This is NOT a normal post for me to publish, but I wanted to quickly document what I’m seeing. I’m in the middle of heavily analyzing some larger algorithm updates that occurred in December (there were several), and I came across a very interesting situation. I noticed that some celebrities aren’t ranking anymore for their own names. Their official websites used to rank number one in the search results as of early December, but those sites are now either at the bottom of page one or even off page one.
I initially noticed several celebrities were impacted, including John Lennon, Lebron James, Kristen Stewart, and Charlie Sheen. I also noticed some strange things going on rankings-wise with the official website for Miley Cyrus a few months back, and that seemed to calm down, but she might be experiencing some issues again. I wasn’t planning on digging into this situation since I’m neck deep in analyzing other updates that occurred this month, but again, I wanted to document the volatility I’m seeing for the celebrities listed in this post. I don’t know if this is collateral damage based on other updates Google has pushed, or if this is intentional. Again, I plan to check this out further soon.
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Update 12/27 8AM: I just added Tom Cruise’s site, which dropped on the same day. Also, although not as bad of a drop, Barack Obama’s official site also dropped several spots. It used to rank #1 for his name, but is now under Wikipedia and Twitter. See the screenshots below. You can also see the search visibility dropping and then bouncing back, and then dropping again. So it’s pretty clear something is going on here… Continuing my updates, I added Leonardo Dicaprio’s site, which also dropped on 12/15. It now ranks under IMDB, Twitter, and Wikipedia, when it used to rank #1. I also included Marilyn Monroe’s official website, which also dropped. It now ranks #6 when it used to rank #1 before the update. At 3PM, I also added Channing Tatum, since his site dropped from #1 to #11 for his name. There are many examples of this happening across celebrities.
Update 12/27 10AM: Thoughts about why is this happening:
After digging into the sites that were impacted, I’m starting to believe Google could be simply treating them just like any other site (even if they are the official celebrity website). They are often very simple websites, they don’t contain a lot of content, and sometimes they are just single page websites. So quality is definitely an issue. If that’s the case, then Google must have been treating them differently before 12/15/17. After going through a number of the sites impacted, I can’t imagine users were happy with the results. And we know Google always wants to provide the best results possible. I’ll post an update with any changes I see. Stay tuned.
Update 12/27 12:30PM: I included information and screenshots below about searches on mobile devices and how celebrity Knowledge Panels come into play (which sometimes contain links to the official websites).
Update 12/28 9:30AM: Many people have been asking me for an example of an official celebrity website that hasn’t dropped. So I added screenshots below from Katy Perry’s official site katyperry.com. You can see search visibility is stable through the update and the site still ranks #1 for her name. The site is definitely higher quality than most celebrity websites. It works well, is pretty well organized, and contains a good amount of content. Other celebrities might want to review at her site. :)
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In the meantime, here are some screenshots of what I’m seeing rankings-wise. It should be interesting to see if the sites bounce back as Google continues to make changes. Or maybe this is what they want… It’s hard to say at this point, but I saw enough celebrities drop that I decided to publish this post.
1. John Lennon
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “John Lennon”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (ranking #9):
2. Charlie Sheen
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Charlie Sheen”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (ranking #9):
3. Lebron James
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Lebron James”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (not ranking on page one at all):
4. Kristen Stewart
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Kristen Stewart”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (not ranking on page one at all):
Update 12/27 8AM: I added Tom Cruise after hearing from Dan Sharp of Screaming Frog.
5. Tom Cruise
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Tom Cruise”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (now ranking #6 after the update):
Update 12/27 9:30AM: I added Barack Obama after seeing his official site drop in rankings for his name.
6. Barack Obama
Drop and Surges in Search Visibility starting on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Barack Obama”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (now ranking #3 after the update, under Wikipedia and Twitter):
Update 12/27 10:20AM: I added Leonardo Dicaprio after seeing his official site drop in rankings for his name. It was similar to Barack Obama’s situation above. Leo’s site dropped from #1 to #4 (now under IMDB, Twitter, and Wikipedia).
7. Leonardo Dicaprio
Drop in Search Visibility starting on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Leonardo Dicaprio”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (now ranking #4 after the update, under IMDB, Twitter, and Wikipedia):
Update 12/27 11:00AM: I added Marilyn Monroe after hearing from Julie Logan of Irish Wonder.
8. Marilyn Monroe
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Marilyn Monroe”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (now ranking #6 after the update):
Update 12/27 3:00PM: I included Channing Tatum since his official site dropped from #1 to #11.
9. Channing Tatum
Drop in Search Visibility on 12/15:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Channing Tatum”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (now ranking #11 after the update):
Update 12/28 9:30AM: Many people were asking for examples of celebrity websites that didn’t drop, so I included Katy Perry below since her official site still ranks #1 for her name (and search visibility remained stable through the update).
10. Katy Perry (was not impacted by the update)
No drop in search visibility through the update:
Screenshot from November of site ranking #1 for the query “Katy Perry”:
Screenshot on 12/26 (still ranking #1 after the update):
A Mobile Twist: The Impact of Knowledge Panels in Mobile Search:
Update 12/27 12:30PM: After analyzing the sites and the search results more, I noticed an interesting situation when searching on mobile devices. We know Google is actively moving sites to its mobile-first index based on the boom in smartphone usage. And we also know that Knowledge Panels can take up a huge amount of real estate on mobile phones. Well, when you search for some of the celebrity names that dropped during the update (on mobile devices), you can see how Knowledge Panels comes into play (and they often contain a link to the official website for the celebrity!) So just checking on desktop doesn’t give the full picture. If you test on mobile devices, you can often still see the official site listed. The sites have dropped on desktop, but can remain in the Knowledge Panel, which shows up above the search results. This didn’t always happen, but it did show up for several tests I performed.
Here are a few examples:
I’ll post an update as I gather more information and perform more testing. I’m also planning on pinging some people from Google about this in case it’s a mistake. Stay tuned.
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Update: I reached out to Danny Sullivan and John Mueller from Google and heard back from Danny on Twitter. He passed along the information to others at Google and they are looking into it. I’ll post another update once I hear back (if we hear anything about the situation).
GG
I can see why JohnLennon.com wouldn’t rank well in Google and it seems that Google are now getting serious about how they rank sites. The site has no text content containing search words or keywords and the page Title & Meta Description are really poor. The index page is one large image with links to other sites and a sub-domain store. I’m totally surprised that it’s even on page 1 of Google! I give it zero points for content!
Anyone seeking information about John Lennon would be sorely disappointed with this site, so I can see Google’s actions regarding ranking as being justified. There are no other pages for the domain, so what could Google possibly index?
Running a test on the site revealed validation errors With HTML5 and WC3 compliancy.
I’m surprised that an artist of JL’s standing has been given such a poor website by whoever continues his legacy. He is one of my musical heroes and he deserves better.
I had gone through the article and I agree with the analysis performed by Mr. Glenn.
But I am little bit disagree with Mr. Fred for what is said for John Lennon’s website.
“I’m totally surprised that it’s even on page 1 of Google! I give it zero points for content!”
I had analyze the page and surprisingly found that 1,132 sites linking to this site. So it was in first page though it has week content and regarding validity, the page should not dropped drastically as seen.
Thanks for your comment Fred. Sometimes the official sites are pretty bland, light on content, etc. So this could be accurate based on the latest Google updates. Or, the impact could be collateral damage and we might see rankings change soon. As I explained in the post, I saw this with Miley’s site a few months ago, and it bounced back. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I’ll update this post with more information as things change.
Is it the impact of https? haha. Because I saw her(Miley Cyrus) site ranking in recovery, thanks for your sharing
It’s hard to say what happened. I definitely saw this with Miley’s site a few months ago, but it bounced back. It could be collateral damage based on the other updates released in December (which I am heavily analyzing now). Or it could be accurate… which would mean they sit lower on page one (or off page one). Danny Sullivan passed this along at Google, so we’ll see if there are any changes. Stay tuned.
Glenn, do you think it could be related to an exact match domain update?
Great question. I have not seen any sign that this is impacting EMDs overall. I have reviewed many exact match domains since this happened and their search visibility looks normal. So this algo update definitely seemed to have an element that impacted celebrity websites (actors, bands, musicians, politicians, etc.) Many prominent figures had their official websites drop in rankings (and especially for their names). Stay tuned.
@glenngabe:disqus / @nicole , i feel like I’m seeing a correlation between the top rankings (now) for queries where they’re matching (or very close to) the path/page name. Anyone else seeing this?
Can you elaborate? Related to celebrity searches or queries overall?
Not isolated to celebrity searches. It appears as though website.com/matching-search-term are doing far better than before. I’m seeing low(er) quality sites outrank higher quality sites with exact-match path/page name. This is not the case in every scenario but seeing it with many.
I thought this is the impact of AMP.. Am I right @Gl@glenngabe:disqus ??
No, there was some tweak to the algo that caused many official celebrity websites to drop (some by just a few spots, but others off page one). All of them dropped on one day, 12/15. I explained in the post that Google could simply be treating the sites just like any other site now, even if they are the official celebrity website. But that would mean Google was treating them differently prior to 12/15…
It’s also worth noting the mobile twist I explained at the end of the post. Celebrity Knowledge Panels on mobile often contain the official website. So in mobile search, the sites might still have excellent real estate. And we know that mobile accounts for a majority of celebrity searches. I’ll post more updates as I learn more.
great work
Hey @glenngabe:disqus, nice writeup. Earlier this month I noticed some egregious errors in celebrity related knowledge graphs. Almost every big name out there had a LinkedIn profile listed that was not even close to being correct. I did a writeup on it here: http://witblade.com/google-knowledge-graph-linkedin-errors/
I wonder if there has been some sort of overhaul on celebrity related stuff this month. I sent my discovery to John Mueller and it was quickly corrected. Mick Jagger and Donald Trump were particularly funny results.
Hey, thanks for the information Ryan. Very interesting. Well, one thing is for sure. Google seemed to be treating those official sites differently before 12/15. That’s definitely the most intriguing part of what happened (IMO). I never heard back from Danny, so this is apparently where the sites should rank. :)
Glenn, your research is quite intriguing.
I mean I agree that it sounds reasonable that thin on content websites are lagging behind Wikipedia’s listings, but an official website being outraced by it – that’s a whole different story.
I was wondering if the nature of the search query could be the culprit for the rankings, and respectively the traffic drop … What I mean is: Is it possible that a thin in content website is considered no longer a good reply to an informational query like a celebrity’s name and is substituted by a Wiki listing.
Then again what if the given celebrity site is good at answering a transactional query? Take for instance singers and music artists – let’s look at your own example: Katy Perry. Her website allows purchasing both her albums and tickets to her shows. What if a good authority for a transactional query boosts your authority for informational content as well? It’s a long shot, but it might just as well be worthy of investigating, no?
I have one question, Glenn, if you allow me the curiosity: what tool do you use to verify past month Google rankings for a given query?
Thanks for your comment Nevyana. I really think it came down to treating those official sites just like any other site (which of course, means they weren’t treating them the same before 12/15). I’m sure Google simple wanted to connect users with the best possible content and experience possible. And many of those official celebrity sites fall short. I’ll keep tracking this over time. Stay tuned. :)