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Kackle - can you explain the "dictionary" for me? And how I might benefit from it - Im reading your posts hard but dont see where youre coming from.
Sure. But you have to act quickly. Google will fix this one just like they fixed the hyphen.
1. Google is depreciating pages/sites that are over-optimized for certain keywords or keyword combinations. It does this by looking up search terms in a dictionary of target keywords or keyword pairs that it has compiled. This dictionary is Top Secret, because if you knew what was in the dictionary, you could avoid these words in your optimization efforts.
2. If the search term or terms hit on a dictionary entry, the search results for that user's search are flagged. This means that before the results are delivered, the order of the links, or even the inclusion of links, are adjusted so as to penalize pages that have overoptimizated for those terms. Most likely the title, headlines, links and anchor text are examined. It's possible that external anchor text pointing to that page has also been pre-collected and is available for scanning, but this is much less likely. (Besides, external links are not something within your immediate control, so don't worry about it right now.)
3. You want to find out which keywords that are relevant to your site are in Google's dictionary. Compile as many relevant keywords you can think of that searchers might use to find your site. Now take these words singly and in pairs, according to how users might search. Run two searches for each combination and compare the results.
4. If the results are strikingly different for the pre-filter and the post-filter search on a particular term or combination of terms, it means that some variation of those terms has been flagged because something was found in Google's dictionary.
5. Do lots of searches and you can come up with a list of "sensitive" words that you'll want to avoid when you re-optimize your pages.
It's a nice weekend project.
Without going into my site history and confusing description of "keyword1 keyword2" type combination results, I'd like to add a couple comments on what I'm seeing.
Do NOT intentionally "optimize" or target two word "money" phrases. Build content rich sites with natural links that aid the user in navigation and let them rise to the top on their own merit.
The only place I've suffered the consequences in this update is on the two word "money" keywords that I've "optimized" and concentrated most on rising to the top of the SERPs.
I can't complain at all about the types of searches I'm seeing in my logs right now. They are a bit more generalized, but seem very relevant.
(In my little niche anyway)
Once the dust settles from this update, I'll get back to work deconstructing all the "tricks" I've used to rise to the top on my main keywords again.
By tricks I don't mean spamming or stuffing in any way.
Unca
I did the search and sure enough there it was.
At first, I agreed with you that this has no reason to rank under 'jewelry' because I looked and could not find jewelry anywhere in the site (visible or hidden) BUT then the obvious hit me. Look at the URL ...../ring.html, who else but a jewelry site would use 'ring' in their URL.
Makes perfect sense to me and obviously Google.
Now if only we could teach our customers to put -dfdf or
any other garbage after there search term.
So any idea what is causing this, and whether google will
fix the problem.
1) More results then without (implies that some sites have been filtered out)
example
search "jewelry mall" 2,330,000
search "jewelry mall -dfdf -dfdfd" 2,420,000 results
so 90,000 pages missing
(this works for any phrase search term)
yep, and if word1 word2 -gfgf brings 1.250.000 results, then word1 word -hghghgh brings 1.240.000 results and word1 word2 -hghghghghghg brings 1.210.000 results, of course if you search for gfgf or hghghgh or hghghghghghg you get the same - no matches found :)
is there anything behind that? not really sure :)
and actually for all my search terms normal search always returnes more results than this keyword1 keyword2 -heregoessomecrap thing
Crazy!
Who is going to tell googleguy to incorporate -dfdf in
all searches automatically. This should be an easy patch
for them to implement. A lot easier than rolling all the
data centers back.
Just saw the "most searched for single term" on the internet - a little three letter word go from 280,000,000 pages in the results to 3 mill - not a lot of movement inthe top 20 SERPs - a little shuffling - but I doubt seriously if that word is going to be left with that few of results - it has run at the over 200 mill serps for the last few years although recently (the last 3 months) its only had 35 mill - and the results I saw match -va reults to a tee
But are people saving both sets of serps (for keyword1 keyword2 and keyword1 keyword2 -wqwqzw, etc) to their desktop for later analysis... the window might only be open for a while :)
Pre-florida: 10 of top 10 have exact keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 in title
Post-florida: 1 of top 10 has exact keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 within long title; all the rest only have one or two of the keywords in title
FWIW, half of top 10 sites for this search are now barely relevant.
Post-florida search with keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 -dfdf -dfdfd delivers strong title tag results.
Anyone else feel this hypothesized filter is killing sites with optimized title tags (for competitive keyword phrases)? For example, my three sites with exact "keyword1 keyword2 keyword3" titles (previously in top 5) have completely disappeared.
It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to do this intentionally; my (overly optimistic) hope is that it's a (soon-to-be-fixed) glitch in the new algo. Or perhaps Google is trying to extract more descriptive, less keyword heavy titles from us?
The way I figure it, im in the top 7 for my keywords on
all other non-google fed search results.
The fact that im buried in the google index, after 5 years
of top 5 performance in google, means that google is wrong
not me.
I expect I will wake up one morning, and find my keywords
back in the top of the search for Google.
Until them, I will make sure I am stock up on antidepresants :)
I would really like to hear more theories about the double minus issue.
If it seems like it's not obviously a money word, then consider whether the two-word combination that seems to be sensitive is something that generates Adwords.
Two examples of keyword pairs that don't seem overly competitive, but which are "dictionary sensitive," in that they have resulted in top sites losing a significant amount of ranking:
wheelchair ramps
law essays
Both of these generate Adwords that appear to be keyed on the word pair. One of the sites that lost ranking is a *.co.uk top level domain instead of the usual .com domain.
Is there a handicapped lawyer out there who'd be interested in a pro bono class action suit? (Sorry, sick humor.)
Of course, maybe they're just waiting to see who changes things and then give them the REALLY big penalty;)
Of course, maybe they're just waiting to see who changes things and then give them the REALLY big penalty;)
Also known as the Nov 22 "lone nut" correction. Y'all have cookies disabled while running these tests, I presume. If not, time to delete cookies so that you get a new cookie and a new unique Google ID number.
[edited by: Kackle at 10:55 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
Also can anyone confirm that the “penalty” is only applied when the keywords appear in both the title and H tags in the exact order.
No. My site is missing in action for both keyword1 keyword2 AND keyword2 keyword1 (even though this is an unlikely combination that never appears on my pages).
Anyone see any Nov 22 tags yet?
Yep already showing but won't make any difference!
The update will finish in more then weeks but less then months :)
No. My site is missing in action for both keyword1 keyword2 AND keyword2 keyword1 (even though this is an unlikely combination that never appears on my pages).I am seeing this as well.
But is the kw1 kw2 appearing ONLY in the title and H tags? Or are they appearing in the title, H tag and text?
[edited by: BradBristol at 11:09 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
Powdork, we have Nov 21 tags, not 22nd yet.
Try again!
www.awebsite.net/ - 21k - 22 Nov 2003 -
Maybe the keyword holiday or accommodation :)
Also known as the Nov 22 "lone nut" correction.Well, I am looking at the serps and I am not there. I look through my logs and they confirm what I suspected. I can stare at them and pretend I am there, but the fact remains I am not. So instead I look at my site. You know what. The things that Google has previously rewarded have led me to turn my site a bit, well, spammy. Nothing major, but it was optomised for a certain phrase. Here's the example I used last night. (even the real words don't apply to my site.)
Old info
Title-Unique Wedding xysde at Wedding xysde.com
The majority of the external inbound anchor text is 'Wedding xysde.com'. After esmerelda (GoogleGuy talked about diversity) I tried to get varied anchor, since my sites went awol at that time too.
Occasionally there is 'Unique Wedding xysde', and then of course there are those that simply add my link of their own volition using the entire title.
My navigation bar linked to the home page with anchor of 'wedding xysde'. Google has about 43 pages indexed.
New Info
Title-Wedding xysde.com
Navigation bar links to home page with anchor 'Home'
[edited by: Powdork at 11:13 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
22 tags here. Made a couple small tweaks. Wiggled around on several 2 kw combos, but dont see any rebound on my massacred 2 word combo yet.
Here's the deal: -hstsydy appended to a search shows the allinanchor-based results. (The Google Viewer has been showing allinanchor for many months.)
If you are one of those liking the results when shown with -ystefrtg, then you need to step back and see that your site was built on anchor text. For competitive terms, the -agstsvy results show far far spammier results, with duplicate domains, non content domains, etc. That is because all they are showing is *anchor text*. Anchor text is no measure at all of content quality. It isn't even a measure of content *or* quality. And it is the most easily manipulated of all algorithm elements (except page title).
These update threads are usually quite useful, even if there is always a majority of hysteria amongst a minority of good information, but (and okay, this may be coldblooded) all those "New User" posters should be paying attention to the isolated posts from members here who have more than 500 posts to their credit, instead of latching onto whatever bizarro idea some newbie concocts.
Face it, there is a new algorithm that does not value anchor text as highly as previously. Then, the introduction of the new algorithm introduces a different sort of spam into the results than the spam Google was dealing with previously, and Google has to figure out how to get rid of it after being made aware of it. Then finally, some good sites get mis-ranked in any turbulent change.
[edited by: steveb at 11:16 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
2003-11-22 02:03:50 64.68.82.170 GET /index.htm
UTC time... that's where the freshtag that is showing came from... we might have got hit earlier than others so the tag isn't Nov 22.
Added:
To have it make sense.
Powdork, we have Nov 21 tags, not 22nd yet.
Wrt msg #913... this thread moves so fast. You post something and it's buried in under 5 minutes.
[edited by: Stefan at 11:23 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
