{"id":35,"date":"2014-10-29T14:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T20:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.topspotims.com\/blog\/?p=35"},"modified":"2018-12-13T11:17:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T17:17:19","slug":"google-algorithm-roundup-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.topspot.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/google-algorithm-roundup-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Algorithm Change Roundup: July, August & September 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s October! We can\u2019t believe how quickly the year has flown by and all the change that is happening. At TopSpot Internet Marketing, we just moved into a big, new, awesome office space down the road from our previous office. (Our address has changed but our phone number hasn\u2019t.) In the search world, there has also been a lot of change in the last few months with how Google search results are being displayed. Below we\u2019ve detailed some of the Google changes with how they are impacting results and our integrated marketing strategies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

July 2014<\/h2>\n

Surge in In-Depth Articles<\/h3>\n

Almost a year ago, Google introduced \u201cin-depth articles<\/a>\u201d which show up often in informational type organic results and offer additional information on a subject to explore more. According to Google, these results are ranked algorithmically based on many signals which look for high-quality, in-depth content. Common methods for encouraging in-depth content to be added would be to use Schema \u201carticle\u201d and \u201clogo\u201d markup and actually creating compelling, in-depth content.
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Here\u2019s an example of what In-Depth Articles look like:<\/p>\n

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\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo credit: http:\/\/insidesearch.blogspot.com\/2013\/08\/discover-great-in-depth-articles-on.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In early July, SEOs noticed a bit of a surge in the presence of in-depth articles in results. Nothing official has been communicated, so right now the surge is attributed to Google doing some testing.<\/p>\n

How do I get featured as an in-depth article?
\n<\/strong>We\u2019ve always encouraged putting together great, detailed content. When our clients have detailed, informational content about a topic, we mark up the article using Schema article markup to increase the likelihood of getting picked up as an in-depth article.<\/p>\n

Vanishing Video Thumbnails<\/h3>\n

Mid-July, there were reports of a shake-up in video results, with many results losing video thumbnails. It\u2019s an interesting occurrence when you consider how historically, there were similar, incremental drops in Authorship photos. Coincidence? Video snippets may be completely on their way out, but interestingly enough it does seem that some sites like YouTube and big brands still have them.<\/p>\n

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\"Youtube<\/a><\/p>\n

YouTube should be part of your video strategy as these video snippets seem to be taking priority in search engine results. As always, a strong video strategy is one that has videos that contain relevant and valuable content.<\/p>\n

YouTube should be part of your video strategy as these video snippets seem to be taking priority in search engine results. As always, a strong video strategy is one that has videos that contain relevant and valuable content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Google gives and Google takes. Whether video snippets are present in results or not, video is still important especially YouTube), but it should be looked at as an asset to a website that first contains great content.<\/p>\n

Additional reading on video thumbnails:\u00a0https:\/\/wistia.com\/blog\/where-did-my-video-snippets-go<\/p>\n

Pigeon<\/h3>\n

On July 25, it was reported that Google released an algorithm update to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results with enhanced distance and location ranking parameters. It\u2019s been named \u201cPigeon\u201d by Search Engine Land<\/a> (SEL). From SEL:<\/p>\n

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\u201cGoogle told us that the new local search algorithm ties deeper into their web search capabilities, including the hundreds of ranking signals they use in web search along with search features such as Knowledge Graph, spelling correction, synonyms and more. In addition, Google said that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So far, we\u2019ve seen two noticeable differences in SERPs attributed to Pigeon:<\/p>\n