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I've heard many people this month (more than most I think, and some with a lot of credibility) complaining that their high PR sites have been relegated a few pages down from their previous number one slots for certain terms.
It appears last August that Google did implement some kind of filter to stop the Google Bomb from working. If that is the case then they must have implemented some test to prevent the link anchor text from having an impact at some stage. But at what stage is it, and is there a SERPs penalty applied to sites that have too many other sites linking to them all with the same link anchor text?
When most of us get link requests we probably send back the anchor text we would like. I suspect that often this is the same text. For example I sell blue widgets, so I ask people who want to link to me to use "blue widgets" as the anchor text.
But Google doesn't know if they are Google bombing me or satisfying my request. So does Google implement a filter to prevent the bomb? If it does how many links or what equation is used to separate out a bomb from a genuine innocent link?
Like some others I have a high PR site that has dropped a couple of pages this month for no good reason I can think of, except it has a heap of other sites linking to it, all with the same anchor text. It kept its PR, but dropped considerably in SERPs. Not for all searches, but certainly for the ones where a lot of others are linked using the search term as anchor text.
The sites above didn't gain PR, most didn't even change in anyway I can see from the HTML source. So the only explanation I can come up with is I have an invisable penalty for having too many other sites linking to me with the same anchor text. The penalty is actually Google trying to prevent the Google bombing of my site :(
If this is true it might also be the answer to the Google statement that there is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm a site. Maybe if you Google Bomb a competitive site with enough links and their primary keywords as anchor text you can harm them? If so it would be ironic, the only way to harm a site would be to do the one thing most SEO's believe would improve their position.
I have a little more evidence in this area. For a completely different site, one of my competitors in the Web Design field uses their logo and link on every site they design and the same anchor text link. In Novemeber they suddenly dropped 30 positions in the SERP's for the common term they use for anchor text. At the time I was happy to see them fall, but now I am wondering if they got hit by the same problem of having too many sites with the same link anchor text and Google thought they were being bombed!
If anyone knows what parameters (like the maximum number or percentage of same anchor texts links before a Google Bomb detection trips) are actually applied in this area I would appeciate some knowledge :)
In the meantime I am thinking of getting the anchor text changed in some of my link partners to see if that helps, I am probably already too late for next month, unless another deep crawl occurs :(
Perhaps this is the reason why google has given us the penalty?
TM
Ouch! Never do that! There's nothing wrong with it inherently, but it's a spam tactic that people with multiple domains use to build up Pagerank.
e.g. Domain A links all pages to domain B, then domain B links all pages to domain C. Maybe C links back to A. If they're smart they won't.
If this doesn't draw a penalty today it's just a matter of time before Google gets round to it.
It could well be part of your problem. Or as Marcia says, it could just be that Google decided to count 1 of the links from that site instead of all of them. That would not explain why you dropped recently though.
Thanks for that info.
I will contact the webmasters and try to get the links
removed except for homepage.
The problem is that the pages are dynamic, and the
link (like the navigation) is just added to the home
page, and it appears on all pages of the site.
TM
i.e the quantity referrals from the source site were worth it to me, or if there was just such great PageRank on offer that I couldn't bring myself to refuse. Otherwise, it really isn't worth the potential headache.
Just a caution: If your domain is in the doldrums now, then you have nothing to lose by removing the links. But if you are still well ranked, consider finding some replacements before you remove those links. Otherwise you might take an unwelcome hit.
If your PR didn't drop, I don't think you have a penalty. Most likely google changed some other part of their algo and your site is no longer considered as relevant for the terms you previously were considered relevant for. Study your competitors sites, then re-optimize your site. Add more content. Change keyword densities, etc. Link to more related sites. Get more links from sites related to yours.
That is exactly what I thought happened at first.
But looking into it further, the keyword phrase is
not very competitive, and we have gone from no. 2 to
off the radar!
If it had dropped 10 or 20 places maybe.
When the page was first included it had few links
(about 20) but it still ranked in top 20 in
google. Now it has over 600 links and cannot be found.
Top site has 400 + links and the rest have less than
100 links.
However, you are right - strange that PR is still 5,
and backlinks still show 600 + if it has a penalty.
As I said many other pages from the site are unaffected.
TM
Selective penalty
Does Google penalise by selected search terms?
[webmasterworld.com...]
It's highly likely that a if 3 (or greater) word phrase in the incoming links never varies in word order that it is the result of SEO.
This is something different. (rubs chin, squinting eyes) I think their is some sort of manual or algo penalization being implemented.
Tennismaster -- where exactly is "off the charts?" and have you checked to see if your ranking pages have lower PR than the high serp pages?
It has been my experience that on page factors tend to matter much less (if barely at all) on pages above PR5.
I have checked the SERPS again and I am back at No.2
with a 14 feb freshtag!
Must have been some sort of google glitch, although
whether we will stay in the index proper, remains to
be seen.
Thanks everyone for their help anyway.
TM
The PR for the page will not be affected but the search ranking for the particular text will drop substantially.
I have a site wih most every link reading buy widgets and it ranks high on widgets- the more competetive term, but is no where to be found for buy widgets. I strongly believe that there is some sort of penalty for what GG deems unatural linking.
I have keyword-keyword-keyword.com.
I have about 100 inbound links with 6 variations of two three and 4 word combinations as anchor text. My most competetive two word phrase is used about 50% of the time.
Is this troublesome?
Do you have the phrase "buy widgets" on your page?
Yes, In the page and the title. It's not one of my main endeavors but find it interesting that it seems to be penalized for that exacct phrase only.
