One of the challenges for website developer in doing their SEO services is that Google is always updating their algorithms, sometimes they do it with announcement and sometimes they do not. The news is that it had been changed earlier this month and some publishers began noticing changes to Google’s search results. Many people guess that this due to Panda Update or some other type of update, but Google has explained that the guessing is wrong. After sometimes denying it, now Google has acknowledged this change which named is as the “Phantom Update”. The company told that no spam related update had happened, the changes is in its core ranking algorithm in terms of how it processes quality signals.
Even if it was an update to the core algorithm, rather than the many changes that occurred with Panda or Penguin, it’s still an “update” as it can produce noticeable change. Therefore, if you get hit by this change, Google’s post from 2011 may help you a bit, as it actually covers quality in general as Google wouldn’t provide specifics about how quality is now assessed. However, in past statements, Google has stated that quality for a particular page or site is determined by a wide range of individual factors. It could be that Google is now weighting some of those factors more and other less. So, if you notice that ranking changes in this month, it is not your imagination as it is not only you who feel that way and this is not only happen to you. Woefully, we do not have any specific tips to save your ranks, as Google will still continue to change its algorithms in order to improve the quality of their search result. That is why keep focusing on developing better web sites and improving overall quality is the best advice.