It looks like Matt Cutts has been busy pressing his red button and demoting previously high ranking sites to 31st place in the results. That is the top of page 4.

These sites are no longer able to score higher than 31st place even for their own company name. Google strives to give relevant results but in this case they are manipulating them to an extent that it is laughable.

How can you say scoring someone at 31st place for their own company name is giving you the most relevant results for that search query. This is particularly a problem for many users who have Google as their home page and go to their favourite sites by entering the name into the Google search box.

They will now have to go through to the 4th page before they can find it and that is if they haven’t given up in the meantime. Is that a good user experience of Google?

No-one knows for sure what is causing this phenomenon (except Google of course but they are unlikely to say) and speculation is rife amongst the many forum posts from effected webmasters.

Further reading can be found at:

Threadwatch
Digitalpoint
Searchenginewatch
Webmasterworld

just to name a few.

So if you can’t find your favourite site on Google anymore try going straight to page 4 or the results and check out Number 31!

Posted in Search Engines, Rants & Raves