Comments on: Google Algorithm Shift – Branded Sites Taking Over?

By: Dehumidifiers for Home

Dehumidifiers for Home — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:01:43 +0000

The internet is slowly being annexed. Big business can’t afford the little man to play with the big boys.

By: Leah Dubyk

Leah Dubyk — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:14:53 +0000

What I found and still find very peculiar is the update you did on Nov 21, 2010 Jerry | Google Themes Jerry West Announces Major Google Algorithm Change : Theme Zoom Blog.

jerry west nov 21, 2010 google <<—Top 2 spots for that search phrase!!

NOBODY wanted to hear any of that new info even though it would have helped a lot of people save their money instead of buying more useless links.

I posted the "new" information several times on the WF and almost every time, the thread was deserted with no further comments after mine, it was hilarious so I kept doing it until it became too obvious!! If I had used your name instead of just the date, I'm sure the outcome wouldn't have been so much fun!! Thanks

By: Aaron Oharroll

Aaron Oharroll — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:45:03 +0000

very nice post dude! great website… will be back soon!

By: Ari Blanche

Ari Blanche — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:12:51 +0000

There is so much information here! I’m trying to remember all of it so I can put it to work.

By: Lake of the Ozarks

Lake of the Ozarks — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:34:27 +0000

I have noticed some improvement in ranking on several of my sites via google so this update is fine by me. Some of my other sites have shown no change to speak of so my task now is trying to determine why certain sites moved up. Lot of factors to consider both with the sites and with the keywords and competition but I hope to have some idea soon. Just a process of working through the facts.
Jerry, you have a great site and your information is always top shelf. In my view you are one of the true “gurus” on the net. I appreciate the way you make your case with statistics and facts and not embellished stories. Thank you for your efforts!

By: Adrian Bold

Adrian Bold — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:41:24 +0000

Well done Jerry; common-sense and balance will prevail!

By: Fat Spammer TV

Fat Spammer TV — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:52:56 +0000

I am so glad the sky is NOT falling! I do not want to have to re-learn all I now know about SEO. Thanks for clearing that up.

By: James

James — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:54:15 +0000

As long as they leave the buying terms alone who cares!

Nice observations Jerry.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:30:48 +0000

As always Jerry, I trust your info because of 2 reasons.

1- You have a ton of test domains. You actually test for real results, not what you want. – Go figure

2- You are very logical and always have logical explanations. This explains why some would claim (and get away with it for the unseo educated) that Google is going to branding versus SEO.

Thanks again!

By: ross

ross — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:58:37 +0000

There has been another Google change which has not been highlighted.
The number of indexed pages in some sites has dropped quite dramatically.
I know of some sites whose indexed pages dropped from 10,000 to less than 300.

By: Thomas Rozof

Thomas Rozof — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:21:12 +0000

Jerry,

Funny you should mention this. I’m in the middle of a blog post on the meaning of this for those involved in social media marketing. We at Social Media Science agree with you, in general.

What we are looking into is the possible relationship between increased Google branding/ranking power brought about through expanded social media campaigns/activity in general. We are finding that Google is ranking many sites purely on the basis of how the social networks respond to them and their SEO quality seems to be less and less the main factor in that process. I wouldn’t call this by any means the “Death of SEO” but it does seem to be a clear and verifiable emerging trend that warrants close scrutiny.

As with anything on this topic the truth will eventually be discovered only through testing and quality analytics; something we know you’ve always been committed to. Let’s all keep on digging…and sharing. I think we have all learned over time that CHANGE is a great benefit to the alert and prepared. It certainly keeps those of us who are on top of our game in the educational wing of Internet marketing in business…for good or ill. I choose to embrace it…and so far it has hugged me back.:)

By: Domain Superstar

Domain Superstar — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:19:28 +0000

I agree with you that it seems to be affecting primarily one word and highly competitive two word phrases and that those do not convert as well as longer tail more specific keyword phrases with buyer intent.

However, do you think that this is a move by Google to weight the “brand” of a domain higher just for these more competitive keyword phrases and then eventually enable this brand weighting for longer tail keyword phrases as well?