Google News

Google is believed to have released an “unconfirmed” algorithm update between 5/5 and 5/9. We observed some traffic flux among our customers – all of it positive.

Google released their Penguin 2.0 webspam algorithm update on 5/22, designed to reward websites with “good” links and punish websites with “bad” links. According to Google, this update affected 2.3% of English-US queries. According to SEOMoz, who monitors 10,000 search keywords with Google on a daily basis across a wide range of categories, they observed a 33% shift in the “retail” keyword category and a 15.7% shift in the “vehicles” category – so clearly, some categories of searches are affected more than others. So far we have not seen that any SimplePart websites have been affected by this algorithm change.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/penguin-2-0-rolled-out-today/

http://moz.com/blog/penguin-2-were-you-jarred-and-or-jolted

Google has just entered into a multi-year partnership with rating/review provider StellaService, to enhance its knowledge of online merchant quality. Specifically, StellaService gives Google analytics on breadth of selection, total time to reach a live representative, packaging quality and the speed of customer returns. These are clearly metrics that Google will incorporate into Search and Shopping, so be sure you are watching them as well.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/29/google-ramps-up-its-e-commerce-focus-with-new-partnership/