How to deal with algorithm changes that was presented mainly at SMX Advanced in 2011 by Micah Fisher-Kirshner, but also at SMX East later that year.

1. Dealing With Algorithm Changes
Micah Fisher-Kirshner | Senior SEO Manager
www.become.comSeptember 13th
2011

2. 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

3. 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…

4. 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?

5. Q1 Is The Data Fully In?
• Maintain a good relationship with ops
• Massive events
require flexibility
within organization
• Utilize Google
Analytics hourly
reports with
advanced segments
Let Me
Check…
Let Me
Check…File @
Bug!
File @
Bug!

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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 hours
Bad display ad

11. 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!

12. 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

13. Q3 Algorithm Update Rumors?
• Can I find algorithm update confirmation now?
 Yes!
• Now what?
 Data collection time!

14. 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

15. 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

16. Q9 What Are The Theories?
BeA WhiteHat SEO
Think like a Black Hat

17. Likely Pogosticking Impact
Strong 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!

18. 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

19. THINK LIKE A SEARCH ENGINE
Q11 What Can We Do To Recover?
Build For The User

20. 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?

21. Thanks And Good Luck!
Did you fix it yet?Did you fix it yet?
Learn more at: www.become.comwww.linkedin.com/in/micahf
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