Google Brand Update: Insights

What’s changed?

Achieving a good ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) for businesses in competitive industries such as Travel Insurance takes plenty of time and effort - especially if you’re seeking to remain on the first page of results.

As a general rule, the top 30 competitors on a SERP will remain constant, with daily fluctuations in rankings seen within this group. Over the last few weeks however, websites who were previously ranked outside of the “top 30” began appearing on the first page. With some even breaking into the top 10 results.

At first we believed it was Google testing out an algorithm change, which happens from time to time but always remains temporary. This latest update however, has further reaching repercussions than most. Many of these sites have begun ranking on terms they haven’t even optimised for. Worse still, a number of long-term stalwarts were completely forced out of the listings overnight.

Key figures in the SEO community released findings that matched our own. Other industries such as insurance products, travel, hotel and flight bookings also showed huge leaps in rankings from websites that would normally appear on page 4 or even further back in the SERPs.

What’s noticeable about these particular websites is that they are well known brands in the offline world as well as online.

What Google Say

Matt Cutts, Google’s head of web spam and search development released a video in response to the theory that Google had started giving brands more authority in natural search.

“Inside of Google, at least inside the search ranking team, we don’t really think about brands. We think about words like ‘trust’ ‘authority’ ‘reputation’ ‘Page Rank’ ‘high quality’.”

“First off, YES, Google has made a change in our rankings, it’s one of over 300-400 we make every year. So, I wouldn’t call it an ‘update’, I would call it a simple change.”

“It doesn’t affect a vast majority of queries, it’s more likely, and most people haven’t noticed it. I mean Aaron talked about it and I think even before that people at WebMasterWorld were talking about it. But it affects a relatively small number of queries, it’s not like it affects a ton of long-tail queries or anything like that.”

There are some key points to take away from what Google have said and how they’ve said it.

Firstly, it’s rare for Google to release videos confirming or denying rumours in their algorithm. And second, Matt Cutts’ statement is inconsistent with a recent quote from Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and CEO:

“Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.l”

So in our opinion Matt Cutts’ first statement about not thinking about brands is slightly contradictory considering you would normally associate reputable brands with trust, authority, reputation, Page Rank and high quality.

The second quote is quite misleading too; Google may very well make 300-400 “changes” a year but 399 will not come close to having the impact of this most recent one.