Google Fred Recovery: Identify & Recover from Google’s Fred Ranking Update
March 15, 2017
Rajat Tyagi
Recovery from Google Fred update is not difficult or complex, if you exactly understand what Google Fred update is all about. Google Fred update target SERP rankings by penalizing websites with low value content or websites with high volume of Ads. Here’s how you can identify and recover from Google Fred ranking update. Have you noticed anything unusual since 8th March, 2017? Some changes such as drop in rankings along with sudden disappearance of pages or reappearance of pages which are deactivated or hidden have been noticed by website owners, SEO experts and marketers. These changes are nothing, but, an adverse effect of Google Fred Update.
Whenever a new Google algorithm update hits the ground, the whole SEO industry feels sudden jolt and things have not changed with the new update. Though it has been considered as an unofficial Google update, neither Gary Illyes nor John Mueller (both Google employees) has denied it completely. John Mueller has stated that Google keeps on updating on a regular basis.
Gary has also added that they will prefer to term all ongoing and upcoming updates as Fred Update.
How Google Fred Ranking Update has been Noticed?
In webmaster, SEO communities and automated Google tracking tools, the new Google algorithm ranking update has been reflected strongly.
Any practice that can be denoted as Black Hat SEO has been targeted aggressively by Google Fred Update. Websites that are involved in creating black hat space which includes more focus on links, driving content through blog formats or other content-enriched sites or those who are pretty heavy on their ad placement, have felt the maximum impact of this update.
As per the record, more than 70 websites have been hit by this update. It has been noticed that more than 95% of these websites have faced this jolt, because instead of focusing on user benefits, they set their objectives to generate AdSense or other ad related income.
Many who claim to have never practiced black hat SEO, have been affected by this new Fred update. This is because they do not recognize that they are doing black hat link building or false positives.
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How Google Fred Ranking Update may affect your Website?
The new Google ranking update impacts are:
- It has mainly targeted the quality of the links.
- It has also brought adverse changes in the rankings of the website.
- Some have seen that the rankings for their main/ important keywords are vanishing.
- Some have noticed a huge traffic flow to the website, but at the same time their ranks have also dropped.
- Some have even experienced unusual incidents such as disappearance and reappearance of pages.
It is too early to declare it as link quality related update, as it has also targeted the content quality.
How to Recover from Google Fred Ranking Update?
It is a new Google update and though these are early days to understand the full impact of Google Fred Update, you should be clear on adopting White Hat Practices and keep your focus on addressing user benefits rather than promotional activities.
You can easily recover from Google Fred Update, if,
- You start answering the queries of your users.
- You provide solutions to your users.
- You stop practicing black hat SEO.
- You discontinue creating low-value content.
- You focus less on creating irrelevant/unwanted links.
- You review the placement of ads on your site.
- You emphasize less on generating ad revenue.
- You do not do false positive practices.
- You follow Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG).
The new update has hit these unfair practices, so, hopefully rectifying these factors will help you to adapt to best practices. However, Google guidance is required for further steps.
As Google has not officially announced any Fred update, it is still speculation. If some websites have felt alterations in their rankings and traffic, then it will change the course on the practices of several in the digital marketing world.
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