About the Latest Google Update (aka "Vince update") - as well as a Brief History of some of the Google Updates
Mid February this year people in the search industry spotted a change in how Google returned search results for certain types of keywords, a change giving "big brands" a push in Google search results. Following discussions on blogs and forums Matt Cutts (head of Google's Webspam team), on March 4th finally confirmed a change had been made. The update was dubbed the "Vince update" (no sorry, not a Vince Neil update)More on the "Vince update" later on and now a brief history of important updates of Google's search algorithm.
The "Florida Update"
On November 16th 2003 Google made a major update on their search algorithm. Named the "Florida update", it had a major effect for a very large number of websites at the time and came to change the course of search engine optimisation.
Aaron Wall from SEObook says: "The Google Florida update was the first update that made SEO complicated enough to where most people could not figure out how to do it. Before that update all you needed to do was buy and/or trade links with your target keyword in the link anchor text, and after enough repetition you stood a good chance of ranking."
Pre-Florida update prominent search engine ranking could be quite easily achieved by doing basic reciprocal link-building, on-page keyword stuffing, and using repetitive inbound anchor text in links.
Post-Florida update a huge number of pages, many of which had ranked at or near the top of the results for a very long time, simply disappeared from the search engine results altogether.
The "rel=nofollow tag Update"
In January 2005 Google contributed to changing the structure of the Internet when Google proposed a link rel=nofollow tag. Originally it was introduced to only stop blog spamming but was shortly afterwards also affecting link buying. In the eyes of Google you are considered a spammer, and risk getting penalised, if you were buying links without using rel=nofollow on them.
In a URL the tag looks like this: <a href="http://www.baseonesearch.co.uk" rel="nofollow">Base One Search</a>
Plenty of prominent websites have adopted the use of the nofollow tag, sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and most blog platforms support the tag in the comments section.
"By adding rel="nofollow" to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink SHOULD NOT be afforded any additional weight or ranking by user agents which perform link analysis upon web pages (e.g. search engines)." (http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow)
The "Universal Search Update"
In May 2007 Google launched their Universal search update. Universal search means that search engine results are blended with selected content from Google's "vertical search databases". The vertical search content is blended directly into the organic search results. Before the "Universal search" update Google gave a list of 10 text-based search engine results.
The "vertical search databases" Google blend into the organic search engine results are: News, Videos, Products, Maps, Images, Books & Blog posts
Today optimising your website for Universal search is important, (e.g. by adding alt-tags and keywords to your images, listing your business of Google Maps, creating videos and optimising title, description, tags etc.), you can increase your chances of achieving prominent search engine rankings.
The "Vince Update"
In October 2008 CEO of Google Eric Schmidt gave a hint of things to come, i.e. the "Vince update". In an interview he talked about "brands", he said:
"The internet is fast becoming a "cesspool" where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted." He continued: "Brands are the solution, not the problem," Mr. Schmidt said. "Brands are how you sort out the cesspool." "Brand affinity is clearly hard wired," he said. "It is so fundamental to human existence that it's not going away. It must have a genetic component." (http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=131569)
The "Vince update" has caused a bit of outcry in the search community because with the update it's believed (and proven) that Google is now favouring brands/corporations for core category keywords. Aaron Wall from SEObook in his blog post proved changes had been made in the search engine results, evidence big brands getting favoured. An example is in mid-January three major US airlines all of a sudden began getting top rankings for "airline tickets" (see below)
(http://www.rankpulse.com/airline-tickets)
Addressing it as a "minor change", Matt Cutts says the change is about factoring trust more into the algorithm for more generic queries rather than pushing major brands to top search engine results.
So does this latest Google "update" - "minor change" mean that big brands/corporations can take a back seat and receive top search engine rankings in Google by default? I think not, the "Vince update" may well be just a minor change. Google is continually tuning its algorithms to give most relevant results for users.
For navigational-type searches (aka research queries, "going through the front door in the shopping centre") such as cars, airline tickets etc. brand/corporation sites are maybe what searchers are looking for? In the above illustrated example, shouldn't there be a couple of airline companies in the results when you search for airline tickets?
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: About the Latest Google Update (aka "Vince update") - as well as a Brief History of some of the Google Updates.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.baseonesearch.co.uk/seoblogadmin/mt-tb.cgi/35
CATEGORY ARCHIVES
| + | Blogging |
| + | Domain Names |
| + | |
| + | Interviews |
| + | Just for Fun |
| + | Online PR |
| + | PPC |
| + | SEO |
| + | SEO Wars |
| + | Search Events |
| + | Search News |
| + | Social Media |
| + | Tools |
| + | Web Analytics |
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
| + | Chelsea Blacker (8) |
| + | Joseph Volcy (5) |
| + | Lisa Ditlefsen (8) |
| + | Mathias Ahlgren (5) |
| + | Rebecca Scott (3) |
| + | Sam Murray (5) |
MONTHLY ARCHIVES
| + | March 2009 (2) |
| + | February 2009 (3) |
| + | January 2009 (1) |
| + | December 2008 (2) |
| + | November 2008 (6) |
| + | October 2008 (6) |
| + | September 2008 (4) |
| + | August 2008 (5) |
| + | July 2008 (5) |
BLOGROLL
| + | SEO Chicks |
| + | Beyond |
Leave a comment