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May Day Update increases long tail traffic

Most people have probably heard about the May Day update which has either dramatically increased or decreased traffic depending who you talk to. Initially the talk was all about how sites had lost traffic but there are now a number of people coming out to say that traffic has had a big increase.

We’re seeing either no change or a dramatic increase in long tail visitors since the update.

The update seems to have been quite straightforward, Google has increased the emphasis on quality and is giving smaller sites a chance. Large sites with thin content and a lot of trust no longer get a free ride just because they have a keyword match.

I’m heading off to Sweden today for the EPiServer Partner Summit so don’t have much time to write – however I strongly suggest you read this post about the update to find out what’s going on and how you can benefit.

Thanks to Tim from web design agency leeds for helping pull the stats for this post together.

BY Patrick Altoft AT 8:19am ON Wednesday, 2 June 2010

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3 and has worked in the SEO industry for over 10 years. With experience across some of the worlds largest brands as well as startup businesses Patrick is well known in the industry and speaks regularly at the major SEO conferences and events. Follow Patrick on Twitter or Google+

Comments

  • http://www.justinparks.com Justin Parks

    I'm looking into this a the moment as my traffic has seen a drop since May Day but enquiries have increased and of course, I love to know why.

    The other thing was (and this may have no relevance or relation to the update) my PageRank increased to a 5.

    I haven't delved into the analytics as yet but hope to find time this week and see what comes of it!

  • http://www.justlinkbuilding.com/ idietcola

    traffic up on this end!

    local search also catching more geographical related areas…

    T minus 5 minuets till the next update hay!

  • http://www.zhaiduo.com zhaiduo

    yes, it does. In the last moth my site traffic increased 25%, but main keywords are back to page 3.

  • Marc

    Not related to the May Day update but thought this was an interesting re keyword type in potential. http://www.newfoundnames.com/domain-sales/bigger-…

    This was a North American site. Europe is trailing the U.S models and that includes most but not all SEO experts. Keywords will always be important, technology is restrained by culture / linguistics. I was thinking ? that if a small group of TLD keywords in were obtained in one area of related commerce say in the emerging German / French / Italian language insurance markets :
    (branded dot com / country code) the prices would still be low compared to the U.S. Each keyword could be an authoritative site under the keyword domain but each site could be used by the same price comparison platform brand. This would create a very cost affective way of creating a new brand whilst retaining the long term SEO value of the keywords.

    In effect if autoinsurance had included = accident insurance pet insurance life insurance working as a syndicated group group the SEO value & new brand value would be a perfect match.
    Patrick your thoughts ?

  • Pete

    If you can get the keyword reg, or have them think you're going to be doing very well, as long as you have reasonably useful & unique content on each site, and don't go pushing the envelope in terms of numbers of domains. 20 might be a lot; 10 should be fine; 5 top level . com's perfect. Got to say the idea is V good, getting them at the right price will be difficult.

    Make sure that you don't hide the relationship between the sites from the human user, i.e. don't look deceptive. You just want to be able to say to a Google spam engineer that these are each individual divisions of the same overall company, and you set them up separately and chose different hosting etc. for different reasons. I don't think it's going to get you into trouble UNLESS you build so many that it appears the PURPOSE of doing it is to bring link juice artificially. Simply creating micro-sites that each focus on a different niche isn't going to be considered "evil intent" by Google, as far as what I can tell from what I've read and seen/heard Matt Cutts say.

  • http://www.microsites.info Mark Suller

    I have seen a good increase in traffic for smaller sites I run, specifically targetted to niches, using unique content. Although they are far from heavy linked, they suddenly went up in the SERPs. Personally, I think that's a good approach, many huge sites abused their trust and dominance in the past to get irrelevant lading pages ranked well by profiting from the main sites popularity.

  • http://www.specialprayer.webs.com Heinrich

    The May Day update did have an impact on rankings. The impact is however not as bad as expected. Some keywords are down, some up. It does seem as if content plays a far bigger role now.

  • John

    Ref May Day : Content has always been important and I agree plays a far bigger role now.

    Ref: Pete 3 days ago. I agree with the summary. The keyword match is perfect if you can find and afford the TLD's. Michael Atseomoz was doing something similar with a 6 micro-site group for a client, nice thought.

  • http://xn--ln-uden-sikkerhed-8qb.dk Lån uden sikkerhed

    I had some small impact on my rankings!

  • John

    Ref May Day : Content has always been important and I agree plays a far bigger role now.

    Ref Pete 1 week ago: I agree with the summary. The keyword match is perfect if you can find and afford the TLD's. Michael Atseomoz was doing something similar with a 6 micro-site group for a client, nice thought.

  • Marc

    ref Marc · 1 week ago = Patrick your thoughts ? Would like your comment Patrick as you IMO know more than most and I am seriously making offers on three eastern European TDL's registrations.

  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/patrickaltoft Patrick Altoft

    Hi Marc, yes this would be a good strategy. There are some good bargains to be had in non-US countries and outside of .com names.

  • http://www.richardmorgan.com Richard Morgan

    For quite a while, the top ten results in Google, when searching for generic keywords in a local context, used to come from huge sites with tons of content, and it would push down the more relevant local sites to page 2 or 3. It looks like this recent update went a long way towards fixing that problem.

  • Marc

    Marc · 6 days ago Patrick your thoughts ? Please
    ref Marc · 1 week ago = Patrick your thoughts ? Would like your comment Patrick as you IMO know more than most and I am seriously making offers on three eastern European TDL's registrations.

    Read more about May Day Update increases long tail traffic by Blogstorm SEO Blog

  • Marc

    Marc · 6 days ago Patrick your thoughts ? Please
    I keep trying Patrick the comments have to be seen to be posted ?

  • Marc

    Marc · 3 WEEKS AGO & 5 Posts later: Patrick your thoughts ? Please

    It is only a reply to a valid question, why dodge it ?

  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/patrickaltoft Patrick Altoft

    Marc I left a reply above? I don't read comments very often so sorry about the lateness

  • Marc

    Thanks Patrick

  • http://www.espinteractivesolutions.com web design

    Google is giving importance to long tail keywords in those days. Long tail keywords are 100% real traffic generated keywords. this traffic also convert into clients.

  • http://www.apartrental.com Recharddo

    If you think you're going to be able to do very well on this matter, as long as you have useful content and reasonably unique on each site, the number of fields and can be very much ; We can say this is a good idea, but you can get them at affordable and reasonable prices will be very difficult.

    Make sure you do not hide the relationship between users and Web sites from people, that is not looking at fraud. You may just want to say to a professor of spam Google that these are individual units of each school with a whole, and you set them separately and choose various storage options for the management, etc. so different. I do not think it will help you build so much that it appears as its purpose is to bring link juice artificially. Simply create web pages of each focusing on a different segment will not be considered "unjust" by Google

  • http://picanto.pl/dom,i,budownictwo/okna,gniezno,s,3825/ Dantik Muanto

    Great stuff – your page goes straight to my bookmarks. I will come back again soon to read some more.

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