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The Link Authority Gap – How To Compare The Most Authoritative Links Between Websites Using Majestic Solo Links, Semrush Backlink Gap, and ahrefs Link Intersect

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Link Authority Gap

While helping companies that have been heavily impacted by Google’s broad core updates, the topic of “authority” comes up often. And that’s especially the case for companies that focus on “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topics. For example, sites that focus on health, medical, financial, etc. all fall under YMYL.

If you’ve read my posts about broad core updates, then you know that Google is taking many factors into account when evaluating sites (and over a long period of time). It’s one of the reasons I recommend taking the “kitchen sink” approach to remediation where you surface all potential issues impacting a site quality-wise, and work to fix them all (or at least as many as you can). For example, improving content quality, user experience, technical SEO problems causing quality problems, the site’s advertising setup, affiliate setup, and more.

And for sites that cover YMYL topics, it’s important to understand that they are held to a higher standard. Google wants to surface the most authoritative sites for sensitive queries (for topics that can impact the health, happiness, financial status, etc. of a user). And that’s one area where authority comes into play.

“Authority” can be a nebulous topic, so I’ll just focus on one aspect for this post – which are links. Danny Sullivan (pre-Google) actually wrote a good post about the subject where he interviewed Paul Haahr, distinguished engineer at Google. In that post, Danny explained how a mixture of factors are used to measure “authority”, with PageRank being the “original authority metric” (links from across the web). So links are not the only factor contributing to authority, but they are important. Instead, there’s a bucket of signals Google is using. By the way, Paul is one of the smartest guys at Google from a ranking perspective. I’ve always said that when Paul talks, SEOs should listen. :)

PageRank, the original authority metric.
Google calculating authority.

In addition, Google has explained that PageRank, or links from across the web, is one of the most well-known factors when evaluating authority. That’s from a whitepaper Google published about fighting disinformation across the web.

Google, PageRank, and E-A-T

Google also explained in the whitepaper that when it detects a YMYL query, then it gives more weight in its ranking system to factors like authoritativeness, expertise, and trust. So those links and mentions are even more important for YMYL queries/topics.

Google, PageRank, E-A-T, and YMYL

Going even further, Google’s Gary Illyes explained at Pubcon in 2017 that E-A-T is largely based on links and mentions from authoritative sites. Here is a tweet from Marie Haynes after Gary explained this at Pubcon:

But there’s more…. In 2020 Bill Slawski covered a super-interesting patent that discusses expertise and how Google might be categorizing sites to determine which set of sites should even be considered for ranking (for certain types of queries). By the way, that sure sounded a lot like what happened with the Medic Update in August of 2018 (when many health and medical sites saw extreme volatility). As part of that patent, E-A-T was mentioned with a focus on “authority” (which we know includes links and mentions from authoritative sites).

As you can see, links are important and can provide a strong signal to Google about the authoritativeness of a page and website. And as Gary Illyes once explained, that includes mentions on well-known sites (and not just links).

A Link Authority Gap Analysis: Comparing The Most Powerful Links Between Sites
Based on what I explained above, it can be important to understand where powerful links and mentions are coming from (both to your site and to your competitors). And that’s especially the case if you focus on YMYL topics. Therefore, I find it’s always interesting to compare link profiles, understand the differences in links from authoritative sites, and identify gaps in your own link profile in order to have a solid understanding of your current state.

The tough part for site owners is understanding that there’s no quick fix to a situation where your competitors have a clearly stronger link profile from an authority standpoint. You can’t just go out the next day and gain links from CNN, the CDC, The New York Times, and other authoritative sites. Note, as I explained earlier, rankings (and “authority) are not just about links, so this isn’t a binary rank-or-not-rank situation. But again, the right links can be a strong signal to Google about the authoritativeness of a piece of content, or a site overall.

For example, it’s not easy to earn links from the following domains…

Majestic Solo Links

Also, from a link earning perspective, you typically need to build a strong content strategy, social strategy, and possibly digital PR strategy to help earn links naturally over time. And that takes time… it’s not something you can do quickly (if done naturally). And if you find a large gap from a link authority standpoint, it’s definitely not a reason to spam every news publisher in the world to try and gain links. That typically won’t work well and could backfire big-time.

Peeling back a link profile to reveal “link authority gaps”:
In this post, I’m going to explain how to quickly surface the most authoritative links pointing to a competitor when those same sites don’t link to your own site. In other words, finding the authority gap between sites. The post isn’t about doing a deep dive into a link profile, which can also be beneficial. Instead, it’s focused on quickly identifying important gaps from an authority standpoint.

Again, this is a nuanced topic and just because one site has links from X domain doesn’t mean that’s why it is ranking above you. But, the link authority gap can give you a pretty good view of why a site may be seen as more authoritative than another. In addition, you can learn a lot about the type of content earning those links and possibly identify content gaps on your own site.

Below, I’ll cover how to run a quick link comparison using three tools:

Solo Links in Majestic:
I love Solo Links and it has definitely flown under the radar for a really long time. It compares the top 500 referring domains for two different websites (ordered by Majestic’s Trust Flow metric). I have found it to be a strong way to surface the most powerful domains linking to one site, and not another. And no, Google doesn’t use Trust Flow or any third-party metrics from the various tools. It’s just Majestic’s internal metric for estimating quality based on being closely linked to “trusted seed sites”.

Just enter the two domains you want to compare and click the magnifying glass. You’ll see a Venn digarm representing the overlap, and the gaps, between both sites. Below the Venn diagram, you’ll the referring domains listed, the number of links, and you have the ability to quickly view the links. For example, if you click the link count, you will see the actual links along with supporting information (like anchor text, if it’s nofollow, when it was first seen, etc.) It’s not perfect (no tool is), but it can sure get you moving in the right direction when trying to determine the link authority gap.

For example, here’s a gap analysis for a powerful site in the health niche compared to a smaller, less authoritative site. You can clearly see the differences in the Venn diagram and then in the referring domains list.

Solo links for health sites venn diagram
Solo links for health sites, referring domains

A quick note to Majestic:
Please add the ability to export all of the links in bulk and not just the domains. It would be great to simply click “export” and get all of that data in one shot. It’s a bit cumbersome now to get that data out of Solo Links since you can only export links for each domain and not all of the domains listed at one time…

Exporting in Majestic Solo Links

Backlink Gap in Semrush:
Similar to Solo Links, Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool enables you to enter up to five domains to start comparing link profiles. It doesn’t just focus on the top links, but the data is presented based on Semrush’s Authority Rank metric (AR). And just to reiterate, Google does NOT use AR or any other third-party metric when determining rankings… It’s just an Semrush-specific metric.

After entering at least two domains, you have options for viewing the links pointing to the competition, but not your site, or vice versa. Again, it’s not perfect, but can help you start to understand powerful links leading to your competitors that you don’t have.

Backlink Gap in Semrush

Note, the default view is to list the referring domains (without showing the links). To view the actual links leading to your competitor’s site, you can click the arrow to the right of the referring domain in the chart. It’s not the most intuitive way to find the links, but they are there. :)

Viewing links in Semrush Backlink Gap

Link Intersect in ahrefs:
Another tool that has flown somewhat under the radar is ahrefs Link Intersect Tool. It enables you to enter up to four competitor domains and view gaps in your own link profile (ordered by Domain Rank, a metric created by ahrefs). And once again, Google does not use any third-party metrics like Domain Rank, Authority Rank, Domain Authority, etc.)

Like the other tools I mentioned, the link intersect tool can shed some light on authoritative links pointing to the competition that you don’t have. For example, what are those sites linking to content-wise, do you have content like that on your own site, what can you build that’s even better than that, etc.?

To use the tool, simply enter a competitor’s domain (or several) and then your domain in the “but doesn’t link to” field. The tool will find links leading to the competition, but not to your site. The list of referring domains will be ordered by ahrefs Domain Rank. In order to view the actual links per referring domain, just click the number in the column for each competitor. You can see information about that link, including the anchor text, the url that’s linking to the site, whether the link is nofollow, if the link was found in the content, etc.

ahrefs Link Intersect Tool
Referring Domains in ahrefs Link Intersect Tool
Exporting links in ahrefs Link Intersect Tool

You can also export the list, but just like Majestic, you can’t export all links in one shot. You can just export the referring domains in one shot… So you’ll have to export links per referring domain, which can be tedious. So just like my note to Majestic, I have the same for Ahrefs! Please add the ability to export all links from the Link Intersect tool in one shot! That would be a great addition.

Exporting domains in ahrefs Link Intersect Tool

Tips and recommendations when evaluating the link authority gap:

  • “Authority” is Not binary: Links (PageRank) is just one factor. Sure, it’s an important factor, but just one. Google has explained it uses a bucket of signals to determine authority. While you are analyzing the link authority gap, just understand that the links alone might not be the reason a competitor is outranking you. It’s great to see the gap, and can be important for forming a long-term strategy to improve authority-wise, but it’s not a rank-or-not-rank situation.
  • Understand the Search competition versus just the competition: Make sure you are comparing to your actual competitors in Search (who you are competing within the search results) and not just which sites you think are the top competition (outside of Search). Your goal here is to understand the link authority gap between your site and sites outranking your for target queries.
  • Mine the gaps, create a plan: Identify gaps in your link profile from authoritative sites, understand the content that gained those links, determine if you have content covering those topics, and figure out ways to produce killer content that can earn links like that (or even better). Don’t just try to match what your competitors are doing. Try to outdo them.
  • Have patience… building authority is a long-term process: Understand that earning powerful links from authoritative sites is a long-term process. You cannot change the situation overnight… That might be frustrating, but it’s true. Understand what the competition is doing to earn those links, figure out gaps on your site, and build a killer content strategy to earn amazing links over the long-term. Once you start earning those links, you’ll appreciate that it takes time, since it can build a natural layer of protection for you (until others start going through the same process, put the work in, etc.)

Summary – Understanding the link authority gap can be enlightening, but you must execute.
By using the process I documented in this post, you can quickly start to understand the most authoritative sites linking to your competition that don’t link to your site. And that “link authority gap” can be important. But don’t stop once you uncover the gap. You need to execute based on your analysis in order to make an impact. So… what are you waiting for?? The data awaits.   

GG

How to identify ranking gaps in Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) SERP feature using Semrush

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When performing a competitive analysis, it’s smart to run a keyword gap analysis to determine the queries that competitors rank for that your site doesn’t rank for. It can often yield low-hanging fruit that your content team can execute on. As part of that process, it’s also smart to analyze Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) SERP feature for queries your site already ranks for, or doesn’t rank for (to determine what those additional queries are and which sites are ranking for them). I find this step is skipped often for some reason and it can also yield powerful findings that you can start to execute on quickly.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through the process of identifying ranking gaps in People Also Ask (PAA) using Semrush, which provides outstanding functionality for mining PAA data.

What we’re going to accomplish:
For this tutorial, I’m going to filter queries leading to a site by top ten rankings and then layer a secondary filter for surfacing queries where a People Also Ask module also ranks (but the site doesn’t rank in the default PAA listings). In other words, you rank in the top ten, but you don’t have content ranking in PAA for those queries for some reason. I’ve found that can yield very interesting findings that sites can execute on pretty quickly.

For example, in the screenshot below, a site ranks in the top ten for 3,359 queries when it also does not rank in the default People Also Ask (PAA) module:

Viewing Google ranking gaps in people also ask via semrush.

Step-by-step instructions for identifying PAA gaps via Semrush:

1. First, fire up Semrush and enter the domain name you want to analyze.

Enter domain name in semrush.

2. Access the Organic Research reporting.
Click Organic Research in the left-side navigation, which will bring us to a powerful set of features for analyzing the search performance of the domain, subdomain, directory, or url you enter.

Viewing Organic Research reporting in Semrush.

3. View all rankings for the domain via the Positions tab.
Click the Positions tab, which will yield all queries that a site ranks for in the top 100 listings (based on Semrush data).

Viewing the positions tab in Organic Research in Semrush.

4. Filter by top ten results:
Next, we are going to filter the results by queries where the site ranks in the top ten (so these are queries where the site ranks very well already, but might not have content that ranks in People Also Ask). I’ll cover the second part of this step next, but start by filtering by queries ranking in the top ten by clicking the Positions tab and then selecting Top 10.

Filter by top ten rankings in Semrush.

5. Layer a secondary filter for PAA:
To complete this step, we want queries ranking in the top ten, but where the site doesn’t rank in People Also Ask (PAA), which can provide a great opportunity to fill gaps content-wise. To view these queries, click “SERP features”, then “Domain doesn’t rank in” and then select “People Also Ask”.

Add a filter for when a site doesn't rank in people also ask via Semrush.

6. Analyze the data:
Now that you have two filters selected, you will be presented with all of the queries where the site ranks in the top ten but doesn’t rank in the default PAA module. When you scan the list, definitely spot-check the live search results to see which questions are listed in People Also Ask, which sites are ranking there, the content ranking for those queries, etc. Again, you can identify content gaps, format gaps (like video), and more. It’s a quick way to help your content team identify opportunities (and some gaps you find might lead you to face-palm). :)

Final report showing ranking gaps in People Also Ask via Semrush.

7. Export the data:
You can always export the results if you want to use that data in other programs like Excel. You can export the data in Excel or CSV format.

Export ranking data in Semrush.

And there you have it. A quick and easy way to identify ranking gaps in PAA via Semrush. It only takes a few minutes to run, and you’ll have a boatload of PAA data to go through (where your site ranks, but not in PAA). By the way, if you’re looking for other posts I’ve written about Semrush tools, then check out The Link Authority Gap which shows you how to compare the most authoritative links between websites.

PAA Gaps – Final tips and recommendations:
Before I end the tutorial, here are some final notes and recommendations based on helping clients go through this process over time. Semrush is like a Swiss Army Knife for SEO research, so make sure you are getting the most of out the tool.

  • Live graphs – Remember that the graphs in Semrush are live graphs, so they change based on the filters you select. Therefore, you can see trending over time for ranking (or not ranking) in PAA when you already rank well in the organic search results. It’s a cool way to visually see your progress.
  • Advanced filtering – Use advanced filtering in Semrush to fine-tune your analysis. For example, combine filters like search volume, keywords, directory, subdomain, urls, etc. You can filter the data multiple ways in Semrush (and combine those filters for advanced reporting). Play around there… you might find some great combinations that surface important data.
  • PAA by country – Run this analysis by country! Just change the country you are analyzing in the reporting, and voila, you have a fresh set of queries where your site doesn’t rank in PAA.
  • By device – Be sure to check both mobile and desktop data. Similar to country, just select desktop versus mobile in the filters to see each resulting dataset. You might find some differences there.
  • Spot check the results – Make sure you are spot-checking the actual SERPs. PAA can obviously change (and Semrush isn’t always perfect), so make sure you really aren’t ranking in PAA for those queries. Then form a plan of attack once you identify the gaps.
  • PAA formats – Keep an eye on the format of content ranking in People Also Ask. As I mentioned earlier, video could be ranking there as well. Understand the types of content Google is ranking based on query and choose the right formats for the job.
  • View historical rankings – You can easily change the dates via Semrush! For example, you can look back in history and run this analysis for previous months. Have you improved, declined, or remained stable? How has Google changed with regard to PAA for those queries?

Summary: Identifying PAA Gaps Via Semrush can be powerful.
It’s hard to overlook People Also Ask when an analyzing the SERPs and the feature often contains important questions that people are searching for based on the original query. By using the process I detailed in this tutorial, you can surface and export queries where your site already ranks in the top ten search results, but doesn’t rank in PAA. In my opinion, it’s a great way to identify low-hanging fruit that your content team can dig into quickly. You never know, you might find some quick wins… or many of them. Have fun.

GG

What happens to crawling and Google search rankings when 67% of a site’s indexed urls are pagination? [SEO Case Study]

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There has been a lot of confusion and debate over the years about how to best handle pagination from an SEO perspective. It doesn’t help that Google changed on this front, which has led to even more confusion about the best path forward. For example, Google announced in March of 2019 that it stopped supporting rel next/prev for consolidating indexing properties from across a paginated set (and… it realized that was the case for years – just nobody knew).

That shocked many in the SEO community and had site owners and SEOs wondering which was the best way to handle pagination moving forward (if changes were needed at all!) For example, should pagination be indexable, should site owners use “noindex, follow” instead, or should they just canonicalize pagination to page one in the series? Since pagination is present on so many different types of sites, and can lead to a large number of additional pages on a site, site owners and SEOs wanted to address the situation the best they could.

But is that important? Will choosing the wrong path cause serious problems SEO-wise? And what if a majority of your pages indexed are pagination? These are all good questions and I hope this case study will provide at least a few answers based on a client I’m helping with a lot of pagination (comprising 67% of indexed pages). Yes, 67%.

So, did this cause big problems SEO-wise, is Google spending too much of its time crawling pagination that it’s missing fresher, more important content, and are rankings being impacted (GASP)?? Let’s begin.

Google’s stance on handling pagination over the years:
Since I’ve helped many large-scale sites over time with a lot of pagination, I’ve been able to see (and experience) the evolution of how Google handles that pagination. That experience led to me writing a blog post covering how to set up pagination for SEO, which contains all of the latest updates and announcements from Google. And there are several updates I’ve had to cover…

Back in 2012, Google’s Maile Ohye published an outstanding video covering SEO best practices when providing pagination. In that video, Maile explained the various ways you can set up pagination based on content type, including articles split into multiple pages and category pagination (like for e-commerce retailers). In that video she also explained how to use rel next/prev to consolidate indexing properties from across a paginated set. The blueprint that Maile mapped out in that video became the foundation for setting up pagination SEO-wise, and I often referenced that video in my audits, posts, and presentations.

Here is a screenshot from Maile Ohye’s video from 2012 explaining more about rel next/prev for pagination. Note, rel next/prev is not supported anymore for consolidating indexing properties across pagination. More about that next:

Former Googler Maile Ohye's video covering pagination SEO best practices.

Google Nukes rel next/prev (and nobody noticed):
As I mentioned earlier, in 2019 Google dropped a bomb on SEOs and explained that it doesn’t support using rel next/prev anymore to consolidate indexing properties from across a paginated set. And to add insult to injury, they also explained this had been the case for years! It’s worth noting that it’s still good to use rel next/prev for accessibility purposes, but it will have no effect SEO-wise.

As you can guess, SEOs went ballistic (although I think it’s fair to say we’re happy that they told us!) Google realized this out after checking some of its systems and noticed rel next/prev wasn’t being used for indexing and ranking purposes. Whoops.

Google's John Mueller explaining rel next/prev isn't supported anymore.

As someone that has helped many companies set up rel next/prev when using pagination, that last point got me thinking… If rel next/prev hadn’t been used for years by Google, and the companies I’ve been helping didn’t even notice that Google stopped supporting it (rankings were unaffected), then maybe Google was pretty darn good at handling pagination.

In other words, maybe we were getting all bent out of shape for no reason. Again, the clients I helped that had a lot of pagination didn’t see any major movement or drops based on Google removing support for rel next/prev. And that also matches what Google’s John Mueller has been explaining for a while. Heck, he even explained that in the tweet thread from 2019. For example, he said “most seem to be doing pagination in reasonable ways that work…” I’ll cover more about John’s recommendations next.

Google's John Mueller explaining that most sites are doing pagination in reasonable ways.

Google’s John Mueller Peppered With Questions About Pagination:
Ever since Google stopped using rel next/prev to consolidate indexing properties, Google’s John Mueller has been asked many questions about the best way to set up pagination. And John has provided some great advice in his Search Central Hangout videos.

John explained that Google has a lot of experience dealing with pagination (as long as it can identify pagination easily). And since it has a lot of experience dealing with pagination, it really shouldn’t have a big impact on a site SEO-wise. It can just “work”.

Also, John often explains the differences between splitting article content into multiple pages and having category pages that contain pagination (listing pages that lead to other urls). Those are two very different scenarios and can be handled differently from a pagination standpoint, if needed.

He has also explained that for category pagination (like an e-commerce category page), you can have all of the pages indexable (which is preferable), you can use “noindex, follow”, or you can even canonicalize to page one in the pagination. It really depends on how well your content is crosslinked, how important the pagination is for discovery, for passing of signals, etc. You can read my post about pagination to see the latest updates from Google about this.

Here is one of John’s latest videos about setting up pagination covering most of what I just explained (at 13:16 in the video):

It’s also worth noting that Google just published some outstanding best practices for e-commerce SEO (where they cover how to handle pagination as well). In that document, they explain to provide self-referencing canonical tags for each page in the pagination (and avoid canonicalizing to page one in the series). That means all pagination should be indexable.

ecommerce best practices for pagination from Google

Warning: Nuance Ahead! -Two important points for SEOs and site owners about handling pagination:
As with most things in SEO, there is nuance involved with handling pagination. First, the size of your site is important since you don’t want too much pagination to hamper crawl budget. As John explained, if you don’t have hundreds of thousands of pages (or more), then you shouldn’t really have to worry about pagination impacting crawl budget. But if you do have that many pages, then it’s important to make sure Google is focusing crawling on your most important pages. And that might lead to handling pagination differently across a site. More on crawl budget soon in the case study below.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that I’m a firm believer you shouldn’t have excessive pagination per sequence. For example, I would avoid providing thousands of pages of pagination per paginated set (like one category with thousands of pages of pagination). I think it’s fine to have many paginated sets (if needed), but I would only provide a reasonable number of pages per set (which would be based on your site, content, etc.) That number can vary per site, but I wouldn’t overload your pagination with thousands of pages per sequence. I would do what’s best for users and search engines.

For example, here’s a site with close to 3,700 pages of pagination in one category…

Excessive pagination per set.

The Case Study: Background information, pagination setup, and indexing levels.
The site I’m covering in this case study has a crawl footprint of about 200K pages (between indexed and excluded urls). I can’t go into too much detail about what the client focuses on, but you can think of them as a site that provides a wealth of information about categories, organizations, products, and reviews of those products. There is also a blog on the site containing in-depth content focused on their niche.

From a pagination standpoint, there is quite a bit of it across the site. That’s primarily on the category, organization, and review pages. Since there are many products and reviews that aren’t crosslinked well on the site (based on how the business operates), the pagination is important for discovery (for Googlebot and for users). For that reason, we definitely wanted to make sure the pagination was indexable and that Google could follow the links on the paginated urls to the product pages, the review pages, etc.

I’ve been helping this company for a long time and helped them craft their pagination strategy as far back as 2012. They have been using the approach that Maile Ohye described in the video I covered earlier. That’s where each page in the pagination contains self-referencing canonical tags, contained rel next/prev (now deprecated), and provided a strong text navigation to the paginated series at the bottom of each page. Remember, this was the recommended setup for a long time. The site has had this set up for years… and you can learn more about that setup in my post about setting up pagination.

Paginated urls using self-referencing canonical tags.

Indexing Levels: Holy pagination Batman!
Based on how much pagination is on the site, it is currently a large percentage of indexed urls. To be specific, the pagination makes up 67% of total indexed pages. Yes, more than two-thirds of indexed urls are pagination! The horror!! :)

Number of paginated urls indexed.
Total indexing in GSC's Coverage reporting.

These are not necessarily pages that we want to rank in the SERPs (other than the first page in the set), but we definitely want Google to discover all of the destination pages from the pagination. And remember, rel next/prev was supposed to take care of that for us by consolidating indexing properties from across the paginated set and (usually) surfacing the first page from the set in the SERPs. That’s not supported anymore as I covered earlier. More on rankings soon.

Crawl Budget and Crawl Stats
With that many paginated pages on the site being indexed, what do crawl stats look like? Is Googlebot churning through many paginated pages and missing important, fresher pages?

First, crawl budget is really only something that larger-scale sites need to worry about. For example, Google states that sites with 1M+ unique urls or medium-sized sites with 10K unique urls with “rapidly changing content” need to worry about crawl budget.  This site has 18.6K urls indexed and a total crawl footprint of under 200K urls. So, it’s not a small site, but not huge either.  

In addition, it’s important to understand that all pages are not crawled with the same frequency (based on importance). Google’s John Mueller has explained this point many times over the years. So, although there might be a lot of pagination on the site, that doesn’t mean Google will continually crawl all of that pagination instead of your fresher (or more important) content.

Here is John explaining this (at 12:42 in the video):

The site’s new content does get crawled relatively quickly. In addition, checking the crawl stats reporting, you can see that fresher content being crawled recently and pagination does not overwhelm the reporting. So despite the site having 67% of its indexed pages being pagination, it’s fine from a crawl budget and crawl stats perspective (in my opinion). That makes sense based on what Google has explained over the years about crawl budget.

Performance over time. How does trending look?
OK, this is where the rubber hits the road. Is having that much pagination indexed impacting rankings or organic search performance at all?

In a word, nope.

The site’s performance has been extremely stable over years (and through a number of broad core updates). They have seen strong growth over the long-term as well (especially from 2012 when I first started helping them).

Here is the past 16 months of trending from GSC:

Stable trending from Google organic search despite many paginated urls indexed.

Here is search visibility trending over the past two years:

Stable visibility trending despite having many paginated urls indexed.

And here is search visibility trending since 2012:

Strong visibility growth over time despite many paginated urls indexed.

How about pagination ranking in the search results (beyond page one)? Are paginated pages being surfaced in the SERPs and driving traffic?
No, not really. It accounts for a very small percentage of traffic from Google Search. For example, over the past three months, there have been 1.62M clicks from Google web search. Pagination accounted for just five thousand of those clicks.

Pagination accounts for just .3% of total clicks from Google Search over the past 3 months:

Clicks from Google Search to paginated urls.

I think the most important thing to remember for this site is that the various “product” pages aren’t being linked to sufficiently from other areas of the site (based on the company’s business model and how the site needs to be set up). So, the pagination is important for making sure Googlebot can get to many of those destination urls. And that’s why it’s important to make sure the pagination is indexable, that it uses self-referencing canonicals, etc.

Final tips and recommendations for sites with a lot of pagination:
So there you have it. A site with 67% of its indexed urls being pagination and it’s chugging along just fine in the SERPs. I’m not saying this approach is what every site should use, but just like Google’s John Mueller has explained many times, Google has a lot of experience handling pagination. It often just works… To end this post, I’ve provided some final tips and recommendations for sites dealing with a lot of pagination.

  • Pagination setup: Setup-wise, you have several methods at your disposal for handling pagination. The path you choose depends on the type of content you are dealing with and your internal linking structure. See my recommendations above about content split across multiple pages versus listing pages (like categories), and how well those destination pages are linked across the site.
  • Indexable vs. Non-indexable: It’s important to understand that if you noindex pagination, then links on those pages can be dropped by Google over time. So if you want to make sure Google is finding those destination urls via the pagination (and passing signals), I would have the pagination indexable. As this case study showed, it can work very well.
  • Canonicalizing Pagination: If you are canonicalizing all pagination to the first page in the series, it’s important to understand that rel canonical is just a hint for Google. It can still choose to index certain pages if it believes that’s the right thing to do. I have covered this in several blog posts over the years. Don’t assume canonicalized pages are actually being canonicalized. This is one reason I’m not a huge fan of canonicalizing pagination to the root page in the set.
  • Crawl Stats and Log Files: Don’t just check indexing levels. I would check the crawl stats reporting in GSC as well (and log files if you can get them). As I covered earlier in this post, not all pages are crawled with the same frequency. Google can crawl certain urls on your site more frequently based on crawl demand. That means pagination might not be crawled as much as your homepage, important category pages, product pages, etc. Don’t assume that high indexing levels for pagination means there’s a problem. It could be totally fine.
  • Tracking Performance: Make sure you track all of this over time and determine if pagination is causing issues SEO-wise (which I doubt for most cases). Again, Google can handle pagination very well and has a lot of experience doing that (as long as it can identify the pagination easily). Using pagination when it’s necessary is fine (and can be good). I would worry more about the number of paginated pages per set than the total number of paginated pages that are indexed on the site. Like I said earlier, make sure your pagination makes sense for both users and for search engines.
  • Google’s Recommendations: Finally, listen to Google’s John Mueller and read Google’s documentation. Google has a lot of experience handling pagination across sites, and it can often just “work”. I recommend implementing a pagination solution based on your own situation, analyze that setup over time, and make sure it’s working for you.

Summary – Yes, your site can be fine SEO-wise with a lot of pagination indexed.
If you are dealing with a lot of pagination across your site, I hope this case study was helpful. I know there’s been a lot of confusion over the years about pagination and SEO, and especially since Google nuked rel next/prev in 2019. As I explained in this post, Google has a long history of handling pagination and it typically will not cause many problems across a site rankings-wise (as long as it’s set up properly). The approach you take really comes down to your own site, the type of content, and the internal linking structure. And if you end up having a lot of pagination indexed, then so be it. As this case study proved, it can work out just fine for you.

GG

The short and long-term ranking impact of removing long and fluff e-commerce category descriptions [Case Study]

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ecommerce category description case study

Imagine the following scenario… Excited about buying a new house, you decide to browse for a new kitchen table. So you fire up Google and start searching. You end up clicking through a search listing to view modern kitchen tables and land on the category page of an e-commerce site. But before you start to view all of the great tables they have, you are presented with multiple lengthy paragraphs of content.

As you scroll and scan the description (if you even choose to do that), you notice that the copy is long and doesn’t really help you at all. It’s basically fluff content. For example, maybe it contains the history of modern kitchen tables or maybe it tells you all of the reasons you must have a modern kitchen table (while mentioning different types of modern kitchen tables four or five times). Frustrated, you quickly scroll to get to the actual products.

All of us have come across this situation (and across different types of e-commerce sites). But do we have to? Is it necessary for e-commerce sites to provide long and excessive descriptions that most people won’t even read? And can you rank well without those longer fluff descriptions? That’s a question that many SEOs and site owners must consider while crafting e-commerce category pages and the topic I’m covering in this case study.

If possible, I recommend reading this post from beginning to end to understand the history of the situation, the multiphase approach the site owners employed, the short and long-term impact, and more. But if you are short on time (pun intended), then here’s a table of contents so you can jump around the case study.

Case Study Table of Contents:

The e-Commerce Description Conundrum:
While helping e-commerce companies deal with major algorithm updates, and analyzing some sites with long and excessive descriptions, it’s clear that some site owners believe those long descriptions help those pages rank well (or are a key part of helping those pages rank well). Therefore, my feedback about the long and questionable descriptions is something that they might make note of, talk about with their teams, and possibly even brainstorm solutions for improving, but never move on. The fear of losing rankings because of removing long and fluff descriptions is enough to keep those descriptions in place (and sometimes for a very long time).

I get it, change in SEO (especially when the competition is consistently using a certain approach) is tough to deal with and implement. But, frustrating users and potentially sending mixed signals to Google about the core intent of a page could also hinder your efforts. To make things even more risky, you have short-term ranking changes to worry about, but then you have broad core updates to worry about. And those only roll out three to four times per year.

To make matters more complex, it’s also important to understand that short-term testing will not always tell you what a broad core update will bring. I’ve covered that several times in my posts about broad core updates, and Google has also explained that testing just a subset of pages is not enough for their algorithms to determine that site quality has improved enough (if you are working on improving quality overall). So, just tinkering with a few category pages will not reveal what a broad core update could roll in…

Here is Google’s John Mueller explaining this: (at 11:41 in the video)

The Case Study:
Below, I’m going to cover a case study of an e-commerce site I helped over time that struggled during several major algorithm updates years ago and finally decided to address their lengthy and excessive descriptions on category pages. And in their place, they added much shorter descriptions that better fit their products, users, and niche overall.

This change was a long time in the making, since I initially brought this up to them several years ago (2015). Being cautious, they took a multi-phase approach (over years) moving from long and fluff category descriptions (that weren’t really valuable for users) to shorter, tighter descriptions that fit their product line and users much better. So, I have data from the short-term changes they implemented, and data over the long-term.

My hope is that this case study can get your wheels spinning about the best possible e-commerce category pages you can provide to prospective customers. And to be clear, that might include longer descriptions, or it might not. It really depends on what your research and testing yields. That’s a good segue to an important disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying every site should nuke or replace their long descriptions and I’ll cover the various nuances in this post. But, I do think every site owner should review their category page content, understand what real users want to see, provide the best experience possible, while obviously trying to rank well in the search results. This case is a good example of a site owner taking a multi-phase approach to refining category descriptions over several years and those changes paying off. Read on.

Jumping Back in History: When long category descriptions roamed the site.
Again, the company reached out to me for help after seeing its fair share of volatility during major algorithm updates. They initially reached out to me in 2015 and I heavily analyzed the site (with the goal of using a “kitchen sink” approach to remediation). That’s where my goal is to surface every potential issue that could be impacting the site from a quality standpoint and then site owners working hard to implement as many of those recommendations as possible.

One glaring finding was about their e-commerce category pages. The pages had lengthy (and excessive) descriptions at the top of the page before the actual products were presented. The descriptions were multiple paragraphs long and didn’t really help users.

Also, the descriptions weren’t displayed in full by default. The first paragraph was shown with a “read more” link that would trigger the full content block. I found that strange since the content was supposed to help users (but most of it was being hidden on-load). Also, this was before mobile-first indexing, so hidden content was not given full weight from a ranking perspective. I’ll cover more about that next.

Here is a mockup of what the category descriptions looked like in 2015:
One paragraph on-load with a “read-more” link revealing several paragraphs:

Long e-commerce category descriptions hidden behind "read more" link.

Long description displayed once the “read more” button is clicked:

Expanding long e-commerce category descriptions via a "read more" link.

The Desktopian Era: Before mobile-first indexing.
Before I go any further, it’s important to remember that this was before mobile-first indexing was a thing. So, any content hidden on-load was not given full weight from a ranking perspective. I explained to my client that the hidden content in each description was (probably) not given full weight, along with other key points about what Google had been explaining about e-commerce category pages that contained lengthy, fluff descriptions.

For example, John Mueller has explained many times that e-commerce sites don’t need to add lengthy descriptions in order to rank well. Instead, he said it is important to add some textual content so Google can have context about what the page is about, but that writing a book about the category can actually confuse Google’s algorithms.

In other words, if you provide a lot of informational content about a category, along with product listings, Google’s algorithms can start to wonder if the page is informational or transactional. i.e. Are you selling products or are you providing the history of the category? John has also mentioned the danger of keyword stuffing when you add really long descriptions to e-commerce category pages.

Here are two clips from Google’s John Mueller about e-commerce category pages:
Watch the entire clip. There are some great nuggets of information from John: (at 29:25 in the video)

In this second video, John explains how site owners should focus on providing informative content and place it where users will actually see it. He also covers alt text, captions, and headings: (at 7:18 in the video)

So, the implementation of lengthy (and mostly hidden) category descriptions in 2015 could have been a UX barrier (frustrating users) without much ranking benefit (since the descriptions were mostly hidden). And if Google did take that content into account, it could have been confusing Google about the core point of the page. These were all important things to consider before implementing changes.

Phase One: e-commerce category descriptions refined.
After surfacing many of the e-commerce category descriptions that were long and not extremely valuable, the site owners decided to take action and implement some changes. But, they wanted to test the waters by using a multi-phase approach to changing the descriptions.

They first cut down the descriptions and made them all readable on-load (without needing to click a “read more” button). The new descriptions were about 30% shorter and supported the category better than the longer, fluff descriptions that were replaced.

Shorter e-commerce category descriptions visible on-load.

Their hope was that this change, along with many others they were implementing across the site, would help with Google’s evaluation of quality over the long-term. So even a short-term drop would be ok if the site performed better over the long-term. Now it was time to see how Google would react.

The short-term impact: All clear on the ranking front.
Nothing really changed immediately following the first description change, which was good. The pages still ranked where they were, so it seemed removing all of that extra content didn’t impact the short-term rankings for the pages (or site). Phase one was complete.

Here are some ranking graphs from that timeframe for head terms leading to category urls. Note the site moved to https in 2016 so you will see the http urls switch to https in the graphs below (green to blue). Rankings for the category pages held steady through the description changes and the move to https:

Ranking impact for a page with shorter e-commerce category descriptions.
Ranking impact for another key page with shorter e-commerce category descriptions.
Ranking impact for a third category page with shorter e-commerce descriptions.

Phase Two: Hide the shorter descriptions.
The next phase was implemented when the site was redesigned the following year. The site owners decided to hide the shorter descriptions behind a “read more” link. And to clarify, the entire description was hidden behind the link (on both desktop and mobile). As you can probably guess, I wasn’t a big fan of this approach. If you have descriptions that are helpful for users, then I think you should provide them on the page by default (especially on desktop). If not, then refine that content so it can be displayed on-load. To clarify, it’s fine on mobile to collapse some of the content behind a UI element, if needed, but the entire description shouldn’t be hidden in my opinion.

Also, the site had not been switched to mobile-first indexing yet, so the content should not have been given full weight from a ranking perspective. My recommendation was to implement changes there and provide more of that description on-load (and to possibly cut down those descriptions even more). The site owners totally understood and said they would figure something out to improve the situation.

Shorter descriptions fully hidden on-load behind a “read more” button:

Fully hiding a shorter e-commerce category description behind a "read more" link,

Shorter descriptions displayed after the “read more” button was clicked:

Revealing the shorter e-commerce category description after clicking a "read more" link.

Note, rankings did not change much when the descriptions were hidden. So, it seems that change didn’t really impact much rankings-wise.

Here are rankings for some head terms leading to those category pages when phase two was implemented:

Ranking impact of hiding an e-commerce category description behind a "read more" link.
Ranking impact for another category page after hiding a description behind a "read more" link.
Ranking impact for a third e-commerce category page after hiding a description behind a "read more" link.

So far I’ve covered the short-term impact of the description changes, but Google pushes broad core updates several times per year (and they can clearly have a huge impact on sites across the web). Well, a broad core update rolled out in March of 2019 and it was a big one for the site. I’ll cover that next.

March 2019 Broad Core update: Boom, the site surged, and so did many of those pages.
When the March 2019 broad core update rolled out, the site surged overall (and so did many of those pages). It was amazing to see. Now, broad core updates can often impact a site overall (and increase rankings across many pages). That’s due to Google’s site-level quality signals. And as I’ve covered in my posts about broad core updates, Google is evaluating many factors over time and is reevaluating site quality and relevance with broad core updates. It was just interesting to see the site surge, and those category pages jump in rankings.

And, removing 30% of the description content from the original implementation clearly didn’t hurt those pages long-term. Actually, the description content was better for users with more relevant information. Also, by the time the March 2019 core update rolled out, the site had been moved to mobile-first indexing (so the content hidden on-load was given full weight). So the descriptions being hidden behind a “read more” button were given full weight after the move to mobile-first indexing.

Here are some of the increases for category pages during the March 2019 broad core update (head terms that lead to those category pages increasing in rankings based on the update):

Ranking changes for e-commerce category pages based on the March 2019 broad core update.

Phase Three: Biting the bullet with concise descriptions.
In the final phase of category description changes, the site owners decided to go even further and cut down the descriptions to just a few helpful sentences and provide all of that content on-load (without forcing the user to reveal the description). And in my opinion, it was a much better fit for users, the niche, the categories, etc. You can see below they provided just a short paragraph on each page without hiding the description at all.

Providing concise e-commerce category descriptions that are visible be default.

This change was implemented in late 2019 and the site has done extremely well since then. And those category pages are also doing extremely well. It was also interesting to see the site’s search visibility surge with the July 2021 core update. So, clearly those new, shorter category descriptions aren’t hurting the site or rankings for those pages.

Many of the category pages rank on page one, with a number of them in the top five listings, and several key category pages are ranking number one in the search results. Again, it’s great to see an improved category page with shorter, but more valuable descriptions, working well. They didn’t need to write a book about the category… they just needed enough content to meet or exceed user expectations (and to give Google enough signals about what the pages were about).

Here is search visibility trending when filtering by category pages on the site. There was a big surge during the December 2020 core update and then more during the July 2021 core update:

The search visibility impact for e-commerce category pages during the December 2020 and July 2021 broad core updates.

Final tips and recommendations for e-commerce retailers:
Now that I’ve covered the case study, I wanted to end with some final tips and recommendations for e-commerce retailers. Note, there’s not a “one size fits all” approach when it comes to e-commerce category descriptions. I would use a logical process for implementing changes across your category pages if you currently feel stuck with long and fluff descriptions:

  • User Studies: First, run a user study. Ask real users what they want and how they feel about your current descriptions. I’ve covered user studies through the lens of broad core updates many times in my blog posts. Hearing from objective users can be enlightening. Note, you might need to run multiple studies based on your initial results. Again, you never know what you’re going to see and hear while testing your site.
  • Short-term testing: Run some short-term testing of category description changes (just keep in mind this will only show the immediate impact rankings-wise and not what impact during broad core updates will look like). As I mentioned earlier, you can’t run a test on a subset of pages to fully understand the impact during broad core updates. But you can gauge the short-term impact of refining category descriptions.
  • Taking (an educated) Leap of faith: Do what’s best for your users and your site long-term based on the user study, your understanding of your niche, the short-term testing, etc. And if that means cutting down those long fluff descriptions, and replacing them with shorter, but more valuable content, then so be it. As this case study showed, those pages (and the site overall) can do well without adding excessive descriptions like that… Google has explained this over and over, but I know it’s hard to pull the trigger on something like that. Just remember that Google’s John Mueller did explain that having some relevant text on the page about the category is smart (so Google can have some context about the page). Don’t just add images and call it a day…
  • The danger of blindly following the competition: Don’t blindly follow what the competition is doing. I can’t tell you how many site owners have reached out to me over the years after getting hit hard by a broad core update and explaining that they were following one of their top competitors (and it ends up they both got hit during the same core update). As Google’s John Mueller has said many times, some sites might be ranking well despite the bad or risky things they are doing.

Summary – Working towards better e-commerce category descriptions.
I hope you found this case study interesting. I know there’s a long history of debate over e-commerce category descriptions, despite what Google has explained many times. Again, I’m not saying all sites should nuke their long category descriptions. It’s more nuanced than that. But I would start to understand what your users truly want to find on those pages, run user testing, implement short-term changes, and then gauge how that’s working for the site. And if all signs point to cutting down those long descriptions, and replacing them with shorter, but more valuable descriptions, then that might be the best move. And that’s exactly what worked for the site I covered in this post (over both the short and long-term).

GG

Google Broad Core Updates and Image Search: Can core updates impact Image Search rankings in addition to Web Search and Discover?

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Google Broad Core Algorithm Updates and Image Search

Update: Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that Image Search can be impacted by broad core updates. That matches with what I’m seeing in the data, so it’s great to have that confirmation from Google.

——————–

I was asked an interesting question on Twitter about broad core updates from Kenichi Suzuki. He asked if Google’s broad core updates could impact Image Search (in addition to Web Search and Discover). Although I’ve helped many sites with Image Search problems (especially after url migrations), I haven’t focused too much on Image Search from a broad core update standpoint. Instead, I’m usually helping companies that have seen significant drops in Web Search traffic. Also, I don’t remember Google’s John Mueller, Gary Illyes, or Danny Sullivan ever covering this topic before, so I decided to dig in.

Tweet about Google core updates and image search.

Since I have a lot of broad core update data, I fired up GSC and quickly checked some sites that surged or dropped during the last several broad core updates (dating back to May 2020). After quickly checking several sites, I didn’t see much movement in Image Search when those sites were impacted by broad core updates (in Web Search). That’s when I tweeted this:

Reply to tweet about Google core updates and image search.

I replied too soon. :) As I checked more sites, including ones impacted by the recent June and July broad core updates, I absolutely started to see several of them showing impact in Image Search when they were heavily impacted by broad core updates. So down the rabbit hole I went…

But before I provide examples of what I am seeing with Image Search during broad core updates, I think it’s important to cover how Google ranks images in Image Search, as well as how images can rank in Web Search. I know there’s a lot of confusion about that.

Ranking in Image Search: It’s about the image and landing page combination.
When Google ranks images in Image Search, it’s not just about the images alone. That tends to surprise some site owners that see drops or surges in Image Search. Google ranks images in Image Search based on the landing page and image combination. Google has explained this many times and I covered that in my post about image search last year.

Here is Google’s John Mueller about Image Search rankings and the importance of the image and landing page combination (at 14:41 in the video):

Google wants to make sure users can find out more about the content behind the image ranking, so it’s using the landing page/image combination for rankings. In my opinion, that could be why Image Search can be impacted by broad core updates. For example, if a page drops in Web Search, that scoring could potentially impact the calculation for Image Search rankings (based on the landing page content). Again, that’s my opinion and not something confirmed by Google. It just makes sense to me…

Images Ranking in Web Search
In addition to Image Search rankings, images can rank in Web Search as well (and register impressions and clicks that show up in the performance reporting for Web Search in GSC). I covered that in a post about why you might see high rankings and low impressions (since images ranking in image packs, knowledge panels, and featured snippets can often rank highly, but receive very little clicks).

For example, when an image ranks in a SERP feature in the Web Search results, it yields an impression (and click if someone clicks through). If a site is impacted by a broad core update, then those listings in Web Search containing those images could drop (or the images could drop out of certain SERP features). If that happens, those images would not receive the impressions/clicks they once did, so that can yield a drop for Web Search in Google Search Console. And remember, the default GSC performance reporting is for Web Search. To view Image Search data, you need to switch the “Search type” to Image Search.

For example, the images in the knowledge panel below will register an impression in WEB SEARCH and not Image Search. If those images drop out during a broad core update, then that would impact impressions and clicks in Web Search:

Images ranking in Web Search in a Knowledge Panel.

Therefore, it’s important to understand that drops or surges in Web Search could include images that rank in SERP features like image packs, knowledge panels, and featured snippets. Again, you can read my previous post about that topic for more information. But that’s Web Search and not Image Search. Below, I’ll cover the impact to Image Search from broad core updates.

Image Search Impact During Broad Core Updates: Data and Examples
Based on Kenichi’s question, and the mixed bag of trending I saw during my initial quick analysis, I decided to take a much closer look. And it was sort of a rabbit hole… I ended up checking many sites impacted by broad core updates to see the impact on Image Search.

Based on my deeper analysis, I absolutely saw impact in Image Search for a number of sites that were heavily impacted by broad core updates. When isolating Image Search, you could see the same trend that Web Search showed (whether that was surging or dropping during a specific broad core update). Not all sites lined up, though, which can make sense… I’ll cover more about that soon.

Here are some examples of sites impacted by a broad core update in both Web Search and Image Search:

Example A: Web Search drop

Drop in Web Search during a Google broad core update.

Example A: Image Search drop

Drop in Image Search during a Google broad core update.

Example B: Web Search surge

Surge in Web Search during a Google broad core update.

Example B: Image Search surge

Surge in Image Search during a Google broad core update.

Example C: Web Search drop

Significant drop in Web Search during a Google broad core update.

Example C: Image Search drop

Significant drop in Image Search during a Google broad core update.

Example D: Web Search surge

Large surge in Web Search rankings and traffic during a Google broad core update.

Example D: Image Search surge

Large surge in Image Search traffic from a Google broad core update.

And like I explained earlier, not all sites saw the same level of impact in Image Search after seeing heavy volatility in Web Search after a broad core update. I believe this is due to the landing page and image combination I covered earlier. When sites are impacted by broad core updates, certain areas of a site could absolutely be impacted more than others. For example, maybe a blog is impacted differently from an e-commerce section, a forum, or company pages.

Here are examples of sites that were NOT impacted heavily in Image Search by a broad core update after seeing significant impact in Web Search:

Example A: Web Search surge

Example of a site surging in Web Search during a Google broad core update, but not surging in Image Search.

Example A: Image Search mostly unaffected

Image Search stable when Web Search surges during a Google broad core update.

Example B: Web Search drop

Example of a site dropping in Web Search during a Google core update, but not dropping in Image Search.

Example B: Image Search mostly unaffected

Image Search largely unaffected when Web Search drops during a Google broad core update.

Another way to visualize the impact to Image Search rankings during broad core updates is at the query level. Here are examples of average position dropping or surging for specific queries in Image Search when a broad core update rolled out:

A surge in rankings in Image Search when a broad core update rolls out.
Drop in Image Search rankings when a Google broad core update rolls out.

So, the data shows that broad core updates can impact Image Search. I’ll try and ping Google’s John Mueller and Danny Sullivan to see if they can provide more information about broad core updates and Image Search. I’ll update this post with any information they provide.

Update: Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that Image Search can be impacted by broad core updates.
I pinged Danny Sullivan on Twitter with a link to this post and asked if he could provide more information (and maybe confirmation) that Google’s broad core updates could impact Image Search. Danny explained that broad core updates can involve Image Search results because they involve Google’s core ranking systems that involve all types of content. You can see his tweet below. This definitely matches what I am seeing in the data, so it’s great to have confirmation from Google about this.

Google's Danny Sullivan confirms that Image Search rankings can be impacted during broad core algorithm updates.

Summary: Check Image Search trending if your site has been impacted by a broad core update.
I hope this post was helpful for learning more about how Image Search could be impacted by broad core updates. Although we haven’t received confirmation from Google about this, it sure seems that broad core updates can impact image search rankings. I have a lot of data showing that happening across sites heavily impacted by broad core updates.

And again, it does make sense based on Google using an image and landing page combination when determining rankings for Image Search. If a page drops in Web Search, that scoring could potentially impact the calculation for Image Search rankings. But, like I explained earlier, not all sites impacted by broad core updates will see a drop in Image Search rankings. Different areas of a site can be impacted in different ways. In closing, if you’ve been impacted by a broad core update, then definitely make sure to analyze your Image Search rankings as well. You might be surprised with what you find.

GG