On Friday we reported on a possible Google update that touched down on September 27th. Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed on Saturday on Twitter that Google did do a “smaller” update this past week but would not classify it as a big update like the Medic Update from August 1st, aka the Medic Update. I posted this news last night at SEL.
Here is Danny’s confirmation for us:
Since Google’s birthday is on September 27th, this one is simple to name – we can call it the Google Birthday Update.
Danny said “We haven’t had a major update of that nature, but we did have a smaller one this week.”
Smaller Update?
I keep seeing people say that this didn’t feel small. Well, no. If you were impacted by the update, I am sure it felt big. But when Google says “smaller” they mean it didn’t impact as many web sites as previous updates. So if a site was impacted, yes, it felt big. But like I even said on Friday before Google confirmed the update, the update seemed much smaller in terms of the chatter and those impacted than the August 1st update. And here is Google saying that is true – this impact did not impact as many sites as previous updates.
Some are still feeling this was a tweak, maybe a big tweak, to the Medic Update. But only Google knows that for sure.
Here are some graph with people commenting on the “small” comment:
Tracking Tools
So Mozcast and many others still show very little to no fluctuations, and even the ones showing fluctuations don’t show crazy activity. Here are some of the ones that show activity and fluctuations:
Community Chatter
In any event – the weekend chatter is ongoing on – but it is the weekend still. The WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World threads are saying this:
Medic Update Tweaks & Reversals?
Again, I am seeing a lot of chatter on social media and in the SEO communities suggesting this was a reversal or tweak to the Medic Update. It is possible, but I see people complaining that sites that were not impacted by the Medic Update was impacted by this one. I am seeing sites complain that they were hurt by both the Medic Update and this September 27th (Google Birthday Update). I am seeing some say their sites recovered from the Medic Update with the Google Birthday Update.
So anything is possible.
Ongoing coverage
So I am going offline tonight and will be back online Tuesday night. I decided to post this story on Sunday and I’ll let it sit out there for a couple days. If there is enough interest, I can do another survey on Wednesday and then collect the data, do an analysis and let you know what I found. But like I said above, it does seem like a smaller update, as Google said. It impacted fewer sites, but the sites it did impact, it impacted hard.
So let me know in the comments what you’d like me to do here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.
