Those in the industry knew something was coming… and finally Matt Cutts shared with the world that there was. Though not related to Panda nor Penguin.
On Twitter, Friday, he shared the news about the algorithm change. Cutts said the update will reduce low-quality “exact match” domains in search results.
The initial tweet (@mattcutts):
“Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.”
Moments later followed up by:
“New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.”
For the last couple of years, Matt Cutts has been talking about this and why these domains with exact matches were coming back so high when they necessarily shouldn’t be that high on the search.
Over the coming days, results will likely continue to remove low quality exact-match domains that aren’t matching up with Google search. Some website owners are already complaining and wondering why their sites have been removed even with fresh, high quality content…in their eyes.
Here are a couple of different comments from website owners so far as this seemingly is affecting more people than they thought.
One owner shared, “Two exact domain name match sites of mine are gone. Both top editorial quality, top content, one has excellent links – in their chosen area they are the best. They definitely did NOT deserve to disappear. In fact one of the sites has been in competition with another of my sites for the same term. The EMD was far better and it has now gone, the other site remains in position 2.”
Another website owner states, “I am seeing quite a few non EMD domains across quite a few niches that have been hit by this also. Could this be the latest Penguin in disguise? I first decided to have a look because one of my biggest competitors (brand name and efinitely not EMD not even PMD) has dropped from first 5 pages. This site is a big and old site at least 8 years and has gone. Anyway I started looking around and lots of non EMD have been hit and lots od PMD sites also. Anyway just a thought wouldn’t be the first time a smoke screen came out of the Google camp!”
Being in the SEO and digital marketing industry, one never knows what the Google minds are thinking and when they plan on changing the rules. One thing we do know. The rules will change and just something that we all need to adapt to.
At Swish Digital, we have continued to work through these changes and brought top Google search rankings to most of our clients and showcase them on our website. An ethical and Christian operated company that would love to serve and bring your website toward the top of Google and the search engines.
We invite you to come to our social media pages to learn more about us on our Google+, Facebook and Twitter pages.
Swish Digital: Digital Marketing Agency, SEO