Have you seen a change to your website traffic or earnings over the weekend? Google have been making changes to their search algorithm, and this is sending ripples across the web.

The algorithm Google uses to decide which sites appear in its search results is often shrouded in mystery, kept under lock and key like the Colonel’s secret mix of herbs and spices.

There are two reasons for this; firstly, the less people that know about how the search results are decided the less people are able to manipulate them and put websites onto page one that don’t deserve to be there. Secondly, the algorithm is being constantly updated and tweaked to make the search results better, over 400 times per year, and it contains over 200 different factors that effect a websites performance. Keeping up to date with this would be a difficult task even for the most dedicated of marketers.

Despite this secrecy, Google do like to announce certain updates so that Webmasters can keep up to date with best practices, and so spammers can know that there is someone hot on their tail.

One such update took place last Friday, the 4th October.

This was an update to the codenamed ‘Penguin’ filter, an algorithm change that was first rolled out early 2012 and has been periodically refreshed since. As cute as the Penguin update sounds, it was anything but for many business owners. This change saw many websites disappear from the search results overnight, with traffic and earnings sent plummeting downhill.

The Penguin update was designed with one thing in mind; to weed out sites that had achieved visibility in the search results by using manipulative linking techniques.

To take a step back for a moment; Google uses links between websites as a gauge of deciding how trustworthy and authoritative a site is. For example, if there is a finance blog that is being linked to from the Financial Times and the BBC, it’s a great sign to Google that this blog is trustworthy, and should be ranked higher than a blog that has no other sites linking to it.

It’s this idea which saw Google turn from a small college start-up to one of the world’s biggest technology giants.

This system is built on the assumption that all links on websites are earnt through merit, and a link on a site to another is seen as a vote of confidence. However, as the value of high Google rankings became apparent, a whole sub-industry of SEO was created to artificially acquire links through any means possible. This often involves cash transactions, automated software leaving spam comments and forum posts, and submissions on directory sites that have been created for the sole purpose of passing on SEO value.

It’s exactly these kind of tactics that the Penguin update was rolled out to catch, and suddenly SEO tactics that had been working for years suddenly became the reason that sites were disappearing from the results.

Many honest and hardworking business owners have seen their website traffic completely vanish due to no fault of their own, simply because they trusted an SEO company that used these artificial link tactics. More than ever, it’s becoming essential to conduct in-depth due diligence when hiring an SEO agency, especially when it comes to link building. Check out these tips on outsourcing your link building:

http://www.bringdigital.co.uk/blog/tips-on-hiring-a-link-building-company/

So back to October 2013, and the latest Penguin update. It was officially confirmed by Google on Friday evening via the head of their webspam team, Matt Cutts. Since then, there has been heavy talk across the Webmaster community of sites that have benefited, and sites that have suffered.

The real test of the magnitude of the change will come on Monday morning, when business owners and Marketers get back to their desks and check their traffic and sales from the weekend. There will be some people who are delighted to see that there website rankings have improved as sites above them have been punished, however there will sadly be many who have seen a big dip in visitors and revenue.

As a digital marketing agency that specialises in long term, ethical and sustainable SEO campaigns, these updates often provide a very busy period for us. We never like to see businesses suffer due to bad SEO advice they might have taken over the years, and we make ourselves available to offer advice and guidance to help them recover.

If you’ve noticed any movement in your website traffic or revenue over the weekend, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or the team at Bring Digital on 01204 867023.