July Update?

[Heywood_J]

Is it me or does it look like a significant update is going on at google. I am noticing a number of SERP changes for a few of my sites and they've been fluctuating for the past few days.

Anyone else noticing any major changes?

[rrl]

I will say that after Florida, my site which had been ranked #2 for my primary phrase disappeared completely. After running around my house for half an hour screaming and waving my arms over my head, I made a few small changes and about 5 weeks later, it was back at #2. I'm not even sure the changes did much, but the serps were so bad I felt like G had to fix it.

Right now the serps for my phrases are a complete joke. I've emailed them to G and they've actually been good about responding after a few days. The top sites are just link farms with harvested content and (surprise) adsense ads for making duh money.

[rfgdxm1]

>I see a big diff. with backlinks, used to have about 255 and now 11, drop from high on page 2 to page 3.

Pay no attention to the backlink command that is being manipulated by the man behind the curtain. That command has always given incomplete results. It is now just that not only is it incomplete, it is erratic. Ordinary searchers just don't use the link: command. Almost all who do are webmasters trying to figure out Google. It's quite possible Google actually *likes* the fact it is confusing webmasters. And, if this is just some byproduct of some new code Google is running, fixing it has gotta be right on the bottom of the priority list.

[troels nybo nielsen]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, schenz.

I get the impression that your website has not been completely dropped, but still it is possible that you may find useful advice in this thead: A Dropped Site Checklist [webmasterworld.com].

Apart form that I can only say that building a commercial website on traffic from searches in a search engine is risky business.

[wellzy]

schenz

Did you mainly get all your traffic from Google? I have branched out so that when the time comes my site gets dropped by Google (planning ahead) for no reason, it will just be a hiccup. I guess my point is that I am taking advantage of the $ I'm making from my Google referrals and putting it back into different areas of marketing (ppc, etc). I hate to see it when Google rankings affect someone so much, but you should diversify. Just my .02 cents.

wellzy

[Rugles]

Now that the "non-update" update is live on the main site, could we at least agree that it is some sort of "update"? Even if it is just an attempt to foul up SEO's.

[schenz]

We are using PPC (Google and Overture), and we also rank nicly with Yahoo and MSN (just not as good as with Google).

The thing is that we find (in our logs) that mose people who find us by Search Engine do so by using Google.

Perhaps if the poor results G is giving continues, another engine will take the lead and then we will not be as hurt by it, but for right now it is affecting us.

[Rugles]

>>>poor results G is giving continues, another engine will take the lead

Don't bet on it. Lots of people have been waiting for Google's demise. Just like a lot of people have been waiting on M$'s demise. Neither is likely to happen.
You are best to fix what is causing your poor Google rankings than wait them out.

[crankin]

Wow, why didn't I think of that. Since nothing changed on my side before G deep-sixed my traffic overnight, maybe you can point me to a page that lists what Google expects to see now? Because I'll be more than happy to do whatever the heck Google wants, if they'd just be kind enough to make up their minds what that might be, and magnanimous enough to let all us little people know what their new rules are...

I'm sorry to be snarky, but simplistic stuff like "why don't you just fix it" just makes a frustrating situation worse.

[edited by: crankin at 6:50 pm (utc) on July 20, 2004]

[schenz]

I must agree with Crankin. I'd be happy to do whatever will make them happy (as I was before all this started). I'm not knowingly breaking any spamming rules and I see no reason for my rankings to be hurt as they were.

[soapystar]

You are best to fix what is causing your poor Google rankings than wait them out.

content continues to count for less and less...when you say you fix the problem i guess you mean link spam? Sorry if i read that wrong but thats whats happened to my sector. I will happily say this is not the case if someone can explain how a one page domian that is a frame of another domain competes on a competeitive phrase with content sites. Only inbound links count for anything there, and not a single link is a genuine vote