Have you heard of the newest major algorithm change from Google?
Many of you are addicted to stats, and everyone seems to freak out when they hear on the web that Google has changed their algorithm. One thing you need to do is…..CHILL OUT!
There is no way you’ll keep up with every change because there are over 400 tweaks to the algorithm EACH YEAR!
Many of these changes throughout the year will be unnoticed, but the one algorithm change they appropriately call Mayday (because the change was rolled out near the start of the May month) might have been noticed by many webmasters.
So Google decided to tweak the algorithm to boost relevant long-tail keyword searches on a “quality” perspective. So let me get this straight, this change is an algorithm change and there’s no human intervention in the decision process of choosing which sites should be on the first page of the search results? Let’s say there’s a site out there that sells bikes for instance.
Let’s say a webmaster is working the keyword “mountain bikes” for his home page and he has a few long tail keyword category pages like “Hybrid Mountain Bikes”, etc. Assuming that this site is a high authority site for bikes, ranking for these long-term keywords should be ranked high in the search results.
What this change is telling me is that having a category page with your long tail keyword isn’t good enough anymore, what you should do on your home page is pass that high page rank from your home page to these category pages. I could be wrong…but more importantly, I could be right 
So how would you pass through your PR juice to these category pages? You can write a detailed footer with anchor texts back to your category/item pages. Also, if you’re in ecommerce and you used product descriptions from the manufacturers, I think it’s time to add fresh content with more internal linking in the content to other category/item pages.
The best way to find out if you’ve been affected with the Mayday change is to go to your Google Analytics account and check your organic search traffic stats for the month of April and compare that number to the stats in May.
If you’ve noticed a substantial decrease in organic search traffic (about 20% or more) then you need to rethink about your internal linking strategy within your site as well as your backlinks. Here’s a video from Matt about this new algorithm change:
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{ 25 comments }
Quite a complex little change, but I think the majority of us won’t have to spend much time worrying about this. I just checked my stats and they are still strong in May – so I think I will just stick with what I am doing.
Thanks for the heads up though. It’s hard keeping up with Google’s innovation!
Thomas@SEO Services´s last blog ..Create Niche Products: eBooks
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 3, 2010 at 9:10 am
How’s it going Tom! I agree but it’s a change that’s going to be permanent, according to Matt, and I felt that It should be addressed to everyone unaware of it.
I totally agree it is worth addressing! It would be interesting to hear if any of your readers had experienced a downturn in traffic.
Thomas@SEO Services´s last blog ..Create Niche Products: eBooks
Twitter: danalingga
June 3, 2010 at 1:00 am
I usually link my relevance category from blog post. I think It is also work to pass the PR juice.
Dana @ Blogging Tips Blog´s last blog ..Blogging Tips Blog Accept Guest Blogger Now
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 3, 2010 at 9:11 am
Good idea Dana! Hopefully the new change hasn’t affected your rankings!
Keeping up with the minor changes Google makes is not really worth your time. It is more important to recognize that they are constantly trying to filter the truly worthy sites from the ones that have manipulated their rankings. That is why we are fighting a losing battle when we engage in blatant spam.
You and I are both better off contributing to one another’s sites in a way that we both benefit. If we constantaly add just a little more value to our sites, those sites will be positively affected by these and many future Google algorithm updates.
Dan@Freelance Writers Club´s last blog ..Juice Up Your Old Articles and Blog Posts
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 5, 2010 at 9:39 am
I agree with you Dan. Trying to please Google’s algorithm is a never-ending battle. As long as you practice the fundamentals of content and backlinking, we’ll be ok.
Twitter: AndBreak
June 5, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Interesting article Jack. Do you know how much this change will affect search engine traffic or rankings? Are you going to change a few things on your blog just because of that algorithm update?
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 6, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Not too worried about it. I checked my organic rankings and it doesnt seem to have any effect on my blog.
Twitter: mothersland
June 7, 2010 at 10:17 am
My major consign about Google algorithm change is to determine how to use it to my site advantage, it difficult to notice changes in the algorithm, but some webmaster and SEO knows how to figure it out when there is any changes to the Algorithm.
I am just going to continue focusing on writing top quality content and not worry so much about SEO. According to Matt Cutts, it is Google’s intent to filter out the lower value pages that are trying to manipulate the search rankings.
Interesting. Our home page ranked wonderfully for the top search terms in our industry. It’s dropped 3 or 4 places. Our internal pages still win for the long tail.
Any thoughts?
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 10, 2010 at 6:31 am
Add more backlinks to your homepage internally and off-site using your main search term as the anchor text. Submit articles, press releases, etc. You’ll be back up there in no time!
Well, I for one did notice the change, but I am not going to get too bent up about it, as I know there will be more changes in the future. I am just really going to focus on what the users want out of my website, and hope for the best!
I have read many forum post about it, but with your post i understand better, thanks!
Kimi@FreeVideoTutorial´s last blog ..Good blog titles or names
As others have said, it’s really important to focus on the fundamentals. If you’d like to get traffic from any particular keyword you should create legitimate content around the keyword and then reiterate to Google that your page offers content related to the keyword. I think those that suffered from this either weren’t doing enough to tell Google what their pages are about (internally and externally) or were “just getting by” in terms of providing relevant content.
In regards to the Google May algorithm update I was told about this by one of my colleagues but they never explained it properly and the handsome Matt Cutts now has in his video blog.
The update impacted my pagerank and I am not too happy about it but what can I do? I built a buch of high authority backlinks, and my Blog was rewarded by going down a spot. Go figure!
Jack, I’m a new reader of your blog and it made me think a lot where I found a closely similar theme you’re using. When you posted this Matt Cutts video, you just gave me the answer. Hahaha.. Matt Cutts is also using Thesis, right?
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 21, 2010 at 12:28 am
Yessir
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This is inspiring me a bit to finally put time into footers. I like idea of “passing” on that PR. I hope most are finding these changes helpful
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:37 pm
crosslinking can even be within an anchor text in the content of an article or blog post to an internal post. Having it in the footer or sidebar will have that link on every page, which is a good thing as well.
Good post, we found this out by accident!! Internal links have made a huge difference to our organic results, we have 2,000 internal links. OUr rankign has gone up 8 places!!!!!
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