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Google Algorithm Update Analysis
By Dave Davies (c) 2007

Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we
in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic
shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and
continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into
the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being
dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any
clients on the losing end of that equation however we have
called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top
positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming.
After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the
results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking
system.

This update seems to have revolved around three main areas:
domain age, backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age

It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weight to
the age of a domain and, in this SEO's opinion,
disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely
be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site
is, there are many newer sites that provide some great
information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these
sites got spanked in the last update.

On this tangent I have to say that Google's use of domain age
as a whole is a good filter, allowing them to "sandbox" sites on
day one to insure that they aren't just being launched to rank
quickly for terms. Recalling back to the "wild west days" of SEO
when ranking a site was a matter of cramming keywords into
content and using questionable methods to generate links quickly
I can honestly say that adding in this delay was an excellent
step that ensured that the benefits of pumping out domains
became extremely limited. So I approve of domain age being used
to value a site – to a point.

After a period of time (let's call it a year shall we) the age
should and generally has only had a very small influence on a
site's ranking with the myriad of other factors overshadowing
the site's whois data. This appears to have changed in the
recent update with age holding a disproportionate weight. In a
number of instances this has resulted in older, less qualified
domains to rank higher than newer sites of higher quality.

This change in the ranking algorithm will most certainly be
adjusted as Google works to maximize the searchers experience.
We'll get into the "when" question below.

Backlinks

The way that backlinks are being calculated and valued has seen
some adjustments in the latest update as well. The way this has
been done takes me back a couple years to the more easily gamed
Google of old. This statement alone reinforces the fact that
adjustments are necessary.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some
grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers.
Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are
outranking sites with fewer but more relevant links.
Non-reciprocal links lost the "advantages" that they held over
reciprocal links until recently.

Essentially the environment is currently such that Google has
made itself more easily gamed than it was a week ago. In the
current environment, building a reasonably sized site with a
large recip link directory (even unfocused) should be enough to
get you ranking. For obvious reasons this cannot (and should
not) stand indefinitely.

PageRank

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have
lost some of it's importance including the importance of
PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks. In my
opinion this is a very positive step on Google's part and shows
a solid understanding of the fact that PageRank means little in
terms of a site's importance. That said, while PageRank is a
less than perfect calculation subject to much abuse and
manipulation from those pesky people in the SEO community it did
serve a purpose and while it needed to be replaced it doesn't
appear to have been replaced with anything of substantial value.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is
being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green
bar to gauge a site's trust on (good call Google). With this in
mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided
the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to
scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weight from
PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting
out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely).
Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been
clear due to it's weight in the overall algorithm and with this
shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face
the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident

In truth, the question is neither here nor there (as important a
question as it may be). We will cover why this is in the ...

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? First, it means that this
Thursday or Friday we can expect yet another update to correct
some of the issues we've seen rise out of the most current
round. This shouldn't surprise anyone too much, we've been
seeing regular updates out of Google quite a bit over the past
few months.

But what does this mean regarding the aging of domains? While I
truly feel that an aging delay or "sandbox" is a solid filter on
Google's part – it needs to have a maximum duration. A site
from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from
2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold
steady or at most, hold a very slight weight. This is an area we
are very likely to see changes in the next update.

As far as backlinks go, we'll see changes in the way they are
calculated unless Google is looking to revert back to the issues
they had in 2003. Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once
again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is
getting extremely good at determining relevancy and so I assume
the current algorithm issues have more to do with the weight
assigned to different factors than an inability to properly
calculate a link's relevancy.

And in regards to PageRank, Google will likely shift back
slightly to what worked and give more importance to PageRank, at
least while they figure out what went awry here.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or
over the weekend we're going to see a shift back to last
week's results (or something very close to it) after which
they'll work on the issues they've experienced and launch a
new (hopefully improved) algorithm shift the following weekend.
And so, if you've enjoyed a sudden jump from page 6 to top 3,
don't pop the cork on the champagne too quickly, and if you've
noticed some drops, don't panic. More adjustments to this
algorithm are necessary and, if you've used solid SEO practices
and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics –
keep at it and your rankings will return.
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Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning,
Inc. (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com) Beanstalk offers search
engine optimization services to businesses small and large as
well as providing consulting, training, copywriting and link
popularity programs. To keep your site optimized and monitor
its results you'll want to bookmark their SEO blog
(http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/) and free SEO tools
(http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/tools/) pages.
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