Data Refresh or Penguin 2.X, SEO Misconceptions, PRISM Scandal, Speedlink 23:2013

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great and productive week. You all know that Penguin 2.0 has struck about a couple of weeks ago, and the SEO community thought that “things” have settled down already. Well, as it so seems, the “tweaks”, “data refresh” or some sort of Penguin 2.x, is far from over. DejanSEO, a respected Australian SEO consultant has developed “Algoroo“, a tool that tracks Google algorithm changes by observing turbulence in rankings of thousands of keywords. When the bar is high, it’s likely that Google has made a tweak to their algorithm.

SEO Turbulance

Observe the fluctuations that happened since May 22, and look at the way the graph behaves up until now. All “red”, meaning that things are still happening (quite a lot on June 6). Whatever that may be, it looks like Google SERPs is still changing. This volatility is rankings is also confirmed by SERPs Volatility Index tool.

SERPs volatility index tool

What do you think? Something is definitely going on. Is this a data refresh, tweaks from the latest Penguin to improve results, or a permanent “Penguin” doing its thing?

What are some misconceptions in the SEO industry?

Matt Cutts this week released another video answering to this question: “Which aspect of Google updates you think the SEO industry simply won’t get? Where do you see many SEOs spending too much energy on when they could be taking care of other things?”

Actually a great question, but, here’s Matt’s response.

Hmmm, do you think he actually answered the question, or was it more about the “conspiracy” issue that Google makes all these changes to make more revenue? Also, if you noticed, Matt repeatedly was mentioning about “UI” (user interface). Says that user experience among other things, requires a “great design”. So, does this mean that web design is now an SEO factor? Oh, and “site speed” is another thing that he says helps a lot. That, we already know, right?

PRISMFinally, the PRISM buzz is all over. If you have not heard about it, PRISM is supposedly a secret government program that gives the NSA unprecedented access to the servers of major tech companies to “spy” on US citizens. Scary thing. Anyway, major tech companies, including Google and FaceBook has already denied any involvement on this. What do think about this? You can find more info here, here and here.

As usual, in no particular order:

Inbound Marketing/Analytics/Advertising

Social/Blogging/Small Business Bites

More Cool Stuff and Other Roundups

That’s it! Enjoy and have a great weekend!

image credit: gizmodo.com

DiTesco

DiTesco is a Business and Inbound Marketing Consultant, and founder of iBlogzone.com. iBlogzone's main objective is to help startups and small business owners achieve success in their online ventures. | More About Me and my Digital Marketing Services in SP Brazil.

15 thoughts on “Data Refresh or Penguin 2.X, SEO Misconceptions, PRISM Scandal, Speedlink 23:2013

  • As far as Prism goes I figure that has been going on for a long time and it is finally being let out in the open. Remember Will Smith’s Enemy of the State movie? You have to understand that if the level of technology the intelligence agencies used finally becomes public knowledge then they are actually even more advanced than what is being shown so to me Prism is just their kindergarten level.

    But understand in a world like what we live in today a nation MUST have super advanced levels of intelligence gathering…

    The thin line is somewhere between security and infringement on personal rights which something President Obama alluded to recently.

    • I will have to side by your thoughts Caleb… I too think that what just went out there is nothing but the “tip” of the iceberg. Intelligence agencies have so much resources and power that I think that everything that is connected is just a “push” of a button away… It is nonetheless a “privacy” issue.

  • A great video by Matt! Love the clarification he gives about the algo update and data refresh. Yes Matt talks a lot about user experience and design for sure is an aspect!

    Thanks for the nice bunch of links Ditesco ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Lisa, great video? Are you sure about that?

      No disrespect but I think the biggest misconception in SEO industry is that we put too much weight (and apparently, praises) on what Matt Cutts said in those PR videos.

      I dug into some SEC filings and Google earning reports right after the video was released and wrote this post – http://www.webrevenue.co/search-engine-optimization/matt-cutts-the-biggest-misconception-in-seo-industry/. Guess what, not everything Matt said in the video is accurate (or truthful). For example, Google indeed made a lot more money right after Panda updates went global. Paid clicks revenue for Google (Adsense and Adwords) for the past two years is nothing but up, up, and up.

      Anyway, I appreciate how DiTesco pointed out Matt Cutts only said what we already knew and never really answered the questions. It’s a solid post and great roundup of links.

      • Thanks Jerry for your insights. Off to read that post of yours ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Love Matt’s videos, thanks for sharing! Interesting point of view!

  • Hi Ditesco,
    Nice sharing. Google always changing their formula , algorithm and their rules also. So tracking what Google is up to is the best solution. The new tool Algoroo is a good thing , We can see , how it will worked. Very informative article, thanks for sharing. keep your update.

  • Nice collection, Francisco; loved the link to Algoroo (clever name!), and as always, thanks for the mention!

    • Welcome Ana. Yeah, Dejan is a very creative guy and Algoroo although simple (on the front end) does provide a good and quick insight on what’s going on ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Hi Ditesco, no doubt Google is making money with its algorithms. The question which I still am clinging on to is why is it after thos e sites which seem to be user friendly and informative. I am damn sure Google must have made a lot of money, but don’t you think penalizing everyone except a handful would land Google in a bad situation.

  • Hi Ditesco, we all have understood by now that the best way to save yourself from the algorithms of Google is to keep following it. If you lose track of it, you will never come to know what changed when and how. Moreover, all your hard work may vanish in minutes, so stay put and keep working, it is the best way to save yourself. Thanks for sharing the post with us, have a great day.

  • Yeah! google changing algorithms on day by day. It’s very tough to do seo for websites most of the people go for adwords campaign. This is not a good news for seo persons.

  • Was affected and traffic keeps going down, dunno whats really happening and i have never done any blackhatseo.

    • Sorry to hear about that Samuel. Have you made some analysis on your site yet (e.g. link profile analysis, anchor text distribution, etc..)? That should give you some idea of what is going on… In any event, things “hopefully” should pass. Google does tweaks everyday..

  • For my site, based on what the index looks like I may have been saved by Google and its disavow tool. Now all of the inbound links to my pages are solid.

    And not having any messages in the warnings box helps too.

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