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Update Florida - Nov 2003 Google Update Part 2

         

GoogleGuy

4:50 pm on Nov 17, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Continued from part 1: [webmasterworld.com...]


I stopped by several times yesterday, but it seemed like people were into the analysis stage already. caveman, this update didn't add any penalties for hyphenated domains, so that's not a factor. Just a reminder that people with specific feedback (good or bad) can send it to webmaster [at] google.com with the keyword "floridaupdate" somewhere in the email. I've mentioned that a few times, but as more than one person has pointed out, it can take 2-3 hours to read the whole thread from beginning to end. :)

Webwork

3:44 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Spend some time at EuropeForVisitors website. It informs. Its design is elegant - beauty in simplicity. It navigates nicely. It's optimization is the natural outcome of its mission to be user friendly AND inform. It sells by seduction.

You want to see the future of SEO and SEM?

One clear example is EFV's site.

- jeff esq -

Goanna1

3:48 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Try using a Google dance tool that checks all the data centers.

pchristensen

3:49 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I really haven't seen much datacenter movement since Sunday morning and my more optimized pages with internal keyword anchor links are still history in the SERPs. Searches on my less-optimized keywords are fine in the SERPs.

As time marches on without significant change in the SERPs, I am left to conclude that I did indeed over-optimize and we're seeing the final result (notwithstanding some minor changes).

The $64K question now is when will Google recognize my page changes and put me back into the game? If this is indeed a penalty, is it a "hard" or "soft" penalty, with the latter meaning that the issue will correct itself after Google fresh crawls and indexes my new pages? Or, <gulp> will the penalty stick for a while?

drewls

3:52 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Alright, it was funny for a while, GG.

Can we please have our index page back?

Pwetty please with sugar on top? :D

soapystar

3:53 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



"soapystar,
Yes, what you are saying is correct: inclusion of the hyphen would make pages containing kw1-kw2 more relevant. Unfortunately my pages do not contain any "kw1-kw2" either :) "

but is there no added relevancy at all?..you have to check backlinks and how relevant the backlinks are for the -keyword...id have thought many of them will be or point to urls with -keyword simply by the nature of on topic reciprocals

dross

3:53 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



HI, So what have people on here been telling their clients. I have one client that I have been working on for 6 months and the results were moving up nicely. No bad techniques at all. Now I can't find his site on his main keyowrds. I fnd him on other keyords and by domain only. I'm hoping it comes back soon or I might loose this nice paying client.

When is this nightmare going to be over? :)

Thanks
David

killipso

3:54 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Anyone seen GG.
I am awaiting some info from him.
GG you around at all?
Dan

Sunset_Jim

3:54 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



prodigyfx

>>Whats the URL of data center 8?

The URL of data center8 is [www-cw.google.com...]

It contains my site SERPS before changes.

tigger

3:56 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm waiting for the phone to ring, all you can say is G has changed it algo and you will do you best to resolve it and get the rankings back! thats what I'm going to say, what else can you say :(

newwebster

3:58 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



something is up on mc datacenter. When I do a search with the "-" there is the results like the other centers, but when I do not use the "-" I get a server error.

Trax

4:07 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



i only hope that the keyword-keyword searches replace the current keyword keyword results!

what do you think
will it happeN?

Goanna1

4:08 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



when I do not use the "-" I get a server error

That is weird! Nice observation. Is there some sort of a clue in this?

James_Dale

4:10 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Trax:

i only hope that the keyword-keyword searches replace the current keyword keyword results!
what do you think
will it happeN?

Yes.

contrast compare

3:55 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Ok, this is strictly my opinion, based on the results ive seen in google since this weekend. If you disagree, it is fine for you, but you are wrong.

What google is trying to do is eliminate SEO. Scrap your lame black hat/what hat talk. It doesnt matter to google. Fundamentaly, if you are manipulating the SERPS, they dont want it, period. How can you make money off of PPC when people can manipulate the results? Get over yourself, google doesnt care.

So, what they did was study organic high ranked pages vs. SEO pages, find the difference between them, and then penalize sites that are doing SEO.

On to the meat. What google did is add a new algo for every page in the index that states:

1. Look for high keyword phrase density in H1, title, in-site links, text, etc. This identifies keyword phrases to watch out for in step 2.

2. Look at inbound link anchor text. Find pages with a high percentage of inbound link anchor text made up exclusively of keyword phrase identified in step 1.

3. Add a massive penalty for pages that are doing things seen in steps 1 and 2.

How do I know this? Type allinanchor:keyword1 keyword2, check results compared to keyword1 keyword2. Lots of SEO sites now appear with the allinanchor results. Also, check keyword1-keyword2 vs. keyword1 keyword2. You can see a huge difference here. Ive seen it on all the sites I run. Keywords on inbound link anchor text have been killed.

Final piece of the new algo, that applies to sites, not pages.

1. Use results from previous step 1 and 2 to identify SEO pages.

2. If these pages are the main index page of a site AND there are little or no deep links into the site with the keyword phrase, apply another penalty.

You will see lots of SEO site index pages dropped. Organic sites dont exibhit this behavior.

Finally, what can you do:

1. Inbound link anchor text must never contain more than 20% - 40% of your targeted keyword phrase.

2. There should never be more than 50% of your inbound links pointing at your index page for you domain.

Happy Hunting!

skyhighpn

4:11 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Am I the only one that is noticing an updated toolbar PR, like from today or yesterday?

NazaretH

4:12 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Just one more to add... We've been at spot 1 for our main keyword for many months and we didn't have to optimize it - the site is naturally to be # 1 there because it is actually about the only on-topic and has many incoming links with different anchor including a lot of those with the key phrase I mean... the sit is still # 1 for "online nice widgets" while it should also be #1 fpr "nice widgets" but it is nowhere. Business suffers... results page relevancy also suffers. We truly hope it is going to get back or Google is broke.

Sunset_Jim

4:13 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I find something strange. If I insert hyphens between the words in my key phrase in my search term, my site comes up No, 2 in the SERPS! If I don't use the hyphens my site doesn't come up within the top 100 SERPS! I don't use hyphenated keywords in my site or domain name

c1bernaught

4:19 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sunset_Jim:

Go back and read the previous pages of this thread. What you are seeing has been discussed. You may find something interesting in those discussions or you may just get more confused.

Either way... it ain't over yet...

birdstuff

4:22 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My homepage just went from Toolbar PR5 to PR6.

killipso

4:23 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Contrasts would you like to place a bet on what you said?
Sticky me for the search engine results.
I ve had alot of folks mailing me and every one came back and said wow.
Every single one is black hat and theres no like trying to figure out if they are or aren't.
Lol - 1 thru ten all message board spam. And I have lots more for my keyword searches its just not 1 page under a certain keyword.
Dan

trillianjedi

4:24 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Am I the only one that is noticing an updated toolbar PR, like from today or yesterday?

No. Looks to me updated across the board. We've gone up a notch on a couple, others remained static.

PR is irrelevant though in terms of the major address of filters in this update, so not surprising that everyone is discussing other things.

TJ

James_Dale

4:28 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think PR is relevant here. From what I can see some of the PR scores are totally screwed and working independently of backlink counts or anything else. One of my sites with only a few backlinks went up to PR8 on one of the DCs earlier.

Goanna1

4:31 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I agree with Trillianjedi.

Some people's positions have dropped despite gaining in PR and backlinks.

crankin

4:32 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



contrast compare: dang - there's my #1 results back! Looks like you might be onto something here. keyword1 keyword2 = page 5. allinanchor:keyword1 keyword2 = #1 slot.

Dangdiggetynabbitt - you try to play by the rules, and they zap you for playing by the rules? My site is squeaky. During the whole Dom/Esm shakeup I was so freaked out that I scrubbed every speck of even possibly vaguely questionable stuff off the site.

Well, I guess I'll wait until the official "all clear" before making any changes. This totally sux.

thepast

4:33 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



On the topic of "over optimized" pages getting penalized I don't think so. It seems to be my older sites (8+ months of ranking well) have not moved in rankings and my sites that have done well (3-4 months of ranking well) have taken a huge hit.

For all of my websites I have used the same "over optimized" techniques such as: heavy inbound links with the same keywords, heavy keyword density on the meta-title and in the main text, heavy interior linked pages using the same keywords, etc!

So, my conclusion is that new link data has not been factored in and when it does many sites will return. My overly optimized sites that have been ranked for over 8 months have not been touched.

There are exceptions to this, but on 20 of my sites that I track, "overly optimized" sites seem to be working just fine it seems to more a timing thing with the set of data Google is using. Thanks!

dross

4:34 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I finnally found a clients site. Page 81 of 82. I feel much better now that it's there..NOT The site is a page rank 5 and there are tons of lower page rank and much less relevant sites. I have to believe that all the google filters still have not been appplied or at least page rank has not been factored into the new mix yet.

Any opinions on this?

Among other things, this group is great for venting :)

Now we just need a couch to lie on:)

Thanks
David

tigger

4:37 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>> I have to believe that all the google filters still have not been appplied or at least page rank has not been factored into the new mix yet.

well we can dream

skyhighpn

4:37 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I know PR doesn't count for much anymore, especially what the toolbar says. But I'm seeing the movement as a good sign that we are not done, hopefully we have more than a "little" to go.

mfishy

4:40 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



<<i only hope that the keyword-keyword searches replace the current keyword keyword results!
what do you think
will it happeN?>>

Talk about blind optimism! :)

benc007

4:40 pm on Nov 18, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Dross,

I am seeing similar results ... My client's site is no where in the SERPS and 9 of the 10 data centers confirm this.

Any idea when there will be another Google update?

It seems Google is using 3 month old data and has not factored in PageRank and filters for SPAM and irrelevant content. Suggestions, thoughts..?

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