Dealing With Algorithm ChangesMicah Fisher-Kirshner | Senior SEO Manager

www.become.comSeptember 13th 2011

Quick Background• Become.com: price comparison website

• Competitors: US: NexTag, Shopping, Shopzilla UK: PriceRunner, Twenga DE: Idealo, Billiger JP: Kakaku

• Why does Google ‘hate’ us? We are a vertical search engine

• Why should Google ‘love’ us? We had the highest ROAS for CSEs

in 2010

The Event: Panda Attacks• Monitoring system goes haywire

Traffic drops 20+% , I knew I

should’ve called in sick…

, I knew I should’ve called in

sick…

Event Checklist Q1. Is the data in? Q2. Are other business teams affected? Q3. Are other sites talking about an algo update? Q4. What launched recently? Q5. What areas are affected? Q6. Is something broken?

Q7. Who’s saying and looking at what things? Q8. What kind of sites are dropping? Q9. What are the algo change theories? Q10. Does our issue match any theories? Q11. What can we do to quickly recover?

Q1 Is The Data Fully In?• Maintain a good relationship with ops

• Massive events require flexibilitywithin organization

• Utilize Google Analytics hourlyreports with advanced segments

Let Me Check…Let Me Check…File @

Bug!File @ Bug!

Q2 Who Else Is Affected?• Find the limits of the event

SEO affects everything & everything affects SEO

• Communication is essential This isn’t the time to send emails Keep your departments near

Q3 Algorithm Update Rumors?• Read, read, read!

Voracious

• Focus on forums and search news sites as they will get information out quickly Webmaster World Search Engine Land

Q4 What Was Recently Launched?• Keep an event log

Sometimes product launches a month back is the cause

• Bug the engineers Not every detail is always written down Watch for rollbacks that undo critical changes

Q3 Algorithm Update Rumors?• Read some more!

• Remember: just because you find one issue, does NOT mean this is the only problem Go back to the same forums and search news sites

Q5 What Areas Are Affected?• Segment in any way you can

Keyword groupings: keyword length, keyword traffic level, motive Page groupings: home, category, product Domain/site groupings

Affected all but one sub-domain, in internet explorer, only during certain hoursBad display ad

Q3 Algorithm Update Rumors?• Any mentions yet around the web?

One or two people doesn’t make it so

GET BACK TO WORK!GET BACK TO WORK!

Q6 Did Anything Break?• Let’s assume everything has been white hat, right?

Sometimes broken or forgotten processes can lead to a broken website that looks like black hat SEO

• Know what is fundamental to your site’s SEO Backend functions are the easiest to miss Worker transitions always miss certain processes Go back to ops team to run through the SEO checklist

Q3 Algorithm Update Rumors?• Can I find algorithm update confirmation now?

Yes!

• Now what? Data collection time!

Q7 Who’s Talking?• Recognize the regulars

Skip the broken track records Always read the important people, even if it’s just one sentence

• Scrutinize the strangers Read the long commentators, usually something to gleam Short comments are junk comments

• Jerks will be jerks Push past their annoyances and listen

Q8 What Sites Are Dropping?• Your ranking data shows severity of impact

• Competitive ranking data is essential Seeing who survives help provide answers about algo updates Searchmetrics, Sistrix, seoClarity, and SEOMoz are just the beginning

Q9 What Are The Theories?

Be A White Hat SEOThink like a Black Hat

Likely Pogosticking ImpactStrong Factor

Many data sources (Google toolbar, Chrome, ISPs, etc)

Logical way to determine better quality

Amit Patel’s quote: “If people type something and then go and change their query, you could tell they aren’t happy[.] If they go to the next page of results, it’s a sign they’re not happy. You can use those signs that someone’s not happy with what we gave them to go back and study those cases and find places to improve search.”

Confirming Factor

AdWords ad traffic quality

Paid traffic through botnets

Hate content farms? Wait for the new click farms!

Q10 What Theories Fit?• Find out everything you

can Work your business connections Read blogs for ‘in-depth’ analyses

Site C

Site A

Site B

• Jot down likely possibilities Make sure you have enough data! Get out in front fast before others

THINK LIKE A SEARCH ENGINE

Q11 What Can We Do To Recover?

Build For The User

Learning To Love Statistics• Understand how changes were made

Richard Baxter at SEOgadget emulates this:Q[uestion]: Would you trust the information presented in this article?

SEO translation: “‘Trust’ could be measured by the links (citations) awarded to the article, the more authoritative the link, the more trustworthy the article. […] Linking to low quality sites, penali[z]ed sites or downright awful places on the [I]nternet is hardly likely to inspire trust, is it?…“If significant volumes of links aren’t available just yet, perhaps a shorter term solution could be to analy[z]e the social buzz associated with the article. Was there a big discussion surrounding the URL on Twitter? How many people shared the URL via Facebook?”

Coding clues and LinkedIn

• A/B test Sub-domains, categories, page types

How to test when the algorithm is overall instead of page level?

Thanks And Good Luck!

Did you fix it yet?Did you fix it yet?

Learn more at: www.become.comwww.linkedin.com/in/micahfk