Search Engine Optimization

Since yesterday morning, the SEO industry has been watching an unconfirmed Google ranking update that seems to target more of the link quality aspects of the overall algorithm.

Many are calling this the Fred Update, a name we’re also adopting. That came from Google’s Gary Illyes, who has jokingly suggested that all updates be named “Fred.” It’s sticking with this one.

We’ve seen more chatter and reports of changes from within the “black hat” SEO community, which generally means that this is a spam algorithm update around links. Last time we reported a link spam-related update was in early February, and that update also was unconfirmed by Google.

Google Panda demotes or adjusts your rankings down — it does not devalue
Gary Illyes from Google told us Google's new Penguin 4.0 algorithm devalues spam, ignores it -- but Panda demotes the spam by adjusting the rankings down

Yahoo Search has quietly added a new quick answer to their search results for mortgage related searches. When you search for [mortgage calculator] or similar searches, Yahoo will show an interactive mortgage calculator at the top of the search results, above the organic results but below the search ads.