So you come in to check on your websites some random monday morning, you have your coffee in hand and a smile on your face. You were steadily climbing last week and you’re secretly hoping you’ve hit page one for that keyword you’ve been working on all month. You open a clean browser and do a search. Nothing on page one. Oh well, on to page two. Nothing there. Now you panic, going deeper and deeper into the results until you finally find yourself buried on page ten. What the heck happened? Well, usually it’s that bane of all small business SEO: a Google Algorithm update.
They are occasionally predicted, but even the biggest sites get hit hard by them on occasion. There hasn’t been a great way to track them in the past, but recently a Redditor from /r/SEO released a new (FREE!) tool that can help you keep keep one eye on how Google’s algorithm updates are affecting your rankings. It’s called Algosleuth, and it’s actually pretty neat (if a little unpolished).
The tool is still pretty raw (it operates completely out of a Google Doc) but the usefulness is there. It uses the Google Analytics API to analyse your site’s traffic and it compares those stats to all of the major Google Algorithm updates. It takes a little bit to set up (there is a tutorial included right on top of the tool) but it provides interesting data you can’t get a lot of other places.
Give the tool a try and make sure you send the developers a review if you do. Free tools that benefit the community need to be encouraged in every way possible.