In recent weeks, Google’s basic guide to search engine optimization has been something that has caused both some surprise and chuckling in the SEO world. The reason is that Google has “lost” it. Here’s why.
Google messed up with the document – that’s the first thing that happened, but it’s already been thoroughly examined. What has surprised many, however, is why other sites hosting copies of the PDF suddenly started showing up. For instance, Mediaanalys made a notable jump in the search results after republishing the document, following a somewhat well-known Swedish blog – which had long had a copy – suddenly shooting up in the rankings for “search engine optimization.”
Many reacted with a deer-in-the-headlights look at this phenomenon – why did another site take over Google’s own strong ranking for “search engine optimization” just because it had the same content after Google’s version disappeared? It’s not as strange as it seems. Dan Petrovic from Dejan SEO conducted a series of experiments back in November last year on what he calls Search Result Hijacking (it has happened before too, but that’s a good post – read it).
Since Google killed off its own guide, the algorithm looked for what now appeared to be the original, and placed it in the same search result position for “search engine optimization” that Google had held. It’s a case of the duplicate content algorithm failing to do its job. Funny, yes – but not all that surprising if you understand what’s going on.
I believe this is a link to the source if you’re interested in reading the guide – though I’m not entirely sure it’s the original.
Magnus Bråth
CEO
Magnus is one of the world's most prominent search marketing specialists and primarily works with management and strategy at his agency Brath AB.