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As you may know, Google has been putting out a monthly list of algorithm changes it has been making, as part of the company’s initiative to be “more transparent”. Google will never put out the entire secret sauce of its algorithm (without a court order, at least), so webmasters can at least be thankful that they’re being thrown a handful of bones in the form of a monthly list.
Have you seen effects from Google’s most recent algorithm changes? Let us know in the comments.
Some have apparently already been feeling the effects of Google’s algorithmic early this year. Webmasters were quick to point the finger at the old panda, but Google assures us that this is not the case. A spokesperson for the company told WebProNews there have been no Panda updates in 2012 so far (though I’d expect one to launch before too long).
By the way, now that 2011 is over, do you think Panda has done a good job at cleaning up search results?
In the latest edition of the series, on the company’s Inside Search Blog, they highlight 21 changes made in the month of December. The list goes as follows:
- Image Search landing page quality signals. [launch codename “simple”] This is an improvement that analyzes various landing page signals for Image Search. We want to make sure that not only are we showing you the most relevant images, but we are also linking to the highest quality source pages.
- More relevant sitelinks. [launch codename “concepts”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We improved our algorithm for picking sitelinks. The result is more relevant sitelinks; for example, we may show sitelinks specific to your metropolitan region, which you can control with your location setting.
- Soft 404 Detection. Web servers generally return the 404 status code when someone requests a page that doesn’t exist. However, some sites are configured to return other status codes, even though the page content might explain that the page was not found. We call these soft 404s (or “crypto” 404s) and they can be problematic for search engines because we aren’t sure if we should ignore the pages. This change is an improvement to how we detect soft 404s, especially in Russian, German and Spanish. For all you webmasters out there, the best practice is still to always use the correct response code.
- More accurate country-restricted searches. [launch codename “greencr”] On domains other than .com, users have the option to see only results from their particular country. This is a new algorithm that uses several signals to better determine where web documents are from, improving the accuracy of this feature.
- More rich snippets. We improved our process for detecting sites that qualify for shopping, recipe and review rich snippets. As a result, you should start seeing more sites with rich snippets in search results.
- Better infrastructure for autocomplete. This is an infrastructure change to improve how our autocomplete algorithm handles spelling corrections for query prefixes (the beginning part of a search).
- Better spam detection in Image Search. [launch codename “leaf”] This change improves our spam detection in Image Search by extending algorithms we already use for our main search results.
- Google Instant enhancements for Japanese. For languages that use non-Latin characters, many users use a special IME (Input Method Editor) to enter queries. This change works with browsers that are IME-aware to better handle Japanese queries in Google Instant.
- More accurate byline dates. [launch codename “foby”] We made a few improvements to how we determine what date to associate with a document. As a result, you’ll see more accurate dates annotating search results.
- Live results for NFL and college football. [project codename “Live Results”] We’ve added new live results for NFL.com and ESPN’s NCAA Football results. These results now provide the latest scores, schedules and standings for your favorite football teams.
- Improved dataset for related queries. We are now using an improved dataset on term relationships to find related queries. We sometimes include results for queries that are related to your original search, and this improvement leads to results from more relevant related queries.
- Related query improvements. [launch codename “lyndsy”] Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are related to the original query but have fewer words. We made several changes to our algorithms to make them more conservative and less likely to introduce results without query words.
- Better lyrics results. [launch codename “baschi”, project codename “Contra”] This change improves our result quality for lyrics searches.
- Tweak to +1 button on results page. As part of our continued effort to deliver a beautifully simple user experience across Google products, we’ve made a subtle tweak to how the +1 button appears on the results page. Now the +1 button will only appear when you hover over a result or when the result has already been +1’d.
- Better spell correction in Vietnamese. [project codename “Pho Viet”] We launched a new Vietnamese spelling model. This will help give more accurate spelling predictions for Vietnamese queries.
- Upcoming events at venues. We’ve improved the recently released places panel for event venues. For major venues, we now show up to three upcoming events on the right of the page. Try it for [staples center los angeles] or [paradise rock club boston].
- Improvements to image size signal. [launch codename “matter”] This is an improvement to how we use the size of images as a ranking signal in Image Search. With this change, you’ll tend to see images with larger full-size versions.
- Improved Hebrew synonyms. [launch codename “SweatNovember”, project codename “Synonyms”] This update refines how we handle Hebrew synonyms across multiple languages. Context matters a lot for translation, so this change prevents us from using translated synonyms that are not actually relevant to the query context.
- Safer searching. [launch codename “Hoengg”, project codename "SafeSearch"] We updated our SafeSearch tool to provide better filtering for certain queries when strict SafeSearch is enabled.
- Encrypted search available on new regional domains. Google now offers encrypted search by default on google.com for signed-in users, but it’s not the default on our other regional domains (eg: google.fr for France). Now users in the UK, Germany and France can opt in to encrypted search by navigating directly to an SSL version of Google Search on their respective regional domains: https://www.google.co.uk, https://www.google.de andhttps://www.google.fr.
- Faster mobile browsing. [launch codename “old possum”, project codename “Skip Redirect”] Many websites redirect smartphone users to another page that is optimized for smartphone browsers. This change uses the final smartphone destination url in our mobile search results, so you can bypass all the redirects and load the target page faster.
The image search landing page quality signal change is quite interesting. We ran a great article on optimizing for image search by Michael Gray last year, and that’s full of tips to consider for this less talked about element of SEO, but the adjustments, as unspecific as they may be, reflect Google’s Panda-style focus on quality in search results. This, to me, is saying they’re applying same kind of thinking they do with regular web search to other parts of Google, more than ever before.
Here’s the list of questions Google has presented in the past to consider asking yourself, when evaluating quality.
Note that “better spam detection for image search” is also on the list.
Also note the codenames used throughout the list. Most you probably won’t have to remember like Panda and Caffeine, but it’s still nice to have something to reference for the future.
With regards to the “more rich snippets” item on the list, you may want to check out the series of videos Google recently put out on how to do rich snippets.
Which changes do you think are the most significant? Is your site being helped or hurt by changes? Let us know in the comments.
“so webmasters can at least be thankful that they’re being thrown a handful of bones in the form of a monthly list.”
Webmasters want visitors, not nonsense they can’t act upon. These are not bones, you bonehead
G must officially and explicitly declare that anyone trying the short route by building spam links will get hit by panda, if not obliterated. This will prevent a lot of them building spam links, for they would know it is despised by google and a hit is inevitable. They must explicitly say that. All these updates they have been giving are something. And a wise fella once told me that something is better than nothing. So i can live with that … i think.
Crushing someone from spam links could lead to more link building to your site from competitors. Unfortunately it is too bloody difficult to tell one from the other via algorithm.
I’ve seen legitimate sites pick up tens of thousands of un-paid/un-solicited backlinks due to hacked websites simply scraping and re-publishing search results.
I like your sentiment but there’s an opportunity for a ton of collateral damage if implemented.
Well if we get good traffic then thats the best part of Search Optimization and Search Algorithm.
Nice list of SEO changes for Google.
I have seen the result of Panda and I think webmasters just have to focus that bit harder on original content and better SEO now.
Valuable information. I hope you keep publishing these updates.
It’s great that Google is providing us with more information. Google is obviously the number one search engine, so any announcement needs to be paid attention to and campaigns can be optimized based on these changes.
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for me panda looks bad thing from sides as webmaster and searches. now i catch myself what i cannot find information which i looking for at google. so much of wikipedia/gov sites which i not need really in search results.
for me as for webmaster – some my quality websites still getting only few hits, where unique high quality content here, and permanenet ‘network access error, dns issue’ error at gwt. but no downtime on my servers, and i not think what dns issues can be at enom pro.
also i think what google now start judging sites and not a real search engine anymore. spam is spam, but many quality websites affected.
Is there anyway to figure out the Google auto suggest algorithm? I have been looking for a code something similar.
So simple!
Just evaluate about 4 billion queries a day from your visitors, and look for correlations and similarities in terms. That will give you the suggestions to use in your algorithm.
Great information. Thanks for keeping us posted. Chris – you and your team do a great job of keeping us updated so I can quickly read your stuff then dig deeper as needed.
Now, to answer your question — while I am grateful that I have not seen drastic “affects” overall, I definitely always see fluctuations and have to adjust on a regular basis. It would be nice to keep track of Google’s updates but that simply is impossible since “Google will never put out the entire secret sauce of its algorithm”, as you mentioned.
Therefore, we must remain in the loop (read posts such as yours) but more importantly, always keep track of our own SEO strategy and updates. If we see a drop in rankings, then we must reassess our strategy and adjust. We must diversify our strategy. While that makes it more difficult to track strategy, we make less corrections going forward. Google is a great search engine so it is our responsibility to provide great websites, content, backlinks, etc…
I noticed more visitors coming to my sites through image searches. Do you think this is it? I checked the keywords with organic searches, I was nowhere but was among the first in image search.
By the way, I don’t think Google’s behavior is to be praised. I wish some search engine should dominate. Remember where Yahoo was before Google came in?
My site goes down…to zero(0)…before was ok…what can i do in this case ?
The problem is that Google is still easy to be fooled with fake, automated links.
The change in October really hit my main site hard, cutting off about 1/2 of search engine traffic. I have tried to make many changes that Google seems to be looking for, but so far only have a modest rebound in search traffic.
The biggest change that annoys me is Google’s approach to dates on pages. I find now that sites that have plagiarized or flat out copied my web pages show up before me in search results because they have more recent dates. Even obvious scraper sites now sometimes display first. I gave up fighting the scrapers a few years ago since it was too frustrating and time consuming and Google used to recognize those sites and bury them anyway. No longer it seems.
Also the following puzzles me:
• Improvements to image size signal. [launch codename "matter"] This is an improvement to how we use the size of images as a ranking signal in Image Search. With this change, you’ll tend to see images with larger full-size versions.
If you use Page Speed or YSlow to analyze your site one of the big things both tell you is to REDUCE your image size to one no large than what is needed on the page. I always used to upload a large image and use page html to reduce the display, arranging things so if the image was clicked on readers got the full size image to see. Now I guess I should take a different approach by uploading both a reduced image and a full size and linking the reduced image in the post to the stored full sized image???
To address the second question regarding image size, it is NOT a good idea to scale down an image with HTML. An alternative would be the scaled down image fit to the page which then launches the larger version when clicked upon (two separate images). Make sure your users know that the larger image may load slowly if they’re on dial-up.
Your first observation regarding publish date is more complicated. Google is having difficulty in many cases identifying an original source, hence it is a good idea to promote your pages immediately upon being published to initiate a crawl.
Also, always have absolute links embedded in your posts. Links may be preserved by some scrapers and this reinforces the original.
At this point you have cut my website income by half and it may go lower, I don’t know where it’s going to end up. This has come at a very bad time for me as I have been using this money to make ends meet. You have really hurt me.
Yes, I have noted changes, I rarely want to do a local search, yet have wade through junk in this area to find what I am looking for. We are in international company, yet Google sticks us in the Albany and San Diego search results drastically limiting our ability to reach new clients.
It stinks! I am smart enough to type Albany,NY after things I might want in this area, but they assume no one is that literate or that smart I guess.
I have gone from earning at least $2100 to $2500 a month in commissions to $287 this past month. Where do I find these new rules on their algorithm changes?
We were previously number one with google for our targeted keywords. Since panda, a copycat site that has completely plagiarised our site – and previously had no ranking – now appears ahead of our (genuine) website in search results. Three years of hard-earned google goodness gone, just like that. Thanks for the latest tips.
Yes as I noted in my comment above this is one of the most frustrating things!
Great information. Thanks for keeping us posted.
We used my science (I have a PHD in cooking!) to make money for Google by screwing independent webmasters and small businesses. You bastards don’t advertise on Google even when you make money so any traffic to you goes to waste from our perspective.
Thanks to Panda and other tweaks we made record profits and got record bonuses. Remember, thin and shallow content matters only if it’s on a non big-brand site.
Hmmm. “Food” for thought?
One thing I notice is that most of the praise for all the changes is by those who provide SEO etc. services. So ya good for them keeps them busy I guess.
As for us real companies we’re screwed. I myself don’t have the dollars to “WASTE” on SEO every month or so.
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Especificações:
Sistema de operação: Android v2.2
CPU: MediaTek MTK6516, 416MHz
Quad Band: GSM850/900/1800/1900MHZ
Dual sim standby dupla cartões
Tela: 3,3 polegadas touch screen de alta definição, QVGA, 320×480
Câmera: câmeras 2.0MP com luz de flash dual, colocar para fora o maior tamanho é 2048×1536
MP3 jogo de fundo, equalizador
Vídeo: 3GP, MP4, tela cheia, avançar e pausar
WIFI: 802.11b / g wireless internet
função AGPS
Suporte Java, pode instalar aplicativos
TV analógica gratuita suportada
Suporte de rádio FM
Bluetooth A2DP
Gravador de som, leitor de vídeo, alto-falante estéreo
Suporte MSN, Facebook, eBuddy, Google Maps
Suporte E-mail enviando e recebendo
Memória: RAM de 256M, 512M ROM, exend TF cartão de 16GB máximo
GPRS & WAP, MMS Transceive
U disco apoio função de manter o armazenamento de informações
Telefónicas: 1000 grupos de contatos, ringtone chamador apoio, retrato do chamador
Suporte de texto SMS, MMS Picture Messaging, servidor de correio de voz, transmissão de mensagens
Calendário poder ligar / desligar: apoio para iniciar / fechar em horário definido
Despertador: 5 grupos, despertador da sustentação quando a máquina fechado, pode definir a partir de segunda-feira a domingo
Jogos: apoio google android APK jogos
Mais informações: MP3/MP4/WAP/handfree/Bluetooth/SMS grupo enviando / GPRS download / MMS / Calendário / Caculator / Tarefas
/ Despertador / Mundo tempo / Conversor de Moedas / conversor da unidade / cronômetro de escrita / / Compass / E-book / memória estendida …
Tamanho: 109x58x13mm
Cor e Linguagem:
Cor: Preto
Idioma: Inglês, Espanhol, Português, Russo, Simplifiled chinês, tradicional Nota (chinês: se você precisar de alguma linguagem específica
diferente do Inglês, você deve deixar-nos uma mensagem quando você checkout)
Acessórios:
1 celular a 3000 sistema android
2 baterias
Um adaptador de energia
um fone de ouvido
Um cabo USB
celular
Especificações:
Sistema de operação: Android v2.2
CPU: MediaTek MTK6516, 416MHz
Quad Band: GSM850/900/1800/1900MHZ
Dual sim standby dupla cartões
Tela: 3,3 polegadas touch screen de alta definição, QVGA, 320×480
Câmera: câmeras 2.0MP com luz de flash dual, colocar para fora o maior tamanho é 2048×1536
MP3 jogo de fundo, equalizador
Vídeo: 3GP, MP4, tela cheia, avançar e pausar
WIFI: 802.11b / g wireless internet
função AGPS
Suporte Java, pode instalar aplicativos
TV analógica gratuita suportada
Suporte de rádio FM
Bluetooth A2DP
Gravador de som, leitor de vídeo, alto-falante estéreo
Suporte MSN, Facebook, eBuddy, Google Maps
Suporte E-mail enviando e recebendo
Memória: RAM de 256M, 512M ROM, exend TF cartão de 16GB máximo
GPRS & WAP, MMS Transceive
U disco apoio função de manter o armazenamento de informações
Telefónicas: 1000 grupos de contatos, ringtone chamador apoio, retrato do chamador
Suporte de texto SMS, MMS Picture Messaging, servidor de correio de voz, transmissão de mensagens
Calendário poder ligar / desligar: apoio para iniciar / fechar em horário definido
Despertador: 5 grupos, despertador da sustentação quando a máquina fechado, pode definir a partir de segunda-feira a domingo
Jogos: apoio google android APK jogos
Mais informações: MP3/MP4/WAP/handfree/Bluetooth/SMS grupo enviando / GPRS download / MMS / Calendário / Caculator / Tarefas
/ Despertador / Mundo tempo / Conversor de Moedas / conversor da unidade / cronômetro de escrita / / Compass / E-book / memória estendida …
Tamanho: 109x58x13mm
Cor e Linguagem:
Cor: Preto
Idioma: Inglês, Espanhol, Português, Russo, Simplifiled chinês, tradicional Nota (chinês: se você precisar de alguma linguagem específica
diferente do Inglês, você deve deixar-nos uma mensagem quando você checkout)
Acessórios:
1 celular a 3000 sistema android
2 baterias
Um adaptador de energia
um fone de ouvido
Um cabo USB
Celular MP10 Mini Hiphone com 2 Chips e TV
0
scrição
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Celular MP10 Quadriband Desbloqueado Dual Chip (aceita dois chips Simultaneamente) Câmera digital, Tela de 2.6 TFT Touchscreen,TV grátis assista TV e vídeos na vertical ou horizontal,Função Shake (basta balançar o aparelho para mudar de imagem e música).
TV analógica totalmente grátis.
Tela LCD 2.6″com resolução de 262 mil cores e resolução de 320 x 240 pixel.
Quadriband: funciona com todas as operadoras GSM OI, TIM, VIVO e CLARO.
Duall Sim; Suporta dois chips simultaneamente.
Visor Totalmente Touch Screen (todas as funções com toque direto no visor).
Mp3 Player: escute suas músicas preferidas através do fone de ouvido ou através do alto falante 3D embutido no aparelho de altíssima qualidade.
Mp4 Player: visualize vídeos com alta resolução tanto na vertical quanto na horizontal (tela cheia), o sistema de rotação automática faz a adaptação do vídeo automaticamente a posição em que o aparelho se encontra.
Radio FM.
Internet via conexão WAP.
Câmera digital 5.0 megapixels com resolução de 2560×1920 captura de vídeos e fotos.
E-book: reconhece textos no formato TXT (Bloco de Notas do Windows).
Acelerometer sensor: Rotação automática do visor dependendo da posição do aparelho.
Mensagem SMS, MMS, E-mail (através de conexão WAP).
Bluetooth
Jogos e aplicativos em formato Java
Cartão de memória não incluso
Calculadora
Despertador
Gravador de som
Gravador de TV.
Cronômetro
Relógio Mundial
Conversor de Unidades
Lista de Tarefas
*Imagens meramente ilustrativas.
DADOS TÉCNICOS
Dimensões Aproximadas: ( Altura x Largura x Espessura ) 8,7 x 4,9 x 1,2 cm.
Peso Aproximado: 400g.
ÍTENS INCLUSOS
Celular Mp10
Fone de ouvido
Carregador bi volt
Bateria de Lithium 2200mAH/4.2V
Cabo USB
The bombshell for us last week is that Google is now lumping all types of accommodation providers into one – so the 1st page of a search for ‘Pitlochry Bed & Breakfast’ is now full of big hotels instead of the little 2 & 3 roomed B&B’s which used to be there. This is bad for people searching – if you wanted a hotel you’d type ‘hotel’ – and will just irritate them. Google always used to be fair to the small B&B’s (kind of our equivalent of the “mom & pop” store) they could be on the first page if they put in the work updating their websites. A few are still there but the whole point of Google should be that it helps you find these small unknown B&B’s if that’s what you’re looking for. I make website for both hotels and B&B’s and have always deliberately avoiding using the string ‘B&B’ on hotel websites but they’re still there on the first page.
And it is not just in the accommodation business. The big operations, whether they are hotels or blogs, show up at the top of search results…. mixed in with all the scraper, plagiarizer, sites. The smaller operations are gone from the results.
On the one hand, we really do not have much to complain about. Google is a private business and has the right, I suppose, to highlight whatever works best for them in search results. It just does not seem fair, but them remember what your parents told you whenever you complained” “it’s not fair”?
1)I too rarely want local results – I live in and know my local area and specify it by name if I want a local search. Local results at the top whether or not I want them are most annoying.
2)Like a previous commentator, I do not want my types of accommodation all mixed up. I use search terms to define what I want and do not wish to wade through results outside those criteria.
Auto Generated Content Site still exist
Good news, i hope this New Google alogarihme more better, lets race again …. !!!