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The sites are clean, ie. no hidden text, unique and quality content, etc..
All the sites are on unique IP's with the sites being split across 10 unqiue class c addresses.
The sites are very carefully linked together with no sites that are on the same ip pool being linked to another site on the same ip pool. The links are on everypage on every site and point to main sites that have no outbound links at all.
All the sites have PR (anywhere from 3-5) and are constantly being crawled by Gbot.
Yet our positioning as of Jan last year has slowly decreased and decreased to the point now where we have essentially no G traffic, except for crap 5 word combo's.
We have tried everything, on page, off page, changing the linking, etc... to no avail.
We are just about ready to throw in the towell with Google as nothing seems to change (positively) month after month. The really frustrating thing is we see other sites in the same cat's with less backlinks, garbage template content, etc... ranking first page.
So...is Google just broken or are we doing something wrong? Any help would be beyond appreciated...
Drop the X-linking and focus on getting 50-100 relevant independent links PER site. Big job I know but do it and you'll improve on all SERPs long-term. Nothing else matters.
(This assumes you don't have duplicate content sites also)
Why? Why don't the main sites have no outbound links...?
This is crux of good web infrastructure...sounds like you are trying to pool PR to the main sites...?
Are all your sites under the same ownership (WHOIS?)
If so then Google simply figured out that you are running multiple sites attacking the same industry sector..
(in this case 100 sites spread across 6 industry sectors)...and these sectors you describe are some of the very ones Google has been focusing on for spam and other issues..
Could be some collateral damage if you what you say about your sites is accurate ("...The sites are clean, ie. no hidden text, unique and quality content, etc..")
Definitely pull down the "...The links are on everypage on every site and point to main sites that have no outbound links at all..." and work on your inbound-to-outbound link strategy for each and every site....
Unique inbounds from outside of your 6 distintive Class C IP ranges from authority sites that support your themes..
And focused outbounds to authority sites that are stronger then yours are essential...(forget about trying to pool PR...this is history)
This is the hardest thing to accomplish and Google knows this...so it takes a very specific strategy and steadfast deligence to pull it off...
If you don't want to do it...shoot me a sticky ...
and we can talk about putting my tools and skills to work for you...
As Decaff said.......
The way you've described it, they wouldn't even need to look at IPs/C classes to ping you as a domain farm.
Anyway, IMO, all this fuss about ensuring different IPs and C classes is a load of twaddle, or is until internal links/anchor text can be shown to no longer count.
Let's see if google is broken. I'll search on those categories that you listed....Nope, google comes up with on-topic sites.
Seems to me that you just aren't doing a good enough job on SEO. You are depending on something that used to work, and doesn't any longer.
Get lots of links from sites other than your own. Link to the authorities on the subject.
To answer your original question, yes (IMO) Google is broken. But this is a separate issue. This sounds like a case of it working as intended. You're trying to game their system and it isn't working. Don't take that personally. This is from their guidelines [google.com]
# Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
# Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Why should google be "broken" because what worked 9 months ago doesn't work now.
You need to do some investigation and put in hard work and crack the algo for your niche again.
If Google was showing flower delivery sites for prescription meds, then it would be broken - but it ain't, so its not.
I've not seen such widespread variations before - maybe one data centre is serving up a half-baked index?
DerekH
But shouldn't the links be a good thing considering none are coming from the same IP, and most are coming from unique class C addresses?
What's "genuine good popularity"?
"Genuine good popularity" measures how much other people likes you, not how much you appreciate yourself.
My advice is to stop thinking about how search engines measure "popularity" and start gaining true popularity among other human beings (including webmasters). Search engines will notice it.
I dont think that a filter is in place for this as I have seen hundreds of working networks that are built in this way with no outbounds and they seem to work fine.
Its just one of those things. The search engine world needs a kick start in competition for things to change
Unlink all the sites, get fresh links from relevant sites/industries.
Possibly add fresh content.
Google recognizes our back links and in alot of cases we have more than others that are ranking on the first page. So why then aren't we coming up for anything?
