Like many smaller companies who run smaller websites was slightly affected by the Google "Brandy" (funniest name i heared so far) update. This update was pretty much nothing more than an added vote of confidence for larger more popular brands. Almost like a slight shove to the front of the line in the race for the best keyword phrases.
Recently Google's Matt Cutts talks about the update and as expected, he states that they aren't so much targetting brands as only certain elements were tweaked that gives this appearance. He also reiterates that it's only in certain query spaces that this is happening.
Matt put up a Vid to focuses on the 'Brandy' update. have a look:
My take on all of this is the issue of semantics. Someone calls it an algorithm change while others are simply calling it a small update. The fact of the matter is that it makes absolutely no difference what you call it. Something changed!
It is pretty clear that some dial has been turned up or down and it seems like that dial is connected to characteristics shared by many big brand websites.
like,
- for "airlines tickets"
spiceject, jetairways, goair, indigo
4 airlines recently began ranking for "airlines tickets".
- for "insurance & health insurance"
sbi, mnyl, icici, lic, hdfc
at least 60% of the first page of search results for insurace is owned by large national brands.
- for "watches"
timex, maxima, titan
3 watch brands jumped onto the first page of search results for watches.
Of course, we are not at the point yet that our psychological interpretation of a brand is being interpreted by Google. But there are clearly some factors that these brand websites have in a common and a couple of switches have been pulled and dials turned that use those signals to score results.
- Google is promoting brands for big money core category keywords.
So, Whats your take on this?
