The Codename “Payday Loan” combines extensive and permanent changes (Update) to Google’s ranking algorithm. It was deployed in June 2013
What is the Google Payday Loan Update?
This algorithm change was first deployed on the US-American search market on June 11th 2013 and was rolled-out to the rest of the world over the following two months.
Google says that, for the US-American search market, only about 0.3% of all search requests are affected by the Payday Loan Update. In other search markets, like the Turkish one, up to 4% of all search requests are affected. That is the reason why the impact of the Update are so different, depending on what search market (country) you are looking at.
What makes this algorithm change so special?
The Payday Loan Update, in comparison to the algorithm changes Panda Update or Penguin Update, does not take aim at the content or the backlinks of a website. Instead, Google uses the Payday Loan Update to specifically target search requests and markets where there is an excessive advent of spam or illegal SEO-techniques.
What is the goal of the Payday Loan Update?
The goal of the algorithm change is to raise the quality of specific search results on search markets with a relatively high spam rate.
Matt Cutts, Head of Googles Webspam Team, named the Turkish search market as a source where the effect of the algorithm change is felt the strongest, since there are a lot of pages operating with illegal SEO-tactics, like webspam, to get into the Google Index.
Matt Cutts explained this Update goes after unique link schemes, many of which are illegal. He also added this is a world-wide update and is not just being rolled out in the U.S. but being rolled out globally. Quoted from an interview with Matt Cutts
Quoted from an interview with Matt Cutts
According to Google, other search requests with a lot of spam that are targeted heavily by the Payday Loan Update are, among others, the topics of loans, pornography, gambling and drugs, as well as prescription medicine.
Video explanation by Matt Cutts / Google on this topic
In this video, which was already recorded March 13th 2013, Matt Cutts gives a preview of upcoming changes to Google’s Ranking Algorithm and shortly talks about the Payday Loan Update, which was planned for June 2013.
What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google?
What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google? Information about the upcoming Payday Loan Update.
