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?

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!

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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’…

“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!

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.

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?

• Go Compare
• Money Supermarket
• Tesco Finance

How are they there? What techniques are they using and do they abide by Google’s Guidelines? Lets take a look at the three sites:

Go Compare

First, lets cross the standard SEO on page tactics off the list shall we…

‘Car insurance’ present in the Title, H1 Heading and approx 3 times in copy, as well as in several navigational links pointing back to the home page.. all pretty standard.

Moneysupermarket

Same story here really. ‘car insurance’ present in page title, H1 heading, about 12 times in copy (with density of around 6%)

Tesco Finance

And again, Car Insurance present in title, H1 Heading, 6 times in copy and in navigational links from around site.

So – no variation in any of the ’standard’ on site tricks, no indication of any on-page spamming, no doorway pages, cloaking or BMW style Javascript redirects, just plain well built HTML.

So how about we look at page 11. Result number 101. What is so different to the site at 101 to the big 1,2 and 3?

I-Sure Insurance

So what are Isure doing wrong to be one hundred and first? A quick glance below the fold of this (particularly ugly) site will tell you – not that much different to the big 3. Car Insurance in Page Title, H1 Heading and 11 times in copy as well as in 5 headings, a total of around 6%. Now although slightly spammier in keyword density than say Go Compare, certainly not breaking any rules.

Now lets turn our attention to links. Firstly the numbers. Yahoo Site Explorer tells us:

• Go Compare: 11,900
• Money Supermarket: 26,600
• Tesco Finance: 365,000
• I-sure Insurance: 2,520

OK – so Yahoo is not the most reliable of link tools – especially for numbers, so lets have a look at some of the link sites themselves.

• Go Compare: Example GC1, Example GC2, Example GC3, Example 4
• Money Supermarket: Example MS1, Example MS2, Example MS3
• Tesco Finance: Example TF1, Example TF2, Example TF3
• I-sure Insurance: Example IS1, Example IS2, Example IS3

Clearly, all 4 sites have been purchasing links. Look at GC1 – plain old link buying. Approach a site, offer some cash, up goes the link. Money Supermarket have found a novel way in MS2 with non-rel=nofollow’ed links from most of the major papers – this example being the ‘best buy’ section in the telegraph. Example IS1 – some form of network. Links in straplines, easy to detect one may think – perhaps hence the PR1 of the link site, and poor position of I-sure? Perhaps most interesting of all, check out TF3 – very interesting. Look at the other sites on the page with similar links, now look at this Agencies client list…?!

Plenty of questions now spring to mind. Considering Google’s crackdown on paid links, how can these sites still be there?

Matt Cutts – what are your thoughts?

As a web master for an insurance company you may be asking – how can I even expect to abide by Google’s guidelines and rank in the top 100 if site number 101 is using paid links?

If companies are paying so much for these links, are these results actually very natural? The companies with the deepest wallets ranking the highest?

Biggest brands? Biggest Comparison sites? Deserved of their positions?

Discuss…!