Search Algorithms
Search engines have complex search algorithms which are used to ensure they are able to display the most relevant and useful results to their users. While algorithm changes are common and won’t usually affect a site’s ranking, search engines such as Google will occasionally introduce a major update which may impact search results. Our Hangout Notes cover insights from Google around these algorithms with best practice advice.
Links Can be Ignored Algorithmically and Manually by Google
Links can be ignored algorithmically and manually by the Web Spam Team when they are taking manual action on a site to block the site from passing PageRank.
August 1st Update Did Not Specifically Target Medical Sites
The August 1st 2018 update was a general ranking update and did not specifically target medical sites.
Individual Reputation of Authors Isn’t Used by Algorithms to Rank Your Site
Google’s algorithm doesn’t look at the reputation of authors to rank your website and research isn’t done into their past work or background. It’s up to you to assess the trustworthiness of your site’s authors and the content they’re producing.
Page Titles May be Rewritten if They Aren’t Clear, Contain Many Keywords or Are Too Long
Google has algorithms to work out when it makes sense to rewrite page titles in search. Rewriting may occur if Google thinks a page title isn’t clear, is a list of keywords or if it is too long.
Search Quality Raters Evaluate the Relevance of Results Returned by Algorithms
Google’s search quality raters look at the bigger picture when evaluating sites to see if some algorithms provide more relevant results than others.
Stock Levels Don’t Play any Part in Rankings for Search
Google wouldn’t rank one website higher than another because it has more stock of a particular product. Stock levels don’t play any part in rankings, the only impact they have is out of stock pages being picked up as soft 404 errors.
Crawl Rate Has Nothing to do With Rankings
If Googlebot is able to crawl your site frequently, this doesn’t mean your site will rank any higher. Crawling and ranking are two separate things.
Sites Spinning Your Content Can Outrank You if Your Site is Low Quality
When sites scrape and spin the content of others, in the instances where these sites manage to outrank the original site, the original site is usually low quality too. This is where the algorithms can get confused.
Shorter URLs Aren’t Given Preferential Treatment in Search
Google doesn’t have anything in their algorithms to prefer URLs that are shorter in length, despite of what some ranking studies suggest.
Google Doesn’t Use Pogo-Sticking as a Ranking Factor for Specific Pages & Queries
Google analyses user data at scale for millions of queries to determine the success of algorithm changes. This means that rankings for a page at a query level won’t suffer if it experiences users pogo-sticking back to the SERPs.