Forum Moderators: open
Here my ramblings:
Google introduced the new "expired domain filter" - which is fine and I don't care much about it except for the following:
We have bought expired domains from domain brokers because of the domain name itself and not the old baggage. The domains wehre suitable for clients projects. We developed them with conservative seo.
The domains had PR ranging from 3 to 6, through NEW links.
Now after the filter becoming active most of those are either PR0 or PR 1-2.
That sucks completely. All the new links (there weren't any special old links) are gone. Why does Google introduce a filter, if they can't handle the counting of new links?
Further it is totally unfair that Google introduces such a filter, but apparently can’t even reset penalties that might have occurred ages ago at the same time old links are reset?
Is this fair?
PS: pls excuse my bad english.
Many people observed some decrease with this update (irrespective of the expired/normal domain issue.)
The way GG explained it, the filter makes a lot of sense, if implemented correctly.
Google shows only backlinks above some PR treshold (PR4?). This is the most likely reason why you can't see some of your links.
<added>Fairness of SE algos/SEO techniques is in the eye beholder;)</added>
However, I suspect that if Google zeroed links and the time stamp of such links were older than your "whois" then these links would not be new, and Google is likely right in reducing there effectiveness...
If you don't earn something, should you be entitled to it?
yes the filter makes sense and as said i don't care much about it, but as long as it is not implemented fully it's unfair. also lifting penalties should be done in the same process. does google honestly expect choosing domains at their will?
I know about the backlinks not showing <4
@fathom
new links means new and of course newer than whois. contacting google should not be necessary if their filter would work and i feel many got hit unfairly. Can't one express that injustice?
I didn't know I was facing that problem until you voice it up. Like you, I recently purchased an expired domain because it related well with my company name. After this update, it was PR0 for every page even though I tried my best to put in as much content as possible in the shortest time.
And all these while I was wondering what happen - too new, did I do something wrong, etc.
kwngian
From my experience it takes at least 2 months to get PR. So maybe wait until next month and see where it is at. Then start to worry/complain.
Is your toolbar showing greyed out or pr0?
Google's PR idea is simply a way for Google to rank pages via computer logic instead of using human editors. The reasoning behind this is so Google can try to cut their costs.
What do you think?
This was an expired domain my boss bought, was previously an adult site, new site is an adult site too so it's 100% "on topic". She even bought an adult listing in Yahoo ($600) + got listed in DMOZ + 25 new link exchanges with quality sites listed in Google, after she bought the domain. (There was only 1 link to the domain at the time of the purchase, and it was on topic)
I hope this penality, is not for too long this will ruin her business, litteraly.
I believe this just points out that Google's PR idea is fundamentally flawed.
Google's PR idea is simply a way for Google to rank pages via computer logic instead of using human editors. The reasoning behind this is so Google can try to cut their costs.What do you think?
Google is in an entirely different branch of the business than the human-edited directories. There is a reason the directories can charge $300 and/or make you wait for weeks or months. In some ways, they are better. But for searches over sites that can't afford to pay to be in Yahoo! or the like, Google is there.
It's like saying the grocery store is "flawed" in its competition with the steakhouse. It's just cutting costs by not cooking the steak for you & bringing it out to your table.
You're comparing two radically different things here.
For every site that moves down in Google, others move up. If Google decide to penalise all domains beginning with A to M, then those owners will be unhappy and the owners of domains from N to Z will be happy.
It's annoying to loose six or seven PR points in an update, but if you rely on search engine traffic you should be ready for such an eventuality.
In her Industry, search engines are the #1 promotion tool.
Also did not see any concern that Google can nuke old links but does not nuke old penalties. Thats tyical. Probably they want to sell more Adwords.
Anyway cyberprosper is right - just move on. We^ll wait and see what happens during the next update. If things don't improve we'll just join the spammers. Watched our competition spamming for a few years and they allways get away with it. Though they need a few hunderd domains a year their income is growing more and more. Perhaps it's getting time for "Google Kickback".
That's where i got the (bad) idea to purchase deleted domains for another client - which i stopped doing after discovering this forum btw.
I will never buy and invest in an used domain anymore, that's it.
Include the date you purchased the domain. Any links that you got between the date you purchased the domain and February 1. Make sure that the pages that link to you are in the index and followed. Check a non-freshbot version of the cache. Make sure that they arestandard a href= links that google is able to follow.
If enough of you do this soon, you might be able to get the bug fixed in time for the next update.
Hope this helps,
GoogleGuy
In late November, acquired new domain name from a broker. It was the .com version of our previous .net domain. Immediately had all existing inbound links changed from .net to .com (or at least all I could find), and put up a 301 Redirect on the old domain.
This may have caused me to get caught in the trap. It's -- uh -- reassuring to see others in the same boat, since I knowingly didn't do anything to cause a penalty.
I sent a note to webmaster@google.com on Saturday -- haven't heard anything back. I'm wondering if there is anything else I should/can do.
Does this mean that any inbound links gained in the next 2-3 months (on recycled domains) won't count?
The expired domain filter is in the process of rolling out, and won't be fully deployed for 2-3 months.
So a little less cryptic - the filter IS NOT in use yet?
The expired domain filter is in the process of rolling out, and won't be fully deployed for 2-3 months.
O.K. here's my question. I let the domain name przero.com lapse. I've now renewed it. So will the fact that it expired mean that przero.com will start its life with a PR0 penalty? ... :)
That is exactly what I'm wondering. If so, this is really ridiculous.
It's strange that with all the blatant cloaking and garbage out there that GG big move was to work on expired domains.
This will just make people have to use less poular extensions like .us etc, as there is a serious lack of .coms that are not deleted domains
In late November, acquired new domain name from a broker. It was the .com version of our previous .net domain. Immediately had all existing inbound links changed from .net to .com (or at least all I could find), and put up a 301 Redirect on the old domain.
I find this one to be quite interesting, and an issue that they may not have taken in to account, depending on how the filter was written.
The links to your old site are definitely older than the new domain date. If they are not checking the date of the redirect, it might be triggering the problem.
Did you include your nick from webmaster world in your report to google? It helps GoogleGuy to find the reports and forward them to the right people.
I included mentions of GG, WW, and my nick, so hopefully this may do some good. I will report back on any response from Google.
I hope this is the cause of the problem, since I can't imagine what else I could have done to deserve this.
Can't see the problem with this example. It would have to be one stupid algo to not update the link date for a new url even if the anchor text and position in the file are the same.
WebGuerilla,
Googleguy has mentioned somewhere that there is no problem when you let you domain expire and the renew it. All the old links will still count towards PR.
The site has two ODP listings (regional and topical), with PRs of 7 and 4 respectively, plus a number of lesser links. I enjoyed a nice PR6 until this latest update, and I now have a PR0 (not grey). These are all new links... I have yet to come across an old link to that domain.
Even though the best links are from the ODP (and soon, the Google Directory), nothing shows up as a backlink. Zero backlinks. However, the toolbar does show one of the Google Directory cats when I click the Category button, though that cat isn't yet visible since Google hasn't published the directory update.
Now, this isn't financially painful to me, as it may be for others of you... this is a missionary team website, and it is 100% non-commercial. It's just... unpleasant... to see that blank white PR0 bar. If it's just a temporary glitch, and will be corrected by the next update, I can live with that. If it's a penalty, however, then that's a different matter.
[edited by: Bluesplinter at 8:06 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2003]
It's strange that with all the blatant cloaking and garbage out there that GG big move was to work on expired domains.
I don't think it is strange. The dirty little secret is that the type of content you mentioned has in large part been powered by expired domains. It has been a tremendous strategy that has been used in both a legitimate and illegitimate fashion.
Personally, I think it's sad that a strategy that has been so beneficial to so many high-quality, content rich sites is going to dissapear. But I understand why they are doing it. I just hope as it evolves, they focus on a couple of areas:
The first being what I think is the underlying flaw that has made them so vulnerable to manipulation from expired domain names in the first place, which is the lack of contextual link analysis. The fact that you can go out and buy a bunch of expired domains that once had content about apples, put up a site about oranges, and then benefit from the pre-existing links from other apple sites is the real problem.
The other issue is the length of the penalty. It should really be short-term rather than never ending. I think it should be up to the editors/site owners that established the original links to determine whether or not a new site established on an old domain is infact worthy of the original link. We've already had several ODP editors comment about how they will allow a new site to retain a category link as long as the new site has good content on the category topic.
If pre-existing links are discounted for a decent amount of time, you discourage the spammers, who are never patient enough to wait around for 6 months. At the same time, the webmasters that purchased a previously owned domain from the same space they do business in are encouraged to work hard to develop quality content. If they do that, most of the old links will stay in place and they will eventually benefit. If the don't do that, those links will dissappear and they will loose any benefit.
