Axandra news archive: 5 February 2008

This week, we're taking a look at changes in Google's #6 penalty. It seems that Google doesn't use this penalty anymore. Why did this happen?

In the news: more information about the Microsoft/Yahoo offer, new click fraud statistics, Google delivered malware and more.

Table of contents:

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• What is new in IBP version 10? - The SEO tool with a guarantee: Part 2
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

Three weeks ago, we informed you about Google's new position 6 penalty. At this time, it was unclear why Google assigned this penalty to some websites.

The theories were that Google considered usage data when calculating the rankings and that Google had a better understanding of word and phrase relationships.

Was this just a bug in Google's algorithm?

In a discussion about this problem, Google's Matt Cutts recently wrote the following:

"When Barry asked me about 'position 6' in late December, I said that I didn't know of anything that would cause that. But about a week or so after that, my attention was brought to something that could exhibit that behavior. We're in the process of changing the behavior; I think the change is live at some datacenters already and will be live at most data centers in the next few weeks."

This statement means two things:

1. It seems that Google made a mistake that sent many position 1 rankings to position 6.
   
   
2. Google has released a patch for this.

Indeed, many webmasters who experienced problems with the position 6 penalty reported that their rankings are now as good as before.

What was Google trying to do?

Even if Google says that the position 6 penalty was not intended, it is clear that Google tried to do something with the results.

What was it and will Google continue to do this without the unwanted position 6 effect?

The changes might have something to do with Google's increased integration of Universal Search in the results. In addition to the normal 10 web page results, Google now often returns results from Google Images, Google Maps, Google News or other Google services.

The way Google integrates Universal Search results into the normal search results changed during the last weeks. These changes also might have caused the temporary position 6 problem.

If your website has been affected by the position 6 penalty you can relax. Your web pages should have regained their high positions by now.

If your website doesn't have top 10 rankings on Google yet, you should take a look at IBP's top 10 optimizer. The top 10 optimizer will help you to get top 10 positions for keywords that are really relevant for your website.

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The Microsoft/Yahoo deal and Google

Google posts an official statement about the Microsoft/Yahoo deal:

"So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."

Microsoft responds:

"Today, Google is the dominant search engine and advertising company on the Web. Google has amassed about 75 percent of paid search revenues worldwide and its share continues to grow. According to published reports, Google currently has more than 65 percent search query share in the U.S. and more than 85 percent in Europe. Microsoft and Yahoo! on the other hand have roughly 30 percent combined in the U.S. and approximately 10 percent combined in Europe."

Click fraud is rising

"The overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6 percent for Q4 2007. That's up from the 14.2 percent click fraud rate for the same quarter in 2006 and 16.2 percent for Q3 2007."

Microsoft and Yahoo!: putting the offer in perspective

"If we combine the top properties for the three companies, the combined market share of visits (U.S.) for Microsoft and Yahoo! would be 15.6% of all Internet visits, with Google at 7.7% for the week ending January 26, 2008. [...] But if we consider only search volume, the picture is very different."

Search engine newslets

• The real reason Google's feeling queasy.
• Google ranks twice for duplicate content with duplicate content.
• Ballmer's internal e-mail to the troops explaining the Yahoo acquisition.
• Dot-com pioneers--where are they now?
• Weird Excite AdWords.
• The apologetic Jerry Yang.
• Google brain wash (humor).

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• New technologies detect black-hat SEO methods
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• Google's new position 6 penalty
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• The most important search engine news of 2007
• Axandra's Christmas crossword puzzle
• How Google creates the description of your website for the result page
• View all past issues...