NEWS: Google Maccabees Update?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  David Kutcher: Why not? I think it`s brilliant
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  Karl Balsmeier: It`s misleading on the part of Schwartz, because people will actually think there`s been an update, and that`s what it`s name is. Still, others will think anything is "cute" or "clever" unless it actually affects their business in a serious way.
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  Steve Gerencser: People still pay attention to updates? ;) Seriously, I have zero problem with anyone naming minor things that look like they might be updates. Plus, if anyone has earned the street cred to name them, it would be Barry. He`s one of the few people still around that pays attention to it all daily every day.
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  Karl Balsmeier: I`m just gonna name streets whatever I want. Didn`t see the sign right away so this is Scooby Blvd.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Let`s recall how Gary Illyes, being fed up with people asking "did an update happen? What was the update?" and where those asking fail to accept the fact Google makes hundreds of updates a year that change the landscape, resulting in the question becoming tiresome, decided to jokingly say "from now on, all updates are Fred", upon which Barry and others took to asking "was the latest update part of Fred?"... And Fred became a thing of hilariously stupid epic discussion from serious people. Barry is not a traditional journalist regarding many aspects of what he does. He just reports on what he reads and hears and sees, without much footwork beyond that, and beyond asking Gary "was that an update? "...
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  Alan Bleiweiss: For those interested, "Fred" started out when Gary Illyes had been posting pics of fish on Twitter, and at one point, he named one of them Fred. Jokes were exchanged. Then this happened:
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  Alan Bleiweiss:
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  Alan Bleiweiss: So Fred started out as a fish. Then Fred became Gary`s word to describe search operators. From there, Fred expanded to be the name for all updates.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Kim that conversation you had was pre-dated by a month.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: To be fair, Dawn Anderson is to blame for jumping the fish and forever associating Fred the Fish, with SEO. So it`s really HER fault.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: And Kim, we really need to also blame you for not helping matters.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: The bottom line here is it`s not wrong of Barry for having called this latest update the "Maccabees" update. We all seek to understand what goes on with Google, and when Google themselves don`t give a unique name to any one of their hundreds of annual updates (at least the more prominent ones), it`s only natural to want a name to refer to. Hell, Even the first roll out of Panda, was called "The Farmer update" by the industry before Google officially named it "Panda". And that was back in 2011.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: (It was called the "Farmer" update, by the way, because so many content farms were harmed by it)
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  Michael Martinez: I have yet to see any evidence of an "update" by Google. But if you`re going to refer to the conversations of SOME Web marketers in relation to changes in traffic around a specific time frame, then you need an identifier. Already a number of people have extended the boundaries of this "update" back into November so it`s looking less and less like an update but no one is going to write out "That mid-December 2017 Change in Traffic Noticed by Some Website Operators".
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  David Ogletree: Brett used to name them after his Pubcon locations Florida, Orlando ...
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  Roger Montti: The updates used to be named by WebmasterWorld. The moderators and Brett Tabke would throw around some names and then Brett would decide. I`m pretty sure that`s how the 2003 Florida Update got its name, as it preceded the Orlando Florida Pubcon by a few months. I wasn`t a part of naming that update because I`m pretty sure I wasn`t a moderator yet at that time. :P
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  Simon Heseltine: We tried naming updates at WTFSEO, but they didn`t catch on... https://wtfseo.com/falcon-update-launch-today/
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  Dawn Anderson: In the absence of Google not naming them someone has to
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  Barry Schwartz: I am 100% overrated and honestly, this is the first update I personally ever named. The other names either come from Google, WebmasterWorld, Gary (i.e. Fred) or other sources. I wouldn`t name it if I really didn`t think it was something bigger than the average update and also a significant update. I cover chatter, sue me. :)
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  Barry Schwartz: I should add, I have about a 100 webmasters who submitted URLs to me that said they were hit by this past update. i`ll do my best to dig into them soon and see if I can find any patterns (bad links, content quality, dead fish, etc).
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  Barry Schwartz: Oh Kim Pittoors in case you were worried, I doubt you were, I do not take this personal. In fact, I agree, you should not take my `reporting` as fact. It is far from it. I cover search community chatter and often for the updates I also add in data from the automated tracking tools. But people should use their own brains. SEO blogging really isn`t a job, it is my hobby.
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  Łukasz Rogala: Looking into 1000 domains across the market in Poland now. Nothing changed except some usuall fluctuations. 🤔 Is it time to get a blog?
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  Barry Schwartz: Okay you win, I am shutting down my blog. I am done.
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  Neil Cheesman: It reminds me of the Marx Brothers (Groucho, I think) saying "Call me what you like, but don`t call me late for breakfast."
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  George G.: Barry this thread seems like a decent seo chatter to be reported.