Google Rolls Out with “Top Heavy 2″ Update To Its Page Layout Algorithm

Another week, another update to part of Google’s search algorithm. This time, Google announced a refresh of its Page Layout filter that it first announced back in January, or what’s often called the “Top Heavy” update.

Updates, Updates
It’s the fourth Google update in the past two weeks. The rundown so far:

• Panda Update 20: Sept. 27, 2012
• EMD Update 1: Sept. 28, 2012
• Penguin Update 3: Oct. 5, 2012
• Top Heavy 2: Oct. 9, 2012

The Latest On Top Heavy


The head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts announced the update today on Twitter and called it “minor,” saying it noticeably affects 0.7 percent of English-language queries:

Minor weather report: Update of goo.gl/OpIDL launching today. ~0.7% of English queries noticeably affected.

The link in Cutts’ tweet points to Google’s original post about the Page Layout algorithm from January, which explains the algo thusly:

We've heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren't happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change.If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn't have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

Visualizing The Top Heavy Impact