Dealing with the consequences of Bourbon Update

Which changes has Bourbon brought about & How to deal with them?

[reseller]

Assuming that the greatest part of of the latest Google update (Bourbon) is completed, its rather important to do some damage assessments, study the changes brought about by Bourbon and suggest ways to deal with them.

We need to keep this thread focused on the followings:

- Changes on your own site ranking on the serps (lost & gained positions or disappearance of the site).

- Changes you have noticed on the new serps (both google.com and your local google site) especially in regards to the nature of the top 10 or 20 ranking sites.

- Stability of the serps. I.e do you get the same serps when you run the same query within the same day or 2-3 successive days (both google.com and your local google site).

- Effective ethical measures to deal with the above mentioned changes.

Thanks.

[reseller]

Dayo_UK

>Just my opinion.<

And your opinion shall always be highly appreciated ;-)

[Clint]

Reseller: Ok, I have none of those. All of my outgoing links are www.OtherPersonsDomain.com (or without the www if that's what they send me).

If google's algo is so damn stupid that it doesn't understand that www.mysite.com is the same as mysite.com, then that's their freaking problem, not mine.

Unfortunately, it is your problem in the first place, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Besides, there is absolutely no reason for any subdomain to be considered the same as root domain.
Google is playing according to the rules here.

While your first sentence is certainly true, Google is obviously not playing by any standard rules (hence the reason we are all here), they are playing by only THEIR OWN rules, since no other SE is screwed up like this. ;)

[Johan007]

The idea of too many affiliate links have been thrown out the window a week ago…do keep up! This update is solely about duplication of content as perceived by Google and this duplication can take any form no mater how stupid they all add up.

If you have an affiliate shop in your look and feel do other sites also use that database! Then doh! That’s the problem go sort it! Look for any form of duplication and Robot.txt or meta exclude or delete them.

First x amount of words snippets are ok (as used on many home pages or RSS readers without or with "more"/"Read more" link)

[oldpro]

if that taft tool is accurate...thank google for filters. my site goes from top of the serps to oblivion with the filters off.

[Dayo_UK]

I dont want to tempt fate - but things are certainly moving for me (positively)

Best Monday I have had for ages and ages.

Please let this be the start of the recovery.

[walkman]

>>> I dont want to tempt fate - but things are certainly moving for me (positively)

Same here. All DCs seem to have settled, but I got this on Feb too...for 5-6 days, and then I was lost again. I lost hope and a while back and couldn't get myself to update the site for no reward. Now I'm scrambling :). But it's all good.

My first born son shall be named GoogleGuy...if things stay this way at least until Christmas ;)

[Dayo_UK]

He he

I think GG has the same first name as my brother so I cant really do that. Dont want to go into family name thing eg:-

Billy Bob Junior the third or something. :)

Just hope its for real - been a awful 5-6 months.

Before anyone asks - yes my brothers name is Billy Bob - he he - no not really

[reseller]

Dayoooooooooooooooooooooo

>I dont want to tempt fate - but things are certainly moving for me (positively)<

CONGRATS. And I do hope the posative trends continue for your sites.

[dgdclynx]

I think that after ten years I have finally been penalised for having more than 100 external links on a page. I cant think of any other explanation when my Home Page is put bottom of the list of over 30 referring to it.

[walkman]

> I think that after ten years I have finally been penalised for having more than 100 external links on a page

Doubt it. Seen many sites with a lot more than 100 links.

[Dayo_UK]

Cheers Reseller - cautiously optomistic.

[reseller]

dgdclynx

>I think that after ten years I have finally been penalised for having more than 100 external links on a page.<

Whats the maximum number of internal links that you can add to that page?

[Dayo_UK]

dgdclynx

Looks like you might be on a free host so dont know if this is possible or not.

If you access yourdomain in the following format http.//site.example.com you get an error page - if you access it like http.//www.site.example.com you get your page.

What I would do if possible would put a 301 redirect so that your site comes up even without the wwws. Not sure if you can do that or if you need to ask your hosts.

Of course you may want to wait until the update is complete - just in case Google does return your sites rank and I am not really sure if it is the same problem re your domain name structure.

[Billy Batson]

I'm still being extremely cautious despite the beginings of a strong Monday (Monday is always our best day anyhow). Saturday was just about our worst day in three years.

Johan has helped me out a lot in recent days, and I just wanted to publically thank him. He's been a great support. Thanks, Johan.

[dgdclynx]

Thanks for the advice.

After Allegra it took some weeks for things to return to normal so I think it wiser to wait and see.

[outland88]

It seems to me if you were pounced on early in Bourbon there is some chance you site might reappear in a previous position or near it. As I predicted there would be some shifting today and Tuesday. I’d pretty well hang it up if things don’t improve for your sites by early next week. After that you may have been left for dead.

>After Allegra it took some weeks for things to return to normal so I think it wiser to wait and see.<

After Florida I said to heck with those bums at Google. I'm getting ready to roll out a whole new site design tomorrow and to ___ with them.

[reseller]

outland88

>After Florida I said to heck with those bums at Google. I'm getting ready to roll out a whole new site design tomorrow and to ___ with them.<

And what happened since then? have your redesigned site regained its positions on the serps or have you moved the contents to a new domain?

Thanks!

[ann]

Below is the only three that came up with allinurl:http://www.mydomain.com

schok.co.uk/pick.php?http://www.starlightastro...
Similar pages

astrology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=ht...
Similar pages

clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ&sdn=astrology&zu=ht...
Similar pages

Can someone tell me if these are 302 hijacking or PR theft?
When clicked on they go to my page But I have read here and on other websites that it isn't necessarily so....

[sailorjwd]

I don't know much...

But i've also got a few about.com links like yours.

I figure if the contents of a page comes up on two different urls it is nothing but trouble. Obviously G thinks that that link is a page.

I've attempted to remove them but can't because it is framing my page and G doesn't see the noindex tag...

Maybe someone here knows how to get around that?

[Janiss]

There's a code to break frames - maybe someone knows it?

[ann]

<script language="JavaScript1.1" type="text/JavaScript"><!-- // hide from old browsers
if (parent.frames.length > 0) top.location.replace(document.location); // Escape from any referring site's frame, but preserve one-click "Back". --></script>

Picked this up here on WW works good.

Ann

[sailorjwd]

I know how to break out of frames.

The problem is not being able to use the url removal tool to kill the link because google sees the about.com frame before it gets broken out of.

[ann]

I have asked about.com to remove the redirect link to my site.

No response yet....

[stu2]

I don't know why my last post didn't stick, so here it is again... Err... where can I find Brett's recommendations coz I'd like to check I haven't missed anything.

[fearlessrick]

Stu2,

If you're talking about building a successful site, this is it:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Don't know if that's what you need.

[Will Spencer]

I never really worried about spam before, because the spam always ranked below me in the SERPS.

After the Bourbon update, this is no longer true.

When you see spam results in the SERPS -- please report them to Google using Google's online spam reporting form at [google.com...]

[cyberfyber]

For anyone interested, Do a search on Google News for "Changes at Google".

the first article as of this moment:
"Cosmetic Changes at Google Precede Larger Overhaul" is a good one.

and there's the other one I see there:
"Big changes at Google search."

[joeduck]

sailorjd -

Yes, I think for a lot of sites hit recently the problem is canonical confusion which is caused by extensive sites scraping or linking to the "legitimate site" content.

It's not trivial for Google to figure out which is the site with the original content - highest PR will be right most of the time though. I'm guessing that resolving "who posted this content first" is why they seem to be using "old" pages more and more in the index mix.

[ann]

I don't know about old pages, not any of mine but if I need to prove something belongs to me there is the ever useful wayback machine.

Ann

[reseller]

Good morning all

DCs Weather Report

I see another set of serps this morning (than that of yesterday) on my google.com (at moment 66.249.85.99) which is the same on the two DCs I monitor:

64.233.183.99

64.233.183.104

I´m sure that some of you will be happy for what they see, and as usual there will be others who wish to see different serps ;-)

And..allow me to ask my standard question:

HOW DOES GOOGLE UK LOOK LIKE TODAY?