Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Over and done with?
All done all through?
It seems that being contraversial on this forum, as I sometimes am, makes for some very intesting comments. Thanks for your input.
I run a site that has the same layout on all product pages, BUT the content is different on every page. Also, the URL includes the keywords of the product.
I hate the idea of praising ones own success on here, but to make my point, my website is doing extremelly well, with many keywords in either number 1 position, or in the first 5. My site is bespoke, in that it was written specifically for me, and took 7 months to make. But everything, and I mean everything on the site, conforms to search engine requirements. More importantly, it conforms to my customers requirements, and I believe the issue of content for viewers is my number one consideration. Search engine requirements is a close second, and diversification to other forms of marketing comes next.
I am talking about layout of the content. Much of it is duplicate and has to be duplicate. How may ways can you describe 12,000 Christmas ornaments? You make a template and add the unique data. The customer wants that and you just can't go through life making a unique page for each christmas ornament.
Like many webmasters, I did some reciprocal linking in the beginning, to get my site off the ground. However, I was extremelly selective ,and only reciprocated on valid and relevant links that conformed to my content. I only have about 70 of these, and the vast majority of links I have come from directories, or natural one way inbound links to my site. I now have thousands of these, partly because of articles I write, but mainly because of the interest in my site, and also partly from blogs.
I have left the reciprocals onboard, simply because i believe they are of interest to the sites viewers, and NOT to increase PR.
It seems that being contraversial on this forum, as I sometimes am, makes for some very intesting comments. Thanks for your input.
I run a site that has the same layout on all product pages, BUT the content is different on every page. Also, the URL includes the keywords of the product.>
I've just checked two section pages on my site - they are totally different product sections and both pages rank highly for allinanchor (one ranks at number 1, one at number 3). The page at number 3 is fine and ranks at number three in the index - the page that should be at number 1 ranks at 350. It looks like one has been 'filtered' because G thinks it is too much the same. The similar content checker reckons they are 9% the same.
For me, the solution will have to be (yet another) total site rebuild using different software. Ho hum.
<I hate the idea of praising ones own success on here, but to make my point, my website is doing extremelly well, with many keywords in either number 1 position, or in the first 5. My site is bespoke, in that it was written specifically for me, and took 7 months to make. But everything, and I mean everything on the site, conforms to search engine requirements. More importantly, it conforms to my customers requirements, and I believe the issue of content for viewers is my number one consideration. Search engine requirements is a close second, and diversification to other forms of marketing comes next>
I took that approach too - my site conforms to my customers requirements - they are always teling me how easy it is to navigate compared to other sites - a shame that it may be that which has caused my site to suffer!
JJ, thats the daft thing about this update competitors of mine that are still ranking well and I know are involved with buying links in from other sites all hitting the same term and his sites have been untouched by this update, you start thinking you get a handle on this then a little research blows it clear out the water
I am talking about layout of the content. Much of it is duplicate and has to be duplicate. How may ways can you describe 12,000 Christmas ornaments? You make a template and add the unique data. The customer wants that and you just can't go through life making a unique page for each christmas ornament. >
Exactly. Try describing body widgetery, where you have 10 different products which only differ by sizes of a millimetre difference between them but have so many other options and prices that you can't list them all as one product! One answer to that is to use software where you can put all the products on one page so you don't even up with 10 similar product pages - you can't do that in my software.
I can only say that at the moment I am glad that yahoo and MSN don't consider this to be a problem (and thank goodness I don't sell nuts or bolts).
I've given up worrying about links - I built a new site when this farce began, and already it ranks slightly above my old site for allinanchor/title/text etc.
I can't decide how important they are in numbers anymore really, except from the POV of getting found quickly by spiders and giving info about the target page.
The would be a J3 workaround. I don't think they wanted this but they are penalizing legitimate sites.
Why should a site not have reciprocal links on it, IF they are useful for the viewer?
Joining link farms is one thing, but a selection of relevant to content reciprocal links is a natural way to provide valid content for users.
The mistake many people make is by accepting any and all reciprocal requests, thinking it will validate their website. Content shoud be relevant, and that includes a selection of reciprocals. The fact that Google does not value reciprocals as much as one ways is irrelevant,if the reciprocals help your visitors.
PS. I am REALLY enjoying ths forum today, as everyone is being so relaxed and offering some objective opinions. Thanks!
You guys must have some other kind of problem. I first started hearing about this a few months back and did some google searches for some of our unique products. Many of them didn't show up, but some did. I was also considering making changes but didn't. Then I picked up a little tidbit somewhere here about having your product pages too deep for Google to get to. Anotherwords if they have to follow too many paths they won't go further.
For example:
Index page> Widgets> Large Widgets> Green Widgets
The green widgets product would rarely show until I shortened the path. Now they sit niclely at the top of the SERPS in quite a few cases. The only question is if they'll continue to be seen there.
The pages I'm referring to only have differences of a product sku # and product description.
I 100% agree with you, but something that I've noticed is sites that have been not touched and not got involved with linking are ranking - where as sites that have had link development work seem to be losing out - so its a case of 1 & 1 = 2 or maybe my maths is off, just trying to get a handle on this
Can you tell me what your duplicate content percentage is? I use a Similar Page Checker. I would post the URL but I am not sure it is legal to do it here. If you send me sticky mail I will send the URL.
From the sticky mail I have gotten, I am not the only one in this boat.
1 / 594000 * 100 % = 0.00017 %
Thats assuming all search result pages are of equal content and quality.
We, as webmasters, want to increase the probability substantially, and for that reason we try our hardest to make the web pages more search engine friendly, aswell as maintaining quality content for our users.
99%
If you find www and non-www issues, throw up a 301 redirect immediately
*edited* found the solution.
Thank you. I am at 78% duplication and they are at main/category/product .
I am not so much interested in having the page show as much as I am in not being penalized. It appears that the entire category has been dropped or penalized due to the duplication in the product pages.
For example, I could care if 150 mm, round, hand painted Christmas balls is in the top of the search engine. But if I have 200 different pages for 150 mm, round, hand painted Christmas balls, each painted in different patterns, that get me a duplication penalty and cause me to lose page rank for my important pages, then I am concerned.
Your comment about shortening up the path to the page is interesting as for important pages, however.
I 100% agree with you, but something that I've noticed is sites that have been not touched and not got involved with linking are ranking - where as sites that have had link development work seem to be losing out - so its a case of 1 & 1 = 2 or maybe my maths is off, just trying to get a handle on this
Yes, I have noticed those sites requiring a recip link and those having a high % of recips are hurting.... I know many people will not like that if it's true, but it was only a matter of time before the agressive recip linkers got caught. If I can map out recip links on sites/networks and such, I'm sure it's easy enough for Google to do it. I don't believe they are penalizing those sites - they are simply discounting those links and the sites rank where they would without them. In a nutshell if 98% of your links are recips - you lost 98% of your links. With the toolbar PR update I think they are trying to discourage link hunters.
I'm not hurting on any site as I never got involved with recip/hunting links (I don't spend the time and wouldn't trust anyone else with that job).
If recip links are part of the changes it is much more complex - possibly to do with the proportion of recip to one way links OUT.
The Contractor - the aggressive reciprocal linkers in my area definately HAVEN'T been caught out.
What does affect things, is broken links within the site, preventing the robots from scanning the site properly.
Thanks for the info.
<<< Do you think the site I advertised on will give me an extra month? ;) >>>
If you've found someone who charges for links, that is still bothered by guilt and principles, then that is indeed something to share -- I guess you can always ask though!
BTW I'm joking; just in case someone wants to nail me to the wall for this statement ;))
<<< one thing I have noticed is more link request for clients sites are coming in where the SEO company is offering the recp link back from a directory they control so in theory setting up one way links - so maybe this is the way forward if you are doing SEO work for clients is to build a directory and set up the recp link back from your directory? >>>
Yes, I've seen this lot. These are mostly sites with a few pages of content (usually about computer certification), but with hundreds of pages of links.
I don't know about the way forward though. You give their client a direct and tightly themed link from your related site, and in return you get a lame link from just another directory. To me, this is so one-sided that it's insulting, and such cloaked directories should be regarded as link farms.
Perhaps not black-hat, but it does prey on the gullible -- you just check back after a month or two, and that great PR5 link you thought you had is now at the bottom of a page with 200 other links, diluting your PR share to nothing. By contrast, their client still has the good one-way from your site.
You'll never get an email response if you try to query this either, as they've moved on to other clients and couldn't care less about a campaign they did 2 months earlier. In fact, email addresses are often set up on a per-client basis and are then deleted once the campaign is over.
Most of these types of link requests we've received over the past 12 months have been from SEO companies based in India.
<edit> I am sure there are those who do this ethically, but my comments are based on my experience, having received several hundred such requests during the past 12 months.
[edited by: LegalAlien at 4:24 pm (utc) on Nov. 13, 2005]
yep thats the crowd
I've been reluctant to do that because of all the problems I've read about here at WW. I saw GG or MC post that it would probably be better to wait a couple of months until they fix that code.
How risky is it?
I have worked with many people/companies in India.
(I am not targeting them as I have many good friends there)
The quality of work from 95% of those I have tested out is terrible. They copy content from other sites and claim to write their own unique content, they are copy replace professionals, this leads to Google penalties for sure, I would know.
Be cautious whom you hire there.
