Not So Natural

The last couple of days have seen huge changes in the Google car insurance search result, with many sites dipping in and out from pages 1-3.

Yesterday – in the space of a few hours – the same datacentre showed a huge variation in 1st page results. Morethan, Authonetinsurance.co.uk and bullhorn all came onto the first page, with Virgin Money and Insureango dropping onto the third. This morning, Kwikfit – the site apparently penalised for link buying – was back in at 25, with morethan and autonetinsurance back on page 2 and 3 respectively.

What is going on? Are Google simply testing the serp or is this a part of a wider algorithmic shift?

So this morning, its good to see a familiar face in Google for the phrase ‘Car Insurance’. Yes – Go Compare are back in the top 10 at 6th for car insurance. That’s less than 2 months in the Google Wilderness.

Some great conversion taking place on this search blog over the last week – Rex’s comment about better a day as a Lion than life as a sheep – Well Go Compare’s life as a sheep is over. They are the lion of the serps once more!

What is going on? This week insure and go, tesco finance, direct line, endsleigh, q4 and today uswitch have been 3rd in google for ‘car insurance’. What are google doing? Are they testing to pre-empt a big algorithm change?

—–

Update 27th Feb

And so the trend continues. Yesterday, MoneySupermarket were briefly 3rd, whilst today it was the turn of Compare the Market (this morning) before Direct Line moved up to be 3rd for Car Insurance this afternoon. Who will it be tomorrow? Perhaps Confused? Has anyone else seen such movement in any of the other SERPs? Certainly not in our other big 3 ‘cheap flights’, ‘digital camera’ and ‘mortgage’…

As reported by Insiders View this morning, Latitude’s Kwik Fit Insurance have been penalised (not really banned guys) by Google, and are just beneath Go Compare for ‘car insurance‘ at 70th. A quick Google blog search reveals the extent of Kwik Fit’s spammy behaviour. Check out this snippet from one ‘pay-per-post blog’:

“It needs insurance plans? That such to know Kwik-fit Insurance? There you it will be able to find one infinity of products and services that will become its more easy life. If you have a car,”

It was only a matter of time with crap like that as a link strategy one thinks!

So – which Latitude client is next? Come’on guys – smarten up! Blog links like that are gonna get you wiped out!

Check out this blogpost from Hitwise Research Director Robert Goade. Very interesting traffic analysis of Gocompare and the other big players for car insurance since GCs Google penalty.

According to Hitwise, GoCompare were receiving 17.49% of search traffic for ‘car insurance’ before the ban. Now they are receiving 2.31% for the same term.

So, finally it would appear Google have taken action against link spam and banned Go Compare – the spammiest of link spammers. Go Compare appear to, not only have been kicked out for car insurance, but don’t even rank for their name.

It appears however, if you scroll through the serps, they are 51st for most terms – e.g. car insurance. Could this simply be a plus 50 penalty?

Anyone want to place bets on when they will return?