Google’s Vince Update
This update was named after the guy who worked on it. So ‘Vince’ it is…
Anyway, ‘Vince’ is a tweak to Google’s results that affects some pretty big terms like ‘mortgage’, ‘loan’, etc. The update seems to favour bigger brands and has pushed some of these sites further up the rankings.
The upshot is that in most regions you will now get delivered a set of results that will act as more of a roll call of all the ‘top of the head’ companies you can think of related to that particular keyword.
Here is a video from Matt Cutts about the change where for the first time ever he looks (very very slightly) sheepish.
Is this good? Well, certainly this isn’t good if you run a well positioned site that is about these subjects. So, if you run a comparison site, etc. in these areas you will probably already know if this has affected your traffic.
From what Matt has said this update is probably looking at the overall weight and trust of a site (and the big brands have spent enough marketing pounds to win here) and the theme of the site. This now looks like it will win for these keywords over anchor text based SEO work. Is this fair? Probably not.
I think the missing element here is ‘quality’. What I mean is that just because you go to a big brand site, it doesn’t mean that you are going to get what you want as a web viewer. I guess Google are working on the basis that if you type in the word ‘mortgage’ you probably want a mortgage and they are looking to deliver results like a phone directory would. Where as if you type ‘mortgage research’ you are browsing and want to see the full gamut of web pages that might help you.
Let’s see how this one develops. I think Google are (slightly) playing with fire here.
P.S. can you imagine the smile on the faces of the SEO companies who are looking after the major brands that have got the ranking jump? Claim that glory now boys and girls! Don’t let anyone tell you that it was just a Google update!
Ive seen a massive change in Serps since Vince. No fault of my own. I did no evil, all was good (had a very nice Xmas thanks) but as soon as Vince drops his guts………….
It’s been described as a “minor change” but I feel it’s far wider reaching than florida. For the first time ever,
Companies that can easily afford not to have the best serps are dominating. Not through SEO but through Schmoozing over lunch with the Media and massive spends on Adwords.
G’s bosses spoke of an “internet cesspool” a few weeks before the update. Not speaking of getting rid, they were speaking of creating it. Now all you find in serps are V poor vouchercode sites: very little actual content, spammy backlinks from media sites and 10′s of millions of spammy internal pages feeding PR to their money terms.
If you don’t work in the centre of London, have a £million adwords budget and a £10million lunch and backslap budget, you’re stuffed.
We have been trading at the top of google for almost 10 years. Now we drop like a stone to page 3. Some update man. All it means is that B&Q do not now have to pay for a sponsored link to be at the top of the keyword DIY. We however, go out of business.
Hi Mike, I have just read this thread on Google Webmaster tools – http://tinyurl.com/lfjsht. Did you get any more information from your consultant? Also, I have had a quick look and your home page seems to have dropped through the index. I find your resources page in the mid twenties for the term ‘diy’. Was this page always around this number? If so then the answer may not be completely sinister. If you see this thread, please get back in touch.