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Average loss in Google referals; = 10%
Normally with every update I get about 5-10% extra Google referals because of extra pages etc.
The question is:
1. Was I 15-20% "over-optimised" according to Google? ;)
2. Should I blame Google for a 15-20% in update inaccuracy :)
Anyway, someone was made happy with the visitors I missed out on, was that you?
Or can others share my loss of popularity..
Our Site has been out of Google index for long time now (First it was PR5/6 and then PR0 and now PR2). It is good that word of mouth referral is working really great - however, Google can still help business improve a lot.
I am not sure why there would be penalty on our site, as we don't use cloaking or anything specific that would cause Google to dislike us.
It is very disappointing that a respected search engine like Google would put penalties on sites that is actually staying clean and recommending others to do same, while other sites that purposely spam are doing wonderful at Google.
I only hope that Google understands that their behavior *does* effects online businesses and will take appropriate measure to make sure good sites are not given penalties.
Ernie
I guess it has to do with the fact that my title tag for my main page can not adequetly describe every single item/search term that my site now shows up for, so they do not click it. I am hopeful that my rankings continue to improve for all pages on the site and there is a much more balanced ranking rather than just the home page. But I'm still happy with the 300% increase in traffic and I'll take it :)
Vishal, looks like your site was using WebPosition Gold?
No offense, but the last documentation of WebPosition Gold usage I have is dated mid 2001. I hope not, but do you think one of the competitors played the trick?
In any case, if the problem is that old, then I would request you to (if possible) give the site a fresh start. Also, if it is worth anything, I can assure you that we do not use/employ *any* techniques that are not appreciated by search engines or directories. Also like/unlike many other people/businesses there is no way we can move our web site to different domain - we need to keep the name :).
About a 15% increase in referrals this week on 8 sites. Most of the others appear to be pushes with 1 falling about 30%. That one lose was probably due to the loss of a great pr8 link.
Aside from the affiliate and a few ecomm guys, I've heard the same from quite a few. No one wants to say anything for fear of a back lash. That's pretty much the way it goes - those that got hurt are the loudest, while those that benifited are quietly enjoying the fruits knowing their day will come when the situation is reversed.
Lost alot of internal backlinks, made back about 40% in new externals but did not noticed any decrease in ranked positions but no gains either.
The jury still out here -- will likely wait for a second update (consistent with the past one) to form any real conclusions.
Beyond Google -- AOL is really starting to play catch up. Google still retains about 50% of all SE referrals but AOL has surpassed (Yahoo - now down to 12%) and jump from a mere 4% -- 2 months ago to 28% in September and almost evenly split between SE and directory referrals.
October is usually the high season so this next month will be a telling one.
Googleguy. Dead serious question. HOW can Google ever know which site used WebPosition Gold? I can use WebPosition Gold for *any* site I want, correct? This would make it trivial for me to get other "competing" sites (since I'm non-commercial I really have no competition) thrown out of Google. Heck, if I can get sites kicked out of Google by using WebPosition Gold, then why shouldn't I, and also others, go into business as "hired guns" for commercial sites to use WebPosition Gold pretending to be their competition? If Google is penalizing sites for using WebPosition Gold, are you sure that hired guns aren't already using that working for companies to get the competition kicked out of Google?
Vishal, one fresh start coming. Promise me that you won't send any automatic queries to Google, okay? :)
But, *how* can you tell? The only possible way I can imagine is if the use of WPG was on an IP such it was obvious that it was coming from the same server as the website. Certainly possible, as I know someone running his website off of a server on a DSL line to his house.
I accept there are more developed sites than ours that have richer content & are more established & if it was the case that they went up at our loss then ok - still disappointing, but fair if the index overall was better consumer wise at this point in time. What was really dissapointing is that a cloaked page got into the top10 and the same site twice (.com & .net) plus all the resource sites that benefit the consumer are gone from the top10.
It would be impossible to create an algo that got it right for every potential search phrase in existance - so it could be quite possible that outside my little world the index improved overall..dunno.
Bravo to GoogleGuy for posting on this board - the fact that a "GoogleGuy" posts here gives me a gut feeling type of confidence that there is nothing to worry about. We don't plan to change anything - just continue to build the best site we can, use SEO where appropriate & keep our fingers crossed for upcomming updates!
Hi, all,
After a very miserable September having lost almost half our visitors, we've now completed our research on the results of the google update. Whehw! Back up to top 5 on all our main keywords and #1 on many of our 680 products. PR6 on home page and PR5 on all others! Daily hits back up to 2000+ and sales up 200%! We are so relieved!
Thanks for all your advice during September to all of you that replied to ur posts! You've made a big difference.
Regards,
Paul
Still sitting here waiting for the results to change back ;)
Down for a single keyword, still on the same page
Deeper pages ranking higher. More "on topic" traffic anyway...have not measured quantity
Dan
In general I'm very happy with this update, after having carefully "cleaned" my site. No link farms, no spamming etc.
good luck to all of you!
yaelede
We will see what happens next month :)
Dazz
Vishal, one fresh start coming. Promise me that you won't send any automatic queries to Google, okay?
Okay, deal :)
September 2001 to September 2002
3948% increase
June 2002 to July 2002
17% increase
July 2002 to August 2002
59% increase
August 2002 to September 2002
32% increase
September 2002 to October 2002 (latest change)
(9% DECREASE)
GoogleGuy is like God, just repent your Google sins and you will be forgiven my son! :)
In all seriousness, I know if I had a penalty like this, I would be happy to pay $100 to call some Google tech support 900# and ask why my site is penalized, why can't Google set this up?
It's very nice of you, GoogleGuy, to look up problems for webmasters on here, but there are many that are not so lucky. If a site had poor rankings, and they contacted an SEO, and the SEO suspected a penalty, they could phone Google, get charged for the call, fix the problem, and bill their client, everyone is happy! :)
