Google Update Bourbon Part 3

[Sweet Cognac]

Continued From:

[webmasterworld.com...]

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My whole site has a new cache date of May 25th. Maybe once these other sites around me get recached, I won't hold such an honorable top position. But at least Google has found my pages worthy to sit in the Search again.:) It seems strange to look at the stats and see Google in there, after 6 months of just seeing Yahoo and MSN referrals.

My website has plenty of outbound links, but they are on relevant pages. The problem my site has always had, was a lack of "inbound links." I got tired of searching for people to link to me (with all the spammy sites around) and gave up. So my pages have acquired some links naturally I guess(and I'll bet I still don't have more than 30 inbound links for the whole site) Still have a PR4, which I've had since it disappeared in Nov.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 8:54 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]

[europeforvisitors]

Precisely! If you reread what you just wrote, "WITH AFFILIATE LINKS" stands out. The point I've been trying to make is that the page (which just happens to be older) HAS MORE EXTERNAL LINKS than the other (newer) page and thus was penalized more. Or am I misunderstanding something?

I just checked, and one of the high-ranking City2 pages (#1 earlier today, #2 at the moment) has the same number of external links as the equivalent City1 page (which isn't even in the top 100 for the comparable keyphrase, even though several of my pages that link to it are).

I'm not reading anything into the disparity--I think it's probably just another example of Google's flakiness these days. Even if Google's SERPs were 99% perfect, one in a hundred would be weird.

[MikeNoLastName]

Hi Jd01,
No Adsense on those pages though, right? That seems to be the killer. How old is the domain? You may be exempted. I'm not sure the key is how old the specific pages are necessarily, so much as the whole domain being registered by the same agent for more than 3-4 yrs. I don't see the pages you're referring to on the site in your profile, so I'm assuming it's another domain.
Like I mentioned earlier, one of our pages with about 50 links, ALL INTERNAL, WITH Adsense and fairly new is doing really well too although it dropped from #1 to #2. So it appears to be the combination of all three are needed to make it look REALLY scraper-ish.

The three rules needed to get dumped SEEM to be:
1. High proportion of external links (including affiliate links) to internal links and/or content on the page. (exact proportion unknown)
2. Domain newer than 4 years. (over 4 MAY or may not be exempted if 1 & 3 exist)
3. Adsense Ads on the page.

In some cases 1&2 alone seem enough to get a slight penalty. Add in #3 after you have the first 2 and it appears to be a sure 90+ rank position penalty.

I'm still waiting to hear from someone with a bona fide exception (either breaking all the rules and scoring highly, or not breaking them and still getting dumped on this update - I guess there COULD still be more additional rules that'll get you dumped...).
As mentioned earlier there also appears to be an exact title match penalty of some sort.

We've decided to start some experimenting of our own before throwing in the towel completely. We've chosen a few of the formerly high-ranking, and oft spidered pages and in one set we're removing just Adsense, and in another just all the external links, and in the third set, both. We'll see what the verdict is after the next spidering.

[jadebox]

I think there may be something to the idea that pages (sites?) with lots of links are being penalized. My content site has lost most of its Google traffic in the recent update and it is made up of a large number of small articles with numerous links between articles. And each article includes an "index" - a list of the articles which reference (link to) the article. I think this is useful to visitors and I really don't want to change it just to make Google happy. If Google is applying a penalty for "excessive" links, I hope they'll realize it's not a good idea and fix it soon. After all, isn't hyperlinking the foundation of the web?

-- Roger

[HawaiianArt]

Not to get back on topic, but is what everyone is seeing right now just oscillations between the two sets?

[outland88]

I’ve always subscribed to a similar theory on links even before scrapers existed. Many search engine guidelines have what I call a broad “primary purpose of the web site” type clause. In other words does the site do business on-site or is it’s primary purpose being a doorway page, click thru, or just another domain owned by that same company. To elaborate is the purpose of that content to keep you at that domain or sent you to another. Seldom are these clauses enforced but with astronomical levels of similar content being submitted to Google and Yahoo eventually they’ll have to. I would suspect many good sites will tumble trying to deal with the issue. Plus reciprocal link pages could get penalized, because of their similarity to scrapers, downgrading an otherwise good site.

[oldpro]

On outbound link being a possible cause of sites dropping in ranking...

In my niche...two of my competitors...both old (9-10 yrs) sites...dropped out of sight. Both had alot of outbound links. One looked like a link farm. Before bourbon both were nowhere to be found on Yahoo or MSN and I always wondered why google had them in the top 10. Now I can't even pull them up by their company name.

Further qualification...every site in the top 15 on google for the money keyphrase are at least 6 years old...mine is 11 yrs old.

[jd01]

Hi mikenolastname,

Yes, you are correct... The domain is over 5 years old, and there is no AddCents... If that is the pattern, at lease it's somewhere to start thinking.

Justin

* Sorry, I don't list anything very meaningful in my profile...

** Maybe we should change to AdDontMakeNoCents.

[moftary]

It fits nicely when you figure, the scraper sites are only there to serve Adsense ads. So if you are a "directory" site which looks like a Scraper, but you don't have Adsense ads (or perhaps one of another list of similar ads or affiliate programs) then maybe you're NOT a scraper after all and you get passed through. But if you aren't a directory site (just kinda look like one by having alot of offsite links), and you happen to serve Adsense ads, then you lose anyway.

My directory is supported via Adsense and the update hadn't affected the traffic, neither to better nor to worth. Wrong theory, IMO. And yes, my domain is one year old. Maybe it's the pagerank increase that kept the traffic stream as is? pagerank up + bourbon down = 0?

[MikeNoLastName]

moftary,
But do you have a large number of links on the ranking pages to external pages/other domains? That is one of the key detriments, you didn't mention.
G LIKES sites that are new, fresh and run Adsense, and don't link lots of other sites besides Adsense.

[Andreals]

I'm still waiting to hear from someone with a bona fide exception (either breaking all the rules and scoring highly, or not breaking them and still getting dumped on this update - I guess there COULD still be more additional rules that'll get you dumped...).

I guess you missed my earlier post Mike, scroll back a page.

A.