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The efforts are longer-lasting and you'll sleep better at night.
I'll sleep even better once i figure out why i lost a few other places here and there, but i can live with legitimate sites above me.
Anyway, that is my first spam report filed and it feel quite good. Maybe I'll have a bit of a crusade on them! :)
Thanks for the assistance. I had no idea that what they were doing was dodgy. I'm new to this seo stuff. That's why i hired a SEO. I wasn't even aware that what they had done was the reason for me dissapearing. Hence, the earlier questions. It was like you were reading my mind. The seo code of ethics thing on the front page certainly gave me confidence. I can assure you that had i known something dodgy was going on...i wouldn't have proceded.
I have certainly learnt a lot in the last month. I appreciate your assistance in this situation and hope Google understands that i was an innocent victim in this unfortunate situation.
Thank you very much for bringing this all to my attention. I will be very carefull from now on. I hope that Google can forgive me for my unintenional errors.
Kind Regards and cheers from Australia
We have a stern warning here from Googleguy. If you value your site in Google, then don't play any shady SEO games, or hire SEOs who don't play clean. And, unless a webmaster knows how to spot if his SEO is playing any shady SEO games, then probably best not to be hiring SEOs. The obvious problem: How many website owners even know what a sneaky redirect is, or a doorway page? Sneaky redirects aren't a concept that most people understand. And doorway pages also may be hard for most people to understand or recognize. Only if the doorway page is something blatantly designed for just SEs, like large blocks of text of the keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 keyword1 variety that nobody would create aiming at human vistors, and are just for SE spiders, may it be obvious.
I guess the sad thing is that a lot of websites become Google casualties because they hire unethical SEOs because they don't realize that is the kind of SEO they are. And Google has little choice but to penalize sites that use blatantly foul techniques such as shady redirects and becoming part of link farms. If they didn't, the webmaster could just say to Google "It ain't my fault, it was my SEO that did it. Forgive me.", because *every* webmaster could use this excuse, including the ones that intentionally cheated. The moral is hire SEOs only at the peril of your domains.
When I click on the link that appears on the SERPs in www2 or www3 I get PR5 on the Google bar for my new site.
When I click on the link that appears on www2 for my second site it stays PR4. When I click on the link for my second site that appears on www3 however, the PR on the tool bar changes to 5.
My question:
Am I using the right method to check for the new PR? i.e. - by clicking on the links to my site in Google's SERPs at www2 and www3, then seeing what the PR that shows on the tool bar is?
Happy Google Dance everyone... oh, happy Thanks Giving too...
hope to get the new higher value at the end of the update.
edit your hosts file and place a new entry:
216.239.33.103 toolbarqueries.google.com
Then restart your browser.
If you are on unix it's /etc/hosts, on windows - windows\hosts
When you are done - just comment it out and try not to abuse google too much :)
I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for the great tips and advice. It looks like we are going to get 3rd place on our most competitive kw and we have risen on several others. I guess it just proves that hard work, a lot of learning, and following the legitimate strategies is the only way to do it.
Happy Thanksgiving to all US members.
Thanks GG! I can now have my own type of Thanksgiving. :)
Can't believe they updated while I was sleeping!
Looks like a good update to me, a spammy site has vanished from my number 2 position. ( I did not report it)
Anyone seen any trends high keyword density still seems prominent.
Every month I go through the ritual of checking www,www2,www3 for ranking, backlinks count, etc... then try a few searches and see how my main KW are holding up. Eventually I get around to what inevitably annoys me each month - the fact the Google cache version of my website is always at least 3 1/2 weeks obsolete!
Because of this caching, events that have taken place and ended weeks ago are now being handed to the user as representative of the website they will visit if they click through the link. Who would wish to visit such an archaic website?
I've read all the opinions, but still cannot see how offering the user something that is not accurate can be good for the internet. This is like footballs instant-replay, only from the previous game.
You can see it in action on this link: http://www.google.com/googledance2002/5.html
;o)
Enjoy the results.
Fresh Egg
No PR yet either :-( plenty of time yet though.
http://dmoz.org/rdf/?M=D Sept 22nd is the last update
I wanted to check if the method of clicking the link to the page you want to check from the SERPs of www2 or www3 also shows you the new PR. It seems to work and it is simpler than the method you suggested.
:)
Christmas has most certainly come early this year.
I have 2 sites jump from 122 & 95 to 3 & 2 respectively for my primary search term.
Thank you G! And thank you Yahoo for making me do the google hard work instead of relying on the easy & less fruitful old Yahoo search.
And thanks guys for all of the helpful tips I've got on here!
It cetainly is time for thanksgiving ;)
I just hope it settles like this...
I rebuilt my web-site myself, using what I or others may call SEF = search engine friendly - techniques. These techniques came from many sources but the one I most highly praise is Brett_Tabke's 12 Months To a Successful Site in Google message.
I also followed the advice on webmasterworld. Although the advice here is sometimes confusing and convoluted with self appointed SEO "Gods," - I picked through the BS and found kernel grains of truth.
My Humble Advice:
1. Build SEF pages. (follow Brett's message on this) = [webmasterworld.com...]
2. Gain - Relevant/theme related Links: At least PR 3 or higher and theme related. There are a few companies out there that do it the hard, slow and expensive way. (He was going to charge me $1,500 for 100 them related links. Probably worth it - but I did it myself in the same style he recommended as is here on WebmasterWorld.) If you go after those easy links, it will backfire. The easy way is never the best way.
3. Go after 2, 3, 4 word keyword searches your competition doesn't care about. I am amazed at how many new keyword pages my site is being found under. Language is semantics and unique to individuals. Just when I think I have learned about everything there is to know about the keywords to find my site, I discover new ones. I love it. It's amazing.
4. Add content, add content, add content. And for God's sake make sure it is original, fresh content. The last thing the internet needs or cares about is rehashed content, free content, or old rewritten content. The content and copy writing section of webmasterworld has some great tips. Any idiot in the world can get free content, slap it on a commercial website and call themselves experts in the business. = Morons.
Hey, this approach is for lazy webmasters. Distinguish yourself and never take the easy road. If you have original content you are offering something your competition doesn't have. I operate affiliate sites and I make sure they contain 3+ times as many pages with only a 10 percent duplication of the parent content. This approach has blown away my parent sites in the rankings/hits/leads. If I no longer represented them, their business would be hit very hard.
If you can't write original content yourself, hire someone. If you are too cheap to hire someone, open a porn site with mostly pictures and shady dialogue along the lines of:
Ding-dong, "Hey Mr. Brown, can I borrow a cup of sugar?" said Miss Humptydoody.
"Weell baby, you are the one with all the sugar!" said Mr. Bigjohnson.
In otherwords, if you can't afford it or write it yourself, get out of the internet game. You don't belong here. Go. get out of here. The easy way is never the best way.
5. And for God's sake, don't do anything that could be considered as spam in Google's eyes. Part of the reason I got hit hard the last 2 months (late Sept. to Now) were some very slight spam techniques (I had about 12 keyword pages, a duplicate site and some crosslinking).
When I figured they had caught up to me (thanks to webmasterworld) I got rid of them and followed the advice I am giving here and found on WebmasterWorld. This new update has given me better results. It is going to give me better hits and leads then I ever dreamed of through my spam techniques. It pays to play by the rules. The easy way is never the best way.
6. I see many, many, many webmaster's here that get too greedy. When you get too greedy - you start to push the edge of the envelope. Then, they post messages that state: "I got dropped from Google but golly gee whiz, I did nothing wrong because I am an innocent little altar boy of a webmaster and I always go to Church on Sundays. I never employed any spam techniques.." Yeah, right. If you get too greedy- diversify into other fields. Start over again on something else.
That's the kernel of my wisdom I have gained from Webmasterworld which I owe a ton of thanks for this recent update. And since Google didn't find most of the best links I added in the last 2-3 weeks, I expect a Christmas present better than the bottle of Old Spice my Grandma will undoubtedly give me.
"Gee Grams, just what I wanted. I'll put it next to the bottle you got me last year!"
Somebody needs to tell her the easy way is never the best way.
Only one odd result. The site at number five has the title "509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" and the blurb reads "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded. The server is temporarily unable to service
your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. ..." This has happened a few times to that site, and I guess they must be lucky and get crawled before their content disappears.
SEO is a dirty word reserved for self-inflated, egotistical megalomaniacs
Well yep there's probably a few of us around here:)
but I see from the rest of your post you use a lot of SEO tactics. Not really sure what your point is!
Anyhow on with the update.
[edited by: Dino_M at 12:14 pm (utc) on Nov. 28, 2002]
Thanks everyone who's contributed your experience and wisdom!
bcc1234, I am familiar with that method of checking the new PR. However, it requires, exiting the browser, changing some files etc..
It does not require anything.
The toolbar (or any app that uses resolver) sends a query to a specified host and if you modify the ip for that host - it sends the query to a different location.
Windows still uses BSD resolver code, which in turn checks hosts file before asking the name server (at least in the default configuration).
One moral may be for ethical SEO's to create a professional association where members agree to some terms and conditions, notably following the rules set forth by the search engines. SEO is dependent on and follows the lead of SEs.
Alternately, an ethical SEO should proudly display notices of the sites he/she/they have worked with, and also proudly point to compliance with the rules.
People seem to want to look at these things backwards. Strict quality or performance rules always result in $$$$$$ going to those who perform well within the rules. The cheats get some, but on the Internet accountability is easy. A SEO who can't point to PR6/Top-ten-result widget.com as his work as a SEO who won't be able to get much work when others do have success stories to point to. Likewise, a SEO will have a hard time lying about having done work on widget.com since it is so easy to contact the vast majority of sites.
The Google Guidelines are pretty bad news for spamming SEOs, that is clear, but I think there is an excellent case there for how they are the beginnings of an even better shaking out in the industry than has been going on the past year. Good SEOs should not want everybody and his brother doing hideously bad, spammy work. THAT is terrible for the industry.
People on this board have been asking for clearer guidelines from Google for a long time. Now you have them. I'm a webmaster not a SEO so clear guidelines are a 100% win for me personally, so that is my disclaimer, but I think this should be looked at as a great way for "good" SEOs to clearly set themselves apart from "bad" ones. On the contrary to ideas posted here, I believe "good" SEOs will be much MORE in demand now because soon the general website-owner public is going to hear more horror stories about bad work that is done. Work will *still* need to be done, in fact, more work now exists as website owners should be thinking they need to be careful!
But website owners will likely be more careful in picking and choosing. If your work is garbage, look out. If your work is quality, I think you gotta love quality guidelines, the stricter the better even.
Hmm...perhaps Google could start granting SEOs they like the "Google SEO seal of approval" they could put on their website? ;)
I agree, excellent article (and agree about zapping the first paragraph).
At first I thought your post was quite informative yet after having read it more closely I think it is arrogant and conceited to an extreme.
I could pull a few examples of what you wrote but this sums it up for me.
If you can't write original content yourself, hire someone. If you are too cheap to hire someone, open a porn site with mostly pictures and shady dialogue along the lines of:
Ding-dong, "Hey Mr. Brown, can I borrow a cup of sugar?" said Miss Humptydoody.
"Weell baby, you are the one with all the sugar!" said Mr. Bigjohnson.In otherwords, if you can't afford it or write it yourself, get out of the internet game. You don't belong here. Go. get out of here. The easy way is never the best way.
