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It seems Google may have tested a search algorithm update yesterday late morning and then may have pulled it back.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has chatter from the SEO community around the update but the chatter soon died down after things settled back. Plus most of the automated Google SERP tracking tools show very little fluctuations, if any.

Here are some of the posts late yesterday morning at WebmasterWorld:

comparative to yesterday my traffic is up with about +25%

Something major appears to have rolled out just after yesterday's short, hour long surge of excellent converting traffic. Today it's back to 1 or zero on the site.

I'm seeing plenty of ranking changes for my site. I regained dozens of previously dropped key phrases. A few downward moves, but only -1 or -2, but at the same time many +3 and +4 deltas. BUT......

Woke up to almost double traffic, im almost at my daily visits of 3k unique s already and its 10 am here in the uk, something is happening here, anyone else?

Clearly, timing based on these posts in the forum is hard to nail down. The webmasters can be looking at different metrics that are delayed or not real-time.

Both SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Advanced Web Ranking tools to show a slight uptick in changes in the Google search results.

Maybe something big is coming and this is just an early sign? We are due a Panda update. :)

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

A couple weeks ago, I reported that Google's John Mueller explained that theoretically you do not need to disavow to get out of Penguin, you can try to build links out of Penguin. But the truth is, he said it is an algorithm and he was just explaining the algorithm. Will it work? As I explained, he said probably not.

So he was asked this question again in a Google+ hangout from last week, where he explains it well.

The question starts at 50 minutes and 55 seconds and he said with Penguin there is no simple solution. The best recommendation he can give is that when you know you have a problem, you need to fix the problem. The best way to fix the problem is to not do nothing, but to remove the bad links you have to your site either via the disavow or manually or both.

John then says at 52 minutes and 6 seconds in that hoping the problem will go away by itself or even more, hoping the problem will go away by doing even more unnatural links is not a "feasible business approach."

Then at 52 minutes and 50 seconds into the video answer, he gives it to you. He said, in short that the aspect of building high quality links sounds like building unnatural links all over again and it won't help. Let me quote him:

And the other aspect here of gaining links from high quality editorial websites sounds a lot like you're building links again. You're building even more unorganic links to your site. So if you know that you have a problem with your links, you're not going to solve it by building even more unnatural links.

You see, even though theoretically it is possible, SEOs will do it wrong. Building links is unnatural. :)

Here is the video as it starts at 50:55:

Every year, we say how much has changed in the industry – and every year, we’re right.

It never ceases to  amaze me how much SEO constantly refines itself to more sophisticated Google guidelines and smarter, savvier searchers. Think about it: Since 2011, Moz has counted more than 83 major algorithm updates to the search engine giant.


That’s 83 times we’ve had to change our tactics in three years! Can you think of any other industry that has gone through that much fluctuation? Unlikely.

So, as part of the end-of-year trends, let’s take a look back on everything that went down this in 2014.

January
Expedia was the first big brand of the year to get reportedly hit by a penalty for unnatural link building. Rankings plummeted, and Searchmetrics suggested the company lost 25% of its visibility in Google because of the penalty.

Matt Cutts put the hammer down on guest blogging, urging any SEO using this tactic as a way to build links to cease fire of suffer the consequences.

Rap Genius is finally back on Google after getting doled a manual penalty in late 2013 for link schemes.

Google announced a new Googlebot user-agent for crawling mobile content. “Googlebot-Mobile” was retired in place of the standard Googlebot, causing webmasters to update their robots.txt and technical structure of their site for mobile optimization.

February
In late 2013, Google moved to 100% secure search, thus taking all of our keyword data with it. By February, Not Provided had topped more than 80%.

March
Webmasters started chatting about an update after seeing fluctuations in Google’s search results. Google never confirmed an update, but SERPs.com (among many others) noted a heavy increase in Google’s index volatility.


Google redesigned its SERPs for desktop users, removing underlined hyperlinks, increasing the font size slightly for title tags, and changing how ads are displayed.

April
The Heartbleed bug was revealed. Google, Rackspace, AWS and a host of security software used by millions of websites were affected, causing serious privacy concerns among anyone who uses the Internet.

Vic Gundotra, head of Google+ and Google’s social efforts, announced his departure from Google. Many questioned what this would mean for Google+ and its integration into organic search results. TechCrunch got word from multiple sources that Google+ will no longer be a product, but a platform, thus ending competition with Facebook and Twitter.

May
Panda 4.0 rolled out, the next wave in targeting sites with low quality content. Ask.com and RetailMeNot were among the big brands affected by the change.

eBay is the latest big brand to get hit by a (speculated) manual search engine penalty in addition to the Panda 4.0 update. eBay later suggested that this cost the business $200 million in revenue.

June
Authorship photos in SERPs listings were removed. Many questioned if this was the end to the entire program itself.

Google hosted its main event of the year, I/O 2014, where it announced news about the company and its future vision, including a new, consistent design across Chrome, Android and the web, an updated visual element to search, and wearables. You can read more about all the announcements at Verge.

July
Google added another animal to the algorithm apocalypse, releasing a local search algorithm update dubbed “Pigeon.” This update drastically changed which factors Google looks at when determining local rankings, including stronger ties to traditional web ranking signals.

Matt Cutts announced he was going on leave from Google, planning to return in October, and leaving his web spam duties behind. People panicked but were, on the whole, supportive.

Groupon ran a study showing that 60% of its direct traffic was actually organic search traffic, proving something many SEOs had long thought about their own “direct” traffic. Following that experiment, Conductor updated their 2013 study of web traffic, claiming that now 64% of all web traffic was from organic search.

August
Google announced that it would begin using HTTPS as a ranking signal, encouraging everyone to move from HTTP to HTTPS. This was seen as a sign that Google is trying to take this whole Internet privacy thing seriously.

We all saw this coming: Two months after the removed authorship photos, Google abandoned its Authorship program, which aimed to provide a stronger tie between content writers and content publishers.

The blogosphere was all abuzz over an influx of negative SEO extortion emails in which someone claimed they’d ruin your site’s rankings unless you wired them $XX amount of money.

September
Dentsu Aegis Network, a multinational media and digital communications company, acquired Covario, one of the largest search agencies in the United States. Rio SEO, Covario’s software business, was not a part of the deal.

Searchmetrics released their 2014 SEO Ranking Factors. High quality content, strong page architecture, and user signals saw the biggest increases in affecting ranking, while keyword links and social signals both decreased in value.

October
Authority Labs released one of the most comprehensive organic CTR studies. It segmented out desktop and mobile clicks, branded and non-branded keywords, and search intent (e.g. informational vs. transactional).

Google finally refreshed Penguin, the algorithm filter that targets web spam, over optimization and unnatural links. This was particularly noteworthy because it meant that everyone who was hit by the last Penguin and submitted a reconsideration request could finally get the opportunity to be reinstated into Google’s good graces.

Microsoft laid off Duane Forrester, Bing’s longest-serving face to the SEO community, not to mention the darling of the industry, having just won Search Personality of the Year.

Just a day later, Cutts decided Google web spam hadn’t crumbled in his absence and extended his time off until 2015. Speculations of a pending retirement ensued.

November
Google ditched its Local Carousel for hotels, restaurants, nightlight and entertainment. The SEO industry rejoiced.

Mobile became even more important to SEO as Google rolled out the mobile-friendly search label for mobile search results and a mobile friendly test tool in Google Webmaster Tools. This was the beginning of Google experimenting with a new ranking algorithm for mobile friendly sites.





December
Bing released its version of Panda, and frankly, did a better job at outlining what it actually considers good content.



Stone Temple Consulting released an extensive Twitter engagement study of more than 4 million tweets. One of the big findings was that time of day had little to no impact on “retweetability.”

What a year, right? I know I didn’t get it all, so what did I miss? What else monumental happened in 2015?

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

Google revamped their local search algorithm, we named Google Pigeon, in July of this year. It was a significant change to how Google ranked and ordered the local search results both for local queries in Google search, and within Google Maps.


This update, the Pigeon update, has officially rolled out worldwide in all English locales with the exception of India.
Google gave me confirmation yesterday on Search Engine Land and then later in the day, added that this was a roll out that is still happening to all English locales with the exception of India.

So, Canada, UK, Australia and any other English language Google search results page is now powered by Google's Pigeon algorithm.

I am a very concerned they rolled this out during the holiday shopping season. Actually, I am a bit upset about it. Why not wait a week?

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

The gravy train to free flights and upgrades is coming to a halt for some AdWords customers. Google has been reaching out to major advertising clients and agencies to let them know that they’ll no longer be able to pay their AdWords bills with credit cards and will instead be moved to an invoicing process.


It’s not hard to see why Google would make this change. The small percentage paid in credit card processing fees Google pays on those charges undoubtedly adds up to a very large sum.


On Twitter, Kelly on the AdWords social team explained that the change affects only Large Customer Sales accounts on credit card billing and that those accounts make up less than 1 percent of all AdWords customers.

Meanwhile, the 99 percenters can continue to rack up those credit card points.

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

We've been seeing an incredible amount of activity around sites impacted by Google's Penguin algorithm over the past few weeks, smack inside the busiest holiday shopping season.

When I asked Google about this, Google commented:

That last big update is still rolling out - though really there won't be a particularly distinct end-point to the activity, since Penguin is shifting to more continuous updates. The idea is to keep optimizing as we go now.

Now, many are interpreting this as the Penguin algorithm is now a rolling update that is happening by itself. I think that is not true.

What it seems to me is that we have engineers at Google that are finding things to tweak in the algorithm and are tweaking those things and pushing them out more quickly than we are use to.

So they pushed out the Penguin 3.0 in mid-October and since then, we've seen major fluctuations with sites hit by that algorithm. We've seen wide spikes in sites hit and then reversed, time and time again.

This to me, is Google testing or tweaking the algorithm, in the live environment. Why? I am not sure. I guess because we asked for it. We wanted a faster running Penguin algorithm and when Google told us 3.0 wasn't that we were upset. So maybe this Google's way of killing two birds (no offense to the Penguin) with one stone?

So what have we documented thus far? Penguin 3.0 on October 17, 2014, Penguin 3.1 on November 27, 2014, Penguin 3.2 on December 2, 2014, Penguin 3.3 on December 5, 2014 and Penguin 3.4 on December 6, 2014. I have not seen any changes since the 6th around this.

Of course, why during the holiday season? I am not sure. I think if Matt Cutts was running things, there is no way we would see this happening now.

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

A Google spokesperson has told us that they will now be updating the Penguin algorithm continuously, by optimizing it as they go. A Google spokesperson sent us the following statement around our recent questions about the holiday Penguin updates.


That last big update is still rolling out — though really there won’t be a particularly distinct end-point to the activity, since Penguin is shifting to more continuous updates. The idea is to keep optimizing as we go now.
That definitely explains all the reports of Penguin changes we’ve been recently been seeing. Which also means that we will likely be covering these updates, even if they are not confirmed by Google, when we feel the change is significant enough to warrant so. If we feel one of these “continuous updates” has resulted in enough of a significant spike in the search results, we will label it as a Penguin update within the 3.x category.

Penguin algorithm updates have historically been processed offline and pushed at a specific point in time. Google would process all the Penguin data offline and then pushed the data live, which would produced change in the search results. Now, Google seems to be saying they will change the algorithm within their live ranking processes.

Live changes to the Penguin algorithm seems to imply no more large data pushes for Penguin.

We will continue to document what we feel are changes to the live Penguin algorithm.

But what this means for sites who were impacted by any of these live changes is unclear. Do their link removal or disavow efforts get processed between each live algorithm change or would that not happen until Penguin 4.0? Again, we are working on getting clearer information from Google around these changes.


Also, why Google feels okay with changing these things now, during the holiday season, is still a bit worrisome for many. On the other hand, we wanted Google to update the Penguin algorithm faster, and it seems like Google is now.

Just to keep you all up to date, we have not seen any changes in Penguin since this Saturday, December 6, 2014:

Penguin 1.0 on April 24, 2012 (impacting ~3.1% of queries)
Penguin 1.1 on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%)
Penguin 1.2 on October 5, 2012 (impacting ~0.3% of queries)
Penguin 2.0 on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)
Penguin 2.1 on Oct. 4, 2013 (impacting around 1% of queries)

Main Topic IS That What Is Doing In SEO by GOOGLE..  Its a New Born of SEO or Something Else..  Because Last 2 -3 Months , I think NEW MATT CUTT'S HIRE by Google. 

Penguin 3.0 on October 17, 2014 (impacting around 1% of queries)
Penguin 3.1 on November 27, 2014 (confirmed by Google, no impact given, Google considers part of Penguin 3.0)
Penguin 3.2 on December 2, 2014 (not confirmed by Google but based on publisher reports)
Penguin 3.3 on December 5, 2014 (not confirmed by Google but based on publisher reports)
Penguin 3.4 on December 6, 2014 (not confirmed by Google but based on publisher reports)

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

Honestly, I am shocked that we are seeing so many fluctuations, reversals and changes to Penguin hit sites. Today, there are more changes with sites impacted by the Google Penguin algorithm. Google has NOT confirmed any of this, I didn't reach out to them to confirm. I will but I doubt I will hear back.

Let me catch you up on what is going on...

On Thanksgiving day, Google started to reverse Penguin penalties (I know Google doesn't call them penalties). This was a good thing and Google actually confirmed this was part of the Penguin 3.0 rollout. Then on Thursday, those gains were rolled back for many. When John Mueller of Google was asked about it, he didn't seem to know what was going on.

Now this morning, the reversals seem to have been reversed and now sites hit are Penguin free, or at least some.

The SEO community is buzzing about it on two WebmasterWorld threads, several BlackHat Forums threads and Twitter.

Here are some quotes from those discussions:

Since yesterday I notice sites (more than a few) that were slapped between 10 and 20 October (rankings fall 200+) are now completely regaining their rankings...

So, did Penguin devalued certain links (and thus slapped all these sites) and now it’s backtracking (or whatever it’s called) and as such releasing all these sites?

They rolled it back....and all sites went back yesterday/the day before....now about an hour ago I have seen all hell break out and @#$ is falling out of the top 300 fast as @#$. I am talking high quality @#$ dropping.

I've got a feeling that this change signals the end of the Penguin roll out.

I think it is as I see Penguin affected sites on the move. I doubt that any of the sites I see were affected by Panda. Could be something new though.

What makes me really sad is that we have not seen so much fluctuation in the Google algorithm during the holiday shopping season since 2004, the Florida update. Since then, Matt Cutts has told us time and time again, they would minimize any algo updates during the holiday season. With him gone, is that also gone with it?

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs

We've been seeing a lot of Penguin related chatter recently, specifically around Penguin 3.0 launching, with several slow pushes on that algorithm through the past several weeks. We saw a huge spike around that over Thanksgiving, which they confirmed and yesterday what we saw on Thursday, seems to have been rolled back.

Yesterday in a Google+ hangout, John Mueller of Google addressed two questions related to Penguin.

(1) Penguin is still rolling out, he said 23 minutes and 54 seconds into the video. He said essentially, it is still rolling out and the team is being very cautious about the rollout.



(2) He was asked if Google would give formal notification when Penguin is done and completed rolling out. John answered that 49 minutes and 25 seconds into the video saying he isn't sure. He said, to some extent, "we're hoping that these things will keep updating." He is hoping it would turn into a rolling update. Maybe? Is that a hint that Penguin will never end and continue to roll? I don't know - he doesn't seem too confident in his answer. Here is the video:

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?

Design by Vikas Kumar Raghav | Seo Company India - Seo Agency India -Seo Blogs