Google’s Guidance About The Recent Ranking Update via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google’s Danny Sullivan explained the recent update, addressing site recoveries and cautioning against making radical changes to improve rankings. He also offered advice for publishes whose rankings didn’t improve after the last update.

Google’s Still Improving The Algorithm

Danny said that Google is still working on their ranking algorithm, indicating that more changes (for the positive) are likely on the way. The main idea he was getting across is that they’re still trying to fill the gaps in surfacing high quality content from independent sites. Which is good because big brand sites don’t necessarily have the best answers.

He wrote:

“…the work to connect people with “a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content” is not done with this latest update. We’re continuing to look at this area and how to improve further with future updates.”

A Message To Those Who Were Left Behind

There was a message to those publishers whose work failed to recover with the latest update, to let them know that Google is still working to surface more of the independent content and that there may be relief on the next go.

Danny advised:

“…if you’re feeling confused about what to do in terms of rankings…if you know you’re producing great content for your readers…If you know you’re producing it, keep doing that…it’s to us to keep working on our systems to better reward it.”

Google Cautions Against “Improving” Sites

Something really interesting that he mentioned was a caution against trying to improve rankings of something that’s already on page one in order to rank even higher. Tweaking a site to get from position six or whatever to something higher has always been a risky thing to do for many reasons I won’t elaborate on here. But Danny’s warning increases the pressure to not just think twice before trying to optimize a page for search engines but to think three times and then some more.

Danny cautioned that sites that make it to the top of the SERPs should consider that a win and to let it ride instead of making changes right now in order to improve their rankings. The reason for that caution is that the search results continue to change and the implication is that changing a site now may negatively impact the rankings in a newly updated search index.

He wrote:

“If you’re showing in the top results for queries, that’s generally a sign that we really view your content well. Sometimes people then wonder how to move up a place or two. Rankings can and do change naturally over time. We recommend against making radical changes to try and move up a spot or two”

How Google Handled Feedback

There was also some light shed on what Google did with all the feedback they received from publishers who lost rankings. Danny wrote that the feedback and site examples he received was summarized, with examples, and sent to the search engineers for review. They continue to use that feedback for the next round of improvements.

He explained:

“I went through it all, by hand, to ensure all the sites who submitted were indeed heard. You were, and you continue to be. …I summarized all that feedback, pulling out some of the compelling examples of where our systems could do a better job, especially in terms of rewarding open web creators. Our search engineers have reviewed it and continue to review it, along with other feedback we receive, to see how we can make search better for everyone, including creators.”

Feedback Itself Didn’t Lead To Recovery

Danny also pointed out that sites that recovered their rankings did not do so because of they submitted feedback to Google. Danny wasn’t specific about this point but it conforms with previous statements about Google’s algorithms that they implement fixes at scale. So instead of saying, “Hey let’s fix the rankings of this one site” it’s more about figuring out if the problem is symptomatic of something widescale and how to change things for everybody with the same problem.

Danny wrote:

“No one who submitted, by the way, got some type of recovery in Search because they submitted. Our systems don’t work that way.”

That feedback didn’t lead to recovery but was used as data shouldn’t be surprising. Even as far back as the 2004 Florida Update Matt Cutts collected feedback from people, including myself, and I didn’t see a recovery for a false positive until everyone else also got back their rankings.

Takeaways

Google’s work on their algorithm is ongoing:
Google is continuing to tune its algorithms to improve its ability to rank high quality content, especially from smaller publishers. Danny Sullivan emphasized that this is an ongoing process.

What content creators should focus on:
Danny’s statement encouraged publishers to focus on consistently creating high quality content and not to focus on optimizing for algorithms. Focusing on quality should be the priority.

What should publishers do if their high-quality content isn’t yet rewarded with better rankings?
Publishers who are certain of the quality of their content are encouraged to hold steady and keep it coming because Google’s algorithms are still being refined.

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