Instabilities in Google?
Since Vince was rolled out to the UK we’re seeing instabilities in some of Google’s SERPs like we haven’t seen for years. Now: I can’t say for sure that the two are connected, but there’s a gut feeling around that Google are either doing testing on a much more obvious scale than we’re used to or that Vince itself has some instabilities which remain to be ironed out.
The first thing to note is it seems to be restricted to certain verticals so unless you’re affected you won’t be seeing this at all; we’re seeing it first hand in certain travel sectors but have reports of similar behaviour in mobiles and TV – both here and in the US – suggesting a definite pattern. In these verticals, Vince has clearly pushed leading names to the top of certain categories as you’d expect.
What you perhaps wouldn’t expect is the zany yo-yo in the rankings where other results can go top 10 for 3 hours, drop 30 places and then come back the following morning for another shellacking and further hair-loss in the SEO team*. Wash and repeat. This has been rumbling on for a few weeks now so we’re ruling out common-or-garden rollbacks and looking for something bigger in the background.
Characteristics
- Rapid changes in rankings for some verticals – literally every few hours seeing a major shift in the results for some competitive terms where Vince would apply
- Multiple internal pages ranking ahead of home – the homepage, optimised and link-built for the same target term, might be literally nowhere inside the top 1000
- Continued presence of non-brands in verticals where brands should be strong
The overall effect feels like some massive test of two different data sets. It’s probably pushing the thought too far, but it’s almost as if in the morning Vince applies and in the afternoon everything falls back onto backlinks and other traditional algorithmic factors. Oh – and in case you’re wondering, the site we’re tracking is most definitely not under any kind of penalty, you cynical little scamps 😉
Just testing?
We know that Google test their results a lot – using near instantaneous feedback from millions of searches and dragging in data from their own networks to determine what results people respond best to. So it may be that Google are testing Vince against old algos. Vince is a big step change for the way the SERPs are compiled, as it has given authority through non-algorithmical factors so it could be that Google are running tests in certain verticals. Or that some verticals have uncertainties inherent in them that Vince hasn’t quite addressed.
Whatcha gonna do about it?
TBH at the moment we’re not really seeing a clear enough pattern to formulate much of an answer. We’ve got notorious linkbuyers out there with colossal footprints – mentioning no names, but you probably know a few yourself – still showing up for Vince terms… and good sites coming and going from the top 10 willy nilly. In the long run, the age old truth of building authority (online and now offline, lest we forget) will see you good, but it’s a choppy sea out there at the moment for some people.
We’d be interested to see if anyone else is seeing similar behaviour out there in the wild…
*mainly applies to me
25 Comments
Yoshimi - http://www.leedsseo.com
We’re seeing far slower changes, where pages are ranking well for a few days, being bumped down for a few days (usually while a complete unknown goes into the top 5) then moving back up again. This is while still seeing a lot of non UK results in the rankings.
I think this has something to do with potential changes to the country based search features, as there have been a lot of reports of radio buttons being removed for some searchers. I don’t think that that and a seeming degredation in the quality of UK results can be a co-incidance.
Even in my own search activity I have found that the only way to get quality results at the moment is to use the “results from the UK” option, something I haven’t had to do for quite some time.
Andy
Up and down like a [insert derogatory term for a woman of ill repute here]’s knickers… Unfortunately, mainly down in many cases. Agree with the “what to do” bit Paul, not much we can do ’til things settle a bit and we see some consistancy!
Richard
The travel insurance results page is still seeing lots of movement – for example one moment marks and spencers are bang up there – the next they are way down and someone else either expected or unexpected is in…
We were beginning to think there might be some form of permanent fluctuation based on non-traditional ranking measurements like brand searches… I take it in the Bronco office you’re expecting it to settle down?
Gavin Boyd - http://www.eqtr.com
I work for a digital agency and by heck have we seen some strange results. The brand stuff seems to be OK for us. What we are seeing is top 10 terms disappearing (panic stations) for a few hours or a day or so and then reappearing. It did cause some panic among our SEO team and marketing manager. I am not 100% on this but I have noticed that most terms that do disappear for a while come back in a better position?.
Thanks for the post, its nice to hear that others are having the same problems lol :-).
Mon
Excellent! There is defiantly a morning to afternoon shift. I agree this is probably testing, but the major powerhouses are sticking at the top and it is the “mid range” (no search budget) sites which are shuffling around during the day. The sites stable at the top all seem to have one thing in common – paid links, lots and lots of them in prominent areas such as online newspapers. These links are mostly disguised as “comparison” widgets. Linksupermarket anyone? Whinge/Rant complete.
DazzlinDonna - http://www.dazzlindonna.com
There’s a recent WMW thread that discusses the latest yo-yo problems. Yo-yo’ing has been around a long time of course, but others have noted that it has gotten more noticeable lately. Here’s the thread if you want to see if perhaps there’s any insights there that may help. http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3947606.htm
Jamie Edwards - http://www.kayako.com
We have noticed a very distinct and obvious disruption to ‘normal’ and ‘expected’ results for a particular high volume search query. The change seems to have put what I would call ‘spam sites’ and directories above long established brands. Perhaps they /are/ testing, or haven’t quite got it right yet.
herytim - http://www.3gmobile-phones.com
There are so many different components to the algorithms now, and individually and as a whole they’re so complex, no one can hope to know all of it.
Jeremy
It’s not connected to Vince. The same things are happening in the US and they started near the end of June, well after the US version of Vince happened.
I don’t think it is testing. i think this is something that is here to stay.
John
Definitely noticed this in the gambling sector. Top 5 rankings are pretty solid but there’s loads of
movement from that point downwards. Page 1 to 7 and back to 3 in 24 hours is the most eratic I’ve seen it!
Richard
ooooo nice imagine a permanent dance to keep us all on our toes! i’d be grinning if i were in the googleplex……
Donovan
All I can say is these recent changes suck b%#@ …
Phil Green - http://www.searchengineoptimisation.org.uk
Some of my newer sites are bouncing around like crazy. I’m talking dropping 3 pages, then coming back in a day or two. None of my older sites are showing this. In my (limited) observations, it seems older or more trusted sites are not affected so much.
Ash Nallawalla - http://www.netmagellan.com/
In Australia the domestic travel SERPs are favouring high TrustRank govt or “official” sites.
Non-local searches, e.g. “florida accommodation” are showing some new URLs, not the familiar ones which included a lot of Aussie travel companies on page 1. – almost the same SERP as using google.com
Bennie Stark - http://texasseo.com/
It’s up the hill and down the hill for our sites inside Google.
If Google is testing, this may mean a good future for our sites. I mean, they can only get better and if they, we’ll also benefits form this testing.
I am hoping for more good news in Google.
Amelia Vargo
A few of my sites have been moving around quite a lot recently. One site moves up and down like you say in the morning in one place, in the afternoon somewhere else! It can be quite confusing (especially for the client)… I’ll be interested in what you can discover about this.
David Lindop - http://www.burndowneasy.com
Yep, they’ve been messing around with things for a couple of months now Dave. Here’s 4 graphs from very different UK industries. http://www.burndowneasy.com/proof-of-vince-on-google-uk/
I won’t go as far as to say ‘brand’ is tied into this – that’s easy to say but very difficult to test.
Carps - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
I’m in the camp that more testing of results will lead to better results, so I’m not too concerned. Same rules always apply: if your site is strong on content and usability and you’re getting your links right you’ll get the spot you deserve.
Paul B
What kind of search volume do you guys think this applies too? For instance as an aff marketer i rarely stray outside anything with more than 10,000 exacts a month (according to adwords) and i havnt seen any changes really. This only appy to the big boys?
Thanks Paul
Carps - http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk
The two main terms we’re seeing this on are 500,000+ uniques a month and the other terms we know about are probably higher or similar. It seems a bit excessive to be testing on so many high volume terms at once, but what do I know? 🙂
Kerry Dye - http://www.vertical-leap.co.uk
Hmm, I’ve got one showing exactly this pattern and it is only 5,400 Global Monthly Search Volume on Exact. And the difference in position between today and yesterday is about 120 places!
Steen Öhman - http://www.ohmanresearch.com
Danish observations
We are seeing quite big ranking shifts .. both during the day but also from day to day during the week. Some shifts have been from #6 to page 4.
It also looks like we are have more international SERPs in the danish results … and these creates some of the ranking volatility mentioned above.
clive
I thought dave had all the answers already http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/google-update-vince-hits-the-uk-shores.html
Adrian - http://www.adrianland.co.uk
My employer is in travel and I am seeing strange behaviour. I think they are playing with some of their extra featrues too. In some of the longer tail searches, the ordering is odd, and each result has the expandable for a map result and more results from that site. My entry page reports are showing wild things. I hope this settles down shortly as this is not in my favour at this time. I thought Vince was there to help Brands!
web designers ireland - http://www.bluestar.ie
i figured there was something rottem in denmark with the current feedback i’m getting from my rank checking software, but am happy for the most part as it has been benefitting me and my clients, but i guess its best to leave the dust settle