Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
it pains me to say, but I hope it stays this way. My money site, finally is ranking good for the home page (so far). it was with a dupe penalty for many months.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Browser #2 has a URL of: www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=expensive+widgets+in+somecity&btnG=Google+Search
The difference - in Browser #1, our 5 year old non-spammy/non-affiliate/non-ecommerce site is #4 - where it has been (give or take a spot or two) for about 3 years - in the other window it is #33. No SEO tricks or major site reconstructions here - so the changes are definitely happening on Google's end.
A total of 3 of the top 10 sites for that query differ in the 2 datacenters above, and in my book a 30% shift is rather significant cause for alarm.
As a side note, I have seen a progeressive drop of about 60% in Google referrals for the past 2 weeks or so. "Coincidentally", about 3 weeks ago, we launched a $100 per day Adwords campaign. Any takers on the conspiracy theory of a Google AdWords/SERP Extortion Filter which drops sites that advertise in order to drain more blood from us poor "webmasters"?
I see a massive change at the following url: [216.239.39.104<...]Massive isn't the word - that's colossal on my keywords.
It also looks to me like a reduced size index?
TJ
[edited by: trillianjedi at 5:02 pm (utc) on Feb. 2, 2005]
Agree. Just been checking over this. An hour ago I saw some deserved winners rising into the top 10. Now I see the first two pages largely comprising massive 'comparison' (affiliate) sites and me-too shopping directories.
Still seems to be evolving, but if this is google's idea of improving the SERPS.....
Welcome MSN
On keywords I monitor the results look like a spamfest on the 216.239.53.99 data center
I concur.
I see a massive change at the following url: [216.239.39.104<...]Sorry, but all I see is the usual shuffling from one month to the next. My site is staying pretty much stable with a few "ups" here and one or two "downs" there. No major changes at all for the keywords I monitor.
I wonder if those seeing "massive changes" have any commonality? How many are affiliate sites? Are there any strictly informational sites feeling this pinch? Travel?
Is there a common thread? Seems odd that only some people are seeing "massive" changes while others are not.
What is this? This is the first time anything crazy has happened with this site and it's been online and growing for over a year!
The sector I'm seeing massive changes in is not travel, but competitive (20m results and well SEO'd). A lot of people buying their inbound anchors on this one. They are still doing OK (no manuals that I can spot).
Top 5 still authoritative and rightly there. All the rest - huge shake-up (especially on 2+3 keyword searches). Nothing to complain about - it looks OK, the searcher will get what they want - sure, a bit of spam in the top 20, but you expect that. Nothing excessive.
Most interesting thing is the returned results have halved in number.
We haven't moved. We're an authority and completely white hat. A couple of cloakers have made it through to top 20.
TJ
