I was asked on September 26 whether or not I had seen another significant update after the August 1, 2018 update. That was a massive update and many sites were impacted across the web. Well, I said we were due, but didn’t realize how close we actually were. Just one day later on September 27, we saw another significant update that impacted many sites across the web.

And that update was followed by much more volatility on October 4, which also yielded some wild swings, reversals, and more. It’s been a crazy time algo-wise, which led Barry Schwartz, and then me, to ask Danny Sullivan if he could provide any more information about what we were seeing. He didn’t respond directly to us, but it was great to finally hear from him with a thread of tweets about the update. In that thread, Danny explained that the update started the week of September 24 and could take a week or more to fully roll out. After digging into sites that were impacted, I saw the first signs of impact late on September 26, with more much volatility on the 27^th.

Here’s a section of Danny’s tweet thread about the 9/27 update:

This year, we shared about two broad core algorithm updates we had: in April and August. We also had a further update we can confirm, one that began the week of Sept. 24. With any broad core update, the full rollout time might be over the course of a week or longer….

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 11, 2018

Between the August 1, September 27, and then October 4 volatility, I have a spreadsheet containing a few hundred sites that were impacted, with many seeing significant volatility. For example, some sites are down 60%+ since 9/27 while others surged at the same pace in the other direction. Imagine losing 60% of your traffic overnight (or more)…

It’s one of the reasons John Mueller explained in a hangout that Google might be looking to limit the volatility on sites that are seen by Google’s algorithms as less relevant, which can result in a drop in rankings.

And watch that whole segment here if you are interested in hearing more (at 32:31 in the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYAup40MeTM&t=32m31s

In Danny’s tweets, he once again explained that site owners should look to the quality rater guidelines (QRG) to learn what Google’s algorithms are looking for. He explained that Google is looking to rank the best content and the QRG provides many examples of what Google’s algorithms are looking for from a quality standpoint.

I’ve recommended reading the QRG many times in my posts about major algorithm updates, dating back to 2014! But let’s face it, the QRG focuses on many different topics. So, those looking for a smoking gun with the latest updates aren’t going to find just one in there. You might find twenty, and across topics. I’ll cover more about what I’m seeing with this update below, but my core recommendation hasn’t changed from the August 1 update (or previous major updates)… Focus on ALL of your problems. Surface all quality problems on your site, and off, and fix them all.

Just to show some of the volatility I’ve seen across sites, here are some examples of surges and drops in search visibility during the September 27 update. This often correlates well to increases and decreases in organic search traffic:

And here are some swings based on the October 4 volatility (which extended to 10/8 and beyond):

Reversal Craziness:
One really interesting thing we saw with the September 27 update was the amount of reversals from the 8/1 update. In addition, there were also micro-reversals on 10/4 from the 9/27 update! Some of those reversals from the 8/1 update absolutely could have been from changes being implemented by site owners, while other sites seemed to reverse for no apparent reason. And regarding the 10/4 reversals from the 9/27 update, that’s clearly a quick tweak to the algo (or what I’ve been calling tremors for a long time). Both sets of reversals lead you to believe that Google is testing something new in the algo. For example, a new trust element, a tweak to inbound links, etc.?

Remember, for evaluating E-A-T, Google primarily looks at mentions and links from well-known sites. If they simply tweaked the power of those signals, then that could have a major impact on rankings. I’m not saying that’s the case, but it could be.

Update 10/23/18: I just published a short article on LinkedIn explaining more about the link situation. After analyzing many sites within specific niche categories, and comparing their link profiles, I think it’s very possible that Google dialed-up, or down, the power from “trusted” and/or “untrusted” links. You should read my article to learn more about that. It would be the most scalable way to tackle “trust” (and globally).

Anyway, here are some reversals (including some sites that reversed on 10/4 after surging or dropping on 9/27):

And here is a micro-reversal (a site reversing course on 10/4 after a drop on 9/27):

In this post, I’ll cover what I’m seeing based on analyzing a number of sites impacted by the update. That includes case studies, relevance, quality, trust, reversals and micro-reversals during 9/27 and then 10/4, head-scratching findings that make you wonder what the heck Google is actually doing with these updates, and more. Then I’ll end with some advice for site owners that have been impacted.

Let’s start with some interesting case studies:

Case 1: Reversal from the August 1, 2018 update:
The first case I’m going to cover is a great story. It’s a family-run business that got smoked by the 8/1 update. They reached out to me for help in August, but I unfortunately didn’t have time to take them on as a client. It ends up they read my post about the August 1 update and took it to heart. They decided to take a hard look at their site, surface all quality problems (including technical SEO issues impacting quality), and fix them.

I received an email shortly after the 9/27 update explaining their situation. The site owner explained that they objectively reviewed their site, found a number of problems that had been listed in my August post (and previous posts about major algorithm updates), and then implemented a bunch of those changes.

Then the September 27 update rolled out and they completely reversed. Actually, the site owner told me that they even gained more visibility than where they were prior to the August 1 hit (gaining additional keywords that they weren’t ranking for prior to 8/1). It’s a great example of what I’ve been saying all along. Surface your problems and fix them all as quickly as you can. That includes content quality, user engagement, technical SEO, aggressive advertising, and more.

Here’s a snapshot of some rankings changes after the 9/27 update:

Case 2: A Fascinating, Yet Disturbing, Site Change And How Site Trust Plays A Role
In early summer, a client of mine decided to pull the trigger on a significant site change. It was a risky move in my opinion, but it was for the right reasons from a user perspective. I can’t explain too much about what they did (at least yet), but let’s just say that for the category of site, and the history of the domain, it was a bold move.

Well, three days after they pulled the trigger, they got absolutely crushed. I mean obliterated. They lost over 70% of their Google organic traffic overnight.

Here’s the catch. Overall, it was a relatively clean site change. Sure, there are always issues with big changes on a large-scale site, but nothing stood out as terrible. So, the drop was disturbing (yet fascinating) to analyze.

Again, I can’t go into too much detail here, but let’s just say that it really looked like Google’s algorithms didn’t trust the site change. In other words, the change could have looked like something funny was going on… There were no changes content-wise, no UX changes, no advertising changes, etc.

As time went on and traffic was anemic I had several stressful, yet important, calls with my client. There were some serious decisions to make about how to proceed. Since the move was the right one for users, we decided to keep the changes in place hoping that Google would eventually trust the changes and traffic would surge back.

Almost four months went by and the site looked like it might be coming back at several points (including during the 8/1 algorithm update), only to fall back down again a few days later. It was like Google was testing the site with more traffic, but just for a short period of time. There was clearly some type of trust dampening going on algorithmically. Again, this was both disturbing and fascinating at the same time.

And then the September 27 update rolled out, and BOOM, traffic absolutely spiked. It was amazing on multiple levels. First, our decision to stay the course paid off. Second, it was absolutely fascinating to see how trust played a part in the algorithm update (and for this site based on the changes it implemented in early summer).

There was clearly some type of trust signal that was finally tripped (maybe based on time, maybe the improvements they had made prior to the site change helped, maybe a combination of both, or more). But the update rolled out and my client surged back in a big way.

I wish I could explain more about this case, since I know there will be questions, but I can’t provide more details for now. Just know that trust (algorithmically evaluated) had something big to do with the surge during the 9/27 update.

Case 3: Kicked While Down, Then Helped Up – A Micro-Reversal For A YMYL Health Site
The next case is a good example of a site getting hit more after a major update. The site, which is a YMYL health site, got hammered during the 8/1 update and then saw even more downward movement during the 9/27 update. The site has been moving to make big changes as quickly as they can since the 8/1 update, including implementing some significant changes from a content standpoint. They are aggressively going through the boost, nuke, or noindex process that I’ve covered before on my blog.

Here is a quick flowchart from medieval Panda times:

The site lost 30% of its traffic during the 8/1 update and then another 20% of its traffic during the 9/27 update. And add the content cuts that are happening across the site (where some of those pages were still ranking even though they weren’t necessarily high-quality), and you have the perfect storm from a traffic-drop perspective.

But then 10/4 arrived, and the drop from the 9/27 update completely reversed. They were back to where they were prior to 9/27. It was crazy to see. It seemed that Google tweaked the algorithm and some sites that were impacted on 9/27 completely reversed. Not all sites hit by the 9/27 update reversed, but clearly something was refined algorithmically and some did reverse course. Just an interesting side note.

The site clearly didn’t improve in quality over a few-day period… This was a clear tweak implemented by Google from an algo update standpoint that resulted in some micro-reversals.

It’s a great example that reinforces you are not in control. Google is, and it can tweak algos as many times as it wants. And your site can be on that roller coaster, whether you buy a ticket for the ride, or not.

Trust and Reputation – Don’t ignore them
Ever since the 8/1 update, there’s been a lot of talk about E-A-T, trust, etc. After analyzing many sites that were impacted by both the August and September updates, Google did seem to dial up some signals related to trust, and then tweak those signals. It’s fascinating, but we’re still not really sure how they are handling that algorithmically.

Gary Illyes did explain that for E-A-T, Google was primarily looking at mentions and links on well-known sites, so any tweak in how they handle that could impact rankings in a big way. Marie Haynes wrote a post about the latest update and explained that she thought reputation and trust issues played a big part. For example, she provided an example of a site that had poor Better Business Bureau (BBB) ratings that tanked during the 8/1 update. She also mentioned reviews and ratings on other sites that Google might trust. You should read her post. There are some interesting points Marie makes.

I’ve seen some sites definitely line up with that finding, but others that don’t. And that makes sense, based on the sophisticated calculation Google is using with these updates. One signal will not kill your site. But a combination of signals absolutely could. Here’s a great tweet from John Mueller explaining that complicated calculations could yield no changes in rankings:

And remember, checking the BBB is not all the QRG says to do with regard to researching reputation. They also explain to research a site’s reputation by searching for reviews of the site across the web (using advanced search operators). For example, searching for domain.com -site:domain.com. You can also add “reviews” to the query.

Update November 14, 2018: Google’s John Mueller Confirms BBB Ratings Aren’t Used Algorithmically
I’ve been pretty vocal recently that I don’t believe BBB ratings were being used algorithmically by Google. It just didn’t make sense to me. First, the BBB is only in three countries (and really one primary country – the United States). Since Google’s core ranking algorithm is global, it doesn’t make sense that Google would use a limited source like that. Second, there’s a paid element to the BBB. You don’t have to pay, but you can pay to become accredited. That ranges from $480 to $1,155 per year depending on the size of your company. That also throws a wrench into Google using BBB ratings. And third, it’s just not scalable. Remember, we’re talking about global algorithms and NOT just algorithms focused on the United States (or a limited set of countries).

So, I asked Google’s John Mueller in a webmaster hangout if Google was using BBB ratings algorithmically. He was pretty clear with his response. No, they aren’t using BBB ratings algorithmically.  He said there are various issues with sources of information for companies and Google can’t blindly rely on some third-party ratings. You can watch the video below at 15:32 to hear his full response.

Now, that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking at site reputation overall. There’s a good chance they are… But they wouldn’t rely on one source or use a score from one site algorithmically. Actually, I posted an update earlier in the document from 10/23/18 where I explained how Google might be dialing-up, or down, the power of “trusted” or “untrusted” links. That’s much more likely and way more scalable. You should read that section (and the LinkedIn article I published to learn  more about that).

Emulating Quality Raters, Always A Smart Move:
When checking several sites that were negatively impacted by the update, I did find a number of negative reviews across sites like Web of Trust, Better Business Bureau, and other sites that enable users and customers to review businesses. I have no idea if Google is taking any of that into account algorithmically, but it’s worth noting that I surfaced that quite a bit. And again, Google asks raters to do this when evaluating algorithm changes. But again, not all sites lined up with this finding. Some had strong reviews, but dropped, while others had negative reviews and surged. Here are two sites with negative reviews that did drop (BBB and Web of Trust):

Poor reputation on web of trust:

Also, Google’s John Mueller has explained that Google IS NOT researching every author’s reputation on the web. Raters might be doing this when evaluating algorithm changes, but that’s just feedback sent to the engineers. Then the engineers tweak their algorithms. So again, reputation research might not be directly impacting rankings, but it sure could be indirectly impacting them.

Whether Google is evaluating that information in aggregate, or if it’s identifying E-A-T in other ways, I think it’s really important to build a strong reputation in your niche.

Does A Quasi-Human Algorithm Yield Better Search Results?
Google’s Gary Illyes explained at Pubcon last year that Google’s core ranking algorithm is becoming more human. He was speaking about sentiment, but I think that statement spoke volumes. An algo that’s more human-like makes complete sense and can help us understand what’s going on algorithmically. Creating a quasi-human is the best way to reproduce what a real person experiences in the SERPs and while visiting sites across the web. But that’s clearly not easy and can yield problems…which of course can yield wild volatility and reversals as Google refines the algo. Again, just another interesting side note as we’ve seen crazy volatility and some reversals with the latest updates.

“Stay in your lane” – Health and Medical – YMYL (again)
With the 8/1 update we saw a lot of health and medical sites impacted (which is why Barry Schwartz named it the “Medic Update”). Well, there was more significant volatility in this niche again during the 9/27/18 update, with some sites dropping or surging more, while others reversed course.

When digging into the drops and surges, there were some clear cases of sites “not staying in their lane”. I’ve been using this expression a lot recently with companies I’m helping. For example, don’t write about topics you have no right to publish content about. Google is clearly trying to surface results from experts when it comes to YMYL topics and doesn’t want to surface content from someone without that necessary expertise.

Remember, YMYL sites and content could “impact the future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users”, which is a quote directly from the Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) about YMYL content.

If you focus on non-YMYL topic X and you suddenly start writing about serious health subjects like cancer, and other sensitive medical issues, then you are crossing lanes and could run into problems for sure (like a head-on collision with Google’s core ranking algorithm). And even if you focus on health and medical, try to stay in your lane. Don’t cross over too much into other sensitive areas unless you build that expertise.

Here is search visibility trending for a  site that didn’t stay in its lane. Beware:

Relevance (which INCLUDES quality) – Tackle Everything
I’m beating a dead horse here… This is something I’ve covered many times in my posts about Google’s core ranking updates, but it’s worth repeating again.

Google’s John Mueller has been explaining that broad core ranking updates are about relevance. For example, Google’s algorithms might view certain sites and content as more, or less, relevant for a certain query over time. Its algorithms are essentially trying to determine which sites and content should rank now for specific queries.

Well, the web changes, people change, intent can change, etc. And as Google’s algorithms see those changes, then they must adapt too. That’s when certain sites can drop and others can surge. Well, I saw many examples of relevance adjustments again with the 9/27 update.

Also, and this is extremely important, Google’s John Mueller has explained that relevance INCLUDES quality (see the video below). I’ll cover more about quality next, but don’t sit back and think that a certain update has completely killed your efforts to regain those rankings. As I’ve covered many times before, John has explained that you should significantly improve quality over the long term if you want to see positive movement during subsequent updates. That’s what Google wants to see and it’s what I’ve seen in the field while helping companies with major algorithm updates.

And regarding seeing positive movement, you won’t surge back in a week or two, and you probably won’t in a month or two either. It typically takes months of hard work to significantly improve the quality of your site, including improving content, UX, technical SEO, aggressive or deceptive advertising, and more.

As a quick example, a site that recently dropped during the 9/27 update noticed that its blog posts that used to rank for e-commerce head terms no longer ranked as highly. And the pages and sites that took its spot were e-commerce category pages from larger and more powerful sites. That’s a good example of a relevance adjustment. Google determined that the blog posts weren’t what users were looking for anymore. So, they moved other listings up that they believed would be better for users.

Of course, that begs the question about how can the site that dropped get their own e-commerce category pages to rank? Based on what I was seeing, the quality of the site overall was not strong enough compared to the competition. The blog post was great for that specific topic, but they will have to significantly strengthen their site overall to compete with powerful players in their niche to get category pages ranking for those queries. That’s a good segue to quality.

Quality – Content, UX, Aggressive Advertising, Technical SEO, and more
I’ve covered this at length many, many times before. You can read my posts about Google algorithm updates to learn more about all of the potential quality issues that can be impacting your site. Well, I saw many of the usual suspects again while analyzing the 9/27 update.

I won’t go crazy explaining everything I surfaced since I’ve covered this heavily before. That said, I’ll provide a great example from the 9/27 update. One site that got crushed (non-YMYL) had many quality problems. For example, aggressive and deceptive ads, low-quality and thin content, technical SEO issues causing quality issues, and more. Here is what happened during the 9/27 update:

Again, I saw many examples of quality problems across sites impacted by the 9/27 update and 10/4 tremor. Don’t overlook these issues… they can cause big problems down the line.

My Advice – Importance Of Performing An SEO SWOT Analysis
With Google’s wild updates recently, I believe it’s never been more important to fully understand your risks, surface all the problems riddling your site, and take significant action. You can think of this as a SWOT analysis SEO-style. Site owners shouldn’t just look for a single smoking gun, since there’s almost never just one. They should look for a battery of smoking guns, prioritize them, and start knocking them off one by one (and as quickly as possible).

But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is objectively analyzing your current rankings and traffic and determining where certain risks lie. For example, should your blog post rank for a competitive head term? How can you improve other content on your site (or create new content) that would be a better fit?

Are there major gaps in rankings compared to your competition? Do you even have content that addresses those topics? How strong is that content? Is it 10X better than what’s ranking now?

Again, find all quality problems and fix them, but also understand what you’re ranking for now and objectively determine if you should rank for those queries. Is your content relevant?

Also, you should always be focusing on user (and customer) happiness. This impacts site reputation across a number of trusted places on the web (some of which Google may be looking at when it evaluates trust). Remember, Google asks quality raters to research the reputation of sites across the web. You should too, and you should obviously be looking to help customers that weren’t happy with your services or products. Address complaints directly, resolve issues, and good things can happen. Good karma wins.

A quick example: The most powerful comment that drove change.
Don’t forget about the power of user studies. As I’ve said many times before, you never know what you’ll hear after having users objectively go through your site while trying to accomplish a task. And I mean objective users, not your family, friends, and coworkers.

And if you can’t run a user study for some reason, then some user feedback might be right under your nose. Comments and emails can be a proxy for user studies. You can learn a lot from users that decide to reach out to you (either on the site or via email). And some of that feedback is sitting out there on the web right now. Check your own comments, check third-party review sites, and more. That’s what quality raters are doing by the way.

As a quick example, here is what I found on a site I was auditing after they got pummeled by a major algorithm update. I was literally banging my head against my monitor based on the frustrating user experience, horrible and aggressive advertising situation, excessive monetization tactics, and more, when I came across this comment. It was so fitting:

This was the perfect compliment to my deliverable about aggressive and deceptive ads. It spoke volumes… Therefore, mine your own data. You never know what you’ll find.

Summary – Think holistically about your site changes.
The September 27, 2018 algorithm update was another big one that followed a massive update in early August. Google is clearly testing some new signals, refining its algo, etc., which is causing massive volatility in the SERPs. I hope my post shed some light on what’s been going on with the 9/27 update and 10/4 tremor and their connection with the August 1 update. For site owners that have been impacted, I highly recommend objectively digging into your site, running user testing, addressing user (and customer) happiness, and creating a strong plan of attack for improving your site overall.

This fall has been a wild ride so far and I’m not sure we’re done yet. Remember, I called last fall “The Hornets’ Nest“. I wonder if this fall will match it.

GG

 

On August 1, 2018 Google rolled out one of the biggest algorithm updates I’ve ever seen. It was huge and many sites saw significant volatility across categories and countries. The 8/1 update followed similar broad algorithm updates in March and April of 2018, which also caused significant volatility across the web. I wrote a 2-part series covering those spring updates, which you should definitely read. Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed this was a broad core ranking update just like those updates.

Many sites across the web have been impacted by the August 1 update and Google estimated that it would take over a week to fully roll out. That seems to be correct, as I’ve seen a number of sites see much more impact Monday into Tuesday of this week. Also, Google confirmed yesterday that the update has fully rolled out, so it did take about a week.

I’ve been heavily analyzing the update since it rolled out and will cover a number of important topics in this post. Specifically, I’ll cover confirmed surges, including some of what those companies have completed after being negatively impacted in the past. I’ll cover fresh hits and what I’m seeing across those sites that were negatively impacted. And I’ll also cover important information from Googlers about this type of algorithm update (some of which has not been covered yet since the update rolled out).

So strap your battle helmets on. Let’s take a look at Battle Ground Google, The August 2018 Edition.

Significant AND Long-term + Relevance AND Quality
I help a lot of companies that have been negatively impacted by major algorithm updates. They are typically large-scale sites, but I do help some small to medium sized sites as well. The sites I’m helping have typically lost a significant amount of search visibility, rankings, and traffic during major updates, and sometimes have dropped over several updates (making the situation even worse).

As I’ve said in the past many times, broad core ranking updates take many factors into account. There’s never one smoking gun. Instead, there’s typically a battery of smoking guns. Actually, I tweeted that soon after this update rolled out based on what I was seeing across sites that were impacted. And it was awesome to see John Mueller retweet that! That makes sense, since John has communicated similar things a number of times during webmaster hangout videos.

Google is evaluating relevance and quality at the site-level. And “quality” can mean a number of things. For example, content quality, user experience (UX), aggressive, disruptive, and deceptive, advertising, technical SEO problems that cause quality problems, and more. Therefore, it’s important to fully understand all of the problems with your site and then form a serious plan of attack for remediation. Remember, Google is on record explaining they want to see significant improvement in quality over the long-term.

You will not recover by putting band-aids on the situation. You will not recover in a few weeks, or a month or two. You must implement significant changes to improve your site and make sure they stick around for the long-term. Don’t roll back changes after a few weeks or a month or two. That may not be long enough for Google… Note, I’ll cover surges soon and what my clients worked on to improve their sites (and how long that took).

Relevance, Which *Includes* Quality Overall – From John Mueller
After the Brackets Update on March 7, John explained that the update had a lot to do with relevance, and the industry went wild with that comment. But after analyzing many sites and helping a number of sites recover during the March and April updates, I explained that it seemed quality was a part of the updates as well. It was easy to see that after analyzing many sites impacted in both March and April. I wrote about this in my 2-part series about the updates in case you want to read more about that.

Well, it was awesome to hear John explain that relevance INCLUDES quality overall! And that includes how you present your website, like sites that provide ads above the fold. Yep, he said ADS. :) He explained this in another webmaster hangout video. I cheered from my office, literally. Here’s the video:

That made complete sense based on what I was seeing across sites, so it was great to hear him clarify his original statement about relevance.

A note about Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) and E-A-T
Many people have explained the amount of YMYL sites impacted during this update, and specifically, health and medical sites. Actually, Barry Schwartz saw so many health sites impacted based on hearing from site owners that were negatively impacted that he called it the Medic Update.

I agree that many health and medical sites were impacted during this update, but they weren’t alone! I have a spreadsheet of over 210 sites impacted by the August 1 update and many are NOT YMYL sites. For example, there are entertainment sites, coupon sites, lyrics sites, e-commerce sites, sites containing online games, and more. So yes, it does look like Google made adjustments that would impact YMYL sites, but the update didn’t isolate those sites.

For example, here is a lyrics site that was impacted and a coupon site that was impacted:
A large-scale lyrics site that dropped heavily during the August 1 update:

A large-scale coupon site that surged during this update:

But YMYL sites are extremely important to Google. They are held to a higher standard, since they can “impact the future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users.” Therefore, it makes complete sense that Google would always look to enhance its core ranking algorithm with regard to E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust), site reputation, author reputation, etc. It does look like Google refined how this works in the latest core ranking update on 8/1, but again, there were many sites outside of YMYL that were impacted. It’s important to know that.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into some surges.

Surges – The Long And Tough Road Back
The first client I’m going to cover is in the entertainment space. They have been impacted by a number of updates over the years and were destroyed by the June 2016 update (which was a huge algorithm update).

When they contacted me, they explained that they had tried to fix a number of things, but they thought they could be missing some important items. They were simply not recovering during subsequent algorithm updates. So, I began a long-term engagement to help them root out all quality problems and form a strong remediation plan.

My audit and crawl analysis uncovered many problems across the site. In total, I sent 84 pages of findings in Word during the entire engagement covering everything from low-quality content to aggressive and deceptive advertising to affiliate problems to technical SEO problems to performance issues and more. There were many, many things wrong with the site from a quality standpoint. It’s always interesting to go back and see how many findings were sent when analyzing a large-scale site with many quality problems. And it’s important for other sites to understand that too. There’s rarely a single issue causing massive drops during core ranking updates.

My client’s team worked hard to implement those changes, including the always-tough conversation with the monetization team. When you’re down, the knee-jerk reaction is to increase advertising to make up for the loss of traffic. But I was telling them to drastically cut down on the advertising situation, which was over-the-top from a disruptive and deceptive standpoint. The conversations were tough, but they did tone it down greatly.

They implemented a boatload of changes over four to five months, but remember, Google needs to process these changes over the long-term. So they kept driving forward while hoping they would see positive movement during subsequent algorithm updates.  Remember what I said about “long-term” and “significant” from earlier?

The engagement ended in April and many items had been implemented at that point. I told them to keep driving forward, keep publishing killer content, keep enhancing the user experience, and to NOT fall back to old ways from an aggressive advertising standpoint.

Then August 1 arrived, and BOOM, they began to surge. It was awesome to see. Here is their search visibility trending from SEMrush.

According to Google Analytics (which I cannot share a screenshot of due to an NDA), they are up over 48% since August 1 (and specific areas of the site are surging more than that). That accounts for more than 822K additional sessions from Google organic alone in just the past week. Clicks and impressions in GSC are off the charts. My client explained that this is the most traffic they have seen in about two years.

Another Surge – YMYL Health Site
The second client surge I’m going to cover is a large-scale health site that has seen a significant drop in rankings and traffic over the past 18 months. They approached me after seeing multiple dips during major algorithm updates and wanted to surface more problems from a quality standpoint.

Similar to what I explained above, I dug in heavily and sent through 93 pages of findings during the first engagement and then 51 more pages through during a second engagement (for a total of 144 pages of findings). Yes, there were many problems with the site from a quality perspective. And the site contains so many different areas of content that I was surfacing more and more problems with every twist and turn. Again, it’s important to know the amount of work the company did to improve the site. Their team was great and moved very quickly to make changes. And they continue to make changes to this day, but many of the significant changes were completed months ago.

Similar to my example from earlier, they worked on a number of areas, including nuking low quality or thin content, fixing a very aggressive and deceptive advertising situation, improving the UX, fixing technical SEO problems across the site, and more.

And then on August 1, they began to surge across many key areas of the site. Here is their search visibility trending from SEMrush:

As of today, various sections of the site have increased anywhere from 20% to 60% since August 1. Note, they still have a long way to go to get back to where they once were, but this was a significant move in the right direction. It was great to see.

And it’s also worth noting that some site sections decreased! So, on a large-scale site with many different sections, you can definitely see ups and downs during major algorithm updates by directory. That might be obvious to site owners of large-scale sites, but I’m not sure everyone knows that.

Those are just two examples of large-scale sites seeing improvement during the August 1 update, but the moral of the story was the sites surging have completed a boatload of work to improve their respective sites. They didn’t find one smoking gun. Instead, they found a battery of smoking guns and worked their hardest to root out those issues and improve their sites overall. In addition, they kept those changes in place and kept driving forward with improving the site. They didn’t revert back to old ways, which is hard to do especially from an advertising standpoint.

Fresh Hits And Digging Deep(er) With Sites Negatively Impacted
Once the update started rolling out, it was amazing to see how many sites were being negatively impacted. And some weren’t just being hit, they were obliterated. That includes some of the largest sites and brands across the web.

Here are some examples of serious negative impact. I have many examples of this happening, but I’ll just provide a few:

When sites drop, it’s sometimes easy to take a quick look at them and try to figure out what’s wrong. But when you do that, it’s easy to miss serious problems that lie below the surface. Often, the only way to really see what’s going on is to dig deep, crawl the site, analyze the various areas across a site, etc. Remember, Google is on record explaining they take every page indexed into account when evaluating site quality. So, if you just look at five pages, you could be missing most of the SEO iceberg.

Therefore, in addition to reviewing top pages from sites that dropped during this update, I also crawled a subset of each site (10K pages per site). It’s not perfect, but that at least enabled me to see a bigger picture than just checking a few pages. And I’m glad I did. After crawling those sites, you could clearly see a number of problems across content quality, technical SEO, UX, aggressive advertising, and more.

And from a YMYL standpoint, you could clearly see sites ranking that probably shouldn’t have when it comes to important topics that can impact the “future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users”. Remember, the update DID NOT just target YMYL sites. Many different types of sites were impacted, but Google clearly was adding something new with regard to E-A-T, adjusting the threshold for YMYL sites, etc. Hard to say exactly what they did, but many were impacted.

Let’s go through some examples below. I’ll provide a few key findings per domain based on crawling and analyzing the site. Again, I didn’t crawl the entire site… I crawled a subset of each site (10K urls) to get a sample of what’s going on there. I can only imagine what I would find if I spent more time…

YMYL – Health Site

I surfaced hundreds of thin pages (650+) from just the crawl of 10K urls, so there are probably thousands like these pages on the site now if you take the entire site into account. Many of those thin pages contained a boatload of ads and very little main content (sometimes just a line or two of content, or just an image).

There were many thin user profiles indexed across the site. Some thin pages were filled with low-quality supplemental content, with very little main content.

The site also heavily uses popups, which can be extremely disruptive and annoying. I’ve covered disruptive and aggressive advertising many times while writing about major algorithm updates.

There were also a number of technical SEO problems including canonical issues.

And remember, this was only based on crawling 10K urls…

Reference Site

I surfaced over 6K near-empty or empty pages. It looks like a technical problem that is causing content quality problems. These pages are indexed now. And the pages are filled with ads. So you have empty pages (main content) but they are still displaying many ads. That’s not a great combination at all.

I then surfaced more content quality problems including pages containing just a few words of content with a number of large ads on the page. Again, not a great combo.

There were also annoying UX barriers that broke up the content. This was not done in an elegant way at all, and I found it extremely disruptive. I found myself scrolling to try and get to the rest of the main content.

From a SERP perspective, Google is returning a wider mix of results, and not just reference information that can be found on this site. Therefore, the site is battling quality problems, but it’s also dealing with what Google deems to be relevant based on query. So it seems Google was determining that users weren’t happy with the previous results (or that they were simply looking for something else).

Lyrics Site

I surfaced thousands of ultra-thin pages across the site, including blank pages containing ads. I also surfaced a number of pages returning a 503 header response code (by accident). This seemed like a technical glitch as the 503 is still in place now on those pages.

There’s a forum with many user profiles that are very low quality (and often contain very little main content).

There were also many empty artist pages that contained a number of ads. So there wasn’t any main content, yet many ads on the page. I saw this a number of times while analyzing the update. Remember, Google takes every page indexed into account when evaluating quality. Make sure your best content is indexed and nuke low quality or thin content. And if you can boost low quality content, that’s a great path as well.

Low quality or thin content and aggressive and disruptive advertising seemed to be the killer combination for this site. And to add insult to injury, the site still hasn’t moved to https.

YMYL – Health

I surfaced close to a thousand pages of low quality or thin content out of just a 10K url crawl. There was a serious lack of E-A-T for YMYL pages. The site’s authors do not have the expertise to write about sensitive medical topics.

In addition, there were many pages that contained just an autoplay video surrounded with ads and no other main content. Popups were used extensively across the site, also in combination with autoplay video ads. This was very annoying and disruptive. Again, not a great combination.

Then there were pages that should contain video, but the page was basically blank with ads surrounding the empty main content area. Sounds familiar, right? Sometimes there was just a placeholder for video and ads were all over the page.

I also saw a major relevance component at play here. Some rankings that dropped didn’t meet user expectations based on query. So, it seemed like the right move from Google’s standpoint to downrank those urls. For example, the site was tangentially covering a topic, but ranking well for the topic head term. I can’t imagine many users were thrilled with the results.

Recipes

I surfaced over 3K thin or low-quality pages out of a crawl of just 10K. And many had autoplay video ads (although without sound). Even though they have no sound, they are still incredibly annoying.

In addition, popups are used as well! So, the combination of autoplay video ads and popups on the same page had me banging my head against my monitor. And on mobile, there are giant ads pushing the content way down the page, so the entire viewport was filled with an ad. Note, I’ve often called Google’s Above The Fold (ATF) algorithm the beast that nobody talks about. Well, having ads that push main content out of the viewport is not a great idea, and it’s horrible for users.

In addition to many thin pages, I also surfaced empty pages that were indexed. And those empty pages contained ads. Again, sound familiar? There were also many pages with affiliate links weaved into the content. And there’s no disclosure on the page about which links were affiliate and which ones weren’t. I found that pretty deceptive from a user standpoint.

Side note about E-A-T, the site is well-known in the niche, has top writers with strong E-A-T. Therefore, it doesn’t seem like E-A-T was a core problem here. I believe it had more to do with the thin or low quality content mixed with poor user experience problems.

YMYL – Health

There were many UX barriers and technical problems across the site. For example, there was a module in the middle of many pages that just hung while hourglassing. Hard to tell if that was main content, supplemental content, or videos, but clearly not good to have on many pages.

There were MANY weaved ads throughout the content. Actually, it was every paragraph or two… I found that extremely disruptive. It’s ok to do that every now and then, but many weaved into a single article is horrible for users.

There were many amazon affiliate links weaved into the content as well. It seems like the site was focusing more on monetization than the user. And that’s always a dangerous situation. I’ve had many affiliate marketers reach out to me after getting smoked and they had that in place.

There were other user interface problems, especially on mobile. For example, some paragraphs did not align well with images. So there were only a few characters for each line on mobile. It was literally impossible to read. Imagine trying to read a paragraph 3 characters at a time…

Also, and this is clearly important on a YMYL site, there was NO author information. That’s possibly a worst-case scenario for a YMYL site writing about medical topics. So the site doesn’t exhibit much E-A-T, but the authors really don’t demonstrate strong E-A-T.

Many smoking guns, not just one
As you can see, even a relatively quick analysis enabled me to see a number of problems across sites that were negatively impacted. That’s why it’s important to thoroughly analyze a site and surface all potential problems. I’m sure if I really dug into those sites, I would surface many issues that could be contributing to their drop. These broad updates are called “broad” for a reason. :)

Follow The “Leader”, Flatliners, And The Danger In Doing Nothing.
When helping companies that have been negatively impacted by major algorithm updates, I often hear similar things. For example, some explain that they are just following what stronger players in the niche are doing and hoping they will surge like they have in the past. But unfortunately, they are following them blindly. For example, they have no idea if those are the right things to do, if those companies are surging in spite of having those things in place, etc.

The danger, of course, is that you can follow them right off an algorithmic cliff. Here’s a quick example. One of my newer clients always references a certain site with how they follow their lead, implement the same type of functionality, layout, content, etc. Once I started helping them, I explained the danger in doing that. And guess what? That site they follow just got hit pretty hard by the August 1 update. That site has done very well over the past year or so, but just got whacked by the August 1 update. Note, it’s NOT a YMYL site.

And here’s a site that refused to change after getting smoked by the February 7 algorithm update. Not only have they NOT increased at all. They have actually dropped more. Not good.

The QRG Is Important, But Combine It With Traditional SEO Audits
Since 2014, I’ve been explaining the connection between Google’s quality rater guidelines and major algorithm updates. Yes, that’s when medieval Panda roamed the web. I think I’ve mentioned the power of the QRG in almost every blog post about major algorithm updates since then (including Panda, quality updates, the March and April 2018 updates, and more).

The overlap between the QRG and what I see in the field is uncanny. That’s why I highly recommend reading the QRG to see what Google deems high versus low quality, to understand how Google treats YMYL sites, to understand the importance of E-A-T, to understand the impact of aggressive, disruptive, and deceptive ads, and much more.

But it’s not the only thing you should do. I recommend combining the QRG with what you would typically do in a standard audit. Don’t ignore technical SEO, thin content, performance problems, and other things like that. Think about the site holistically and root out all potential problems. That’s the most powerful way to proceed in my opinion.

Google’s Danny Sullivan brought up the QRG when asked about the 8/1 update last week. So yes, definitely read the rater guidelines, internalize it, share it with your team, etc., but don’t forget about all of the other things involved with a site from an SEO standpoint (and how your users interact with your site).

Here’s Danny’s tweet:

Update November 14, 2018: Google’s John Mueller Confirms BBB Ratings Aren’t Used Algorithmically
On that note, I’ve been pretty vocal recently that I don’t believe BBB ratings were being used algorithmically by Google. There are many people that have contacted me worried about BBB scores when the BBB isn’t even in their country! The idea of Google using BBB scores or ratings algorithmically just didn’t make sense to me. First, the BBB is only in three countries (and really one primary country – the United States). Since Google’s core ranking algorithm is global, it doesn’t make sense that Google would use a limited source like that. Second, there’s a paid element to the BBB. You don’t have to pay, but you can pay to become accredited. That ranges from $480 to $1,155 per year depending on the size of your company. That also throws a wrench into Google using BBB ratings. And third, it’s just not scalable. Remember, we’re talking about global algorithms and NOT just algorithms focused on the United States (or a limited set of countries).

So, I asked Google’s John Mueller in a webmaster hangout if Google was using BBB ratings algorithmically. He was pretty clear with his response. No, they aren’t using BBB ratings algorithmically.  He said there are various issues with sources of information for companies and Google can’t blindly rely on some third-party ratings. You can watch the video below at 15:32 to hear his full response.

Now, that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking at site reputation overall. There’s a good chance they are… But they wouldn’t rely on one source or use a score from one site algorithmically. Actually, I posted an update on 10/23/18 in my post about the September 2018 update where I explained how Google might be dialing-up, or down, the power of “trusted” or “untrusted” links. That’s much more likely and way more scalable. You should read that section (and the LinkedIn article I published to learn  more about that).

Next Steps For Site Owners:
If you’ve been negatively impacted by the August 1 algorithm update, then don’t sit and wait it out. John Mueller has explained in the past that if you’ve been impacted by one of these core updates, then take a step back and review your site overall from a quality perspective. And then try to significantly improve quality over the long-term. Don’t sit and do nothing. That probably won’t end well for you.

Therefore, here are some closing bullets (some might sound familiar if you’ve read my previous post about major algorithm updates):

• Perform a thorough crawl analysis and audit of your site. Surface all potential quality problems and form a plan of attack for fixing them (and improving the site overall).
• Read the Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) and have everyone on your team that’s involved with your site read them too. Then review your site through the lens of the QRG (objectively). Then identify all potential problems and fix them.
• Conduct user studies to understand how real people view your site. I’m not talking about having your mother, spouse, or close friends go through your site. I’m talking about objective third parties that can evaluate your site based on specific actions you want them to take. Identify all problems and barriers and remove them.
• Analyze your Google Search Console (GSC) reporting, including the new index coverage reporting (which is killer). Find all technical SEO problems (combined with your crawl analysis and audit), and then fix them as quickly as possible.
• Continue to publish killer content. Don’t sit and wait while you are fixing problems… Keep pumping out high quality content that users want to read (based on understanding your niche). The more high-quality content you can produce, the more you will exceed user expectations, which will often yield more sharing, which can result in more branded searches for your site and content, while also enabling you to build more (natural) links.
• Keep building E-A-T. Note, you cannot quickly build E-A-T… you will need to do this over time. Remember, Google’s Gary Illyes explained when evaluating E-A-T, Google primarily looks at links and mentions from well-known sources. You cannot quickly build those links and mentions, but you can over the long-term by working hard and doing the right things. And make sure to showcase your expertise on your site and in your linked profiles (like Social). Jennifer Slegg just covered Google’s new creator reputation from the latest quality rater guidelines released in July. I recommend reading her post to get a solid understanding of what Google is doing on that front.

Summary – Google’s Mid-summer Classic Was Huge
The core algorithm update that rolled out on August 1, 2018 was massive and many sites across the web were impacted. Although there were a lot of health sites impacted, many others in non-YMYL categories were affected as well. If you have been negatively impacted by the 8/1 update, then it’s important to objectively analyze your site to find ways to improve. And remember, there’s never one smoking gun. There’s usually a battery of them. So go find them now. :)

GG