score changed ( downwards of course, I wouldn't complain on the other way happy! ).

Another advertiser said he saw a similar thing, saying, "I hate to say it, but I noticed something similar as well."

Did you notice anything?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.