Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Over and done with?
All done all through?
An index update is a MAJOR business operation. At the end more money or at least equal money has to come in
Ankhenaton, that is the most useful thing any of us are going to read regarding this update.
A Google update now *could* if they get it wrong, result in a colossal loss of earnings, nowadays it's so much more serious than tweaking results for SPAM. It's about advancing the company and increasing profits. Let’s get over it, the days of genuine friendly advice postings from G employees are over!
It does make you apreciate the minor terms when you see it reflected in your bottom line right?
After 9-10 months being out and a revenue drop of 1/4 mil - we have added more content fixed this tweak that. It seems efforts become a bit futile. Yes it is difficult to replace the traffic loss from such a huge source. PERIOD. Does Google owe my company anything? NOPE.
Nothing can change the fact that Google is a HUGE source of traffic. Like placing a restaurant in a high traffic area in town next to a motel right off the interstate. You will rely on that off-the-road customers - this is just business. Sometimes reality hits and the interstate gets moved. I have to say you best be prepared to move the restaurant or step up your brand and advertising to compensate any loss of free off-the-road customers.
For many of us the interstate has been moved. We are all trying to compensate. Many of us are looking for the quick fix trying to get back next to the interstate because the financial ramification leaves little choice. Most of us put ourselves in the position.
Many here are venting on google for our own mistakes. I myself thought my company was immune to these search engine hiccups. I was wrong. I though I was in control of the game. I was DEAD wrong. We will still chase Google to obtain a portion of their searh market no doubt. But stable alternatives are now needed more than ever. This will be much work.
Many of us SCREWED up big time (we did) by not building a stronger brand, partnerships and preparing to spend $$$ on advertising to stay alive. Many of us did not have an alternative plan. I do have to say at least in the real world we know where the road has been moved to and it tends to remain more static. Google is quite opposite.
"Our site receives over 4000 NON-SEARCH ENGINE free visitors per day, from articles, press releases, inbound links, etc. etc. All that traffic converts as well, if not better, than search engine traffic."
This is what is keeping us alive. We are holding on by a thread but thank goodness we had built up a little cushion or we would have closed our doors many moons ago. Reality hit after the fact though that more time and effort COULD and SHOULD have been spent creating a BIGGER cushion.
[edited by: arubicus at 5:39 pm (utc) on Nov. 10, 2005]
With this last update (I missed the naming process - was it called Jagger cause we can't get no satisfaction?) one of my client's sites, who has for YEARS ranked in the top 20 for its two or three dozen primary keywords, tanked severely. I mean, it's *gone* - most of the phrases are now to be found in the 500 to 600th result; at least five of them can't be found in 1000. There are no SEO spammy tricks on this site; it's been around since 1997, although there is a lot of spam and fierce competition in its particular industry. Not only are there spam results above their rankings, but there are totally unrelated and irrelevant SERPS as well. Anyway, my clients are just about fit to be tied. What do I tell them? They are still in the top FIVE for all their best keywords in MSN and Yahoo, but that's scant consolation. Don't be dependent on Google? Well they're not, completely, but there's no denying the traffic we used to get has played a big part in building the business over the years, and we're suffering now that it's gone. It's very discouraging.
Not at all.snip
we would all be better off.
Webfusion, while you are right on the one hand, maybe you could trust people have seen this too before. But first I lost my traffic 3 days ago. Secondly, G is a big part of the business. Thirdly. My clientel will search more over Google with it's still existing geeky chic. Academics and students will more likely use Google than Yahoo or msn.
It's good that you are confident in what you do, but maybe others are not as unwise as you think they are. :)
I have taken in what you said, it still does only apply partially. It works if you are in a big market. My market is very concentrated and the main accumulator is Google. I'd like it to be different but well I have no other choice in the moment.
0 sales and about 5% of normal traffic.
Time to find some old domains...
Right there is your answer:) You need to become the accumulator. Like amazon became the accumulator in the book industry. Like google became the accumulator in the search industry. Like ebay in the online auction industry. PR PR PR = BRAND BRAND BRAND.
64.233.161.147
64.233.183.99
66.102.11.99
66.102.9.99
64.233.161.104
66.102.11.104
66.102.9.104
66.102.7.104
When I say "freshest" I refer to the fact that one website which has recently acquired a fair number of backlinks and targeted anchor text, relative to competition, appears to have finally benefitted with higher ranking on the datecenters listed above.
For a similar 3-keyword search I notice "fresher" results as well on these DCs. Another website with original content has risen, deservedly.
Further reducing to a less specific 2-keyword seach I notice that a third website, one that deserves to be ranked lower, is indeed ranking lower on these DCs, while a fourth that is "up and coming" is ranking higher. A fifth and sixth sites, purely informational, also rank higher as well for this 2-keyword search, and have displaced more commercial sites.
In my opinion, and in my niche area (crafts), the DCs above appear to contain better results, that may be based on fresher data.
ronburk,
I said, "..but the fact is the majority of people here 'APPEAR' to be far worse off than they were 2 months ago". This was an 'opinion' based upon having read just about every post here since the topic started. I think it's pretty clear that this wasn't based on comprehensive analysis -- Raw data... gees!
reseller,
I never intended on offending anyone. I just wanted to express some serious frustration at your incredibly happy approach throughout this update -- up at 5:30 with a bright smile -- what brand of coffee do you buy? I've got to get me some! Sure, GG's and MC's comments are welcome -- sincerest apologies to anyone that was offended by my previous post :¦
econman,
Everyone's pulling holes in this statement. What I meant was that having read just about all the posts in this and the previous two threads, it appears as though the majority of people here are worse off than they were 2 months ago. How's that? ;)
"Perhaps one of Google's goals in making particular algo changes was to cancel out the "edge" that is given to those site owners who are knowledgeable about SEO"
I agree that there are signs of this. At the risk of having ronburk ask me for 'raw data', I spent several days last week analyzing 20 sites in our sector -- 12 of which had remained unaffected throughout this update, against 8 that had dropped significantly, or were continually volatile during the update stages. All were long-term, well-established sites. All but two of the stable sites had very low text content, extremely low body keyword density, but very high numbers of meta, comment and title keyword content. These are areas that would likely be reversed in an optimized site.
