2022

2023 sees the 15th anniversary of the SISTRIX Visibility Index. Improvement has been fast, focused and continuous, and that won’t stop in 2023. Here’s a summary of the major upgrades to the data and tools over the last 12 months. All of these change follow our focus on data and […]...

A link spam update was rolled-out in July 2021 and now the second has been announced. The update overlaps with the current helpful content update which makes it difficult to attribute to domains that are falling. However, there are already some candidates that can be seen....

This month SectorWatch is looking to work up a sweat as we take a look at who is winning the search market for fitness trackers and apps. We’ll show you the most visible domains in the UK and examples of some of the best-performing content. Which websites are helping us find […]...

The Helpful Content Update that rolled out in August of this year was aimed exclusively at English-language content. With the latest iteration of the new algorithm, content in all languages ​​will be re-evaluated, for the first time....

Christmas is also a festival of traditions. That’s why our Christmas big wheel turns again this year . Our goal: 10,000 euros of funding for the women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes eV....

SEO agencies and service providers who use Google’s identity to try and sell their services more easily have always been a problem for Google. Google is now, however, taking legal action against it. In the US, Google this week filed lawsuits against a number of supposedly related companies that, according to the complaint , are […]...

The official Googlebot has previously only used IP addresses assigned to the USA. Now things seem to be changing and Google is working on the ability to crawl with local country IP addresses that are not from the USA. Gary Illyes, Google’s webmaster liaison, said at the Google Search Central Live […]...

After years of strong growth, tech giants Google and Amazon are now giving focus to cost reductions. According to media reports, the departments for voice assistants in both companies are facing layoffs and budget cuts. At Amazon, Alexa is said to be responsible for around 10 billion annual losses . All attempts to […]...

Web crawlers such as the Googlebot, but also our SISTRIX onpage crawler, have developed significantly in recent years. Whereas in the past only HTML was evaluated, now it is full browsers that run Javascript and other resources. It is important here that individual data present in a rendering process cannot […]...

Blogs don’t work. Really? Here’s an interesting example of a ‘blog’ that is working, thanks to a plan and some structure. William Russell used data-driven SEO insights from SISTRIX to build a content strategy for long-term, sustainable traffic and higher Google rankings. In this post we take a look at […]...

Did the Core Update affect my domain? How’s my domain move working? Did I get a manual penalty on my AI content site? Having a live, up-to-date view of rankings, rather than a synthetic traffic prediction, helps identify success and failure. Here are some examples of content ‘projects’ that have […]...

It’s been quite the rollercoaster for SEOs during the last quarter. Every single month we’ve experienced at least one algorithm update. Who knew Google would roll out so many updates in such quick succession?! In this IndexWatch, we list 1,000 winners and losers, and analyse some of the domains that […]...

This month SectorWatch will keep you warm and toasty as we investigate who is winning the search market for coats and winter jackets. We’ll show you the most successful domains & examples of the best-performing content – who is keeping us looking sharp as the weather turns colder?...

Google has announced that it will change the layout of search hits in the results lists. Now, the site name has its own place above the URL. Here is a comparison of the old and new layout: The example above is in German but the new layout can also be […]...

Once a year, Google presents current search projects at the Search On event and gives us an insight into the future of Google search. Yesterday, the time had come again. These are my three most important insights: Multisearch: With the name Multisearch, Google plans to make the leap from entering […]...

With the knowledge that there were two Google updates overlapping in English-language search results, we take an extended-timeframe look at the effects of the September 2022 Product Reviews Update and The Core Update that preceded it....

Directly after completion of the Helpful Content Update, Google is now rolling out the next Core Update – an algorith update that has been whipping-up the SERPs for a few days now. Here are some details, including our latest data....

It made a strong start, then took a nosedive; the first Helpful Content Update did not fulfil the expectations of the SEO community. The following article, from two industry experts, includes observations and a conclusion that we can all learn from....

It’s over 2 weeks since the Helpful Content Update started rolling out and while we can’t call this a big update in absolute terms, there is a trend that has emerged among some sites. The trend starts after the 1st Sept and the sites affected are clearly not offering unique, […]...

A week ago today, Google started to officially roll out the extensively announced Helpful Content Update. As a reminder: with these new types of updates, Google wants to target content created purely for the search engine. After one week of roll-out we can see that the update has not (yet) […]...

This month SectorWatch is heading for the garden to fire up the grill as we find out who is winning the market for searches for barbecues. We’re looking to find the most successful domains & the best-performing content – who does Google think is serving up the tastiest fare?...

These are the major new features that we have added to the Toolbox in recent months, in video and text form. First, the video, and below that, the quick descriptions and links to further information. SERPs screenshots – 40 countries View recent SERP screenshots as they were captured by our […]...

A new type of Google update will be rolled out for the first time next week: the Helpful Content Update. Contrary to the name however, Google does not aim to improve the rankings of helpful content rankings, but punish bad content in a targeted manner. Update: The roll-out started on 25th […]...

Featured snippets , i.e. a highlighted search result at the beginning of the SERP, are a guarantee for a high level of attention and click-through-rate in the search results. Google has announced changes. Google will now use its current AI model – “Multitask Unified Model (MUM)” – to check featured snippets that are displayed […]...

Refinements in the definitions of quality, E.A.T and YMYL, a new overview document and indications that Google will detect “shocking or exaggerated titles.”...

Links continue to be an important part of Google rankings, as Google sees them as external confirmation and recommendation of the linked page. So, it’s no wonder that link counting has always been high on SEO’s agenda. However, Google’s John Mueller has now confirmed again that there is no correct […]...

Google’s latest quarterly figures show concisely that after the Corona tailwind of recent years, turbulent times now lie ahead for the online advertising market. While search revenues increased by 14%, YouTube recorded growth of only 5%. YouTube suffers both from the fact that advertising there takes place further up the […]...

It’s time to get in the saddle & start peddling (though not too hard) as this SectorWatch takes a look at who is winning the search market for electric bikes. What can we learn from studying the most successful sites & the best-performing content in this growing transport sector? A […]...

Following a quiet first quarter in the organic search world, Google’s May 2022 Core Update certainly provided some much-anticipated spice to the SERP. Some websites saw their visibility reach all-time highs whilst others experienced spectacular losses. This round-up looks at ranking uplifts and downturns across the Google UK search landscape […]...

Time travel to the year 2002 when the first Euro coins and bills were put into circulation and there were still 5 years to go until the first iPhone. Within this environment, exactly 20 years ago in 2002, I registered the domain sistrix.com. Even then, small SEO tools existed on […]...

Our TrendWatch research has been running for 6 months now and we’ve covered everything from toys to drugs, and from music to fashion across the UK, USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia and South Africa. As we reach the summer season, I’ve taken a look at some additional travel-related trends that appeared […]...

The back-story to the ancillary copyright law in the EU, aimed at protecting publishers from content re-use, is long and complex. Some of its roots were set in Germany over 20 years ago and today, despite an agreed EU law, it’s still being argued. We have been following this since […]...

This month SectorWatch is dressing to impress as we jump into the world of fashion retail & find out who is winning the market for searches on dresses. We’re looking for the leading competitors & the best-performing content – who does Google think is on-trend?...

As of this week, you can now use the movers and shakers feature for the complete timeline of the top domains, by Visibility Index, all the way back to 2011 for the UK....

After a long wait, Google has just started the roll-out of the first Core Update of the year. In this article we’ll show you affected domains, take a closer look at sectors and examples, and show you how to analyse losses....

As we head towards summer, thoughts turn to holidays so this month, SectorWatch takes a deep dive into the sustainable travel industry to find the real competitors and high-performing content in Google’s organic search results....

Fake product reviews are a big problem for Amazon. Customers trust the platform and the reviews, and are disappointed by products and end up turning their backs on Amazon. Amazon has therefore been active in the fight against fake product reviews for some time and has now been able to […]...

Until now, content in the Knowledge Panels has always come from third parties, often as excerpts from Wikipedia, sometimes from other domains, but always with a link to these sources. For some search terms such as “london”, Google has now started to write its own texts. Only “Google” is named […]...

From an algorithmic perspective, the first three months of 2022 were quiet for SEO, giving us a rare chance to look at winning and losing domains without a Core Update rocking the boat. There have been big movements among the domains, both in gains and losses, that are worth looking […]...

The Easter bunny is waiting around the corner, as are the search results, ready for the traffic that this sector gets for a handful of weeks every year. In this SectorWatch we take a look at the leading domains and content for the sector, for two user intents. What happens […]...

The new eCommerce website, launched in April 2022, was aimed at providing more informational content and encouraging more people to visit stores – the long-awaited Primark digital shopfront has arrived! You can look, you can view availability, you can click-and-collect, but you still can’t get products delivered. That’s what makes […]...

The use of artificial intelligence has made great strides in recent years. Advanced models like GPT-3 can now produce content that is difficult to distinguish from that written by humans. However, in the last Google Search Central Hangout, John Mueller from Google commented on the use of such tools from the […]...

Google has announced, that it will be discontinuing the URL parameter tool within the next month. With the help of this component of the former Google Webmaster Tools, one could tell Google, which URL parameters of the own page to ignore during crawling. As it has become significantly easier to […]...

It’s rare for websites to be dropped completely from the Google index but following sanctions by the EU Commission, this can now be seen for rt.com, the domain for the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today....

SectorWatch exposes true competitors and analyses the high performance content that appears in Google’s organic search results. In this report we’re analysing the project management software marketplace. Who’s serving the demand? What type of sites and content are performing? Are the players who you think they are?...

After exploring the winners and losers industry-wide, we’re now putting the retail sector under the microscope. COVID-19 has had a considerable impact across multiple sectors over the last couple of years, with retailers worldwide experiencing peaks and troughs. But did the picture get rosier as we moved through 2021? We’ve […]...

Having the right measurements helps to reliably evaluate SEO success. This blog post is about why Domain Authority, Authority Score and Domain Rating can be misleading and encourage incorrect decisions....

2021 was a difficult year to compete for organic search visibility. Not only did Google launch a variety of major algorithm updates throughout the year, but the SEO landscape also became significantly more competitive. The second year of the coronavirus pandemic and continued lockdowns resulted in many brands shifting their […]...

Third-party cookies for tracking advertising purposes are dying out. Some time ago, Google introduced FloC (“Federated Learning of Cohorts”) in order to be able to show users advertising that corresponds to their interests and shopping habits. The idea: the surfing behavior of the users is analysed directly in the browser and […]...

2021 was a volatile year for Google’s organic search results, with frequent algorithm updates – both confirmed and unconfirmed – ranging from several broad core updates, to Product Review updates, to the long-awaited Page Experience update. ...

The search results are becoming more and more complex in their structure – normal organic results, numerous vertical results boxes, structured, semantic data and more are brought together on one search result page. With this, it is inevitable that the same content will be found in several locations. To ensure that […]...

Whilst Google’s 2021 algorithm updates have resulted in spectacular SEO wins, we mustn’t forget about those domains that have not been so fortunate and have seen a decrease in organic visibility over the year, whether unintentionally or knowingly due to an SEO faux pas....

2021 was another year of changes, twists and turns, and the organic search world was no exception to this. Google rolled out several algorithm updates in their ongoing mission to improve search quality, relevance, and experience, including a questionably timed pre-Black Friday update. The pandemic continued to impact user search […]...

We enjoy very positive feedback on our Blog content with case studies and data studies the most popular so, to that end, we’ve built a data journalism team that will bring you more. The aim: create high-quality, interesting and transparent data-led stories to help the digital marketing community. The team […]...