The new Google Hacked Sites Algorithm which launched this week, we think, is said to impact about 5% of search queries. It aims at removing sites that are hacked in the search results, to keep the search results safe.
Last night at PubCon, I spotted a tweet from Jennifer Slegg on Twitter where she quoted Gary Illyes from Google saying on stage that this algorithm only impacts "spammy" flavors of search queries.
Here is her tweet:
Hacked sites algo: just devalues site for spammy queries only. @methode #pubcon
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) October 8, 2015So Gary said that the algorithm only impacts sites that are (1) hacked AND (2) are in the spammy queries realm.
That seems like something I should double check on because sites in all areas can be hacked and impact searchers across the board. So maybe this was a misunderstanding or maybe the vast majority of hacked sites are in the "spammy" area?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: Gary Ilyes from Google confirmed it directly on Twitter:
@rustybrick yesr. That's what we're aiming for.
— Gary Illyes (@methode) October 9, 2015