At our SEO department, just like morning coffee, ZEFO has become an inseparable part of action and activity. Whether it’s one project or 150 projects, ZEFO always provides us with accurate and reliable data and helps us every day to improve performances. Undoubtedly an essential system for any SEO.
Google Algorithm Changes > Diversity in results Update
Diversity in results Update
Google's officially announced this update on Danny Sullivan’s SearchLiasion Twitter account, saying it aims to increase website diversity in search results so that not all results will originate from the same sites. More specifically, each domain will be limited to a maximum of two results on the 1st SERP.
It is interesting to note that even before this update, the number of “same site pages” in search results for a specific keyword was always limited and over the years there were quite a few limit changes. However, this seems to be the first time Google has initiated an announcement regarding this issue.
After the initial announcement, there were also some tweets to answer the questions:
• Subdomains will usually be linked to the primary domain and will be included in the limit.
• There is no connection between this update and the June 2019 core update.
• The change itself began two days before the announcement, but its effect was felt only on the day of the announcement.
• This change only affects organic results and not rich results such as local results or images (sponsored results will never show two ads from the same domain anyhow).
• This is basically a technical update and not a content update designed to identify duplicate content.
What was the true magnitude of the change?
In fact, changes were far less dramatic than it sounds, perhaps because it was an update of an older part of the algorithm rather than a whole new element.
Searchmetrics tested about 1,000 keywords before and after the change. For this analysis they deliberately chose a keyword set focusing on informational and transactional search terms rather than “direct searches” (when the user already knows what site he would likely find).
Numerically, these are their main conclusions:
• The percentage of searches returning more than three pages from the same domain (in the top ten results) is 0% compared to 1.8% before the change.
• Three pages from same domain only appear for 3.5% of searches, compared to to 6.7% before the change.
• The percentage of searches for which two pages from the same domain are displayed slightly increased, from 43.6% before the change to 44.2% after.
In the bottom line, after the change about 52.3% of searches return 10 unique domains in the top ten results, compared to 47.9% before the change.
Also, the update seemed to have more impact on transactional search terms and less impact on informational search. In fact, when searching for certain information, Google still gives a lot of credit to content relevance despite it’s intent to limit the number of pages from same domain.
In addition, there are also exceptional cases where even a non-branded search will return many results from the same domain because Google refers to it as a “branded search”. For example, if you search for gif images of "memes" such as "too much information" (TMI), you will find almost all of the 1st SERP controlled by the giphy.com site.
In the end, Searchmetrics concludes that the update mainly helped niche sites as they are now getting more visibility compared to large sites (for example, Amazon). Also, because rich results have not been affected by this change, sites appearing in such results also have higher visibility.
This change might cause more sites to turn to sponsored promotion, but this is only speculation.
What to do if you were damaged?
According to Google, most sites won’t be affected and it makes sense that most users click on a high ranked site, even if it appears less.
Still, if you see more traffic from irrelevant pages, it might mean Google is displaying the "wrong" pages. Try to better separate keywords and content between the different pages. Make the title and description accurately reflect what content is on those pages, otherwise click through rates (CTR) will be low.
The professionals work with ZEFO
Eyal Rahamim
Digitouch
Ido Sela
Wisy
We’ve been working with ZEFO for years at Wisy – the system has proven itself to be superior to its competitors in its ranking accuracy on a daily basis.
It’s super important that Nir the owner, has an in-depth understanding of SEO and knows the needs of agencies perfectly, and they’re also open to discussions, changes and improvements. In addition to being very good and service-oriented people.
Jack Chetrit
Fullpower Ltd.
The ZEFO system is without a doubt the backbone of SEO management at Fullpower! The whole team works with it every day, all day. We’re very satisfied and warmly recommend it.
Eli Sasi
Eli Sasi SEO
What I love about ZEFO is that beyond the incredibly accurate rank checking and a super convenient interface, I have the ability to receive super critical and important data for a small and a large website as one, with one click. Critical data for the success of every SEO project. Keep on doing good.
Alon Zakai
A-2-Z Internet Accessibility and Digital Marketing
A-2-Z’s SEO department was among the first in the country to adopt ZEFO for our clients. Today ZEFO is a key tool for us in monitoring website errors, keyword rankings, and ongoing analysis reports. The system is being updated constantly so we can always be at the leading edge of technology for our customers. Wishing us many more years of fruitful cooperation.
Gilad Sasson
Nekuda
ZEFO helps us stay in control and receive important and specific alerts out of huge amounts of keywords, rankings, and competitor data, the daily, weekly and monthly reports save our work time and shed light on points for improvement and our future SEO strategy.
Yossi Cohen
We’ve been working with ZEFO for several years now, and there’s no doubt that the system is the best solution for SEOs, with its daily rank tracking and report production. It’s important that I note the personal service by the guys at ZEFO that know to provide answers, support, and solutions to every request. ZEFO allows us to take an extensive look at every website and every SEO on the team, to analyze and improve our processes and performances.
Nitzan Sinansky
Optiwise
I’ve been working with the ZEFO system for quite a few years, and it saved me thousands of hours of work over the years, and helped me specialize in the work that I do. Asides from the system’s superior functionality, ZEFO’s customer service is no less than amazing. I definitely recommend it to marketing company owners, as well as any private website owners that do their own marketing.
Gilad Kamer
Webs
ZEFO provides the perfect solution! We’ve been very happy with ZEFO for several years now, and I’ll favorably note that the listening, help, customer service, desire to learn, and even upgrade and improve the system constantly, are at the forefronts of these wonderful people’s minds. I highly recommend the ZEFO system to any business owner or professional company.
Asael Dreyer
Asael SEO
I came across it about 3 years ago in a digital convention. From the very first moment, it was clear to me that it was a well-oiled system that can create order in the whole issue of SEO project management, and is definitely worth the requested price. I have no doubt that the system will benefit any SEO project manager, especially after they find out about the feature of producing monthly reports with a click. I warmly recommend!
