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IT has been mentioned more than once that new links and spam snapshots will be brought in gradually.
Being that I picked up many links after the April update, all of which have the same title, should I be concerned that my sites will be hit with a spam snapshot penalty or the removal from search results for specific search term penatly?
This is very problematic. How do we alleviate the impact of new links?
Is there the abilty to recover from the removal from search results for specific search term penatly?
Do we need to change on site material, or email of our linking partners and ask them to change titles?
I can't answer your question about "spam snapshots," except to say that spammy sites are being penalized for a 30-day period according to other posts here. Perhaps the "snapshot" refers to a site sample taken every 30 days.
As to your incoming link text, I wouldn't worry about it. Google has stated that they only penalize a site for factors under control of that site's webmaster. To do otherwise would be to allow competitors or malicious third parties to cause your site to be penalized.
You still might want to try for a little variety in your incoming link text - Go for width as well as depth.
HTH,
Jim
I have seen some competitors and checked some people I swap links with and noticed thatr this theory seems to hold true.
Maybe I am misinterpretting or missing something?
There has been a lot of discussion in here recently about *possible* semi-penalties. I have taken part in the discussion and speculation, but am starting to regret it...
My company has been paying close attention in hopes of understanding all that has happened, and we have our hypoteses and suppositions. But it is just not possible yet to know with *any degree of certainty* why all these things are happening.
One thing, at least, is clear to me. While GG is an employee of Google and should always be viewed as such, it also seems to me that he is doing his best to provide information about Dominic, and help Google be responsive to the concerns of webmasters and site owners.
We have made our points. GG has said it will take some time. None of us likes that, but perhaps the best course until we know more is just to sit tight, wait for more information, and prepare to take action when it becomes clearer that the bugs in Dominic have been worked out.
I personally have always viewed Google to be such a superior SE that perhaps I put them on a pedestal that was unfair. It occurred to me overnight that my exceptionally high opinion of Google's past performance might be part of why this latest update upset me so much. Dominic certainly has been disappointing. But Google is *just* a company, subject to all the ups and downs that even the best companies go through.
Time for wackmaster to chill and return to site building ;-)
"It occurred to me overnight "
So I am not the only one that lays in bed at 2am calculating hypothesising and theorising work and google?
> I have read several people stating that they feel their removal from search results for search terms is due to over optimizing. This say this is a result of swapping links that all have the same keywords in link title, same keywords in page title, same keywords in header titles.
Your original question had to do with incoming link text, unless I read it wrong. Spammy pages and sites do get banned. But they get banned based on "crimes" committed by the webmaster of the site that gets punished - things which are directly and completely under that webmaster's control.
Let's say I get really mad at you for asking this question twice (just kidding) :)
But let's proceed... Say I have over 200 repeated-keyword-in-domain, hidden-text-stuffed throwaway spam domains, all cross-linked to each other, to FFA pages and to other bad neighborhoods. So, I decide to "get you banned" by linking every single one of my junk sites to yours, using the exact same link text every time.
Do you think that would work? Would it be fair to you?
No to both, and Google won't play this game.
They'll whack you for sins on your site - stuff that YOU did yourself at your own keyboard, not for stuff others might do to try to sink you.
Jim
Is having keywords in title, H1, some content with an instance of bold and italisized things that can get you in trouble?
I have one site that dissappears and reappears from search results for a specific keyword phrase. This site is clean. I notice that every time my site disappears, my competitors site, who stole my title word for word, reapppears in the position I was once in, and vice versa.
Really...
OK, I and some others think there *may* be some sort of semi-penality (though hoping otherwise)...
BUT (apparently) jdMorgan and many other very experienced webmasters around here seriously doubt it.
Either way, as almost all of the mods (and GG) are saying, let's wait and see. It's just too early to know where the SERP's will be in a few weeks. Let's retackle this issue at that time (or hope that we don't even need to!).
wack
I find that doing this leads to several strong #1 positions on competitive searches.
Keep your life simple and low-stress: Design your sites for your users first, and search engines second.
If your site is all about fuzzy blue widgets, then your title, description, <h1>, body text - some of it bolded and/or italicized - plus your internal and incoming link text, should probably contain words like "fuzzy," "blue," and "widgets." Your potential visitors/customers will probably be attracted by those words.
Read the Google Guidelines [google.com], and the guidlines and webmaster info of other top search engines, and don't do any thing they say not to do.
There are a lot of webmasters whose sites seem to be penalized right now, due to the ongoing Google update - an update unlike anything we've seen before. Most of them have not done anything wrong, and their sites' ranks will return to a semblance of normalcy whenever Google gets done doing whatever it's doing. Others have used questionable SEO tactics and will get whacked. But this is an on-going update, and simply not worth worrying about until it's over... Not much more useful than worrying or raging at the sky because you want it to rain, IMHO.
Your time will be better spent adding useful content to your site, getting incoming links from high-quality related sites with relevant incoming link text, and reading and following the links in WebmasterWorld threads like this one [webmasterworld.com].
Google is not "out to get" anyone who creates sites that are useful for their user-base. They are only after those who use unethical methods to artificially and unfairly distort Google's ranking calculations. That does not mean that your should not use the elements of your web pages for their intended purpose of effective, structured communication.
HTH,
Jim
