Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
We need to keep this thread focused on the followings:
- Changes on your own site ranking on the serps (lost & gained positions or disappearance of the site).
- Changes you have noticed on the new serps (both google.com and your local google site) especially in regards to the nature of the top 10 or 20 ranking sites.
- Stability of the serps. I.e do you get the same serps when you run the same query within the same day or 2-3 successive days (both google.com and your local google site).
- Effective ethical measures to deal with the above mentioned changes.
Thanks.
>> I'm saying is they SHOULD TELL YOU WHY so you WILL KNOW what not to do in the future! <<Every clue they give to spammers makes their job much harder next time around.
If they say "repeat your keyword exactly four times", then next month when faced with ten million pages all with the keyword repeated exactly four times, how the heck are they going to be able to rank them?
Yeah I guess that's another reason I desize spammers. Before it was email spammers, now it's becoming website HTML code spammers. All this is almost making me wish SE's never existed. With everything, you have the greater good, the majority with good morals, then you have a minority of [insert choice word here] that screws it up for everybody, and makes it difficult for the better majority.
They (the search engines) have absolutely no obligation to tell you anything...but Google and Yahoo have tried to set up some sort of communication loop with basic guidelines...
They are not about to tell anyone exactly what they did wrong...this would expose their precious algo variables for instant abuse...
If you site has been tossed....it could be for a variety of reasons ... chances are it has to do with links ;-)
What makes you say that?
Alex
1: Too few links.
2: Too many new links too fast.
3: Links to bad places.
4: Bad types of links that cause other problems sometimes.
5: Normal links doctored up by nonstandard attributes introduced by 3 of the search engines.
6: No real outbound links.
7: Invisible links, sorta like text, huh?.
That should cover the links thingy. Did I miss any?
Hi Folks
As you have noticed, there is a point at our Google-Updates Survival Kit suggesting:
- Transfer your affected site to a spare/emergency site
An emergency site is an additional site with 1-2 pages of real content related to your affected site. You create the emergency site in good time, submit it to the majors (also maybe local directories) and leave it to age for at least 6 months before moving the content of your affected site to it.
Later in my msg #:727 on this thread, I suggested another solution Outlet Sites Strategy. In short its about creating several sites each contains part of your contents (instead of having the whole contents on one site). Outlet sites have their own "value added" contents.
The benefit of Outlet Sites is making your business less vulnerable to be hit by Google´s updates.
I´m not saying that above solutions are THE ONLY solutions, but we need to proceed in finding ethical ways to deal with the consequences of Bourbon Update.
In this connection I wish to ask fellow members whom sites were hit by Bourbon Update....WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NEXT?
So much abuse in this area....certainly Google will be looking more closely at the granular details surrounding links ...
When I now do a [search.msn.com...] , instead of the index page showing FIRST, and showing as "MyDomain.com", the index page now shows LAST, and it's shown as: "MyDomain.com/index.html", note the "index.html" now on the end. That has got to have something to do with it since when I do that command with my other sites, the index page shows up FIRST, plus it does not have the "index.html" on the end!
The **ONLY** thing I changed on the page was at the extreme top of the HTML code. It WAS:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
and I change that to:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html lang="en">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
Now how the hell could that have caused my site to PLUMMET into oblivion? I know that is wrong, but I don't see how that could have caused this. That area was changed minutes ago to:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
[space]"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
and the htaccess file now has the content-type tag.
The only other thing I did was to the htaccess file where I did the 301 redirect from the non-www version to the www version.
Can anyone tell me if either of these caused it, and has anyone else dropped off the SERP's in MSN? I don't think it's the 301 of the non-www since I did that to my main site and it is still the same in MSN.
Edited to add: Looks like a "Bourbon like" issue with MSN now! I just found this:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[edited by: Clint at 7:30 pm (utc) on June 20, 2005]
"...all I'm saying is they SHOULD TELL YOU WHY so you WILL KNOW what not to do in the future!"They (the search engines) have absolutely no obligation to tell you anything...but Google and Yahoo have tried to set up some sort of communication loop with basic guidelines...
They are not about to tell anyone exactly what they did wrong...this would expose their precious algo variables for instant abuse...
If you site has been tossed....it could be for a variety of reasons ... chances are it has to do with links ;-)
I already commented on that to someone else clarifying it, and I'm not going to do it again. Once again, someone reading something into a quote that does not exist and twisting around my words. I don't see anything about "obligation", do you? So why do you claim I'm implying an "obligation"? I am fully aware of their obligations, or lack thereof. But like other members have previously stated here many times: "with power comes responsibility", (or obligation, whatever you want to call it).
As for the links, no. My site that was trashed (it's now back) had the same "links pages" on it as my others, and 3 of those sites were not affected. (If that's to what you are referring by "links").
That is a very good question - and after full discussion within the Cabinet and with our close allies in Europe and America we will take a balanced view to reach a consensus in due course
i.e I haven't got a clue
But if you can hurt your site by adding too much inbounds at a same time, anyone could do it to your site to hurt you?
Or is it just recip links that would penalize you?
Personnaly my site is pointed at on thousands of pages, these pages comu before mine in the serps right now... Maybe it's a signal that linking to a site can hurt that site?
It's juste a thought not a conclusion though!
Alex
>Maybe it's a signal that linking to a site can hurt that site?>
Can´t imagine that. But if it is the case, then I´m gonna send this sticky to 3 fellow members:
Hi Dayo_UK & Clint & Caveman
Either you send me $1000 each, or I´m gonna purchase 18.000
indbound links and divided them among your 3 sites at once.
Send money or else ;-)
All the best,
reseller
[edited by: reseller at 8:46 pm (utc) on June 20, 2005]
Is it true or false that fast growth triggers the sandbox thing..?
Would it be only fast growth in the recip-links, not sure about it.
Alex
>Yeah reseller exactly. But then How come some people say that too much links to your site are bad? The growing too fast thing...
Is it true or false that fast growth triggers the sandbox thing..? <
Honestly, I really don´t know, though I read what you mentioned on a thread on these forum and it has "affected" my thoughts about this point too ;-)
But as per my example above, it doesn´t make sense if it is the case. I mean how many times are those kind people; Dayo_UK, Clint and Caveman going to pay me $1000 each ;-)
I just noticed something else horrifying in addition to the MSN info I just posted. I've been dropped in Yahoo AND MSN for many search phrases! That one site I mentioned is GONE, and my main site has also disappeared for some (but not all) search phrases in Y and MSN! I wondering of all this crap we've been doing to appease the G bot (like the 301), is screwing us in Y and MSN?!
>I wondering of all this crap we've been doing to appease the G bot (like the 301), is screwing us in Y and MSN?! <
OR... the BIG-3 have agreed on general protocols that we know nothing about!
ME. NO 301 redirect, site recovered.
It is odd that when I do a exact search for "mydomain.com" I get 6620 results.
If I do an exact search for my unique company name I get 22700 results.
Maybe G's count is off but it is DOUBLE from what it was a week ago.
And all these folks appear to be linking to me in one method or another.
Links too fast is one item on my 'how did I get screwed' list. Unfortunately there isn't anything I can do about it except change domains.
Note that I've asked for a total of about 15 links in the last 4 years.
If it is not the case, it would be possible to harm a site ny throwing 5000 links (example) on all its pages at the same time?
I think it's a grey zone in the information available, cause some people are sure that you cant harm another site with over-linking, but at the same time, people talk about sandbox and growing too fast and all...
That's why I say, it must be only recips... But then a little voice tells me.. "no you were screwed by the scrapers sites!"
From my wheelchair - our MSN and Yahoo results are still very good - it's just Google that we have been hit on ( 2 sites now ). We only get a small % of visitors from Y or MSN - probably in relation to their market share.
We have had OUTLET SITES running for the last 2 years traffic and revenue through these is much less than the "main sites" - although currently any revenue is welcome.
I have yet , I'm afraid, to reach a positive conclusion on why our 2 main sites bombed ( plus the sites described here )- different designs/link structures/IP/hosting company. There doesn't seem to be a common factor(s) here.
Today we tried Adwords on one site and are having very high click through rates - so demand for what we offer must be OK.
[edited by: johnhh at 9:42 pm (utc) on June 20, 2005]
>I'm getting too old for this .... <
I´m not saying that its the case with your site, but allow me to elaborate in general terms. For example:
Suppose that all the BIG-3 have agreed on definition of SPAM and the criteria to identify spam sites and accordingly created a common databse for that. Just like the banks and bad credit reporting. Would that surprise anybody?
Suppose they have agreed on minimum requirements any webpage to meet inorder to be indexed. Would that surprise anybody?
Suppose they have agreed on how to identify and treat hijackers. Would that surprise anybody?
etc...etc...
I think there is something to be said for posting some guidelines. I think the law analogy is actually a very good example. ALL DUI laws post a maximum allowed BAC (blood alcohol content) over which you're legally considered driving under the influence and fined, no if's, ands or buts (unless you have a REALLY good lawyer or a really dopey cop). If someone wants to LEGALLY push the limits, so be it, at least we won't have the "accidents" from an innocent person exceeding the limits since he didn't know what they are. As long as BOTH sides (the innocent and the SEOs) both are told the official limits then they are working on even grounds. What we have now is absolutely to the SEO's BENEFIT, and I think that most of those who are justifying G NOT exposing them know this too, as well as pretty much what the limits are already! It is part of the SEO's JOB, as opposed to mom and pop teddy bear businesses, to exhaustively test multiple versions of the same page with different keyword densities and see which ones do best. It doesn't take long at all to determine. Many of them probably pay to subscribe to the membership-only sites where this done for you and info is posted weekly. Thus, as it stands, with G NOT letting this information be known publicly the professional SEOs have a MASSIVE advantage over the rest of the public. G exposing it, if such is possible (like some have said it depends on other factors), would simply even the playing field for all. A well known saying says: "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns" [and the rest are at their mercy].
So who wants to be the first SEO to deny it?
------------
Bear, nope it's still there as well as one from Alexa now too. I wrote support AND the GG address and haven't heard anything.
---------
Johnhh,
We had a similar situation where one domain dropped while the second one was fine. The second one dropped Friday...
[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 10:09 pm (utc) on June 20, 2005]
I'm trying to think what it is analogous to in the tangible world... I guess it is similar to forwarding your snail mail to someone else whom you have no relationship with. Is there any harm or legal issues with that?
Or, is it more similar to falsifying your address on an application... fraud perhaps?
Am I totally off the wall on these thoughts?
I think the discussion on legal/not legal is really into the "policing of the Internet" which comes down to degree of "damage" it's pretty difficult to control some countries ( unless you are the Chinese Goverment).
As part of our reaction to Bourbon we have commenced action against some content theft where sites are above us in the SERPS after copying content. Contributions towards legal bill welcome :)
Thus, as it stands, with G NOT letting this information be known publicly the professional SEOs have a MASSIVE advantage over the rest of the public. G exposing it, if such is possible (like some have said it depends on other factors), would simply even the playing field for all.
How would encouraging more people to push the limits of SEO improve search quality?
Google would much rather have Webmasters focus on organic content and let the search engines determine page rankings without interference.
I have just deemed it illegal to say your content exists on a site that is not under your control.
I'll post this in the minutes of the next meeting of my little world in my own little mind.
Now I just have to work out an extradition treaty with the US and other countries. There's no death penalty in my little world so I shouldn't have a problem with Mexico.
Perhaps Bourbon has put me over the edge?
>We have had OUTLET SITES running for the last 2 years traffic and revenue through these is much less than the "main sites" - although currently any revenue is welcome.<
That is very interesting to read!
John ..would you be kind to elaborate more about those OUTLET SITES?
Thanks
You mean the one that doesn't rank in the top 1000 for its prime three word search term? Very puzzling posts.[/quote[/b]
I never said anything about the major keywords, also, if you are looking at the meta tag keywords line then you should no better, most search engines dont even use that anymore and in some of the newer content pages i havent even bothered with the meta keywords line.
However, my little world has just issued a warrant for Google's arrest. The charges are malpractice in the programming of a search engine critical to my little world's business.
I'm also recommending to the ICCP that each programmer's CCP designation be revoked for incompetence.
I may get banned for a few days after these posts so if you don't see me you'll no why.
