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Thank you,
Ryan Allis
On November 15, 2003, the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) in Google were dramatically altered. Although Google has been known to go through a reshuffling (appropriately named a Google Dance) every 2 months or so, this 'Dance' seems to be more like a drunken Mexican salsa that its usual conservative fox-trot.
Most likely, you will already know if your web site has been affected. You may have seen a significant drop-off in traffic around Nov. 15. Three of my sites have been hit. While one could understand dropping down a few positions, since November 15, the sites that previously held these rankings are nowhere to be found in the top 10,000 rankings. Such radical repositionings have left many mom-and-pop and small businesses devastated and out of luck for the holiday season. With Google controlling approximately 85% of Internet searches, many businesses are finding a need to lay off workers or rapidly cancel inventory orders. This situation deserves a closer look.
What the Early Research is Showing
From what early research shows, it seems that Google has put into place what has been quickly termed in the industry as an 'Over Optimization Penalty' (OOP) that takes into account the incoming link text and the on-site keyword frequency. If too many sites that link to your site use link text containing a word that is repeated more than a certain number of times on your home page, that page will be assessed the penalty and either demoted to oblivion or removed entirely from the rankings. In a sense Google is penalizing sites for being optimized for the search engines--without any forewarning of a change in policy.
Here is what else we know:
- The OOP is keyword specific, not site specific. Google has selected only certain keywords to apply the OOP for.
- Certain highly competitive keywords have lost many of the listings.
How to Know if Your Site Has Been Penalized
There are a few ways to know if your site has been penalized. The first, mentioned earlier, is if you noticed a significant drop in traffic around the 15th of November you've likely been hit. Here are ways to be sure:
1. Go to google.com. Type in any search term you recall being well-ranked for. See you site logs to see which terms you received search engine traffic from. If your site is nowhere to be found it's likely been penalized.
2. Type in the search term you suspect being penalized for, followed by "-dkjsahfdsaf" (or any other similar gibberish, without the quotes). This will remove the OOP and you should see what your results should be.
3. Or, simply go to www.**** to have this automated for you. Just type in the search term and see quickly what the search engine results would be if the OOP was not in effect. This site, put up less than a week ago, has quickly gained in popularity, becoming one of the 5000 most visited web sites on the Internet in a matter of days.
The Basics of SEO Redefined. Should One De-Optimize?
Search engine optimization consultants such as myself have known for years that the basics of SEO are:
- put your target keyword or keyphrase in your title, meta-tags, and alt-tags
- put your target keyword or keyphrase in an H1 tag near the top of your page
- repeat your keyword or keyphrase 5-10 times throughout the page
- create quality content on your site and update it regularly
- use a site map (linked to from every page) that links to all of your pages
- build lots of relevant links to your site
- ensure that your target keyword or keyphrase is in the link text of your incoming links
Now, however, the best practices for keyword frequency and link text will likely trigger the Google OOP. There is surely no denying that there are many low quality sites have used link farms and spammed blog comments in order to increase their PageRank (Google's measure of site quality) and link popularity. However, a differentiation must be made from these sites and quality sites with dozens or hundreds of pages of informational well-written content that have taken the time to properly build links.
So if you have been affected, what can you do? Should one de-optimize their site, or wait it out? Should one create one site for Google and one for the 'normal engines?' Is this a case of a filter been turned on too tight that Google will fix in a matter of days or something much more?
These are all serious questions that no one seems to have answers to. At this point we recommend making the following changes to your site if, and only if, your rankings seem to have been affected:
1. Contact a few of your link partners via email. Ask them to change the link text so that the keyword you have been penalized for is not in the link text or the keyphrase is in a different order than the order you are penalized for.
2. Open up the page that has been penalized (usually your home page) and reduce the number of times that you have the keyword on your site. Keep the number under 5 times for every 100 words you have on your page.
3. If you are targeting a keyphrase (a multiple-word keyword) reduce the number of times that your page has the target keyphrase in the exact order you are targeting. Mix up the order. For example, if you are targeting "Florida web designer" change this text on your site to "web site designer in florida" and "florida-based web site design services."
It is important to note that these 'de-optimization' steps should only be taken if you know that you have been affected by the Google OOP.
Why did Google do this? There are two possible answers. First, it is possible that Google has simply made an honest (yet very poor) attempt at removing many of the low-quality web sites in their results that had little quality content and received their positions from link farms and spamdexing. The evidence and the search engine results point to another potential answer.
A second theory, which has gained credence in the past days within the industry, is that in preparation for its Initial Public Offering (possibly this Spring), Google has developed a way to increase its revenue. How? By removing many of the sites that are optimized for the search engines on major commerical search terms, thereby increasing the use of its AdWords paid search results (cost-per-click) system. Is this the case? Maybe, maybe not.
Perhaps both of these reasons came into play. Perhaps Google execs thought they could
1) improve the quality of their rankings,
2) remove many of the 'spammy' low-quality sites
3) because of #2, increase AdWords revenues and
4) because of better results and more revenue have a better chance at a successful IPO.
Sadly, for Google, this plan had a detrimental flaw.
What Google Should Do
While there are positives that have come from this OOP filter, the filter needs to be adjusted. Here is what Google should do:
1. Post a communiqué on its web site explaining in as much detail as they are able what they have done and what they are doing to fix it;
2. Reduce the weight of OOP;
3. If the OOP is indeed a static penalty that can only be removed by a human, change it to a dynamic penalty that is analyzed and assessed with each major update; and
4. Establish an appeal process through which site owners which feel they are following all rules and have quality content can have a human (or enlightened spider) review their site and remove the OOP if appropriate.
When this recent update broke on November 15, webmasters clamored in the thousands to the industry forums such as webmasterworld.com. The mis-update was quickly titled "Florida Update 2003" and the initial common wisdom was that Google had made a serious mistake that would be fixed within 3-4 days and everyone should just stay put and wait for Google to 'fix itself.' While the rankings are still dancing, this fix has yet to come. High quality sites with lots of good content that have done everything right are being severely penalized.
If Google does not act quickly, it will soon lose market share and its reputation as the provider of the best search results. With Yahoo's recent acquisition of Inktomi, Alltheweb/FAST, and Altavista, it most likely will soon renege on its deal to serve Google results and may, in the process, create the future "best search engine on the 'net." Google, for now, has gone bananas in its recent meringue, and it may soon be spoiled rotten.
they want to get more money, looks like webmasters can use adwords to get nice amount of traffic.
and im not a lucky one, google dont accept my credit cards :(
Google would 'magically' return something pretty close to what you needed even if you only typed in two words and hit the right-hand button.
If you click the "I'm feeling lucky" button on our two main 2 word phrases you get a site that for 6 months has an index page that states:
Mozilla Firebird (my browser of choice) uses 'I'm feeling lucky' searches by default for queries typed into the address bar.
I've found the results to be on the whole amazingly good, and to also return relevant sites that I would normally have glossed over in the results. This is both pre *and* post-Florida, and I do a lot of searching!
i hate google!
I am sure you don't really mean that. How quickly people forget the hand that fed them.
>> Now all I've got to do is sneak a few references about farmyard animals onto my widget site to ensure a broad match! :)
Let's have a go:
'Here are our latest company premises, located deep in the countryside, surrounded by farms. Meat our new secretary, Helen Goat, and our new finance director, Alan Cow.'
'<a href= Alan Cow's profile </a>' (note use of plural)
======================
While I like your imaginative approach and example on how to attain a broad match term, I doubt it will work on deceiving G unless there is a real substance on your website.
If your business is serious about "sheep", the story of farms, meat, goat and cow might not help you much about your widgets on sheep. Unless farms, meat, goat and cow is concerned about your business, it is a waste of time to hit around the bush. You can attain the same goal with the same resources by making G feel that your site is an authority one about the "sheep".
Hmm...how to make your site a "sheep" authority...
If one is so serious about widgets on sheep, there are several approach to make your site an authority one...for example, your intention is to sell the products on sheep wool and mutton, you definitely would have sections selling your products.
In order to make your site an authority, you may also want to put up other sections that serve as a free knowledge base on different types wool and mutton.
For ex. -
What are the different types of wool and mutoon? How to differentiate and measure the quality of wool and mutton. What are the past statistics on wool and mutton consumption in the world or in your local country. Some basic facts on wool and mutton. How each parts of sheep can be utilized in different industry. How to re-engineer the unused part of sheep in different industry. You may also want to go into an extreme side of giving scientific knowlege about the sheep such as anatomy of sheep. How to rear the sheep in one climatic region, different sheep species...and so on down to another hundreds list.
Then invite other sites to link to yours, but don't be so covetous to bloat all the incoming links to your index page, but spread them to different hubs of your "so-called" authority site as well. In this way, I strongly believe you will always have constant potential buyers to your site. Whether you can sell or not, it is your story.
Lastly, you may also want to describe how the sheep stands on its three legs while p1ssing...ah..ah...just kidding!
Commercial filters are in place which are examining and blocking over SEO'ed sites.
I wouldn't agree to that... I manage a site that has fallen out of the SERPs for our main keywords. We don't have any duplication of content, hidden/cloacked text, etc.
We simply have a homepage that links to all our secondary files, giving a detailed list of our services in one of them, the prices info in another one, etc. We have also two forms, for contracting the services and for getting more information... we do not use any kind of spam. We simply had some good and very related links that maintained our PR at 5 (competence in our sector never has passed from PR6).
I don't know why we have been pushed off. We were nice guys :(:'(
Even the competence sites that are above us are much more over SEOed than us, and some of them are spamming. ¿Why are us below sites that put a lot of keywords in color #EEEEEE over #FFFFFF (white) background?
I don't know what's doing G nor why it's doing it, but I'm almost sure they are not doing it well.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
I don't know what's doing G nor why it's doing it, but I'm almost sure they are not doing it well.This, I think, is the most common problem with Florida.
White hats being hit while black hats continue to enjoy the fruits of their deception.
Some would argue that "black hats" are created by injustice in the system.
Google is the best major source of traffic and without it most small online business will face bankruptcy. It's that simple.
I think, due to the frustration of this situation, I may be able to sum up Update Florida in one word.
"AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" >:(
Greetings,
Herenvardö
Your method for retrieving unfiltered results would imply that Google intended to filter blogspam.
When did Google admit that? Doesn't sound right to me. What they've done seems pretty calculated.
Your method for retrieving unfiltered results would imply that Google intended to filter blogspam.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
P.S.:Sorry by the ironic tone... I'm very tired and overwhelmed: out of listings in the job and partial tests in the university... I'm only a mortal!:( I put the link to share what I had found and I get attacked in less than half an hour! Do not care what I have said if you don't like it, but do not attack me by telling what is being said outside WW's walls. Thanks and sorry again.
On Sunday Google admitted to the Washington Post that it was working on a bug it had found which was withholding thousands of legitimate search results from its users.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/33448.html
The Register
Emergency fixes for blog-clogged Google
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 17/10/2003 at 09:53 GMT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11461-2003Oct11.html
washingtonpost.com
Google Stumbles?
By Mike Musgrove
Sunday, October 12, 2003; Page F07
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33325.html
The Register
Google bug blocks thousands of sites
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 10/10/2003 at 06:17 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33366.html
The Register
Blog noise achieves Google KO
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 14/10/2003 at 08:44 GMT
All on webmasterworld:
About msg #74:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Scoring changes can affect rankings, so I normally do a search like
site:yourdomain.com -asdfsdf
to see if we have pages from that domain.
As far as kw -garbage type of searches, that could have been from anywhere.
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.
The above is the GG's take on it: [webmasterworld.com...] (msg#137)
Way to go google! Totally floor lots of mom and pop busineses who try to optomize as sugessted and get links to even show up and the pro spammers flourish.
word of mouth means a lot, I am telling everyone what this about $$grabbing and to use anything but google, and they in turn tell others and so on. Also webmasters probably shop more online than anyone. Changed my homepage of years and any webmaster affected now or not should do the same. I've followed this closely and what I see was ruthless greed underlying it all. Adwords is soring. Google can thank me for more media contacts they'll have. This is really getting interesting...
My personal, legitimate business site has been dropped completely. It was no. 1 now it's gone (hey, that rhymes, maybe it should be the motto for the Florida update!)
Anyway all the affiliate sites I run have never had it so good. Doh
Maybe Google could put a clause in that states if the site is in the DMOZ then it's probably OK as it has been inspected by humans who are still better at this sort of thing than algorithms!?
I want to ask when will I see the changes (de-optimized), Will I see it soon or I have to wait for next month?
Aji
Hey these last pages are more or less useless, in the sense that they are previous to the stage the discussion was developed back on page 20-21. Two-three posts of significance, the rest is speculation and facts that was known previously to page 21. Please everyone, don't go back to venting your frustrations here or putting forth theories that have already been delt with in the thread - please do read all those 20 or so first pages.
This was a somewhat serious thread once, please let's try to restore that spirit if we can?
/claus
[edited by: claus at 2:01 pm (utc) on Dec. 6, 2003]
Are you no longer a member of the Google fan club?
Jakpot,
Are you no longer a member of the Google fan club?
Ah, still a fan but disappointed by behavior I just don't understand at this time.
At least your honest :)
Bunch of redirect and other spammy sites came in with the latest mild data update, and this isn't a surprise. Basically the fresh stuff is likelier to be new junky sites. I found 40 redirect sites in the top 100 for one term. If Google responds at all similar to what they did post-florida, this junk won't be there long, but it did get in now.
An auto acknowledgement response did not come back.
Is Google accepting email?
Okay, here goes, only minor changes (afaik, imho, etc.): Upping of inurl, in directory description (perhaps directory keyword), in title, intext (including outbounds), first words matter more than last words, PR, anchor text a bit down
Still afaik, imho, etc.:
The above doesn't really seem right to me at this moment. I don't believe anchor text has been downed, generally. Rather, it seems that some has and some hasn't. It might well be, that anchor text is just interpreted literally while keywords in search queries are stemmed.
Also, i don't believe "intext" (body text) has been upped, at least not unless there is not much else to determine relevance from. Otoh, i'm also a bit sceptic towards the idea of a keyword density penalty, although i have to agree that i see lots of pages in top serps with very low KWD. My observations also indicate that combined keywords do no longer need to be next to each other on the page.
Also, "first words matter more than last words"... i'm not sure exactly what i was thinking about there, should have provided some detail, sorry. I might be referring to the fact that for multiple-keyword searches the order of the keywords seems to matter in the searchbox as well as for the page ranking criteria (still, mostly baclinks)
/claus
