Google Now Says Core Web Vitals Used In Ranking Systems via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google updated their Page Experience Documentation in order to make it explicitly clear that Core Web Vitals are used by their ranking systems. What’s curious about the change is that Google continues to not say that Core Web Vitals are a ranking factor.

Googlers And Statements About Ranking Factors

Something kind of weird about Googlers is that it seems like they tend not to use the phrase ranking factor. For example, I did a site:search of former Google engineer Matt Cutts’ blog and I couldn’t find a single instance of him writing the phrase “ranking factor” in any of his posts. Same with his YouTube videos when talking about links like here and here.

John Mueller did say that Core Web Vitals was a ranking factor three years ago on Reddit in reference to the Core Web Vitals (CWV), but Google’s Page Experience In Search Results explainer never explicitly says Core Web Vitals are ranking factors.

Which brings us to Google’s SearchLiaison who caused a stir in February 2024 when he tweeted that Google’s documentation didn’t say that Core Web Vitals (CWV) were a ranking factor or a signal.

He tweeted:

“And people go “Well, what does ranking really mean. Maybe it’s signals? They didn’t say it’s not signals!”

So do we have a signal page experience signal? No. That’s why we made a page that says “There is no single signal.”

Oh but wait, so you have multiple signals? Yes, we anticipated this question which is why we have on that same page “Our core ranking systems look at a variety of signals.”

Which leads to things like “So is CWV a signal and if I don’t meet those, am I doomed?” Which is why that same page says “However, great page experience involves more than Core Web Vitals.”

We don’t list what is and isn’t a ranking signal on that page because things change. Maybe something was once; maybe it shifts but aligns with other things we might do to understand page experience. We’re trying to guide people toward some useful resources and things to thing about with page experience but in the end — do whatever you think is providing a great experience for your visitors.”

And in another tweet on the following day he wrote (referring to the Page Experience In Search explainer):

“I didn’t say we have a page experience “ranking signal” nor do we have some single signal like that. The page below specifically says we do NOT have something like that.

“Is there a single “page experience signal” that Google Search uses for ranking?

There is no single signal. Our core ranking systems look at a variety of signals that align with overall page experience.

We don’t say there’s one particular thing people need to do, nor do we say if you don’t do a particular think, you won’t rank. We say look across a range of things and try to provide a good page experience to your visitors”

SearchLiaison is right. The Page Experience In Search Results explainer document didn’t say that Core Web Vitals is a ranking factor, not even in 2022 when it was first published.

Google Almost Says CWV Is A Ranking Factor

After all the explaining without acknowledging Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor and two years of opaqueness in their Page Experience In Search Results documentation about CWV in relation to ranking factors, Google changed their mind and updated their documentation to almost say that Core Web Vitals are a ranking factor.

This is the ambiguous part that was removed from the documentation:

“What aspects of page experience are used in rankings?
There are many aspects to page experience, including some listed on this page. While not all aspects may be directly used to inform ranking, they do generally align with success in search ranking and are worth attention.”

The above passage was replaced with this new paragraph:

“What aspects of page experience are used in ranking?
Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems. We recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search and to ensure a great user experience generally.

Keep in mind that getting good results in reports like Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report or third-party tools doesn’t guarantee that your pages will rank at the top of Google Search results; there’s more to great page experience than Core Web Vitals scores alone. These scores are meant to help you to improve your site for your users overall, and trying to get a perfect score just for SEO reasons may not be the best use of your time.”

The new documentation doesn’t use the phrase “ranking factor” or “ranking signal” in reference to the core web vitals. But it now explicitly acknowledges that CWV is used by Google’s ranking systems, which is less ambiguous than the previous statement that high CWV scores are recommended for “success with Search.”

Read Google’s updated documentation:

Understanding page experience in Google Search results

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Graphic Grid

Google’s March 2024 Core Update Impact: Hundreds Of Websites Deindexed via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

The impact of Google’s March 2024 Core Update, which targets low-quality content and spam, is becoming apparent as the rollout progresses.

Recent analyses reveal that over 800 websites have been completely deindexed from Google’s search results in the early stages of the update.

Widespread Deindexing

Ian Nuttall, a prominent figure in the SEO community, has been tracking the indexing status of 49,345 websites following the launch of the March 2024 Core Update and its associated manual actions against AI-generated spam.

Nuttall’s findings shed light on the sweeping impact of Google’s latest initiative.

Of the 49,345 sites monitored, 837 websites had been removed entirely from Google’s search index.

I checked the index status of 49,345 sites to measure the impact of the AI spam manual actions!

1.7% of sites got hit, 20+ million monthly organic visits gone and over $446k in display ad revenue lost.

Want the data? Follow, like, and reply with 👏 and I’ll send it over! pic.twitter.com/sUo22DejaL

— Ian Nuttall (@iannuttall) March 8, 2024

This represents approximately 1.7% of the websites in Nuttall’s database. The deindexed sites span various categories and ad networks, highlighting the broad scope of Google’s actions.

However, it’s too early to tell whether these websites will remain deindexed, as several are already reappearing in Google’s search results.

I ran my script again to check the sites that were deindexed and 21 of them are showing pages indexed in Google again.

The big winners were fresherslive·com and oldtimemusic·com who have 5m and 2.5m pages indexed.

Here’s the full list:

fresherslive·com – 5,050,000 pages… pic.twitter.com/zgpm1toudt

— Ian Nuttall (@iannuttall) March 11, 2024

Significant Traffic & Revenue Losses

The consequences of being deindexed are severe for the affected websites.

According to Nuttall’s analysis, the 837 deindexed sites accounted for over 20.7 million organic search visits per month before the manual action. The sudden loss of traffic is devastating for the impacted websites.

Further, the deindexing is estimated to result in a monthly loss of $446,552 displayed advertising revenue across the affected sites.

Targeting AI-Generated Spam

The findings from Nuttall’s analysis align with a recent study conducted by Originality.ai, which investigated the prevalence of AI-generated content among the deindexed websites.

The study found that 100% of the affected sites showed signs of AI-generated content, with 50% having 90-100% of their posts generated by AI.

These results suggest that Google’s March 2024 Core Update effectively targets websites relying heavily on AI-generated content to manipulate search rankings.

The manual actions taken against these sites demonstrate Google’s commitment to combating the rise of AI-driven spam and low-quality content.

Reshaping The Search Landscape

As the March 2024 Core Update continues to roll out, its impact on the search landscape is becoming increasingly evident.

The widespread deindexing of websites engaging in manipulative practices, particularly those utilizing AI-generated content, signals a significant shift in Google’s approach to maintaining search result quality.

The consistency between Nuttall’s data and the Originality.ai study reinforces that Google is taking decisive action to address the growing problem of AI-driven spam.

As the update progresses, websites and content creators must adapt to Google’s heightened focus on quality and originality.

The full impact of the March 2024 Core Update will become more evident as it continues to roll out over the coming weeks. However, the early indications from Nuttall’s analysis and the Originality.ai study suggest that Google’s efforts to reshape the search landscape and prioritize high-quality, human-generated content are underway.

Google’s Algorithm Hates AI Content? How To Make Google Love It via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s March 2024 core algorithm update is penalizing sites made with AI generated content and it’s a fact that AI-generated content cannot meet the quality standards that Google’s  various documentations outline. But there is still a way to use AI in a way that results in high quality content.

Why AI Cannot Meet Google’s Quality Thresholds

Several ranking systems, including the Reviews and the Helpful Content systems explicitly have quality standards that inherently make it impossible for AI authored content to satisfy.

The addition of an extra E in E-A-T (for experience) should have been a signal to content creators that using AI carried risks.

Examples of SERP Features, Quality Signals and Ranking Signals That Inherently Exclude AI Content

The writing on the wall about AI content has always been in plain sight.

Here are some qualities that Google’s documentations say are important that rule out purely AI-generated content:

• Experience
• Published reviews must be hands-on
• Google News emphasizes human authors in Google News SERPs
• Google Perspectives, announced in May 2023 emphasizes human authors (hidden gems) found in forums
• Author page (expertise questions)
• Author background information (expertise questions)
• Author About page (expertise questions)

Concepts Of Quality

Google published Self-Assessment Questions to help publishers identify if their content measures up to Google’s standards of quality.

These questions don’t list specific ranking factors. They only list concepts of things that in general reflect what high quality websites tend to show.

If AI-generated content cannot fit into those concepts then it’s likely that the content does not meet quality standards, regardless if the publishers try to fake the outward signs of quality like author pages and so on.

Authorship And Expertise

The Expertise section of the Self-Assessment documentation mentions authors in a way that cannot be replicated by machine-generated content.

This section states:

“Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?”

The above quoted section centers expertise on the following three factors:

1. Sourcing (citations to sources, fact checking, attribution of quotes)
2. Evidence of expertise involved
3. Author background

Those three qualities are the outward signs typically associated with expertise which is not attainable by AI.

Content Quality: Originality

The content and quality section of the self-assessment guide requires originality.

Here’s what that section of Google’s documentation asks:

“Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
…Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?”

Unoriginality is the hallmark of generative AI. Content created by generative AI is literally the likeliest series of words on any given topic.

First-Hand Expertise

The people-first section of the self-assessment questions asks about first-hand expertise:

“Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?”

Clearly a machine doesn’t have first-hand expertise. It can’t handle a product or use a service.

AI Can Still Be Used For Content Creation

Given how many sites with AI-generated content are getting slapped with manual actions during the March 2024 core algorithm update, it may be time to reconsider the place of AI for web content.

There is still a way to use AI that can result in high quality people-first content. What matters most about content is the insight behind the content, not who or what wrote it.

A way forward may be to use a mix of human insight and experience as data that the AI can use for generating content.

How To Create Review Content With AI

For example, it’s possible to scale product reviews by creating a checklist of data points that consumers need in order to make a buying decision. Someone still has to handle the product and review it, but they just have to write scores and comments for each data point on the review checklist.

If the review is of a children’s bicycle then benchmark the things that users want to know about the bicycle like what age and size does the bicycle fit, how much does it weigh, how sturdy are the training wheels and so on. If it’s a television review then the checklist will have benchmarks relating to the richness of the black levels, off-center viewing, ease of setting the colors, and so on.

At the end of the checklist have a section called final impressions that lists pros and cons as well as the overall sentiment where the reviewer writes if they feel positive, neutral, negative about the product and who they feel the product is best for like people on a budget, those who crave performance and so on. Once that’s done upload the document to your AI and ask it to write the review.

How To Write Any Kind Of Content With AI

An acquaintance shared a tip with me about using AI to polish rough content.  His workflow consists of a dictating everything that needs to be said into a recording, without regard for paragraph structure, simply poured out into the recording.  He then uploads it to ChatGPT and asks it to transform it into a professional document. He can even ask it to generate pros and cons and an executive summary.

AI Amplifies Human Input

My suggestion is to think of AI as a ghost writer that takes a rough document and turns it into a polished essay or article. This approach can work for nearly any scenario, including for scaled product descriptions.

The important qualities of content are the ones provided by a human that an AI is incapable of, things like sourcing, evidence of expertise, sourcing and the background that a human brings to a the topic that is being written about. Humans bring the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.  AI can take those elements provided by the human and turn it into high quality content.

Given how many sites with AI-generated content are getting slapped with manual actions during the March 2024 core algorithm update, it may be time to reconsider how AI is used when it comes to content.

I planned and wrote most of this article back in September 2023 and sat on it because I thought, who is going to believe me?

Now that it’s March 2024 and the SEO industry is facing a reckoning based partly on AI-generated content, people may be more receptive to considering better ways to integrate AI into the content generation workflow.

Google’s Website Cache Is Still Available (For Now) via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google recently updated it’s Google Cache documentation on their website cache and in so doing indirectly created a reminder that the cache is still available for virtually any webpage that Google has indexed.

What Google Said About The Webpage Cache

What was reported about Google’s cache may have unintentionally left the impression that it was permanently and irretrievably gone. But that’s not yet the case.

Here’s SearchLiaison’s announcement on on Twitter:

“Hey, catching up. Yes, it’s been removed. I know, it’s sad. I’m sad too. It’s one of our oldest features. But it was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.

Personally, I hope that maybe we’ll add links to @internetarchive from where we had the cache link before, within About This Result. It’s such an amazing resource. For the information literacy goal of About The Result, I think it would also be a nice fit — allowing people to easily see how a page changed over time. No promises. We have to talk to them, see how it all might go — involves people well beyond me. But I think it would be nice all around.

As a reminder, anyone with a Search Console account can use URL Inspector to see what our crawler saw looking at their own page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289”

The cache is indeed gone from Google Search. But it’s still available as a search operator.

The reporting was correct that the cache was gone from Search but the part about its availability as a search operator got drowned out in the noise.

SearchLiaison was up front about the search operator.

His tweet continued:

“You’re going to see cache: go away in the near future, too.”

The “Cache:” Search Operator Is Still Working

Google recently updated their Search Central documentation on the cache: search operator to remove instructions for how to view the cache directly from the search results. But that’s it. There is no additional disclaimer that the cache: search operator is going away.

Google’s updated documentation removed references to the cache in search from two sections.

The documentation removed the following sentences:

“There are two ways to find the cached version of a page:
Search for cache: followed by the URL of the page, for example:
cache:https://example.com/your/page.html
Search for the URL, then click the 3 dots or arrow in the corner of the result to access a link to the cached version of the page.”

Google’s new documentation replaced the above paragraph with the following reworded passage:

“To find the cached version of a page, search for cache: followed by the URL of the page, for example:
cache:https://example.com/your/page.html”

The second change removed references to the cache in search from this passage (italicized part is removed):

“Most pages that Google indexed have a cached version, too. When a page doesn’t have a cached version, the previously mentioned methods for finding the cached version will fail…”

The above passage is replaced by the following one:

“Most pages that Google indexed have a cached version, too. When a page doesn’t have a cached version, using the cache: search operator to find the cached version will fail…”

Google’s SearchLiaison said that the cache: search operator was going away in the near future. The suggestion that Google might add a link to Internet Archive is not a useful replacement.

The reason it’s not useful is that the Google cache: search operator is useful for checking if competitor pages are indexed, not indexed or recently indexed – which is useful information.

The cache search operator is still so enjoy it while it lasts.

Read Google’s documentation about the cache: search operator:

cache: search operator

Google To Remove “Add Me To Search” People Cards In April via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has announced that it will discontinue its “people cards” feature in Google Search on April 7.

The decision comes after Google realized the feature was not as helpful for users as initially hoped.

People cards were introduced in 2020 to make it easier for individuals to highlight information about themselves on Google Search, such as websites and social profiles. The feature was initially launched in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, but individuals in other countries could access it using a VPN.

In an email sent to users who created people cards, Google stated,

“While people cards worked as intended, in the years since its launch, we’ve learned this feature wasn’t as helpful for people as we hoped.”

Google is letting users download or save content from their people cards until May 7, after which the information will be deleted.

Background: People Cards As A Virtual Business Card

People cards were designed to serve as virtual business cards, helping professionals, performers, influencers, entrepreneurs, job hunters, and freelancers establish a notable online presence.

This feature was handy for individuals who shared a common name or had difficulty gaining visibility in search results.

The card included fields for a user’s name, location, job, a brief “About” section, and optional links to social profiles and other relevant information.

Impact & Future Implications

Discontinuing people cards will only affect this specific feature on Google Search and won’t impact other Google products or services. However, the change may be disappointing for users who have relied on the feature to establish their online presence and improve their visibility in search results.

Google’s decision to retire people cards raises questions about the future of similar features designed to help individuals showcase their personal information and professional achievements online.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, companies like Google evaluate the effectiveness of new features to ensure they provide meaningful value to their users.

Retiring features that don’t provide adequate value allows Google to allocate resources to more helpful tools.

Google will send users a reminder as the April 7 discontinuation date approaches.

Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock

Google Updates Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has updated its “Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines,” a comprehensive 170-page document that serves as a framework for quality raters to assess websites effectively.

The update on follows the search engine’s latest Core and Spam updates.

Insights Into Trustworthiness

The updated guidelines provide valuable insights into how Google determines the trustworthiness of webpages and websites.

While the quality raters don’t directly influence search rankings, the document explains what Google considers essential for a high-quality website.

Latest Changes

According to the changelog on page 170 of the document, Google has “updated characteristics of untrustworthy pages and added illustrative examples.”

This marks the first update to the guidelines since November 2023, highlighting the significance of the changes made.

Untrustworthy Webpages & Websites

The new information is on page 35, Section 4.5, titled “Untrustworthy Webpages or Websites.”

Google has expanded the list of characteristics that quality raters should look for when assessing the trustworthiness of a webpage or website.

The document now states that a page should be considered untrustworthy if it contains “multiple or significant factual inaccuracies on an informational page which would cause users to lose trust in the webpage as a reliable source of information.”

Illustrative Examples

To further clarify these updates, Google has included illustrative examples within the quality raters guide.

Google updated their Search Quality Raters Guidelines document for the first time since November 2023 with:

“Updated characteristics of untrustworthy pages and added illustrative examples”

🤨 Evidence of fraudulent behavior
🤨 Evidence of criminal behavior

Below are the… pic.twitter.com/4fcGicfsoK

— Carl Hendy (@carlhendy) March 6, 2024

These examples provide practical guidance on identifying untrustworthy pages and websites, helping quality raters make more informed assessments.

The Importance Of Trustworthy Content

The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines updates are notable as the internet continues to grow and evolve rapidly.

With the increasing prevalence of misinformation, it’s more important than ever for search engines to prioritize trustworthy and accurate content.

Implications For Website Owners & SEO Professionals

As Google continues to refine its algorithms and guidelines, website owners and SEO professionals should take note of these changes and strive to create high-quality, trustworthy content that meets the search engine’s standards.

Doing so can improve their chances of ranking well in search results and provide users with the reliable information they seek.

In Summary

The updated Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines serve as a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand Google’s expectations for website quality. As the search landscape evolves, staying informed about these guidelines and adapting accordingly will be essential for continued success.

Featured Image: dennizn/Shutterstock

Google March 2024 Update: 6 Insights On Manual Actions via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s algorithm is wasting no time in removing low quality sites from the search results. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the volume of sites affected by this update may reach historic levels not seen since the Panda and Penguin updates.

1. March 2024 Update Qualifies As Major

I have been around for every single Google update and in my opinion the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update is clearly on the same impact level as the Florida, Panda and Penguin updates in terms of how widespread the effects are. Senior marketers with decades of experience that I’ve spoken with all agree that this update is right up there as one of the big ones.

While the Medic update was a shift in the algorithm, what’s happening now is more than a single big shift. It’s a profound change in how sites are ranked. So it’s useful to review what’s getting penalized to understand the scope of this update.

2. Sites That Survived Previous Updates Didn’t Escape This One

Posts across social media demonstrate that Google is removing entire websites from the search results and from the search index. Some reports are from observers celebrating the removal of low quality sites that have stubbornly clung in the SERPs through past Google updates.

Other posts are by publishers who are confused by why their network of sites are entirely gone.

A post in the private Affiliate SEO Mastermind group relates the plight of a publisher whose entire network collapsed.

Key details of that post are that all eight affected sites were created within the past two years and each was about a different niche topic. The author of the post claims that the content was manually created with only a little help from AI. All websites are showing zero traffic impressions.

Perhaps one clue as to why that person’s sites were affected is that they were all in different topics, which may be an indication that the author of the sites may not have had the deep topical expertise that Google is looking for.

The person who made that Facebook post indicated they’re giving up and focusing their future efforts on YouTube.

Jeff Coyle of MarketMuse AI Content Planning tweeted that a group of sites he follows as a barometer of the effectiveness of Google’s search algorithms were finally removed from Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

Jeff tweeted:

“I was checking out a pool of SERPs I monitor for a collection of horrible spam sites that have been present and creeping around for 12-18 months. Many are completely deindexed, and others are hidden in filter=0 or literally bunched up at the bottom (the actual bottom, like the last findable URLs) of the SERP.”

@barelypurple responded to Jeff’s tweet:

“Some pure garbage getting demolished which is great but my main concern is that we’ll just see big sites getting even more traction.”

3. Penalties Happening Fast

Another interesting feature of this update is the speed at which sites are receiving manual actions.

@ratneshkumar684 tweeted:

“It seems @googlesearchc is very fast to implement the spam update this time.

One of my friend’s site got completely deindexed today morning.

Just now he received this manual penalty affecting all the pages.

The site was publishing news in the entertainment niche.”

Screenshot Of Manual Action Notification

Lily Ray tweeted about ten sites gone overnight:

10 websites completely removed from Google search overnight. https://t.co/eeUgmhRxXs

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) March 6, 2024

Gael Breton tweeted:

“I’m seeing AI spam sites getting fully deindexed left and right right now.

It’s going to get interesting”

@PureAffiliate responded with a tweet about a self-described “link building agency” that was completely eliminated from Google’s search results.

Julian Goldie’s site has gone https://t.co/a82NQmQDVB

— Bobstack (@PureAffiliate) March 6, 2024

Screenshot Of Site Absent From SERPs

4. Inconsistent Communication About Manual Actions

Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) posted about businesses that came to her for help who reported inconsistent messaging from Google about manual actions, with some receiving an email about it while others noticed the manual action in their Google Search Console. Interestingly, one case experienced a decline in traffic prior to receiving a message through Google’s search console.

I’ve been brought on to help some sites after they realilzed that they had a manual action. Looking at the data, most had a significant decline before the MA should up in thier GSC. A few recieved an email.

— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) March 6, 2024

Ollie Ryman @ollie_ryman commented about manual actions related to “abusive experiences” where the manual actions do not appear in Google Search Console and the only notification is through email.

Ollie tweeted:

@searchliaison Hi, abusive experiences do not appear as a manual action in GSC, they are only visible in the legacy webmaster tools. If someone uses a domain property, the only way they will know is if they see the email notification. Is it supposed to be this way?

— Ollie Ryman (@ollie_ryman) March 6, 2024

@tonythill shared that everyone he asked about their manual action reported that they did not receive an email notification.

Good question. Everyone I’ve asked who got the manual action said they did not get an email notification about it 🤔

— Tony Hill (@tonythill) March 6, 2024

5. Small AI Content Sites Can Receive A Manual Action

Someone on Twitter suggested that Google is able to detect AI generated content by the massive amount of content published in a short amount of time.

Google de-indexing AI sites has to be down to publishing frequency rather than content. I’m not sure how they’d do it through the content, but if a site is posting 5k articles a day and abusing the search console API for indexing then it’s an easy one to flag.

— Craig Griffiths (@Griffo_) March 6, 2024

The observation that the publishing speed can make a spam site easy to identify is correct. But the overall observation underestimates Google’s ability to catch AI generated content according to a response that the above tweet received.

@PeteReynolds_ responded to the above tweet with his actual experience with a small site that contains AI generated content that wasn’t competing for anything and was basically just sitting around. That seemingly inconsequential site received a manual action.

Pete tweeted:

I have a site that has just 8 articles on it, published one year ago. Was 100% AI, and just intended to warm up the domain in case I ever wanted to pursue the project.

It’s the only site in my portfolio that has got the manual action.

— Pete Reynolds (@PeteReynolds_) March 6, 2024

Something else to consider is that statistical analysis uses more than just one data point (like the speed of content posting). The accuracy of statistical analysis is increasingly accurate with multiple data points and this has been a feature of statistical analysis in search engines for almost twenty years.

6. Old Sites Getting A Manual Action

Another facet of this update is that it’s affecting older sites that haven’t previously received manual actions.

@simransingh931 tweeted:

“Even one of our websites got hit with a manual penalty.

I started it in 2013, a brand new domain, that ranked well and was receiving good traffic over the years. Today I got a manual penalty for it.

No Spam, Articles written by trusted authors, everything from screenshots to content was our own.

I thought it was just us, but searched and found this and a few other threads.”

Takeaway: Reflection Before Action

The breadth and scope of the manual actions reported by the search marketing community validate Google’s announcement that the update contains a major change to their ranking systems and algorithms.

The Florida, Panda and Penguin updates introduced new technologies that exposed weaknesses in common SEO tactics of their time. Search marketers responded with a period of recalibrating search strategies in order to identify the next best path forward.

This update will take  a full month to roll out. My opinion, is to familiarize yourself with the sites that receive manual actions in order to understand patterns common to penalized sites. But also, as ever, the most obvious problem that stands out isn’t necessarily the most serious problem.

The entire search marketing industry is waiting and watching.  Remember to breathe.

Featured image by Shutterstock/1000Photography