All New Google - Page layout algorithm improvement

crowly · Jan 20, 2012

Ok, since yesterday my website lost its ranking for almost all keywords. Even pages that were ranking no1 for months are now 2nd, 3d place. Quick look at the Webmaster forum and here is what is going on -

hxxp://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

Here is the thing, I have 5 times more content than my biggest competitor who uses the same exact page layout and he is still holding its ranks. Wtf google

e128k · Jan 20, 2012

read the article. doesn't say anything about amount of content on the entire website. all about above the fold, so compare that against your site and then report back.

we?ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it?s difficult to find the actual content, they aren?t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don?t have much content ?above-the-fold? can be affected by this change.

e128k · Jan 20, 2012

Oh yeah. Thanks for letting me know this is the first I'm hearing of it

crowly · Jan 20, 2012

Alright, above the fold my competitor has 10 times less the content I have. I removed my ad that was below the title, lets hope that works.

thesilent · Jan 20, 2012

This post also talks about how it can take several weeks for google to notice changes done to a site.

So, If you do some improvements wait patiently!

nik-0 · Jan 20, 2012

Maybe your competitor builded more links and you haven't done much lately, possible? No idea why you start a thread when you lose 1-2 spots in the rankings :S

To quote what's being said in the blog:

"This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally. That means that in less than one in 100 searches, a typical user might notice a reordering of results on the search page"

Sounds pretty logical that max 1% of sites geet affected, who the hell is gonna place only ads above the fold. I can't even remember I ever run into such site so your post is totally unrelated to that blog and your whining for nothing.

e128k · Jan 20, 2012

Tell you the truth, the best ctr for blogs is directly below the post title and above the content, but they say it won't affect these advertisers. Though they also are using funny talk when mentioning this whole algorithm change. I'm getting a feeling this is going to do a lot more than they are making it out to be, and it's about to ruin a lot of people's start to this new year. Only a feeling, but this is what they love to do.

This also assumes they're able to make out the difference between between websites that are using pictures to convey content instead of text. They also don't mention what classifies an "ad." Could this be an internal ad, or only external ads?

Just checked an old client's eCommerce site for a keyword and it's jumped to the 15th position when it was in 8th. That's barely 1% of search, and hardly unnoticeable. This was for a category section with a huge "hero" creative that the owner loves so much.

Wow. If this is specifically from this update it will be HUGGGGEEEEEEEE. Also noticed an article that has been ranking 3rd for a very very long time has just been pushed to 4th in favor of another ecommerce site that now holds the #1 and #2. The page that has lost ranking doesn't have any ads pushing down content, but does have a scribd article that is pushing it down.

Very interesting.

If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn?t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site?s initial screen real estate to ads, that?s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

googlemonster · Jan 20, 2012

that ffat priccck matt cutts again ffs, where is an example of what they mean the daft pricks, look youtube has a floating annoying ad on every video. I wish that pile of jellied pork fat would find himself under a rather large rock at the bottom of a cliff.

e128k · Jan 20, 2012

Haha for real. Who's going to penalize their SERPs?

googlemonster said:
that ffat priccck matt cutts again ffs, where is an example of what they mean the daft pricks, look youtube has a floating annoying ad on every video. I wish that pile of jellied pork fat would find himself under a rather large rock at the bottom of a cliff.

BreakAllTheClocks · Jan 20, 2012

nik-0 said:
who the hell is gonna place only ads above the fold. I can't even remember I ever run into such site

One of the largest sites ever does exactly that, and never penalized:

spruitje · Jan 20, 2012

I got hit pretty hard too... Will wait for a few days just to see if things will improve before altering my layout. @Matt: Stop f'ing around with peoples income!!!

Gary Becks · Jan 20, 2012

BreakAllTheClocks said:
One of the largest sites ever does exactly that, and never penalized:

Oooh the irony!!

neo3187 · Jan 20, 2012

2012 - Hollywood Warned us About This

slate2011 · Jan 20, 2012

I also got hit... was on pg1 for about 80% of my keywords.. they are now on page 2 or 3 and some not anyware.

neo3187 · Jan 20, 2012

Even my sites got hit

.... now I have installed Who Sees Ads plugin and will only be showing ads to search visitors, lets see how it goes.

geniusgullu · Jan 20, 2012

my site got affected.. now i removed all the ads.. infact i made it like a simple html page with no ads at all.. and have to see what google have to do now!!!

goinviral · Jan 20, 2012

Seems like one of those updates they will have to roll back. There are some monster sites out there doing exactly this. Sites that spend lots on google adwords advertising they aren't going to be happy and when the adwords advertisers rage google listens. eHow might stop letting google execs use the private yacht that always forces Matt to do a roll back.

tzaphoo · Jan 20, 2012

Same here...I dropped from #14 to 37# for a highly competitive kw and from #4 to #20 for the second kw

mmmmeme · Jan 20, 2012

Interesting. Now Google makes me understand even more about how it works.

MKelly · Jan 20, 2012

My sites traffic increased a shit-load (30%) on around the 14th of this month.

I have not changed the content, but at the start of the month I read about how Google said your site should look like an 'apple product', so...

I tweaked the .css and php on my wordpress themes, and I have to say they now look smooth as f**k! I also optimised my theme for speed, minified everything, got rid of all unused .css and speeded up the sites by almost double.

I also have no ads above the fold, but Google have been talking about this update coming for a while now.

The results of this have been astounding, more visitors, bounce rate used to be in the 70% range, now it's around 45%, considering that I have not changed the actual content at all.

I really believe that if you tweak your sites layout and theme to be stylish, user-friendly and unique it will make a positive impact on your bottom line.

I'm one of the lucky ones that was one step ahead of this update.

P.S. 1% of sites is still roughly over 3,500,000 websites.

All New Google - Page layout algorithm improvement

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