Google is always tight-lipped about the changes they make to their algorithm, however, the change on March 7th/8th was large enough for many website owners and digital marketing firms to notice substantial changes in traffic and rankings. This new algorithm update, simply known as “Fred”, is believed to primarily target websites with low-quality content and backlinks. Often, these two factors occur simultaneously and on websites that have utilized SEO companies to quickly build low-quality content and backlinks.
Google has confirmed the Fred algorithm update, but they were weary of giving too much information about it. The only clue given to website owners was that Fred targeted websites that were not abiding by the webmaster guidelines. Based on our research here at StatCounter, we have determined that sites with low-quality content and unnatural backlinks, purely meant to drive revenue have been the most hurt by this update.
Here are five things you can do right now to see if you were affected and start recovering any lost rankings and traffic
1) Look at your analytics. Did you see a drop in the traffic or the number of keywords you were ranking for between March 5th and the 20th. If no you are probably fine if you did then read on.
2) See if you can categorize your content into 2 buckets – high quality and updated vs low quality and old.
3) Match your lost keywords, based on traffic volume and previous rankings, with any low-quality content pages.
4) Improve your content quality immediately. Start by adding to, rewriting, and making your low quality pages better. Start with the pages that were driving the most traffic pre-Fred (see number 3).
5) Use a backlink spam tool or checker and to find and remove any questionable backlinks. Also, ensure that your remaining “good” backlinks appear natural and in reasonable ratios. For instance, no-follow to follow ratios, anchor text similarities, etc. are all things that Google takes into account when determining the value of your backlinks.
Fred Algorithm Update Changes and Concerns
The update has now been around long enough for us to start piecing together the puzzle. The first factor is content. If your site’s rankings are heavily dependent on multiple long-tail keywords and the content that matches those keywords was written before 2014, you may have been affected. Basically, if Fred sees your content as irrelevant, outdated, or too ad-heavy, you may see some rankings drop.
The second factor is low-quality backlinks. If you’ve ever paid for generic or easy to spot “artificial” backlinks, Fred may have just penalized you. Websites with a lot of old content likely also have a lot of old backlinks. Since low backlinks and low quality content often go hand in hand, this correlation makes it difficult to determine which, if not both factors is driving changes in rankings.
Avoiding the Fred Penalty
This isn’t the first algorithm update Google has rolled out to encourage high quality content, and it likely won’t be the last. The best way to avoid and or recover from a Fred penalty is to focus on creating high-quality, in-depth, and authoritative content on your site. If your website has a lot of old content you will want to go back through and optimize these pages to meet their quality standards. Here is a link to Google’s most recent quality guideline: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
Also, since Google said this update targeted websites that were not following the webmaster guidelines, you may want to review these as well to ensure you accidently aren’t practicing any black hat or out of date SEO techniques. For the rest of 2017, focus on creating quality content for your website rather than generating large amounts of cheap and quickly written content.
Track Your Traffic with StatCounter
StatCounter offers free website analytics to millions of websites around the world. We also track changes in search engines and keep our members informed with the latest news. If you’d like to start using StatCounter to see how changes like Fred affect your website click here to sign-up.
this was the best guide ever, thanks in advance
It was one of the most detailed article I’ve ever read on Google’s Algorithm. Thanks for posting such Gold content.
And also have a question for you: Brian Dean in his email list always preaches that posting content frequently has nothing to do with ranking. What’s your take on that? Have you ever noticed any ranking drop by not posting frequently? Have you ever experienced the freshness score effect on any of your sites?
This was a really really helpful article. Thanks admin for this post.
i want to earn money
I will test this on my blog.
Thank You so much for this definitive guide to google algorithms.
Please do keep us updated about such updates.
Thanks.
I hope will best Fred algorithm update,
Awesome blog !!! thanks share this information. Google updates its algorithm per month . with best results gives to the users. this blog is very useful for me. Recently i found this blog on google search and i read about this. its have update information.
this was the best information so far on latest algorithm until now, let it be traficcccccc….. 😀
Thanks for this valuable information. I was looking detailed information about Google’s Fred Algorithm. Luckily found this article, it is well explained and informative. Thank you!
Amazing, an article on protecting against bad backlinks and the like… yet the clearly unmoderated comments are filled with spammy comments to build cheap backlinks through users’ website etc..
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This update is shaking the rankings and the overall organic traffic to the sites.
Good article for seo
Thank you 🙂
awesome … thanks for share!
nice jobb
Glad to see someone is keeping up with Google and their changes. They have really changed from what they did in the past. Appreciate the information very much.
Outstanding article, thank you for the great tips
Great post. Can someone suggest a great backlink spam tool or checker to track and remove any questionable backlinks. Would appreciate, thanks.
great post