The Google Maccabees Update

December is when every business owner out there is busy getting the biggest pie from the
holiday cake. So it’s very rare that you see any buzz in SEO forums. But this time, we witnessed
something different. Many people were online, sharing their experiences. Just like an
unexpected tornado caught them off guard, and took away everything they had. Well maybe
it became way too more dramatic, but we would like to inform you that Google has made
changes to their core ranking algorithms. And as a result, many websites witnessed a drop in
traffic as massive as 35%!

Moz reported high volatility in search results through Mozcast as can be seen below

A nonseasonal site owner, who hardly witnesses any fluctuations witnessed a drop of 30%! However, they were not alone and this was not due to any glitch. Many other users started sharing their trauma on webmaster forums. After a thorough research, we found out that Google did make changes to their core ranking algorithms and later on they confirmed the same. The statement Google sent was “we released several minor improvements during this timeframe, part of our regular and routine efforts to improve relevancy.”

We decided to do some number crunching ourselves. Our dataset of 4000+ websites and 350,000+ keywords (local and national) makes it easy for us to get a birds-eye view of how our client campaigns are performing.Not surprisingly, we were happy to find that this update didn’t have any negative impact on our client campaigns. Most probably, the SEO deliverables which we offer saved our clients from this update. This is another example of how our strategies future-proof your business.

So if your organic leads were affected, especially around December 13th or 14th, open
Google Analytics and check whether your site was hit by the MACCABEEs update or not. If you were hit by this update OR want to make sure you’re not going to be a likely victim, we can help. Just connect with us and let our professional SEOs to do the work for you.