URL being changed by google search engine?

1. 96

   wildernessposted 11 years ago

   One of my higher traffic hubs is showing increased traffic today; curious I searched for the keywords.  The hub didn't show up in the first 30 spots, or it least it wasn't the proper color for having been visited.
   
   Closer examination showed that it was there, in position #4, first page.  The color of the link, however, shows I had not visited that hub lately.
   
   The reason for that is that I haven't.  At least not to the URL being shown by google - the URL in the link does not show the "wilderness" part of the URL.  Nor is my avatar being shown, as it has for the past several months since proving authorship.
   
   Clicking the link takes me to the hub, however, and every thing looks normal including the URL in the address bar of the browser.  Searching for 2 other keywords had the same result.  Searching for other hubbers hubs, I'm finding some with the profile name and some without, both for the same hubber.
   
   What could be doing this?  Is anyone else seeing it?

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      ajwrites57posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      wilderness, I searched for your article Copying Articles and Getting Duplicate Content Removed and your avatar was there and the link.

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      1. 84

         ajwrites57posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I used Chrome web browser.

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         1. 96

            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, ajwrites.  I'm finding that most of them are normal.  As Paul says, it's those that appear to be doing extra well and have quite possibly jumped in the rankings.

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2. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

   I've noticed that Google has been doing this more and more since January.  At first I thought we might have an incorrect redirect in place, but we couldn't find anything.  I reached out to Google to see if they were having issues following 301 redirects and the response I got was Google sometimes does this (meaning it's intentional).  It seems odd, but it appears to becoming a more common occurrence and when it happens to a Hub, the Hub appears to jump in rankings.
   
   I've been looking to find a Hub that this is happening to that was published after October 2011.  If you have one, please drop a link and the search term that is driving it to show up in the search results.

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   1. 96

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I can't help you there, Paul.  I found two more (total 5 now) but all were from 2010.
      
      I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe have all jumped position as well.  At least traffic is up considerably on all of them.
      
      Looking for some from 2011 or later, everything shows up as normal, although one of those is seeing a little extra traffic.  Not much - it's under 20 today, but it's usually around 5 or so, so it may have jumped rank too.  Normal search result, though.
      
      Now.  If Google is doing it intentionally, that means I'm directly on their radar for some reason,  So far, so good, but I'm not sure I'm at all comfortable with that.  In fact, I know I'm not!

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   2. 96

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You're probably already aware of this, but if I search for a variety of keywords for one of these "special" hubs it always comes up this way - no avatar, wrong URL.
      
      If I search for the URL it comes up normal.  Avatar and the URL is correct.

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      Susana Sposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I have quite a few showing up with the changed url but they are pre-october 2011. My traffic/rankings are up as well.

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3. 0

   Jeanne Grunertposted 11 years ago

   This explains a mystery. One of my hubs, a book review, was on Idle for a long time. Suddenly it jumped to first place on my list! I couldn't believe it. I poked around the web to see if perhaps the book was back in the news or something, but nothing I saw could explain it.  It was very odd.

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      Jeanne Grunertposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Meant to add that while the hub was published on 4/7/2010, I updated it 1/31/2013. Not sure if that made it more likely to be among these oddballs, but there it is.

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4. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 11 years ago

   We did a bit more analysis and while we can't say why google makes this decision, we don't think it is anything to worry about.
   
   I looked at post Oct 2011 Hubs, QnA and forums and all had about the same percent traffic lift so it is likely an algo tweak or a reassessment of HP that came out favorable.

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   1. 96

      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Paul. Although I've looked I still haven't found a single hub, published post Oct. 2011, that has the URL changed.  A few without the avatar, but Google doesn't always put that on the search anyway.
      
      I am finding that the large majority of good performing hubs were published prior to that date, however, even though about half the total was published after.  Whether that is simple maturing or something Google is doing intentionally who knows?

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