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Other webmasters cant get you banned eh?
That is exacly how my site is.
And it's gone only God knows where :(
Thanks to Brett and all the guys on here who have given at least one old man a new hobby in life.
Unfortunately I don’t have the faintest idea about HTML so can only produce articles or pages that try to comply with what I have learned on here. I then rely on the youngsters who do understand, to make a page with my article.
So far it has worked pretty well, as after 6 months I now have 400 KW on first page of G, with 245 at No.1, and10 of those being against over 1 million.
Having followed this post for several days, I decided to wait a few days for G to have a good shuffle, and have now completed the laborious task of checking each of the 400 KW.
The interesting, and encouraging, find is that they are all still there, so maybe the few bits that I understand are still in good standing. It is also encouraging for those of us who only understand the words on a page, and are left in the dark by all the amazing things that you genius youngsters discuss on WW.
So far the latest shuffle has not affected a single KW.
My only query goes back to before the shuffle. One of the sites on which I am allowed to write articles is a directory with a search facility, based on a different idea of categories and classifications. The KW’s that were No.1 have disappeared completely. Having read on here a few days ago about “poison words”, I wonder if this is perhaps the reason. As the KW’s are an accurate description of the website, if this is the case, this could be considered to be slightly unfair. How do I find out?
GranPops
Hmmm... Maybe it's hitting a little too close to home?
No, it's just that GoogleGuy probably gets tired of trying to discuss things intelligently amid rants and trash talk.
A framed site!
Yes I have noticed that too. My sites are in many languages and only english is the one that has dropped.
Sure, Google has buried many top ranked, "overly optimised" pages, but at what price?
The result is that slightly relevant, tangential pages, seem to be dominating the SERPS.
One, "off handed" mention of a term on a web page does not, generally, make it the most relevant page for a query.
To be frank, our spammy sites seem to have faired well, while a few sites I am involved with that have next to no seo tactics, have vanished - for being too relevant?
I guess the way to go is to take the relevant keywords phrases off your page and don't link using them :)
Maybe we only had much luck or the german part of the web has been left out by this update/massacre. (But that wouldn't be possible from a technical stand of view, wouldn't it? )
greg
Amen to that. Clearly, internally-linking anchor text comprised of searched keywords is a significiant problem on my site at the moment. Lesser optimized keywords search just fine on G. But my two, two-word key phrases that I have in anchor text which point to some other page on my site have been hit hard. Add to this the fact that the file name is also the name of the keyword term with hyphens. So, the recipe for distaster in my case is/was:
1) keywords in anchor text; and
2) anchor text linking to internal pages; and
3) linked-to file name the same as the anchor text (but seperated with hyphens).
I wouldn't hold my breath too long as I do not believe this particular issue (internally-linking keyword anchor text) is something that will eventually work itself out in the update....unless Google chooses to address the anchor text issue and modify the algo.
No, it's just that GoogleGuy probably gets tired of trying to discuss things intelligently amid rants and trash talk.
You said it, Europe.
So many unhappy bunnies.
This has got to be the biggest whinge thread ever.
I see that this seems to be the main problem with most webmasters here. Do not see many people jumping for joy. If they are happy they are 1 time posters who have not been round too long.
The Update threads are generally taken over by people who feel badly done to. Most of the members I learned to listen to since I found this site don't seem to have joined in on this discussion.
As for me, I really don't see the point in saying that I think the results in my area look good and my sites have made some good gains. I don't have time to join the 'debate' and look into it further because I am busy adding some maor enhancements to a site and working on the code for some new ones. For me the big news this week is the Ink results on Yahoo.
there have been changes in the German serps connected with Florida for what I watched, so if you didn't see anything you probably can feel safe this month :-))
Maybe, in some cases.
We will make A LOT more money this month than last via Google, but I still feel that the new filters/algo have done more harm than good.
OTOH, it won't be particularly difficult to manipulate the SERPS with the "new google". The brute force that was required to rank on hyper-competetive terms has been replaced by a need for finesse. The skilled will surely "win" now.
The brute force that was required to rank on hyper-competetive terms has been replaced by a need for finesse.
The finesse will be looking for all FFAs you can find and posting links to your competitors with killing anchor text - hoo-haaa!
Not really very fair though...
The skilled will surely "win" now.
About time.
And the best news for users in years - lets hope this actually means the creation of some half-decent websites.
TJ
My several niche sites with niche anchor text are way up in the SERPS - Google rocks.
It would be nice if WW were able to identify 'new' users as alias'. I wonder how many 'new' posts there would be if the username said:
New Name (alias Old Name)
What the heck is your job if not to help "produce relevant results"?
Late reply to Steve B
Nice attempt at spinning what I said, no, it's not my job to produce relevant results, it's my job to build relevant sites, which I do, it's G that doesn't rank them.
Maybe after the monthly update ( usually happens to me, at the end of every month, i know other ppl r spidered more) , it will work out?
What goes round comes round...
Because your tiny collection of sites has escaped this time, hardly makes Google rock. Hence the comment is totally worthless.
Any sound intelligent and objective study will reveal the new differential between focused niche sites and large semi-relevant pages from large sites. It's not rocket science.
The consequential result being fewer sites in total being served on first pages of returns. Lower quality.
I donno, ive hardly done anything bad, not even slightly.
I just will try to be patient and hope it works out in the end, i think it will.
For people out there, do the results seem new at all? To me its like they have some old results. In anycase im sure we have to be TRY to be patient
Well, Well, Well, Some strong-headed opinions here.
The Update threads are generally taken over by people who feel badly done to. Most of the members I learned to listen to since I found this site don't seem to have joined in on this discussion.
Iguana, although it is very possible true that mostly "whiners" participate in the Update threads, how can you be so confident in speaking for the silent lurkers? Those who abstain from this thread may be in one of following situations:
1) Badly hit by the update, but are waiting for it to finish before speaking
2) Badly hit by the update, but too apathetic/resigned to care any more (after months of "Broken Google" according to some people)
3) Hit badly by the update, but don't want to admit it (ie., some moderators and veteran posters may want to maintain a reputation)
you may call it experience.
======================================
You should also glance through other Discussion Forums on Google. Same atmosphere over here - Tremendous complaints and widespread negative feelings on Google among webmasters and Seo - This has become more and more in during the past few days! Something abnormal down the drain is going on...
None of my sites were effected at all - UNTIL THIS AM!
I did not feel smug about it, I thought it may be due to the fact that there were not that many external links.
However, I kept reading as I knew it was only a matter of time before the "other shoe drops".
It is imposible to remain unchanged if everything else is moving around you.
The curious thing was the search for my keyword remained very consistant. As I was only in position 22 to begin with, I was very familiar with the sites that were above me.
Everything changed early this AM. That position 22 is now position 63. Other keywords have made similar declines.
Is there anyone else who has found themselves as late entrants in this event?
Caryl
THE REALITY: Focused niche websites, attract focused niche anchor text, and contain focused niche content. A recipe for disaster under the new algo.
I'm a a forum oldie who is smiling about this update, but I'm not exactly sure what I did right so there's not much I can say.
Quite obviously it isn't going to affect everyone. There is a formula in play which has the GENERAL effect of damaging the ranking of focused niche sites to the benefit of general semi-relevant pages from large deep pocket sites.
If you compare a snap shot of before/after for decent sized sample of results this effect is clear. The SERPS are much weaker because of it.... whether that means that Google will actually change back to any degree is another matter entirely. The should - but sadly I dount they will.
[edited by: Napoleon at 2:50 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2003]
I'm a forum oldie who is smiling about this update, but I'm not exactly sure what I did right so there's not much I can say
I have a feeling that's pretty much the answer. 3 sites I've heavily optimised over the last 4-6 months have been hit badly. 3 other previously optimised but mostly untouched sites from over a year ago have actually improved very nicely. It leads me to believe that an optimisation “time frame” has been applied in this new algo.
Most of us remember the 'SearchKing' saga about a year ago, when google penalised that site for wrong doing and it was even more obvious by typing in 'searchking', the site did not reside in the top 20 results.
Now on this latest update, I am seeing similar things with my site, having typed in my domain name without the www and com I am well down the serps, even my internal pages are ranking better.
Does anyone else see this theme? or is just me!
I am far from convinced this update hasn't finished, but whilst some of us are probably going to return to the top of the serp's some will be penalised permenantly. I have a funny feeling my site is doomed.
I don't know if this is a google seo crime, but the only thing I can see what I have done wrong is possibly having too many outgoing links (link exchange's) something which has kept me up there at #1 position for over a year and something which all my competition do.
For many retailers the 4th quarter sales equals 50% of their yearly sales. To add this situation to a weak sales year may very well spell doom to many small businesses.
For those effected, how on earth will they find out what needs "fix'n" unless they stay in touch with others who are madly searching for answers?
Yes, many things have been rehashed, but in one of these posts there will be some information that will help lead the way out of this mess.
I maintain that if those who are speaking "down" to the masses here, were being hit in the wallet, they would go back to just lurking or join those looking for a solution.
So linking to your competitor thousands of times with the same anchor text may not *help* his site, but it's not going to get him banned or punished either. I don't know whether anchor-text has truly been devalued in importance, or whether it hasn't been fully factored in yet, or whether that has nothing to do with anything and is merely a coincidence; but in the educational sector at least, sites with relevant anchor text are all doing a-ok. Look up your favorite historical topic and see dozens of counterexamples to the anchor-text speculation for yourselves. (-:
I think the more competitive/commercial/spammier searches just haven't finished settling down yet, personally. The less competitive educational searches look terrific. I haven't noticed even one of my colleagues disappearing.
Florida Update has pulled me from #55 to #113 for one keyphrase, and from #88 to #642.
I have two queries,
1) Is this florida update now stable or there is still a chance of major fluctuation?
2) the keyphrase for which I was #88 is very very competitive, still I am,
#51 for allintext
#52 for allinanchor
#49 for allintitle, but nowwhere(#642) in SERPs.
What is the theory behind it?
Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
Thanks
Aji
;-)
If this is what Google sees as a great update and getting rid of spammers well I have sad news to tell them since Geocities sites are up in the top 10 - when adult sites are against their TOS. I find sites installing trojans and redirecting right-left-and-center, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed someone is just yanking their chain for a few days until they totally disappear from the results.
1) Is this florida update now stable or there is still a chance of major fluctuation?
Nobody here can answer that for you.
You could, however, look at the top 50 results for that search term and see what it is that puts those sites there.
Examine the differences between theirs and yours. Content possibly?
TJ
Can anybody explain that?
It may sound greedy not being satisfied but keyword1 and keyword2 are like United and States (not real example). Anybody searching for something in the US would never just enter United or States, they would always type United States ........
On my main keyword search I have been #1 or 2 out of 500,000 plus pages for all of 2003 (except temporarily during April/May update) now I am not even located (top 500).
I know my site/pages have not been penalized/banned since I can locate some as above and all pages can be found in detail searches (keyword1 ... keyword5).
So why if I was the best result (Google's definition) to be returned for all of 2003, How can I now be so bad?
Was Google so wrong for so long and is now right or is Google wrong now?
Examine the differences between theirs and yours. Content possibly?
nope, not for me. have tons of relevant, useful content. which google seemed to love for many months.
nope, not for me. have tons of relevant, useful content. which google seemed to love for many months.
You're obviously missing something. Look deeper.
[edited by: satanclaus at 3:18 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2003]
Even taking into account the observation that big authority sites are doing better and therefore the toal number of sites in high positions has decreased - there must be an awful lot of winners in this update. 1 page dropping out of the top 10 results in someone else's page coming into the top 10. I don't hear much from these winners.
If you guys also have some other experience with Florida update share it.
Please be more technical rather than start crying abt your website without reasoning:)
AND FOR GG WILL THERE BE REGULAR UPDATE AS USUAL OR THESE REULTS WILL BE THERE FOR A MONTH.
thanks for your suggestion
Deepak
Absolutely not. I can show you a (competitive) search where the only thing that puts the site where it is what is in the META KEYWORDS tag! Not backlinks (yes I've also checked ATW), not hidden text, not cloaking, not hub status blah, blah, blah - purely META KEYWORD stuffing!
I'm quite prepared to provide the example. In fact, I challenge any poster asserting that the current results are unquestionable in their quality to take a look; should they find the legitimate reason why such a result exists based on the merits of either on page, or off page factors then they are quite welcome to reply to this post stating I talk absolute b*******s (stating their reasoning obviously)!
If no such poster is prepared to take the challenge then they should refrain from being smug.
I don't assert that Google is broken or I, or anyone else, deserve to be placed in the #1 spot - just that there are plenty of examples of totally irrelevent results.
It is starting to appear that this new update has only changed the "profitable" search phrases - this info is easily available to G from their ADWORDS program. So if the phrase "blue widgets" is searched this is firstly checked to their to see whether it matches any of their predefined "profitable" searches. If it does it uses an one algo if it does not it uses another (the old) algo. I have checked various searches and this appears to hold true but not all.
Example:
I DONT show up for my business name, which is completely strange, however I so show up for the first three words in my name, why? The last word.
Lets say I sell pretty blue widgets and didgets but primarily I sell widgets. My main keyword would be:
Pretty Blue Widgets
Since the update though, I show for only:
Pretty blue
Pretty blue didget
didgets in pretty blue
NONE of my terms show up for the word widget anywhere. My indexed site shows up for didgets but not for widgets, follow me?
Look outside the box on your sites, I think this is the reason everyone is having so much trouble with this. We are all either suffering saturation penalities on specific keywords or that specific word is encountering some kind of problem in the serps.
Let me mention that my site is STILL number 1 with my index pages for anything that has the word didget or pretty blue.
What would be more useful info for you to examine is information about the sites that *are* doing well in the SERPS for "pretty blue widgets".
TJ
They are using the keyphrase in the title only once with a geographic component twice. Seems to really work well even though the landing page is the same for every subdomain.
Looks like using your keyword sparingly in the title, description, etc. but having a supporting word or phrase twice really works...
So somethings have changed, but its nice to have it back.
1) Google has increased broad matching more. If you search for "widgets" sites that only contain "widget" do much better. I think this is the single biggest loss of relevency.
2) As other people have pointed out something is definately up with keyword density. I am not sure if Google has downrated this factor or penalized it over some amount. Clearly, though, there seems to be some "sweet spot" where there is not too little nor too much kw density.
3) As people have stated around the dash (-) posts, having multiple word phrases on your page seems irrelevent unless someone explicitly searches for a phrase. There may be a sweet spot as with density, but I think keyword proximity and ordering is meaningless to the current SERPs.
4) If the points above don't come into play, PR actually seems to me to be kicking a**.
Just throw a chair through it. :-)
Inktomi optimization is accomplished with heavily loaded on-page factors while google optimization is done with more off-page factors.
Google is now dropping sites for keywords that match both heavy on-page and off-page optimization.
Maybe they're trying to force people to "choose sides".
i have been working for days now to scrape the paint off of my 20th floor windowframe, so that i can eventually open the window and jump. almost have it all scraped off.
Or the PC you used windows through windows :)
looks like using sub domains is working for quite a few people. I'm seeing a single company dominate the to 15 or so using subdomains.
Yeah and the guy that built that site will be back here in two months time for update Georgina crying "argghh... Google has really messed up this time, my site is nowhere to be seen!".
TJ
Pretty - 50 - 12.08%
blue - 49 - 11.84%
widgets - 24 - 5.80%
didgets - 12 - 2.90%
widget - 9 - 2.17%
If you add the % of widgets and widget you come up with high saturation of that specific word (7.97%) What makes no sense is the words pretty and blue both have hugely high keyword saturation due to geographic area and they dont seem to be affected at all.
In regards to my competitors I think it is silly to start looking at them until the serps settle. Many of my serps are very different than last night. Half the battle is just finding the issue and then making progress on fixing it.
All they need to do is change the default setting of results returned per page to 500. Then, being behind 480 irrelevant results won't hurt so bad, as long as your still on the first page.;)
My sites however are still getting burried in the SERPs when doing this... any suggestions?
How else to explain this mystery which I mentioned here before:
Title of page: word1 word2 word3 word4
Result of search for word1 word2 word3: TOP RESULT
Result of search for word1 word2 word3 word4: NOWHERE TO BE SEEN IN FIRST 10 PAGES (and in page 10 none of those words are even mentioned in the title).
Obviously my page is getting a penalty because the title too closely matches the search phrase. How else is this explained?
Maybe you should try changing your title from "Keyword1 Keyword2" to "Company name - the best source for keyword1 keyword2" and you will do better in the SERPs?
use altavista search engine can make myself feel better..Those are surprisingly good results. Still too many ads though
Maybe you should try changing your title
Interesting observation SWG. Out of interest - does your anchor text generally match your page titles, or just one or two words from them?
TJ
