There has been lots of chatter on SEO blogs and forums the last two days about another Google rankings update. Sites with no or very thin content are ranking number one for some competitive search terms whereas quality sites that have always been on page one are nowhere to be seen.
Here’s a quick example, this site is in spot 8 on page 1 in google.com.au for the term viagra – http://www.sahajayoga.com.au/
When I looked, the word viagra appears nowhere in the source code. I wonder if the web site owner has noticed a big spike in traffic?
There is speculation that this is a glitch or a mistake, and the algorithm engineers have stuffed up because they are being dragged kicking and screaming into Google Plus engineering teams to take on the Facebook Taliban. In other words there are no Google grown-ups minding the search store.
The other conspiracy theory is that Google is trying to get more Adwords advertisers by making organic SEO too random, too unpredictable, just too freaking hard.
The risk that Google runs with these changes is that people who invest in organic SEO will shift their spend into other online mediums like Facebook or Linkedin advertising.
If your sites have been affected, the best advice is don’t panic. Yet 🙂
And if you are feeling angry, spend and extra hour on Facebook or Twitter today having a bitch about Google or switch to the fast, clean and relevant duckduckgo.com for all your search needs.
Remember back in the day when Google looked like duckduckgo does now? Lean, mean and useful.
This glitch will hopefully blow over in a week or so as Google realises the errors of its ways and puts the Panda in rehab.
