Google's Page Layout Algorithm Updated For Third Time

Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have pushed out a refresh to the Google Page Layout algorithm on or around February 6th.

He did not specify how much this impacted the search results but based on my analysis of the SEO community, it had a very small impact on most SEOs.

This would be the third update to the page layout algorithm. Since it is just a refresh, it doesn't mean Google updated the algorithm, but rather reran the algorithm and updated it's index. So I doubt Google would classify it version 3.0, but rather 1.2 maybe.

Previous Updates For Google's Page Layout Algorithm Was:

• Google Page Layout Algorithm Launch on January 19, 2012
• Google Page Layout Algorithm Second Update on October 9, 2012
• February 6, 2014, the third update

Here is Matt's tweet:

SEO folks: we recently launched a refresh of this algorithm: http://t.co/KKSXm8FqZW Visible to outside world on ~Feb. 6th.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) February 10, 2014

What does it look like when a site gets hit by this? Here is a screen shot from WebmasterWorld of someone who was hit:

Again, very few seem to have been impacted by it but there are some and they are complaining in the forum threads I link to below.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Google Webmaster Help, Black Hat World and Twitter.