Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Sorry, i know that was kind of necessary to know.
>>I am NEVER wasting time with reporting again. It does no good and wastes MY time.<<
My impression is that Google Search Quality Team including WebSpam Team have been paying more attention to spam- and reinclusion request lately.
We as whitehat webmasters should encourage such developements, IMO ;-)
The only site in the top 10 that is different was moved to page 3. That site appears to me to be TOTALLY legit and original. Strange. I'm sure they are not happy (I shouldn't complain as they are a direct competitor).
The directory sites that occupy the top positions are still there. In fact one has moved to position #3.
crossing my fingers.
<added>oops... The new layout has disappeared. A test? Well, I liked it. :)</added>
[edited by: Giacomo at 7:35 pm (utc) on Oct. 26, 2005]
Lets hope Google is moving in the right direction.
Even with that said, the number 10 spot for a popular web hosting term shows an expired domain placeholder and shows url only, no snippet...and the domain expired over 3 months ago :(
Question for GoogleGuy: Is there anyone at Google that I can submit my site to so they can tell me why it is no longer ranking? It would be nice to know what to do or not to do. I haven't broken any of the Google webmaster guidelines, god knows I've read them enough times!
Reason:
- When I look up the links from my site they are referencing most of my older than 2004 pages.
The directory sites that occupy the top positions are still there. In fact one has moved to position #3
#3 for our major search term is an unprofessional looking directory site, and #4 is a site that has no original content. They use an affiliate java code to create little article blurbs down the page. That's it... the whole site. They must rank well because their site has been around for years...looks retro 1990's style html.
Just trying to figure out what the algo's are looking for and why ours lost rankings to these types of sites.
YOU SAID
"Even with that said, the number 10 spot for a popular web hosting term shows an expired domain placeholder and shows url only, no snippet...and the domain expired over 3 months ago"
This is good maybe jagger 1 and even 2 penalise good sites in order for the spam to get to the top so we report it, they remove it and then order is restored and the serps are cleaner than before.
Maybe just wishful thinking but I'm clinging to it!
The key algo element of Jagger2 I see is that much more so than in the past two years, "a link is a link" in terms of market niche/relevance (offtopic links same as on topic links), but keyword repetition is greatly more valued. Automated, indescriminate stuff is doing very well, while sites relying more on a few (rather than a lot) of authority links have gone down a bit.
In terms of not-good stuff, this is the sort of thing that Google should be able to correct especially with enough feedback, so hopefully people who care about the quality of the index will be sending feedback as suggested.
No sandbox, lost site, supplemental or canonical changes at all, so Jagger3 becomes the Holy Grail...
Spanish_eye: Is there anyone at Google that I can submit my site to so they can tell me why it is no longer ranking?
Spanish_eye, Google doesn't offer this service to my knowledge, but a lot of consultants do. I would wait a week and see how your pages are then.
>>Google are seriously going on the "report spam" trail.<<
I guess so. Lets keep Google WebSpam Team busy ;-)
Please start reporting those spammers here:
[google.com...]
In the "Additional details:" section, you would use the keyword "jagger2" (that's "jagger" and the number two with no spaces in between).
It's amazing how we can experience two polar opposite events steve, I'm seeing the exact opposite of what you're seeing, I'd love to know the categories you're looking at. Personally, if this keeps up, which I hope it doesn't, I'm going to have to move a site to a dedicated server. But other sites are just sinking like rocks.
This update has to be one of the slickest ones google has ever done, I still have not seen anyone who can agree on even what is happening, steve sees black, I see white, and we are both seeing something real. My hats off to the google team, gguy, this one is really spectacular if confusing seos is the game...
re googleguy's request for spam results, note that this isn't the standard spam reports that are just ignored except for google building up profiles etc of what spam sites look like, this one sounds like google actually wants to see if jagger1/2 is functioning re dumping spam, I know one heavily commercial search I did this morning gave me 10 results that were totally spam and seo influence free. Very impressive.
I see the same thing on the KWs that I'm watching: either directories that are just awful, news from MSNBC internal pages or some other HUGE corps.
I guess Google is just deleting sites from the index. there are many in my sector that have wiped out. some very good sites that I admired - none of these NASDAQ listed replacement sites will ever do justice in terms of content. may as well not have sites in the SERPs at all - just ads. this is the trend I'm seeing.
Another type, in aggressively competive categories, is being hit really hard.
This to me in many ways just looks like a new hilltop filter, or maybe the removal of the old hilltop filter and its replacement with something else.
Non-hilltop type searches are seeing no change at all from where I'm looking, hilltop type searches are seeing huge changes, and I'm seeing in the categories that are dropping 1 of two things, like most other posters here:
1. big companies, name brand
2. sites that used different seo techniques than we used, but which are still heavily seoed. Early tests showed some patterns in the methods those sites are using, but nothing is for sure yet.
Either that, or the authority knob just got turned up a lot, that would in most cases explain everything I see, in both types of searches. A commercial site will almost by definition have authority level status, since so many sites link to it in its specific context.
I just looked at the results from the simple joe user key in the words and hit the button.
I got back a pile of stuff mostly marked as supplemental but was mainly directory sites parked on medical domain names amoungst others..
Being operated by some comp based in Gibraltar, they seem to like most sectors of what would be considered the shelter industry.
It looks to me like someone is trying to spam LSI based systems.
The thing they share is not topic, but a much more generalized authority status within their niche areas. This status cannot be faked, I know the work it took to achieve it, and it cannot be purchased or duplicated without actually doing all the work that lies behind it.
But for commercial stuff, yeah, it looks like maybe this is rolling out sector by sector, which would explain why google is looking to get as many spam reports as they can right now.
In the main commercial sector I'm looking at, that's just getting fine tuned now, not massively different than it was 4 weeks ago, or 3, whenever the beta stuff ran through the first datacenters.
And most sites being returned are of some utility to the searcher, it's not really spam, maybe 3 or 4 out of top 20, but even those are a fine choice among that niche. And since I know some of what they do, they could be knocked out of their spots just as easily as we were, it just takes a slightly different twist of the dials.
From now on, I'm only working to create authority level sites, no tricks, no directories, slow growth, the google game is not worth playing any more.
This is definitely interesting, whatever it is, and it's obvious that if you only are watching one sector, you can't make any real meaningful overall conclusions at this point, maybe next week though.
[edited by: 2by4 at 9:53 pm (utc) on Oct. 26, 2005]
news from MSNBC internal pages or some other HUGE corps.
I'm noticing that our site, which hosts many varying articles on our niche market loses out to one article features done by newspapers/corps or about.com . This is just the top 2 positions though...anything after position #2 turns instantly to mush. Then on page 3 the quality returns.
For my keywords: Major player companies take first 2 positions, then by page 3 niche sites seem to return.
Just my observations.
What is the definition of an "Authority Site" - I thought one of our sites was one, but now that it lost it's Google status I wonder. Yahoo & MSN still like the site, which has been it's saving grace.
I don't know how the initial list of sites was generated, probably a lot of manual review I'd guess, then from that starting list you can create a web of more known good sites.
This is why engaging in link directory schemes is so risky at this point, that's my opinion anyway.
The only way you can get authority type sites to link to yours is by having really good content. It's a pretty good formula as far as I'm concerned, and I think will be what saves google results long term, trustrank etc.
Anyway, one problem with these forums is that so many seos hang out here, and they of course always say the same thing each update, oh, this is horrible, oh this will destroy google, you know the drill, but after reading that for a few years, and seeing google income rise to their highest levels ever, I don't know, I don't pay much attention anymore to those claims, I think google knows their market better than most people here realize.
Unlike other updates where the authority knob has been cranked down, or even ripped clean off, this is more like a simple (mostly) ignoring of authority. Bigger authority sites that have a volume of linking keep ranks, while smaller good quality sites are displaced a bit by the large volume of useless spam... so instead of larger sites duking it out with smaller sites (more targeted or not), we have larger good quality sites duking it out with 2003 style link exchange network and blog comment spam.
If you cull out the large amount of added spam, and factor in a return of a significant number of lost sites, the battle between larger sites with a lot of targeted anchor text and (usually) less authoritative, smaller sites with a more limited focus, you kind of get an interesting thing to look at. The large volume of lost sites and the very large volume of new spam make the picture hard to see now though.
Taking the chance to sit here lurking, musing and taking an overview I wonder if it is a links issue. We don't sell links - no links exchange - no buying of links - no adsense - all white hat as far as aware.
I have noticed that most inbound links to us are to subdirectory content pages..shoot me down in flames on this one..but are inbound links to the sites adversely affected all to main page or to specific content/product pages within the site?
I think this is since they think Google SERPS will even out again soon and the listings will be where they need to be as far as SEO.. direct evidence that this is good for Yahoo and bad for Google.
-Hollyweird
Taking the chance to sit here lurking, musing and taking an overview I wonder if it is a links issue. We don't sell links - no links exchange - no buying of links - no adsense - all white hat as far as aware.I have noticed that most inbound links to us are to subdirectory content pages..shoot me down in flames on this one..but are inbound links to the sites adversely affected all to main page or to specific content/product pages within the site?
While I'm not fully clear on your last sentence's meaning, overall this is exactly what I'm seeing as well. I think one reason more people here are not reporting this type of thing is that most people here do not have this type of totally clean site. Even if it was just a one time link circle thing, whatever.
I won't shoot you down in flames, but I'll bet a lot of other people will, at least judging from what I saw on the bourbon updates, where even the suggestion that webmasters might hold the future of their sites in their own hands re fixing errors raised howls of protest, which if you ignored would result in correction. Too early to tell here though.
Update: I see changes on google.co.uk and 66.102.7.104, still waiting for what will be done in jagger3 which I think will start next week.
According to GoogleGuy 66.102.9.104 should be watched. 66.102.9.104 was stable all day, never saw a change today on it.
