Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
No, that is zero sum game. The most useless posts here are from people saying the serps on some datacenter suck or are good because their own stuff ranks bad or good on that datacenter. Not only does nobody else care, there is someone thinking the exact opposite due to how their stuff is ranking.
In any case (repeating mantra from past several updates), a lot folks should consider that screw ups are not deliberate policies. Google has been a technical mess for more than a year now, just over two years really. Allegra was just a blip of an update, but was a huge technical disaster. Google also has a horrible time figuring out canonical pages, particularly when webmasters deliberately do inconsistent things.
This update seems to me to be another minor bit of shuffling, with the added "bonus" of a lot of anomalies, most caused by lazy or uniformed webmastering (meaning if you have been reading webmasterworld and haven't had a 301 on for non-www and www since at least last summer, you only have yourself to blame).
I see almost no changes in my niches, except... a HUGE increase in straight redirect domains. This tactical trash gets discovered fairly quickly but apparently a new tactic has been discovered and needs to be squashed; authority sites performing same as recently; sites still in the sandbox dumped back to pre-Allegra levels, while sites that got out of the sandbox with Allegra doing a bit better.
A note for everyone, this may change on the DC by the time you search for "adsense" but the top serp result is some other fellow's website that has nothing to do with Google.
For example do a whois on the domain that comes up or go to the home page of the domain that shows up in the top SERP. Again, this may be gone by the time you get to see it..
In effect, someone has purposefully or accidentally (more probable) SERP domain hijacked the page.
Interesting enough, the fellow could set a number of cookies and track traffic that clicks on that. Not entirely clear to me how this could be used for profitable purposes, but it's a very interesting hack.
Is there an affiliate program for adsense?
Whatever the case, clearly Google is having some problems, hopefully temporarily. Even Yahoo can resolve AdSense better than Google can at the moment.
[edited by: blaze at 10:12 am (utc) on May 24, 2005]
Can anybody comment on this datacenter Ip 64.233.167.104 as its showing up for all the phrases i have been targeting.Is it showing updated results or any other concern?
Please update; thanks in advance.
Traffic up slightly Monday from Sunday, but Monday is normally busier.
Sales still rubbish though. Enquiries emailed in about zero.
Please keep updated for further info.
Thanks
if your based in the UK everyone is dead right now
Thanks for backing that up. I am so dead that I getting v.depressed (and Ask appears to have dropped my site today too)
Started with 250 pages on May 1.
Left with 69 pages and the rest are completely missing - not url-only.
Missing pages are detailed original programming examples with programming code and discussion.
Remaining pages are larger, introductory ramblings and index.htm pages for each programming topic.
Used to rank in top 10 for thousands of 2 and more keywords in the programming subject and now I can't find any page even with exact phrases. Most phrases on every page is now a snippet on some scrapper site. Besides the dozens of folks who copied whole sections to create their competing sites.
Still have two entries in top 10 for every search I can think of in Yahoo - but nobody uses yahoo for programming examples (apparently).
I was wondering. When you say scappers destroy white hat content sites, does the affected white hat sites still hold some ranking on Google?
I lost like 90% of my traffic, but my homepage still ranks #14 and some reviews still rank first page. (I'm still getting like 1000 visitors a day.) Though, most other pages even the latest exclusive reviews rank in the #50-60. Am I a vicitm of scapper site linking?
FYI, I have pop-under codes at the bottom of all my 18.8k pages. Though, many reports here don't think pop-unders can bring my site down.
Also, will excessive iframes do damage as well? I have about 12 each page for displaying price comparison.
Thanks much. I appreciate your input or anyone else.
This penalty is not for domains but for individual pages and keywords.
As mention a few posts ago, what is most likely giving us this penalty is keyword links from thosands of autogenrated spam sites. Here is why I think so.
My first page still ranks ok.
Key words targetted subpages (white hat)do not rank any more for their keywords.
These same sub pages have the last three of four months gotten thousands of links from scraper sites targeting those exact keywords.
Still the exact same subpages still rank ok for some good keywords that are not targetted by the scraper sites.
If this is what has happened I think this new SERPS won't last for long as they just have placed a penalty on half the sites that are the top sites in their fields.
A note for everyone, this may change on the DC by the time you search for "adsense" but the top serp result is some other fellow's website that has nothing to do with Google.
Check the cache version and you'll see the adsense login screen. Check "properties" for the images on this page and you'll notice they are all being called from this guy's own server. He is using a replica of G adsense login screen and i wounder why.
I wounder how many webmasters he already fooled trying to log-in via his own page and then grubbing their passwords.
Not true - that is because Google have a relative link for the image on that page.
dead sales-wise or google-wise? - should be one of the top sales months for us.
I think I agree on the individual page comment - we have massive movements downwards. I have someone going through our thousands of pages to get the page positions. Then see if they change later in the week.
dead sales, personally I think the UK is in a mini recession, most businesses I've spoken to are suffering thats both bricks & mortar & ecom
no recession for us ( well until Sunday when we lost all the traffic) up about double last year sales and still ( were!) growing. Our non-UK sites are actually about the same traffic and sales wise this week so far - just growing slowly over time.
A wget reveals no cookies, and just an ETag cache header.
I can't see what the ETag has to do with this, though, as all it does is verify whether or not to cache (different ETag value, refresh your cache .. right?)
My guess is that it was just a mistake and not done on purpose.
Unfortunately, Google is so befuddled you can probably even accidentally hijack its SERPs at the moment.
This is a new set of directory results. I am sure of this because DMOZ cleaned out my category recently. This new directory reflects that cleaning.
Although Who knows what is new or old now?
PS. Good call re Directory PR update.
Edit - just things
[edited by: Dayo_UK at 11:08 am (utc) on May 24, 2005]
max_mm,
I was wondering. When you say scrappers destroy white hat content sites, does the affected white hat sites still hold some ranking on Google?
Yes they do hold some ranking, my sites fell gradually with every recent update. I believe the G (over linking from scrappers) penalty is on a page by page basis. Your site will eventually disappear all together and you'll reach a point of almost zero g referrals per day. That’s what i am experiencing right now, anyway.
Do a search for your "domain_name.com" and check the number of results/links. If you’re site has been hit by the recent update i bet you'll find an enormous number of links pointing to your site without you even knowing about it.
This is not exact science and i might be wrong. I am just pointing my personal experience. Your mileage may vary. The best gauge is to check the number of incoming links to your site.
Re pop-ups, iframes and other small time factors.......no i really don't think so. They are not the reason for this problem. Scrappers (using free yahoo feeds) and linking to your site by the thousands, are.
[edited by: max_mm at 11:10 am (utc) on May 24, 2005]
1. Authority sites are severely penalized in the SERPs.
2. Very specific search terms yield complete garbage with Google, but Yahoo gives you what you're looking for, generally in first place, as it should be.
I have made my own graphic ads with the message:
"Yahoo - the better search engine"
The 728 pixel wide, and 120 pixel wide graphics will handily, and dradually replace AdSense units that have now become worthless visual pollution on my sites.
No, I will not compensate loss in traffic with a PPC campaign. I'm not exactly in a "money" sector. My target keywords include the word "free."
Pages with links to my site continue to crushingly outrank me. Should I create a new site with a link to myself as a doorway page? Just kidding. My ranking may be in the toilet, but Google SERPs are deep into the sewer system.
Something interesting about the new backlink update. In a previous post I wrote in the SERPs in my sector, with their number of backlinks.
Here are the updated backlinks:
#1 - 23 now 13
#2 - 66 now 65
#3 - 13 still 13
#4 - 29 still 29
#5 - 34 now 33
#6 - 323 (all but one are internal) now 255
#7 - 12 still 12
#8 - 17 now 14
#9 - 0 still 0
#10 - 4 now 3
My site that's in the toilet: 71 now 83.
SEE... the only one who's going UP in backlinks, is being flushed down the toilet.
Gurgle - gurgle- goorgle?
Would it just stop please?! I have better things to do than worry about the 64. results being 'new' and my key site dropping from 6 to 19!
Y started offering free feeds. In effect creating major pollution and undermining google's best weapon "link analysis", to determine site quality. It is worth squat now.
I guess it is back to the drawing table for G if they want people to continue searching their index a year or even 6 months from now.
G’s algo can not find it's way around this major scrappers pollution and half of this world and their dog are affected as a result.
You’ve pulled a good one Yahoo. G started with the adsense pollution and Yahoo used it to their advantage providing publishers with much needed content to display adsense ads on, while bringing google's "relevant search result" mantra to its knees.
I can almost see the smile on some of Y's engineers as we speak.
