0:00:00.603,0:00:03.813
Hey everybody.. we have an interesting question today from Ed in London

0:00:03.813,0:00:08.283
Ed asks how can you tell if your site is suffering from an algorithmic

0:00:08.283,0:00:12.314
penalty, or you are simply being outgunned by better content?

0:00:12.314,0:00:15.350
this is a really intriguing question so let's walk through some

0:00:15.350,0:00:19.427
other different things. You didn't ask about manual but let's cover that just because

0:00:19.427,0:00:23.226
that's the easy case. If you're hit by something that the direct action

0:00:23.226,0:00:26.862
from the [manual or] web spam team that directly impacts the ranking of your site

0:00:26.862,0:00:29.996
then go to webmaster tools and check out because

0:00:29.996,0:00:35.275
it could very well be the case that .. you know.. hey we thought that there was some

0:00:35.275,0:00:38.506
keyword stuffing or poking or whatever going on and that's a clear-cut case

0:00:38.506,0:00:41.732
you'll get a notification..you'll get a[br]message and then you can start

0:00:41.732,0:00:45.552
to figure out..investigate..okay where can I start to improve things

0:00:45.552,0:00:49.422
or what can I change to make things better. The other reason to check WebMaster tools

0:00:49.422,0:00:53.027
is if there's some crawler error. We have seen sites that will

0:00:53.027,0:00:56.933
launch a new development web site that was previously no-indexed and they will forget to take

0:00:56.933,0:01:00.138
off the no-index tag or you know if there's 404

0:01:00.138,0:01:03.395
or you know we can't reach your site..those sorts of things..so look for crawl

0:01:03.395,0:01:07.842
errors..all that sort of stuff..okay so now let's get to the meat

0:01:07.842,0:01:12.231
of your question..he said if your site is suffering from an algorithmic

0:01:12.231,0:01:14.727
penalty or if you're simply being outgunned by better content. It's tough

0:01:14.727,0:01:18.886
because we don't think as much and really much at all about algorithmic

0:01:18.886,0:01:22.400
penalties.. mmm.. really the web spam

0:01:22.400,0:01:27.552
team writes all sorts of code but that goes into the holistic

0:01:27.552,0:01:30.769
ranking that we do and so if you're affected by one algorithm, do you

0:01:30.769,0:01:34.650
call it a penalty and if you're affected by another algorithm do not call the penalty

0:01:34.650,0:01:37.299
...that's a pretty tough call to make[br]especially when the web spam

0:01:37.299,0:01:40.205
team is working on more and more general quality changes not necessarily things

0:01:40.205,0:01:44.046
specifically related to web spam and sometimes general quality people

0:01:44.046,0:01:49.563
work on things that are related to web spam and so deciding which

0:01:49.563,0:01:54.153
one to call which is kinda hard to do..so we typically just thinking about it

0:01:54.153,0:01:57.976
as the holistic ranking. Now we rolled out something like

0:01:57.976,0:02:01.524
665 different changes to how we rank search[br]results in 2012

0:02:01.524,0:02:05.040
so on any given day the odds that we're rolling out

0:02:05.040,0:02:08.726
some algorithmic changes are pretty good[br]..in fact we may be rolling out a couple

0:02:08.726,0:02:13.230
if you just look at the raw number of changes that were doing..however

0:02:13.230,0:02:16.400
when we see an algorithmic change that we think will have a pretty big impact

0:02:16.400,0:02:19.517
we do try to give people a heads up about that. So for example,

0:02:19.517,0:02:24.944
the Penguin algorithm, which is targeted towards web spam or the Panda

0:02:24.944,0:02:28.986
algorithm which is targeted towards quality content on the web

0:02:28.986,0:02:31.629
whenever we have large-scale changes that will affect things then

0:02:31.629,0:02:36.095
we tend to do an announcement that oh yeah this changed or you should look on this particular

0:02:36.095,0:02:39.529
date and that can be a good indicator to know whether you're affected by one of those

0:02:39.529,0:02:43.479
sort of..jolting algorithms that has a big impact. What you've seen is

0:02:43.479,0:02:48.105
for example Panda has become more and more[br]ah..

0:02:48.105,0:02:51.563
integrated into indexing and its had less of a jolting impact

0:02:51.563,0:02:54.901
in fact we've gotten it so that it changes the index on a

0:02:54.901,0:02:58.821
pretty regular basis and it's built in the index rather than rolling out on a certain

0:02:58.821,0:03:03.025
day and so it's less useful to announce or talk about Panda launches

0:03:03.025,0:03:06.405
at this point whereas Penguin is still.. you know..it's a switch

0:03:06.405,0:03:09.796
that flips or its something that search [will really know] in a discrete-time

0:03:09.796,0:03:13.694
and so we're a little more willing to talk about those and.. and let people

0:03:13.694,0:03:17.315
know and have a heads up.. hey you might be affected by the Penguin algorithm..so

0:03:17.315,0:03:21.117
in general if your site is not ranking where you want it to rank

0:03:21.117,0:03:25.941
the bad news is it's a little hard and difficult to say whether you'd call it

0:03:25.941,0:03:29.275
a penalty or not.. it's just part of ranking ..the good news is

0:03:29.275,0:03:32.679
it is algorithmic and so if you modify your site

0:03:32.679,0:03:36.152
if you change your site.. if you apply your best guess about what the other site

0:03:36.152,0:03:39.294
is doing that you should be doing or that it is doing well

0:03:39.294,0:03:43.603
then it's always possible for the algorithms to re-score your site or

0:03:43.603,0:03:46.819
for..you know.. ask to re-crawl and reindex the site and for us to re-start

0:03:46.819,0:03:49.468
ranking highly again..so its kinda tricky because

0:03:49.468,0:03:52.868
we have a large amount of algorithms that all interact

0:03:52.868,0:03:56.572
whether you call something a penalty or ranking change or

0:03:56.572,0:04:00.683
you know any of those things can be really hard to draw a fine distinction between

0:04:00.683,0:04:02.900
those different points but the nice thing is as you change your site

0:04:02.900,0:04:08.148
you can always ..see that these algorithms can

0:04:08.148,0:04:11.154
sort of rerun and reprocess the site and then the site can

0:04:11.154,0:04:14.033
regain in rankings many of the times. I hope that helps a little bit

0:04:14.033,0:04:17.860
as far as what to do .. and how to go forward with the site