It’s “Top Heavy 2″ As Google Rolls Out Update To Its Page Layout Algorithm

Google has just updated the Page layout algorithm 2 or Top heavy 2 affecting 0.7% of English queries noticeably.

The page layout algorithm, which was introduced in January 2012 to penalize websites with high number of ads above the fold. The decision was taken by Google after receiving complaints from users about more ads on the top or initial visible part of landing pages. There by hampering the user experience.

Updates

It’s the fourth Google update in the past two weeks. The rundown so far:

    Panda Update 20: Sept. 27, 2012
    EMD Update 1: Sept. 28, 2012
    Penguin Update 3: Oct. 5, 2012
    Top Heavy 1: Jan. 19, 2012 (impacted less than 1% of English searches)
    Top Heavy 2: Oct. 9, 2012 (impacted 0.7% of English searches)

The news was broke by Matt Cutts via a tweet on October 9, 2012.

Minor weather report: Update of goo.gl/OpIDL launching today. ~0.7% of English queries noticeably affected.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 9, 2012

One thing is clear, whether it is Google AdSense or any other ads, above the fold placement performs the best. And, placing one or two ads with some content above the fold will not be penalized by Google straight away for top heavy algo.

Google Panda algorithm update 20 Released, 2.4% Of English Queries Impacted

Google has confirmed with us that on Thursday, September 27th, they released a Panda algorithm update – this would be the 20th Panda update and thus we are naming it Panda 20. This is a fairly major Panda update that impacts 2.4% of English search queries and is still rolling out. Late Friday

This is actually a Panda algorithm update, not just a data update. A lot of the most-visible differences went live Thursday 9/27, but the full rollout is baking into our index and that process will continue for another 3-4 days or so. This update affects about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice, with a smaller impact in other languages (0.5% in French and Spanish, for example).

Google EMD Update - Exact Match Domains

Google’s Matt Cutts revealed that Google was rolling out a new algorithm update geared at reducing “low-quality” exact match domains in search results. He indicated that “the EMD algo” affects 0.6% of English-US queries “to a noticeable degree”.