Presentation at Ungagged Las Vegas on unpacking Google's Black Box in 2017. A detailed look at Google Algorithms in 2017 and how these affect your site.
38. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
“I only high-five with my neck in impossible positions.”
real Gary Illyes quote
image: http://golocalinteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/HighFive.jpg
GARY
JOHN
40. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
AND …
Google no longer announces updates
on algos like Panda and Penguin
because they have been
“rolled up” into
the main algorithm(s)
SHHHHHH….
We are NINJA now!
52. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
What algos could be affecting the site?
• Penguin (core)
• Panda (c0re)
• Phantom now Fred (updates)
• Page Layout Algorithm (updates)
• Interstitials
• And going forward they are all Fred’s
Process of deductive reasoning!
NOTE there are the core algos, there are others.
Main Algorithms
53. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
What algos could be affecting the site?
• Internal (on-page, technical, etc)
• Algo(s): Panda, Phantom (Fred), Penguin,
Page Layout, Interstitial
• External (links, citations, etc)
• Algo(s): Penguin
• Third Party (advertising etc)
• Algo(s): Panda, Phantom (Fred)
Process of deductive reasoning!
NOTE there are the core algos, there are others.
Algorithms
61. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Penguin 4.0 (Real-time)
Rollout: Approximately September 23, 2016 It also rolled out in several phases
completing these rollouts the second week of October. If you never recovered, it
would have happened by now.
Summary: This update was the first in more than 2 years. However, the new
version of Penguin is very different from the old in there is no whole site website
demotion, just granular links devaluation. In addition the links are being
evaluated in “real time” and so changes to link profiles will be assessed quickly.
Algorithms - Penguin
62. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Focus: Mostly links, but also other Web Spam Factors.
TopTakeaways.
• Confirmed by Google
• Updates are in “real time”
(not the instant they occur, but they are assessed rapidly)
Sites are no longer demoted in search, links are devalued.
Links are devalued?
This means their value (passed Page Rank) to the site is removed from the site’s scoring.
In the past, the entire site was demoted in the SERPs.
This is no longer the case.
Algorithms - Penguin
63. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
When you recover from a Penguin update, make sure you
submitted a proper disavow and have also “acquired”
replacement links.
Without replacing the lost link values the site could be free
of Penguin, but appear to be still demoted.
Algorithms - Penguin
64. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Devaluations are much more granular
• Query Set
• Page Level
• Section Level
• NOT Site Level
This makes them harder to detect as their will be a slower decline
in smaller sections of the site, rather than a distinct fall-off cliff as
in previous rollouts. Also “real-time” application.
Algorithms - Penguin
66. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Off-Site Devaluations
Devaluations can affect you if they hit other sites. If the sites
that link to you have their links devalued, then that link juice
cannot be passed.
Algorithms - Penguin
68. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Link Free for All?
Manual Actions have taken over for Penguin
Devaluations, but Google experiments on those
thresholds.
Algorithms - Penguin
72. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
KEEP in MIND
Panda Rollouts were no longer announced
after 4th Quarter 2015!
Rolls out around every 3 months. (per Gary Illyes)
First Rollout was in 2016
Likely Feb 27th/28th through the first week in March.
Can be confused with Phantom, though results are similar.
Algorithms - Panda
74. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
What is Panda content quality?
• No “thin” Content
• Length DOES matter = Time, Effort, Amount
• Exceptions do exist length does not ALWAYS = “THIN”
• Be careful of Duplicate Content
• Make sure you have proper canonicals
• No Duplicate Penalty, but there is a filter!
• Make sure your titles/descriptions are unique
Algorithms - Panda
75. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
•Content Clarity
•Content Specificity (RELEVANCE)
•Content Length
•Blogs 350-550 << These are arbitrary, BUT they are good guides
•Articles 750-950+ << These are arbitrary, BUT they are good guides
ESPECIALLY for sites that deal with news, information, or
education (Entertainment especially gossip is an exception)
Note: Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) does not matter for all sites.
Algorithms - Panda
77. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
•ContentTechnical
• Grammar / Spelling / Readability
•Site Architecture
• Confirmed by John Mueller February 2017.
•Advertisements
• Too many ads on a site can cause devaluations
•Site LoadTime
• EspeciallyTime to First Byte (TFB)
• Needs to be under .80ms for best results
Algorithms - Panda
81. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Quality Update (Phantom)
“Panda Plus” witha wider quality focus including UI/X
Summary: Google update that affected sites with low quality indicators.
Focus: Low Quality Pages
TopTakeaways.
• Not typically confirmed by Google
• Can change focus – kind of a catch-all of quality algos
• Have to look for other indicators
• Overlaps Panda in some areas
• Affects Organic SERPs
Algorithms – Phantom now FRED
82. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Phantom
Quality Update Issues (that are most likely Phantom)
• Appears to focus on items such as
• Aggressive Ad Placements
• Content
• Crawl Issues
• Deception (ads, affiliate links, etc.)
• Thin Content
• Bad UI/X
• Interstitials
Algorithms – Phantom now Fred
103. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Interstitials THAT ARE Affected
• Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user
navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the
page.
• Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the
main content.
• Using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a
standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inclined underneath the fold.
http://searchengineland.com/interstitialgeddon-google-warns-will-crack-intrusive-interstitials-next-january-257252
Ads & Interstitials
105. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Interstitials NOT Affected
Those types are:
• Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie
usage or for age verification.
• Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this
would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a
paywall.
• Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible.
For example, the app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of
banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.
Ads & Interstitials
120. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Rank Brain
Uses Entities & Known Relationships
Person, Place, Thing = Noun = Entities.
Nouns or Persons/Places/People/Things are what we call entities. Entities
are known to Google and their meaning is defined in the databases Google
references.
121. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Rank Brain
Uses Entities & Known Relationships
There is no optimizing for Rank Brain and why would you want to?
Rank Brain Queries = Query (User) Intent to SERPs = weak association.
Bringing irrelevant or weak traffic.
132. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Do the pages have mixed status?
• If pages moved to https, did the URLs change everywhere? CDN?Tag Manager?
Analytics?
• Are the pages redirected?
• Use the Aleyda Solis checklist for https migration
• Robots
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
TechnicalTechnical
133. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Technical SEO Audit – The Basics
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Can it be crawled? If not, googlebot goes away!
• Is it written correctly? (test it)
• Are you using it when they should be using no-index?
• Robots.txt blocks the page crawl, but not the URL indexing
• Are you blocking CSS &/or JS?
• Must unblock!This can cause a site demotion.
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
TechnicalTechnical
134. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Do you have one?
• Is it written correctly? (test it)
• Check their sitemaps for
• Limits
• Types (video, image, page, news < different XML)
• Index Sitemaps (use them!)
• TIP Google does not use priority or date modifiers
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical
135. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Do you have them on the site?
• Are they written correctly?
• Do they follow the rules for writing canonicals?
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical
136. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Are they using 302 or 301?
• Google says they don’t care, but …
• How many 404s?
Are you bleeding links? Should they be 410?
• When redirecting links from removed pages topical matches
are a MUST or the links passed could lose value
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical
137. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Is the structure vertical or horizontal?
• TIP Google prefers wide and flat over deep and tall
• Are you giving Google a proper content outline?
• Think 10th grade English Class
• Are you specific, certain and clear?
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
Technical
138. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• Are you using proper navigation?
• Are you constructing a contextual view of your site?
• Are you throwing in the kitchen sink?
• TIP Users can only process 5-8 piece of information at a time
• Going to be even more important in mobile first indexing.
• SchemaTagging
Technical
139. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
• Http vs. Https
• Robots.txt
• Sitemaps
• Canonicals
• Redirects & 404s
• Architecture
• Navigation
• SchemaTagging
• Just do it! Really. Microdata is Google preferred.
• TIP Any data point can be used in the KG without copyright
violation.
• Check Google Search Console for mark-up validity.
• Make sure to add to your mobile site for mobile first!
Technical
144. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
HOW DO WETEST FAST?
WebpageTest.org and of course
Google Pagespeed Insights
Also there is information in Google Analytics.
Page Speed
158. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Mobile First Indexing
• One Index
• Mobile Crawler will be used for all sites
• Mobile Content will be used for ranking
• Mobile SERPs
• Desktop SERPs
• AMP NOT a factor in mobile first indexing
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing
159. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Content you want to
rank for MUST be in
your mobile site
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing
160. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
If you do not have the content on your mobile site, the site
cannot be found for it even in desktop.
This means they will rely more heavily on sitemaps to find
content.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
Mobile First Indexing
161. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Mobile First Indexing SiteTypes
• If you have a mobile m. site
• Make sure to verify this site in Google Search console
• If you have a responsive site
• No changes needed
• If you have AMP+ Desktop, but NO MOBILE
• You will be evaluated on your desktop content, but mobile friendly boost
• If you have AMP ONLY
• You will be evaluated on AMP site.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing
162. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
UI Hidden Content.
Unlike Desktop, content hidden in accordions and tabs will not
be devalued in mobile first indexing.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing
163. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Schema.
If you removed schema in mobile, it must be added back to
your mobile site to get into the snippets.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing
164. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Links.
Links will be handled by either the site being responsive (no
changes needed) OR if you have an m. your canonical will allow
Google to combine the value of both your desktop and mobile
links.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html
http://www.thesempost.com/details-googles-mobile-first-indexing-change/
Mobile First Indexing
168. @schachin Kristine Schachinger
Everything you need to know?
It’s in the Google Quality Raters Guide
(and the Webmaster Guidelines)
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//inside search/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf