Forum Moderators: open
A good Google New Years Resolution should be "We will stay stable from now on".
Wow. That's freaky. Trying this myself...I am nowhere to be found when I search for "keyword1 Keyword2" which my site is optimized for.
I then searched on "keyword1-keyword2" and I am #2....also near the top of allinanchor and allintext. So why on earth are many of us having trouble with a "blank" between keywords when a simple hyphen makes all the difference in the world?
It now makes me wonder if my on-site anchor text links (with keywords) had a hyphen between words, where would I be in the SERPs with a search using hyphens?
"Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of their senses."
- Euripides (Greek tragedian, c. 480-406 BCE)
Isn't Google the neon god that people around here pray to? All I can say is that my sites have maintained their good positions. So far...
I don't know if the offer is kosher for TOS, but maybe if people have a site that had no problems, whatsoever, to compare things too, it might help. There is no promo drop factor here.... no one who checks the site will suddenly give us money, or decide to do what we do. We have the bandwidth available and it's not like I'm showing it off.. it's rather crude compared to most of you.
The PR5 index page, (just a cover really, as though the site were a book), has 25 backlinks listed, 2 dmoz, 2 Google directory, and yahoo directory recently added 'though not showing yet. The site is very simple, online for about 14 months, good PR and serps from the start, optimized only as far as making sure variations of keywords are in the text, proper titles, and internal links that shuffle the PR where I want it. It has a lot of content, and gets about 100 - 200 unique ip visitors a day, (not counting AOL proxies). It is visited by every bot you can think of, constantly. It was mostly coded with Wordpad and has been run through validators. Post-florida, it is still #1 for the obvious kw's, and as always, still gets traffic from unexpected kw searches due to having a lot of text spread through the site. They're not highly competitive kw's in the slightest, but as I said, there was essentially no change this update for us. It might serve as a benchmark for other .org sites that are after similiar serps.
If a mod decides this isn't appropriate, no problem, I won't complain.
Posted by GoogleGuy
Hmm. Some of the other senior-ish people could answer this too, but keyword1-keyword2 on Google just does a phrase search along the lines of searching for "keyword1 keyword2". It limits results to pages that have that exact phrase on the page, or possibly in anchors.
Sorry about this (don`t take it personally) ;) but IMO this could be incorrect.
The following example shows an anomaly in the above statement unless I'm missing something
;)
I have just completed a search of one targeted key phrase I watch closely on a daily basis.
Search widget-widget-widget-widget (very relevant to my industry) returns 1810 results with my own site at no 3
Same search but "widget widget widget widget" returns 1820 results with my site nowhere to be seen.
Standard search but widget widget widget widget returns 949,000 results with my site nowhere to be seen, (was in the top 10) and many quality, competitors, relevant sites nowhere either and non relevant sites all over the serps.
Totally different to over one week ago.
EW
[edited by: EarWig at 11:18 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2003]
For one search, "mytown real estate", I'm not seeing spam, just absurd results - a non-profit site about rabbits comes up on the first page. After I stop laughing, I'll go back to the lake (this time with a fishing pole) and check again in a few days. No way this can be anywhere near done...
GG, why is it that I have lost so many backlinks...the ones I am most curious about are my links from the Yahoo Directory. My Yahoo Directory links are all gone. Yet for most of my competitors, there Yahoo Directory links are still showing. Will backlinks start to fill in like in the Esmerelda update?
Also, word1-word2 is drastically lower quality than the other way where I am looking. If Google is to apply another filter, it should be to move those word1-word2 results to come into compliance with the "word1 word2" results. Some here might not like that, but it is plain as day in the eare that I am looking at the trivial sites do much better right now in the hyphen searches.
==
GG, good start on the virulent cancer family. Looks like about a 60% death rate so far (close to 100% in some areas, but untouched in others). I'll send some more feedback later today.
Hmm. Some of the other senior-ish people could answer this too, but keyword1-keyword2 on Google just does a phrase search along the lines of searching for "keyword1 keyword2". It limits results to pages that have that exact phrase on the page, or possibly in anchors.
Wouldn't those be the most relevant?
but the thing is... it's still there, unlike a lot of you
I think Donna means the reason it is still there, is because you didn't have to apply any heavy back link / keyword anchor text techniques in the first place, due to the lack of heavy competition.
I think it's safe to assume that the people hardest hit are running competitive money making sites, not information sites.
3 days ago thye would have been :)
I think it's safe to assume that the people hardest hit are running competitive money making sites, not information sites.
For sure. But that goes to show that it might be SEO techniques doing it, rather than a general problem with Google.
Anyway, I'll put my helmet back on and be quiet. ;-)
Like I have said before I have probably have around 200 different keywords and phrases that have to be tied into every state.
There is message board spam in the top positions some states its even all 8 positions.
Keyword linking at the bottom of the pages like 10 times with the keyword is pulling up hard and total non revelant sites are every where on all of my searches.
GG has been very supportive and he has opened up his mail to us to look at these results.
Just be happy your not in my keyword category.
Message board spam can't be beat right now.
And the idiots who are doing this are unleashing a force of it.
Anyone that wants to see a horror show just sticky me it will make you feel better ;)
James_Dale
> I think this hyphen-thing is gonna get fixed.
Sir, you write that with beautiful ambiguity.
Sorry GoogleGuy, but the senior members who already know about this one seem pretty slow to back you up for once. :-)
steveb:
> Also, word1-word2 is drastically lower quality than the other way where I am looking.
I don't know if the - thing is intentional or not, but either way someone at Google is going to be very happy reading that statement. Of course some people will be upset, and with a multi-billion page index a lot of babies get thrown out with the bathwater, but there's been some serious SERP cleaning for a while now. Unlike the old days, these filters don't remove listings, they shift them around and people have been very slow to spot them.
synergy, caveman, well done. You do deserve a prize of some kind for your generosity in posting that info.
wanna_learn
> Might be a pre-christmas Gift to Blackhats ;-)
Or, if they meant it to slip out, a message.
If it's still there 24 hours after synergy let the cat out of the bag, I think we can call it a warning.
60% likelihood: this party's over soon.
Now, I'm nowhere to be found for:
keyword1 keyword2
BUT, I'm #2 for:
keyword1-keyword2
I think there is some merit to this hyphen anomoly. I think the 'dance' isn't over. I am confident of being #2 for 'keyword1 keyword2' when its all over
Third observation anchor text is not a problem as far as the relevancy of the page is excellent.
Absolutely not true - I have maintained many rankings and lost many also. All of my links are extemely relevant(I'm one of the guys that believes in themes) and industry specific - also mostly one-way links.
I also have a site that is a kw1-kw2.com domain with artificial links that has stayed put.
Hard to explain whats going on, just gotta wait and see what happens.
At risk of giving Google too much credit and ideas for their next algo tweak (which I'm becoming more and more convinced that forum 3 and 78 are totally responsible for)...
It looks as though the well SEO'd *older* sites have held better than the newer sites, suggesting that Google have worked out what is and what isn't an unatural time frame to collect backward links in...
e.g.
Site A has been around 5 years and has 250 BL's
Site B has been around 1 year and has 400 BL's
therefore site B is guilty of *forcing a better page rank*
Can anyone confirm that sites worst hit are e.g. under 2 years old with quite a few backward links?
I would beg to differ. I see across a wide range of site types results that dont make sense at all. I am fine for some kws and nuked for others. No way to make sense of this and attribute these results to a few seo tactics here or there. This is very much like Dom/Esm where some were happy and some were not, but most felt it wasnt the best that Google could deliver.
<appealing to google's pride/>
But,
When I search for "keyword1 keyword2 keyword3" my #1 ranking, (for index page) before "Florida", is now #335 and Google directory description at index page is missing.
...and somebody said "Don't worry, this is temporary..."
I know or I think I know?
when you say people are getting penalised for heavy backlinks with keywords in anchor text, you mean they dropped in rankings, their backlinks disappeared or both?
My case is both.
