As first reported by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, Google has launched a major update to their algorithm to combat content farms. Google publicly stated that the update affects 11.8 percent of their search queries.

From a rank tracking perspective, the timing of the update is perfect for Raven users. The change started to occur right after our weekly SERPs update, which means you should see the full impact of Google’s change as early as February 28 and no later than March 2.

Make a ‘Google Algo Change’ Event

If you’re not familiar with Raven’s Event Manager, now’s the time to get to know it. The Event Manager makes it easy for you to keep track of campaign actions, such as sending e-mail newsletters or obtaining significant mentions and links—and also major algorithm changes. Events are then displayed on graphs and reports throughout the system, including Google Analytics and SERP Tracker.

Raven supports the ability to create an Event for a single Website or all of the Websites within a Profile.

Here’s how to create an event for the latest “Farmer” algorithm change:

Create a new Event in the Event Manager, and choose Profile for the Scope if you want it to appear on all graphs and reports for every Website in the Profile.

The Event will show up on any graph, assuming the Event date is within the selected date range of the view. For example, the algorithm update will appear on the Search Keywords view in the Analytics section. This is perfect for viewing any steep increase or decline in ranking and traffic from the algo change.

You can also easily report this to your clients or managers, because all Events are included in our PDF reports.