Google PageRank/SERP Updates Archives

This month, WebmasterWorld members have observed the same old shuffle in rankings that plagued webmasters in our April 2008 Google SERP Update post.

A lot of rankings are dropping, and one webmaster even reports that he's hit a new traffic low in 2008.

One member likens these drops to the fact that Google might want to emphasize their paid listings.

Looks to me that at this stage of the game where Google completely dominates the market it would be beneficial for them to have "inconsistent"/"moving" results in the natural search so people would click on the ads as those are consistent. When searchers will get the idea that they will not get the same (even though still relevant) result every time they search, they will most certainly pay more attention to the ads. Google getting richer?

That's definitely an interesting statement.

Other observations include blogs being ranked higher, link exchange websites taking a hit in the rankings, issues with relevant rankings (specifically, more relevant internal pages are now being replaced by the less-relevant home pages for search phrases), and a lot of dropped rankings.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

I am seeing reports from across the SEO forums that Google has updated or begun the update of the PageRank score found within the Google Toolbar.

We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Roundtable Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums - all discussing the recent PageRank update that began yesterday some time.

The last time Google updated toolbar PageRank was in late February. Google did recently update the Directory PageRank scores earlier this month. You can see some history on these recent PageRank updates over here.

What this all means for your Google rankings? Not much. Typically, a Google Toolbar PageRank update will have zero direct impact on one's ranking in Google. As Google has said, time and time again, the toolbar PageRank scores are older exports and do not resemble the PageRank score Google uses internally, at the time of ranking your pages in Google.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Roundtable Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

I'll be honest, I keep watching the WebmasterWorld thread discussing the April 2008 Google update, code named Update Dewey.

The latest thing that I noticed were recent reports from very senior members saying that Google is shuffling around the results, in a major way, at Google UK. Here are two posts I isolated from the past 24 hours specific to Google UK and this update:

Oooo! (too effeminate?) Big changes on Google.co.uk ... big, awful changes ... if you've got a bunch of paid links looks like their about to pay off. Top spots in lots of industries have been overtaken by paid link buyers, and not subtle paid link buying either! 2,000 backlinks from just 2 sites with a paid sponsored links section in the bottom right for example.

There's a significant change in the UK algo today. For our top target term the site that recently bought it's way to the top and was rewarded with a site link listing because it has links out to sites that pay it affiliate fees has dropped to #2 and of course lost it's site links. The new #1 has dropped in from nowhere but probably should really be at #1 if it had someone doing at least basic SEO.

In fact, there is a stand alone thread named No.3 in every Google tld except our own - .co.uk at WebmasterWorld, that digs into one issue. The senior WebmasterWorld member says that his UK based site ranks number three in all Google sites except for Google UK, where it ranks 256. Weird, don't you think?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I have been tracking a thread at WebmasterWorld where this webmaster is shocked to learn that the site he just acquired now has a PageRank score of 10. Before buying the site, it had no PageRank score at all but soon after, it jumped up to a 10 out of 10!

Lucky Webmaster!

Well, not really. My first impression was that someone was spoofing the PageRank, which it turned out to be. So, someone was showing Google.com's PageRank value when you visited the site. There are many tools that check a site's true PageRank, so it is best to go with one of those tools in these cases.

The webmaster confirmed the issue and expressed his confusion:

OK, thanks very much to Miamacs here on WebmasterWorld for catching that some previous design of the site did the 'nasty fake redirect to Google.com' trick to get PR 10.

What I'm still confused about is why it didn't show up until they switched to the new site. Still, I'll be extremely pissed if it comes back to bite them... because, as their current provider, it'll be up to us to fix it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google has updated the PageRank bars within the Google Directory recently. The new update now matches the PageRank values of the Google Toolbar. For example, the Computers > Internet > Web Design and Development > Promotion > Weblogs category now shows my revised, penalized Toolbar PageRank score of a 4 and not a 7.

New Directory PageRank Score:

Old Directory PageRank Score:

The last time Google did a PageRank Directory update was in January and at that time, the PageRank score in the directory did not match the toolbar update from November or so. For history on that, start here and go back.

A WebmasterWorld thread notes that Google has also changes the scale of the Directory PageRank bars from a 0-7 to 0-10, this way it matches the Toolbar scale. Interesting, indeed.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Following March's update, WebmasterWorld members talk about the newest updates to the Google algorithm, including the previously discussed Dewey update.

Some observations include front page rankings that appear to be delisted (or "dumped way back," as one person puts it). He notes that one of his websites that has been up for over a decade is now totally gone with the exception of 2 pages that were updated in 2001.

News results also seem strange. A 2003 CNN story is occupying the #10 position in search, observes another member. Old documents are making their way to the forefront, whereas new documents are hidden.

Many people are noting multiple subdomains occupying more than one spot in the top 10.

The shuffle is definitely a big concern -- some results from the top spots are being relocated. Someone calls this "crazy swings." Sounds about right.

Matt Cutts is still looking for feedback about these changes, and he has been checking out the forum thread.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

The huge WebmasterWorld thread devoted to tracking Google changes over the course of March 2008 has sprung some late March legs. Reseller, well known at WebmasterWorld for tracking the slightest changes at Google, posted two data centers that are very different.

The two data centers that appears to be shuffling around include:

• 72.14.207.104
• 64.233.183.104

Reseller jokes:

May be the folks at Google Search Quality Team are focusing this weekend at improving the search relevancy at the top ;-)

Google's constantly updating their search index and results, but this update seems to be pretty major. We do not know yet if it will propagate through to the main Google.com results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: I am getting word that many folks are seeing the dramatic changes at the main Google.com results. I personally don't see the 72.14.207.104 data center hitting the Google.com results for me, but many are now.

Last month, we reported some SERP changes and this month the trend continues with the following observations from WebmasterWorld members.

First, some members noticed a PageRank change, but we noticed that last week.

Other people are seeing some sitelink anomalies:

I have noticed that the numbers of indexed URLs from the sitemaps of my main site have been steadily reduced in the last two days. The reduction rate is about 5% per day. This drop takes place in all sub-directories and also shows on the results of a site command search. However, it seems that the fully indexed pages are not affected.

Additional observations include a change in the link: results and a few substantial drops in rankings (in one case, from #2 to #39).

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

We reported several days ago that Google hasn't updated their external link counts and data in Google Webmaster Tools since early January. Webmasters and SEOs began to complain so Googlers began looking into it.

We now have reports via Google Groups that webmasters are seeing an update to their link counts in Webmaster Tools.

I would share our most popular pages according to Google but in early February Google removed the download table option and we now just have "download all external links." Of course, I can get to this data but I am at SMX and have limited time to mess around in Excel right now.

It would save me a lot of time and I am sure other SEOs and Webmasters a lot of time if Google put that option back.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

After reviewing DigitalPoint Forums, I saw about 5 different threads discussing a PageRank update at Google. I am honestly not sure if this is a legit update but it doesn't really matter.

A toolbar PageRank update has no immediate or direct impact on your rankings at Google.com.

Having said that, there are a few threads at the forum on the update but this DigitalPoint Forums thread is the most active at the moment.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Some may have missed this and I tried to avoid writing about it again, but I figured it might be good to document for the future. Google has pushed out yet another PageRank update for those sites who sell links, reportedly.

A few threads from the weekend have reported downgrades to their PageRank scores. Some of those threads include DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

What is this penalty? It is supposedly a visible PageRank penalty to avert those that sell links for PageRank and those who buy links for PageRank. It is probably working well to discourage link buyers and sellers on sites that were hit. Here is some history:

Google did their first PageRank downgrade around November 12, 2007. Then more penalties were visible on January 8, 2008. But the Google Directory update did not show a PageRank change. So people ask, are these sites still passing link weight and why are the still ranking well.

All in all, I think this solution has been working for Google - so kudos to them and I really mean that. I must add that some are brave and taking a stance by blocking GoogleBot to make a statement and I respect you as well.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld and HighRanking Forum.

Over the weekend, we have received reports via Google Groups that many Gmail users are having issues logging in to Gmail to check their emails.

Many of these users are receiving 502 Errors on their login attempts.

Gmail Guide has confirmed the issue:

I'm sorry to hear that some of you are unable to access your accounts due to 502 errors. Our team is currently aware of the problem and we are working to get things back up and running for you. Please visit our Gmail Updates and Alerts subgroup for up to date information on this problem.

Currently the status of the 502 errors on login at Gmail Updates and Alerts is nada. Keep watching it for updates and I hope it is resolved shortly.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Over the weekend, in a WebmasterWorld thread that is tracking the Google February 2008 SERP changes, the recent discussion is around a new Google update.

This Google update is reportedly impacting the search results in the position two, three, four and five slots for "some "big" search terms," said Tedster, WebmasterWorld administrator. Member Attomic first reported this by saying how unusual it is to see the results move for the search terms he watches:

I've seen some big changes in the 2-5 positions for a search term. They've been moving around and changing positions for a few days. This has been a verrry stable search term for a few years now or I wouldn't even bring it up.

Senior member, BillyS, is convinced that this is a temporary Google glitch:

I'm convinced that Google burped at the end of January and spilled some of its index. For many months we were on a steady climb then traffic dropped by 40% overnight.

This along with the continued agony over what appears to be a Geotargeting or filtering bug is driving some SEOs and Webmasters a bit over the wall.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Following our January SERP changes report, we're back with the WebmasterWorld account of the changes observed at the beginning of this month.

Here's one new piece of information which has been confirmed by numerous webmasters:

Since the 'rollback' to fix #6 glitch my site dissapeared back to the sandbox but still shows up well on all the other DCs ....[Google] has discounted all links with less than 6 months of age.

Others, however, dispute the claim:

...this can't be the case. 6 months ago my pages were #9 and dropping in a specific search term. 6 months ago our link profile was abysmal.

One webmaster notes a "significant" drop in traffic since January 30th.

Another notices that Canadian results are differing from US results and has tested the theory with a proxy server.

Perhaps the strangest revelation of all is a weird caching issue:

I have most of my pages not indexed due to redirects (aka se friendly URL's), and my cached index page is that of another site completely which has nothing to do with me.?

Nobody can reproduce that, however.

On that note, I noticed that I did a site: search using a specific domain and a result came up that had no association at all to the domain I queried. I tested this a few weeks ago and then again just a few hours ago and the problem remains. Strange.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Google Directory also noticed an update from DMOZ and new PageRank bars. We reported last week on the first PageRank update of 2008, and as Andy Beard points out also, the Google Directory is showing new data.

What is interesting is that the data is from January 8, 2008 and if you look at the Computers > Internet > Web Design and Development > Promotion > Weblogs category, you will notice that the PageRank penalty many sites received are not displayed in the PageRank score in the Google Directory.

For example it seems like the Toolbar PageRank of this site is a PageRank of 4. But if you look at the most recent Google Directory update, this site appears to be a PageRank of 7. Here is a screen capture:

This seems to validate both Sites With Downgraded Toolbar PageRank Still Passing Link Juice and PageRank Goes Down but Google Rankings Aren't Affected. But the true affects, well - Google can really only attest to.

The last Google Directory update we reported on was September 25, 2007.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Today we are having our first Google Toolbar PageRank update of 2008. At least there are dozens and dozens of reports that PageRank scores on the 72.14.25.x data center has been updated.

What does this mean to you? To your rankings? Nothing.

More on that on Why do some SEOs want toolbar PageRank to go away.

In any event, for many Toolbar PageRank is a prestige thing. So congrats if your PageRank score went up. Sorry if it went down.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some interesting conversation about an increase in long tail traffic people have been noticing from Google. Long tail traffic, if you don't know, are the longer more specific keyword searches, such as big blue pineapple chair searches, where the number of searches are very low but when they land on your page, the conversions should be high.

The reports seem to convey that when Google changed the way they handle supplemental index results just late last month, it actually is making an impact now. People feel that the supplemental index is truly not a separate index anymore and being treated as a listing in the main Google index would be treated.

Thus people are noticing large increases in those long tail referrals from Google, especially those with huge sites.

Which data centers at Google is this appearing on? It is hard to isolate, I am told, but here is one member's thoughts on that.

At the moment I am seeing the newer mixed results at most datacentres, earlier today when I was seeing the differences I was generally comparing the old results on 64.233.161.107 with the new 'mixed' results on 64.233.163.107.

Some feel that the supplemental index and main index are still separated but blended more, as Tedster and g1smd say, "this isn't a move out of Supplemental, but more a blending of results from both indexes."

This is awesome moderation by Tedster, he isolated this conversation and pulled it out from a different thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We are getting reports from across the SEO forums that Google has done another toolbar PageRank update. The update seems to be, once again, hitting sites that sell or buy links.

Many are seeing PageRank drops to a flat out zero score, but some are seeing the typical reduction of 3 or 4 points in that toolbar PageRank score.

Here are the threads discussing this now:

• Another PR downgrade today!, Search Engine Roundtable Forums
• Why is my PageRank 0?, DigitalPoint Forums
• PR4 to PR0 overnight penalized?, WebmasterWorld
• Index Page not in Search Results anymore PR6 to PR3, WebmasterWorld

The main thing here is that there are two things here. The first is just a visible toolbar PageRank reduction and the second is a true penalty where your site is delisted from Google. Two very different things.

In continuing with our theme for Google SERP updates, we now have January's report.

Numerous webmasters are seeing a huge increase in their traffic: double the visits. Naturally, everyone affected is quite thrilled. One webmaster reports with confidence that this is due to long tail searches.

Unfortunately, others lost more than half of their traffic. It seems that this occurred around December 21st or 22nd.

Webmasters report that using the site: operator gives an exact count.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

There is discussion at a DigitalPoint Forums thread that Google is updating the visible toolbar PageRank scores.

I personally did not look deep into this. Because (1) Toolbar PageRank is not all that significant and (2) I am very under the weather.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Matt Cutts found an interesting news article on The Guardian. According to the article, the Florida update occurred in Christmas of 2004. Not so, and we have enough proof here too.

First of all, one of Search Engine Roundtable's first posts ever quotes Google's VP of Engineering on the Florida update. That was in December of 2003. Additionally, we have a plethora of linked threads later in December of 2003 about the Google Florida update, citing a date of November 15. The name "Florida" came from the WebmasterWorld thread which started on November 14, 2003.

So did the Guardian do their research? I don't think so. :)

And maybe the Guardian isn't a trustworthy news source, as Ian over at Sphinn adds:

If that's the UK "Guardian" newspaper then be aware they are known to the masses as "Teh Grauniad", due to their long history of spelling, grammar, and factual errors over the years.

Too funny.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Last month, we provided you with November 2007 Google SERP changes, and this month, the trend continues.

WebmasterWorld members report that their rankings have been fluctuating heavily. One reports that his site was not ranked in the top #1000 on Google but then he hit #19. It then increased and the rankings got better, but it soon disappeared out of the top 1000 again.

Similarly, another person is reporting that his biggest site is jumping back and forth from the #1 result to #16-#20. This sentiment is echoed by at least two other members.

A member reports that gaming and entertainment results are popping into SERPs that have no relationship to gaming and entertainment, which is certainly an issue of relevancy for these webmasters.

Finally, the other thing noted is that .ca and .co.uk results are appearing in .com results even though the market isn't tailored to US demographics.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld are reporting Google has updated the Google Image Search index and algorithm over the weekend.

Many people are noticing new images being found in the image search engine. Also some are noticing that Google is more particular about which images they are showing. The SafeSearch filtering tool, which allows you to define how safe you want your results, seems to have been fine tuned a bit also. The three options include:

• Moderate filtering excludes most explicit images from Google Image Search results but doesn’t filter ordinary web search results. This is your default SafeSearch setting; you’ll receive moderate filtering unless you change it.
• Strict filtering applies SafeSearch filtering to all your search results (i.e., both image search and ordinary web search).
• No Filtering, as you’ve probably figured out, turns off SafeSearch filtering completely.

If someone turns this filter on, there are reports that many images are missing from the results that should not be missing. The suspicions are that if a site that isn't "family friendly" is linking to that image, Google will include it in the filtered results. Even if that image is family friendly and even if that image is on a site that is family friendly.

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, tries to offer some type of explanation from Google on this:

Google wants to be extra careful with images (they've recently shown some embarrassing images quite prominently in "universl" search results)

But Tedster still believes this behavior is a bit out of the norm.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Gabs reported Google has done a Sitelinks update. He is indeed correct. The first Sitelinks update was in February 2007 and then we had a new recent one where Google expanded them to 8 sitelinks per result.

Here is the new set of Sitelinks for the Search Engine Roundtable:

This is what they looked like on October 19, 2007:

So it does appear that some Sitelinks have been updated.

Forum discussion at the Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Google has updated Google Webmaster Tools with a link update again this month. Google has been updating their linkage data in Webmaster Tools more frequently, but it appears it has often been happening the first or second week of the month and not towards the end of the month.

There is currently discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Here is a look at our top pages, by links reported via Google Webmaster Tools:

Again, this is the second major link update in Google Webmaster Tools this month.

For the past updates see:

• November 2007 Google Linkage Data
• October 2007 Google Linkage Data
• September 2007 Google Linkage Data
• August 2007 Google Linkage Data
• July 2007 Google Linkage Data
• June 2007 Google Linkage Data
• April 2007 Google Linkage Data
• March 2007 Google Linkage Data
• February 2007 Google Linkage Data

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Somehow, I think that the incident with Shopzilla is related to the recent news that anyone using the PayPerPost method just got their PageRanks reduced this weekend.

Forum members have mixed reactions. Some have obviously participated in such schemes. Others hope that those who participate suffer the consequences:

If you cheat you die.

Google seems to be taking out all the "schemes" that were set up to game the system.

Finally, others note that they have been penalized without using any paid advertising at all. These forum members feel that their penalty was unjust and that Google should review why it happened to begin with. Personally, I've seen a lot of incorrect penalties over the past few weeks that Google has not yet rectified, even with a request for reinclusion. I understand the frustration there.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Andy Beard has been tracking the Google PageRank changes like a hawk and he reported PageRank Zeros to many sites. There are also many people reporting PageRank Zeros at DigitalPoint Forums.

Those reporting that they have a PageRank of zero are also reporting that their rankings and traffic from Google are the same. I have seen some sites with a PR0 that do not sell links, so I am not sure if it is directly related to link selling or buying or just a PR bug.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google has updated the Toolbar PageRank score again over the weekend. Reports come from WebmasterWorld and a dozen different threads at DigitalPoint Forums.

This seems to be a continuation of the paid link PageRank downgrades.

Andy Beard documented some of the sites that were impacted by this fourth rendition of PageRank scores in the past month or so.

You can find historical PageRank updates in our Google PageRank updates section of our site.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Sphinn.

Google has updated Google Webmaster Tools with a link update earlier this week. Google typically does these updates monthly, around this time.

There is currently discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Here is a look at our top pages, by links reported via Google Webmaster Tools:

This update happened earlier this week, it just took me a while to export the data to share with you all.

For the past updates see:

• October 2007 Google Linkage Data
• September 2007 Google Linkage Data
• August 2007 Google Linkage Data
• July 2007 Google Linkage Data
• June 2007 Google Linkage Data
• April 2007 Google Linkage Data
• March 2007 Google Linkage Data
• February 2007 Google Linkage Data

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google is constantly updating the search results pages. But there seems to be a lot of discussion about an update made to the Google search results yesterday.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread and more conversation at a WebmasterWorld thread report such changes. Here are some quotes from some Webmasters:

Once again there has been an update and as usual I lost another 30% of my traffic from Google. Soon it'll be down to nothing and that is without me doing anything except adding more pages, fixing some typo's and a few layout fixes.

Yes, there definitely has been an update or algo movement yesterday. My first guess is that there has been some movement on dup content filtering measures.

Personally, I have yet to see any changes myself. But I admit, I do not look as carefully as most these people.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

As promised last month, we're going to report monthly on Google SERP changes. This month, the following observations on WebmasterWorld have been made:

• Some optimized sites that are being changed for better relevance are just not performing as well. Their rankings seem to be doing worse.
• "Boring websites" with no linkbait are vulnerable to ranking shifts.
• Bigger sites do better. ("Size does matter.")
• Some datacenters have shown changes, but they reverted to their original rankings. Forum members suspect it's part of a new data push (or experimentation, at least).

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Google has also done a backlink update recently.

Now, I think most people in this forum thread are talking about the link:www.domain.com command when searched at Google.com. That backlink command is known to just show a sampling on one's backlinks and no the full set of backlinks.

If that is the case and people are noticing a change (or increase) in the number of backlinks reported, then there is not much to those numbers. I personally would ignore such an update. What you do want to look at are your backlinks reported in Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.

There have been additional reports of Google Blog Search not return recent backlink counts for specific URL checks. For example, an article I wrote yesterday, shows 0 backlinks in Google Blog Search, click here to see. This appears to be a small, temporary issue in Google. I suspect it will be fixed shortly.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There appears to be more reports of issues with Google's Webmaster Tools. The issues are not exactly the same as we reported earlier, but the issue appears to impact the same tool, the Link Reporting tool at Google Webmaster Tools. But is it an error in reporting or part of a new Google update?

Many are reporting that Google is showing zero external links for their site.

We have threads at Google Groups, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld about this topic, plus some random guy gave me a call about this yesterday.

Is it a penalty? Most have seen that zero links are coming up for their site and their PageRank dropped a point or two. The person I spoke with yesterday showed me his site and it appeared plain. It was in a competitive landscape and was not extraordinary, by any benchmark, but it didn't appear penalized to me. Yes, this person's rankings dropped and traffic dropped, and the site's PageRank and link c