Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Would someone be so kind as to define a "clean" backlink?
Now here is one for GoogleGuy to ponder upon.
There are a number of highly respected publications on the net that don't allow the bots in and that have links to other sites.
I would think that those links would be exactly what one would classify as "clean" backlinks (whatever they are, and as if you can prevent linking to a site since it is totally legal).
Then there is the so called SERP placement swing cycle, sometimes known as the scrapper effect, this may be embodied in the following excerpt from one of Google's search engine 125 patents:
"25. The method of claim 22, wherein the determining behavior of links associated with the document includes monitoring at least one of time-varying behavior of links associated with the document, how many links associated with the document appear or disappear during a time period, and whether there is a trend toward appearance of new links associated with the document versus disappearance of existing links associated with the document."
Couple that with modified automated placement checkers with the output based on SERPs from several different S/Es over varying periods of time from sites with differing PRs and thus Google spider and index rates.
Now to add even more to the list of things to consider we have the relative respider and indexing rate of the pages of your own site and those other "normal" sites that link to you.
Then we have the ever expanding number of urls for the bot army to retrieve and the indexers to index.
Just some food for thought, enjoy or tear apart.
Any spam techniques should be ignored by the spider and the ranking based on legitimate reasons. Therefore if a site is number 1 it will be there because of factors such as links in that are of sufficient quality. Suppose a company has employed a dim website design firm and they have put in hidden text. This is not the fault of the company and if their content is fabulous then users should and will want to find it. Therefore the spider will be ignoring all the rubbish seo and ranking on legitimate reasons of quality. That is best for the user and fair to the company who will have no idea about what might be hidden. Thus good sites with spam should still rank well.
I suspect too many people just look at sites above them and jump on the band wagon of calling them scum if they have hidden text. The reality is that they are still usually better sites than everyone else's because the factors that are really important have managed to put that site number 1 and the percieved spam has been ignored anyway.
This makes this whole witch hunt a total farce. There are very few sites ranking high up because of spam techniques, if any. There maybe a lot of spam in the code, but this does not mean the site is not worthy of a top position. But......
Ranking the most relevant site is another matter and sending Google endless spam reports does not help them address this problem. This spam reporting nonsense is a total red herring and Google should not be even thinking about it. They should be concentrating on positive elements of a site that cannot be spammed and ignoring negative ones. Surely they are just looking at visible text, links and titles plus h1 etc. and bold. Everything else is dumped. Then they analyse that data, using hilltop, semantics and keyword density/emphasis to establish a ranking order for a search term . So what if there is invisible text and keyword stuffing.... it may not mean the site content is rubblish or not relevant.... all it means is a misguided idiot did the code.
The trouble with inviting webmasters, especially from an seo forum (for heaven sake!) to judge their competitors is that there are too many hidden agendas and far too much hypocrisy.
Will there be any spam report not done by a hypocrite? Everyone of us is here to gain rankings by gaining an understanding of the algo's and acting accordingly. So sure, report the opposition, thats part of the game, but lets not pretend we are all not as bad as each other. As for Google wanting our help.... give me a break!
I’ve got a really bad feeling about this I’m I going to be penalized?
I have 20 sites all different areas different content, all are gone from the search results, but not banned. They all had reciprocal links on them from 50 to 500 links exchanged.
Will they come back, or should i make 20 new sites with new domains? since those will rank higher in the results. What is the pupose of having a site not show up for any search. Even the ones with names on it do not show up.
If they where just devalued the sites should still come up when you do a page specific search correct.
Its does not make any sense?
If reciprocal links are now considered spam then 1 way should be also spam since rankings are being manipulated with 1 way links.
Well said. I see a couple of sites above mine that are keyword stuffing to the max. Hundreds of the keyword all the way down the page.
I suspect it is helping their ranking but I cannot know for sure.
Either way, I will not be reporting them. I would feel silly reporting a site because the reality is, I would be reporting them because they are AHEAD of my site in the results.
Are people reporting SPAM on page 10 of search results?
I mean a backlink that is there because the site author thought it beneficial to the reader. As opposed to a backlink that is there for PR reasons.
In the end, only time will tell what direction Google takes. IMHO that direction is greater human influence on serps.
This makes me think that SEO as we've known it could be a dying art.
And that will be a good thing.
Just my opinion.
No. Because who gives a damn what is on page 10?
Don't feel guilty reporting spam. Your competitors are doing it.
First get your sites squeaky clean and then fill in those spam reports.
Maybe that's what this update was meant to do.
Maybe that's what this update was meant to do.
I think you might want to re-phrase that.
