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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.
I meant Froogle. Read the posts ;)
[edited by: superscript at 11:59 pm (utc) on Dec. 6, 2003]
Big changes going on now at WWW2 & WWW3
HUGE changes! Seeing many pre-florida results back! Up to #4 from Florida's 250+ placement.
<edited by kirby - directory stuff still abundant>
[edited by: Kirby at 12:05 am (utc) on Dec. 7, 2003]
I agree, still a bunch of irrelevant directory sites, but huge improvements over an hour ago
What don't you get? You chase a black cat down an alley and you ignore the obvious problem? LOL, duplicate pages were not a big problem before Florida, and they are one of the clear problems now.
Amazing post. I hope others posting about fantasy filters aren't similarly ignoring the obvious.
I'm honoured you quoted my black cat example and then called my post an 'amazing one'
Very best regards
I tried, but it looks like new threads are locked (America is asleep). Someone wake a mod up.
There's a thread called PR/Backlink updating? [webmasterworld.com] - i'll suggest posting update-like observations to that one, just to keep focus a bit.
<minor rant>
If it turns out to be a rollback, the "early research" has been interesting - at one moment i thought i caught an early glimpse of an entirely new breed of search engine. I do hope they will continue to work in that direction, as no matter what all the mom&pops of this forum says (whatever happened to the professional SEOs of a month ago?), some SE will have to redefine "Search" sometime. Old-fashioned "stupid" search is not the way to go long term - all that takes is basically a sufficient amount of money.
</minor rant>
/claus
Simple then. On advanced search so you can see 100
Type in *** movie
There look at those great results. They all fit to a tee.
Totally on the right that is. Then do your little search including the -fhsgjfhfs
This is a prefect illistration of what they went after, the more value and traffic to the term the more irrelevant the results.
The ones on the right are booming though. Bingo..
Like this stuff or not one cannot avoid analyzing what generates the bulk of searches and money in comming to conclusions about this.
Are you sure you turned the SafeSearch filter off? If you did, i can only interpret this as a case of "the top site is not mine, so Google must be broken". Try adding "pr0n" to your query (change spelling) - pr0n is a much more specific term to this particular industry, as you really ought to know if you run sites there. Please.
/claus
Once things spawn to www and stablize after a few days, I will add the H tags back in, to see if this ever made any difference.
Has anybody, who never de-optimize their site notice any changes.
What the hells going on?
Why can't anyone finally admit it is a stitch up of commercial sites!
The first few pages of results are now directories, sites with links to many other sites
The main things I have noticed within the real estate industry is that a high PR has little impact on serps, while an edge has been given to directory types.
All the other sites were replaced by directory type ones (completely irrelevant to people doing a search related to the keywords).
"Is the preponderance of directory type listings in the serps a broad or narrowly found issue"?
Definitely broad - not only directories, but also infopage/review-type sites. In some cases also news sources.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I really believe there has been a site relative variable added to the algo in addition to other changes. You can call it SiteRank or Broomhilda for all I care, but there has been a fundamental change. This would account for the increase of inner, irrelevant, and low PR pages of directories/authorities/hubs dominating many industry SERP's. In addition, it would account for the prominence of .gov and .edu sites. After having PageRank bartered, bought, sold and generally bastardized, Google learned it's lesson. I think this is their way of refining a variable that helped get them to where they are now.
If there is a variable like SR, it definitely needs to be refined to produce relevant SERP's (ummm turn it down). In addition, don't look for a SR Toolbar any time soon. Google learned that lesson on the first go around.
[edited by: More_Traffic_Please at 10:44 pm (utc) on Dec. 7, 2003]
We respect you guys - we even followed you into war. It wouldn't be so bad to reciprocate with a modicum of respect - and good humour.
That's all
I'm concerned about the anti-UK sentiments growing on these boards. I am unable to respond to the latest comment because the thread was locked off.
If you are talking about my post, rest assured there was nothing anti UK ment. I think I may be taking your post in the wrong light, but if I am not, I apologize for anything that may have offended you. Sincerely
