A Time to Breathe

Posted On: 2013-05-29

Ok so we're back from the crazy week of travel that I mentioned last time and we had planned on taking things a little easier this week but Google seemed to have other ideas.

While we were away Google released Penguin 2.0 and I have to tell you that we didn't even notice it. The rain kept falling ... the sun shone occasionally ... people went about their business and you could still buy a good coffee from the places we stop at when we travel south of here.

Life went on out there in the real world as if nothing had happened ... heck even the dolphins surfing the shore-break didn't seem to care that Google had just changed the world forever.

Of course Google hadn't changed the world for ever ... sure they updated their algorithm ... just the same as they do around 500 times every year but this time everyone who is anyone had to rush in and show the SEO world that they're on the ball and had something important to say about it. And that's just plain sad.

I don't know why there's this incredible rush to be counted among the first people to write about a new update. Does it make you look more important if you're among the first to talk about Google's latest update? Does it show people that you're an expert and worth listening to? Does it make your services worth more out there in the marketplace?

I really don't know but this time it seemed as though everyone had to try and get in on the act. Of course you would expect people like Danny Sullivan, the guys at SEOmoz and some of the Europeans to have something to say when an update occurs ... and they did.

Within hours some of those guys were already nominating the sites that had gained the most and those that had lost the most because of the update. One of the European SEO experts had a 25 page report published within 48 hours of the update that showed how one German website had disappeared into the toilet.

As I said, you would expect these guys to be there talking about the changes but I've also seen copywriters who have no SEO credentials suddenly declaring that the world of keyword phrase stuffing has ended forever and before long I'm sure we'll see the guy who cleans the toilets at the local bus station publish his opinions too.

And you know what? I wouldn't stake my business on anything I've read about the latest updates regardless of who wrote it.

Sure ... there are some very experienced people out there who have voiced their opinions and we shouldn't disregard them entirely but when it comes to anything that Google does there's always a period of flux ... a time when nothing is set in concrete ... a time when all the changes that happen on the first day can disappear by the fifth day.

Yet here we are seeing people ... experts and wannabes ... declaring that this or that website has been screwed by the update ... that some things are finished as ranking factors but are they really? How can you tell after just two days? I understand why those experts would want to get their opinion out there ... but what if they're just as wrong as the wannabes who have no clue? What does that doe for their credibility?

Let's look at just two examples of what I'm talking about and I should point out that because we were travelling the update was four days old before we could start checking search results that were relevant for some of our clients. We had certainly been reading what people were saying about the changes but we didn't have time to sit down and actually look at what was happening in our clients' search results pages.

One thing that we were supposed to see from this update was a lot of websites that had escaped previous Penguin attacks being downgraded this time. Perhaps that has happened but we've also seen examples of keyword stuffed pages from About.com coming back to the top of the rankings too ... and that wasn't supposed to have happened.

We were also told that the new update would put a cap on the number of times a single website would have listings for a search term so that users would get a wider choice of sites to go to for the information they were seeking. Maybe the cap is in place but I'm yet to see it and the worst example I found yesterday was six listings for the one website on the first search engine results page.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you're serious about search engine optimisation you won't be rushing in to say ... or do ... anything just yet. Instead, let the people who need to be heard make all the noise they want because there's a very good chance they'll end up just looking silly.

Instead of getting all wound up about this latest update just sit back and breathe and once everything has settled down then you can make informed decisions about what you should do to fix any negative changes that may have happened to your rankings.