Google Phantom Update
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What is Google Phantom?
Google’s Phantom Update was a sneaky change to the company’s search algorithm that affected mostly informational sites like eHow, Quora, and HubPages. Many sites lost rankings while others jumped ahead, causing mass confusion among webmasters as Google originally denied a major update.
The major reason sites dropped in the rankings was because they were determined by Google to be low-quality. This is causing many site owners to adapt their sites to Google’s definition of quality in order to improve the user experience and regain rankings.
Google Phantom Update…
The Quality Update — May 3, 2015
After many reports of large-scale ranking changes, originally dubbed “Phantom 2”, Google acknowledged a core algorithm change impacting “quality signals”. This update seems to have had a broad impact, but Google didn’t reveal any specifics about the nature of the signals involved.
“Phantom” — May 9, 2013
In the period around May 9th, there were many reports of an algorithm update (also verified by high MozCast activity). The exact nature of this update was unknown, but many sites reported significant traffic loss.
