2013 Updates
Authorship Shake-up — December
19, 2013
As predicted by Matt Cutts at Pubcon Las Vegas,
authorship mark-up disappeared from roughly 15% of queries over a
period of about a month. The fall bottomed out around December 19th,
but the numbers remain volatile and have not recovered to earlier
highs.
Unnamed Update — December 17,
2013
Almost all global flux trackers registered
historically high activity. Google would not confirm an update,
suggesting that they avoid updates near the holidays. MozCast also
registered a rise in some Partial-Match Domains (PMDs), but the
patterns were unclear.
Unnamed Update — November 14,
2013
Multiple Google trackers picked up unusual activity,
which co-occurred with a report of widespread DNS errors in Google
Webmaster Tools. Google did not confirm an update, and the cause and
nature of this flux was unclear.
Penguin 2.1 (#5) — October 4,
2013
After a 4-1/2 month gap, Google launched another
Penguin update. Given the 2.1 designation, this was probably a data
update (primarily) and not a major change to the Penguin algorithm.
The overall impact seemed to be moderate, although some webmasters
reported being hit hard.
Hummingbird — August 20, 2013
Announced on September 26th, Google suggested that
the "Hummingbird" update rolled out about a month earlier.
Our best guess ties it to a MozCast spike on August 20th and many
reports of flux from August 20-22. Hummingbird has been compared to
Caffeine, and seems to be a core algorithm update that may power
changes to semantic search and the Knowledge Graph for months to
come.
In-depth Articles — August 6,
2013
Google added a new type of news result called
"in-depth articles", dedicated to more evergreen, long-form
content. At launch, it included links to three articles, and appeared
across about 3% of the searches that MozCast tracks.
Unnamed Update — July 26, 2013
MozCast tracked a large Friday spike (105° F), with
other sources showing significant activity over the weekend. Google
has not confirmed this update.
Knowledge Graph Expansion — July
19, 2013
Seemingly overnight, queries with Knowledge Graph
(KG) entries expanded by more than half (+50.4%) across the MozCast
data set, with more than a quarter of all searches showing some kind
of KG entry.
Panda Recovery — July 18, 2013
Google confirmed a Panda update, but it was unclear
whether this was one of the 10-day rolling updates or something new.
The implication was that this was algorithmic and may have "softened"
some previous Panda penalties.
Multi-Week Update — June 27, 2013
Google's Matt Cutts tweeted a reply suggesting a
"multi-week" algorithm update between roughly June 12th and
"the week after July 4th". The nature of the update was
unclear, but there was massive rankings volatility during that time
period, peaking on June 27th (according to MozCast data). It appears
that Google may have been testing some changes that were later rolled
back.
Panda Dance — June 11, 2013
While not an actual Panda update, Matt Cutts made an
important clarification at SMX Advanced, suggesting that Panda was
still updating monthly, but each update rolled out over about 10
days. This was not the "everflux" many people had expected
after Panda #25.
"Payday Loan" Update —
June 11, 2013
Google announced a targeted algorithm update to
take on niches with notoriously spamy results, specifically
mentioning payday loans and porn. The update was announced on June
11th, but Matt Cutts suggested it would roll out over a 1-2 month
period.
Penguin 2.0 (#4) — May 22, 2013
After months of speculation bordering on hype, the
4th Penguin update (dubbed "2.0" by Google) arrived with
only moderate impact. The exact nature of the changes were unclear,
but some evidence suggested that Penguin 2.0 was more finely targeted
to the page level.
Domain Crowding — May 21, 2013
Google released an update to control domain
crowding/diversity deep in the SERPs (pages 2+). The timing was
unclear, but it seemed to roll out just prior to Penguin 2.0 in the
US and possibly the same day internationally.
"Phantom" — May 9, 2013
In the period around May 9th, there were many
reports of an algorithm update (also verified by high MozCast
activity). The exact nature of this update was unknown, but many
sites reported significant traffic loss.
Panda #25 — March 14, 2013
Matt Cutts per-announced a Panda update at SMX West,
and suggested it would be the last update before Panda was integrated
into the core algorithm. The exact date was unconfirmed, but MozCast
data suggests 3/13-3/14.
Panda #24 — January 22, 2013
Google announced its first official update of 2013,
claiming 1.2% of queries affected. This did not seem related to talk
of an update around 1/17-18 (which Google did not confirm).