Yesterday Google started rolling out its WebSpam update originally called the over optimization update. So far its not good and the easiest way to show just how bad it is for some keywords is to give an example. Over at Searchengineland on a thread created by Danny Sullivan one of the contributors pointed our this example. Search for “make money online” Note almost 2 billion pages competing.
And the site which is the #1 result!!
Seriously Google this is getting rid of WebSpam. How could your spiders have even found this and considered it a result for search with almost 2 billion pages competing.
Make Money Online how?
This is not an isolated incident either it is just an example. There are several examples on this thread of ridiculous results http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-update-targeting-webspam-in-search-results-119295. Searches for “viagra’ show hijacked sites and its just as bad for ‘paypal france”.
For everybody who remembers the infamous Florida update this all feels very familar and its clear Google may have to backtrack this update because the quality of some of its results will almost certainly send searchers away in confusion.
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April 25th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
That #1 has gone and #2 has moved up. Wonder if Google did this manually?
April 25th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Possibly, I would rather think they did it through the algo and a fix of the terrible results and the innocent casualties of the update is on its way.
April 25th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Fionn, I’m seeing the exact same thing. Well, that’s almost a pun, seeing exact match domains that are MFA still ranking #1.
Bring on the algo tweaking, Google!
April 25th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Dana, has to be a dial back I think some results are horrible.