I lost rankings for a couple of my major sites due to the Penguin update; sites that were mostly white hat and content driven. Other sites that were more grey-ish and small seemed to survive with little damage whatsoever.
Here’s how I’ve observed major Google algorithm changes:
- Update starts, some SERPs change dramatically and some sites fall off the face of the Earth.
- Update settles, Google evaluates results on their end.
- Google undoubtedly hears from angry webmasters across all verticals that their well designed, “content WAS king” sites are gone.
- Google probably pays attention to a few of these people and reanalyzes their algorithm shift.*Note: Gambling SERPs are an extremely low priority, although their competitiveness better illustrates the nuanced changes to Google’s algorithm compared to other non-competitive markets.
- Sites that survived mostly maintain rankings. A few lucky sites get their rankings back. Otherwise, you have to build trust with Google again, and this might take 6-8 months to do.
Hopefully Penguin won’t turnout to be a complete disaster. :banger:
That said, those complaining to Google that they’ve lost all their traffic will get little sympathy. It’s not Google’s job to send you traffic no matter how good or how old your site is. All they care about is producing quality search results that may or may not be beneficial to you.
Fingers crossed!:nervous: