Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Jagger is winding down and life must go on. If Jagger has been kind to your site, Congrats. But for the rest of fellow members who lost rankings or their sites dropped of the index, its time to do some thinking and decide on what to improve or change on your affected websites. Still ethical measures are what interest me most.
Some food for the thought.
After my site was hit by Allegra (2-3 Feb 2005) and lost 75% of my Google's referrals and hit for second time on 22nd July 2005 ending up with only 5-10% of pre-Allegra Google's referrals.
My site is now back to the level of around 50% of pre-Allegra Google's referrals and growing... until further. I say "until further" because who knows what the next update or "everflux" do to my site!
Before my site returned back around 19-22 Sept 2005 (very slow at the begining), I went through my site several times for months and did the followings:
- removed duplicate pages. In my case it was several testing pages (even back to 1997) which I just forgot on the server.
- removed one or two 100% frame pages.
- removed some pre-sell affiliate program pages with content provided entirely by affiliate program vendors.
- removed few (affiliate referrals) outbound links which was on the menu bar of all pages (maybe we are talking about sitewide linking).
- on resource pages, I reduced the outbound links to be less than 100 .
- made a 301 redirect non-www to www (thanks to my good Norwich friend Dayo-UK).
- finally filed a reinclusion request in accordance with the guidelines posted on Matt's blog (thanks Mr. Inigo).
Would you be kind to tell us how Jagger Update affected your site, and what do you intend to do about it.
Thanks!
That would be my guess. Well not a actually a penalty but more like being filtered.
Now the case with re-distributed articles I would have to say any single page that is re-distributed may get filtered rather than site-wide type penalty/exclusion. The effect of course will be on how many of your pages are re-distributed content. Which in my mind I have no problem with as long as the unique content is left undisturbed and only benefiting from links from other unique content on and off site. I can see how using re-distributed articles can be used to "push" up PR internally and in that case Google can just downgrade the effects of such pages. Distributing article elsewhere can also be used to manipulate PR in which G can (and I think does in some instances) downgrade for such things. This enables site owners to share information benefiting directly from site to site but not getting unfair benefit in G SERPS. I could be wrong though.
Now offsite duplication is a bit out of control in my opinion. It remains a full time job for many of us to keep up with all of that. And that is complete duplication of content (Full articles and even design). If G did crank up their dupe filter (off site occurances) it really can make a mess of things which would include many thousands of scraper sites scraping bits of content. (anyone with high ranking sites will surely have a scraper problem). I really have a hard time believing that G would intentionally penalize a site for such occurances. I believe they know that these scrapers are way out of control and that most webmasters cannot keep up with it all.
Now if G did a sudden downgrade of any benefit from links from scrapers can affect sites and make it appear to be a "penalty". Having links from such sites that once were keeping you in high the SERPS when taken away your site falls off the face of the planet.
And Googles link [google.com ]
Now all we gotta do is find another way to make a living eh?
Best wishes
Sid
Does anybody know for sure if a site can have a penalty applied but still have the same pagerank and in our case be placed about number 30 - 40 from position 1?
I really would like to get some clarification on this if possible because if a site can be penalized in this way then I would be almost certain that I have had a penalty applied.
Does anybody know for sure if a site can have a penalty applied but still have the same pagerank and in our case be placed about number 30 - 40 from position 1?
Well this happened to me also.
1) Did your incoming links fall heavily? Many sites have been seeing dropped in ranking due to that scraper sites bo longer link to them.
2) My site dropped on Ýahoo also and I was informed that my site did not comply with their guidelines. I ahve made changes and sent a reinclusion request as this is what I was told to do.
we webmasters never loose? I do not understand people who think Google is broken or see this as some kind of fight against Google. If one does have this attitude I think you propably ought to be banned anyway.
>>There is a very importent question I need to ask.
Is Jagger 3 update completed?
Reseler do you think is that a good question for a new thread?<<
For me Jagger Update is over and fellow members whose sites have been affected by Jagger need to start thinking solutions already now. No reason to wait.
>>> ...creating new pages,looking at a future without Google... <<<
I'm sure that most of us don't want a future without the leading SE. We just want to understand what Google didn't like about our sites and fix the problem.
needinfo
>>> Does anybody know for sure if a site can have a penalty applied but still have the same pagerank and in our case be placed about number 30 - 40 from position 1?<<<
Previously, a page under penalty would be tanked, or a dupe page would be PR0d, but I'm seeing this demotion while retaining PR too, so I'm also interested in opinions about this.
reseller,
Been missing your cheerful optimism for some days now. What's up, bud? I really hope you, of all people, haven't lost your optimism, as this has been a real pick-me-up for the rest of us. Here's hoping Santa fills your stocking with boxes of cappuccino and some great serps ;))
<edit>sorry, addressed 2nd point to wrong person ;)
LA
would that not happen after the next PR update? my site has been kicked into touch (from 1st to 30th) despite having PR6/5 pages, but I don't know if that PR will be around after the next update - so right now its a useful linking tool
as for reseller, maybe like the rest of us he's just expecting his fate and hunting after traffic from other SE's or rebuilding thats what I'm doing
>>> would that not happen after the next PR update? <<<
Yes, for Jagger-related penalties. But remember the PR update in September? That's when our serps tanked; just prior to Jagger commencement. I went through all links at that time and discovered we'd lost around 40 percent of total inbound PR. There were many pages everywhere I looked that dropped PR -- particularly deep pages.
For many sites I think the swings and round-abouts of Jagger got intermingled with this PR update, and everyone just focused on Jagger and assumed this was the sole cause of their demotion/tanking. A 40% drop in PR share would certainly push sites out of serps for competitive phrases.
I know that many in here will argue that PR updates are irrelevant, as PR is assessed on an ongoing basis. But if this were the case, we wouldn't see serp fluctuations following each PR update, would we? So IMO this can't be correct.
Different phrases tanked for many people in here at different times from September 22nd onwards. I think this could have been that all those different data caches were prolonging the effects of that PR update, and were affecting serps depending on which data set was being pulled. As Jagger was in progress, it was easy to assume Jagger itself was causing this.
I'm going off subject a bit here, as there's more I want to say about this...
In very competitive areas, I generally see a few 900lb gorillas that never shift, and the rest are made up of what I would call 2nd-tier (or almost-contenders). The difference (backlinks, PR, "trust", traffic, etc.) between the gorillas and these "contenders" is huge, but the difference between the contenders themselves is marginal (I know there are also directories and review sites, but I'm not talking about those). However, these contenders get their status from varying sources. Some pay for very high-profile links, some do recips, and some are powered by genuine links and traffic from their customers.
The ones that had paid links from gorilla-site homepages dropped, but recovered quickly (or didn't move at all). Obviously the gorilla sites' homepages didn't drop PR in the September update. Those with recips, or deeper paid links tanked, but didn't recover as quickly, and not to their previous top ten listings (we’re one of these). So the result of this 3-month fiasco currently seems to be pretty much pre-Jagger serps with the effects of that pre-Jagger PR update.
What we've tried to do is recover the PR share we had prior to the pre-Jagger PR update. We're about there now. I also see daily shifts in our serps that are directly related to traffic, and I also saw serp improvements during Jagger, that directly coincided with traffic increases, so we're also working on getting our traffic up to pre-Jagger levels. We're at about 70 percent now. Once we've done this, what's left will be Jagger only, so we can then focus on that. But as we’ve already trimmed everything way back, and analytically, we’re pretty identical to those that remained listed, I’m hoping we’ll just slot back in where we were.
There's a lot more I want to say here, but I'm trying to do 5 things at once and this reads really badly as a result. I apologize if this is difficult to read/follow.
>>> my site has been kicked into touch (from 1st to 30th) despite having PR6/5 pages <<<
1st to 30th of which month? I've been following your posts, but this update has been going on for so long that I've lost track a bit. Can you sticky me your URL?
A date firmly in my memory 12 Nov I'll drop you a PM
Regarding changes. I'm experimenting with old sites that have been neglected for years that are now ranking (crazy), but my main money site and the one that was dropped is ranking v-well on MSN & Yahoo so as thats feeding me and I'm not touching that
>>> How can you think about making changes to a site when they have a test data center that are showing completely different results then the current ones? <<<
We tanked for all our main phrases on September 22nd and immediately dropped around 150 new customers a week. Waiting and hoping for DCs to align themselves was not really a solution I could present to my peers without risking a one-way ticket to Belleview.
Various "test" DCs have been showing different results for the past three months and there's nothing to say that this won't continue -- MC or GG (I don't remember which) said way back that this DC may migrate in a few months. But that's irrelevant anyway. Isn't the point of a test DC to test? What are you going to do if it's permanently testing something?
>>> A date firmly in my memory 12 Nov I'll drop you a PM / My experience exactly .<<<
Were you guys totally unaffected up to that point? From what I’ve learned here, there were 2 major 'tanking' sessions; the first around the end of September and the second around 2nd week of November.
We totally tanked on September 22nd. We came back in the 300-400s on October 25th, and were in and out until November 7th, when we settled around the 40 mark for most of our main phrases. Since then we've been pretty stable and gaining a position or two every few days (with the occasional disappearance). We are now back at #8 for a fairly competitive phrase (160m results) and between 20 and 45 for all our really competitive terms. All were top 10 and rock solid for over 3 years and totally unaffected by previous updates.
Could it be possible that others who tanked in September saw the same recovery pattern we did, and those that tanked in November saw what you guys are seeing? Perhaps others can provide feedback on this?
I don't think you guys are seeing the same thing though. Tigger, you said you are now around 30+ from #1, which might mean you've seen a similar recovery pattern as us, albeit on different dates. For us (and maybe you too) I am convinced this relates to the PR drop I explained in my earlier post, and I'm pretty confident that we can recover our serps. But JJ, you said you are now around 1000+ from #1, which would indicate something far more serious.
It appeared in copyscape.com as duplicating our entire content, page by page. The site is PR0d by Google, but that doesn't reassure me. This seems as though it could be a prime source for dupe penalties -- just precede their domain with yours and your entire site functions under theirs i.e. yoursite.superservers.org. It can't just be a cache, as they stipulate, otherwise it wouldn't have been picked up as dupe content by copyscape.
I'm really hoping someone tells me that I'm being paranoid and have nothing to worry about, but somehow I don't think so. None of their about, policies, etc. links work and whois contact info is hidden. Why would they do this if it was legitimate?
MODS: I'm not posting URLs or sites specific to my area; this appears to be an issue that potentially affects every site. Please don't remove this post!
I´m not shure, but I guess there is some similarities in the behaviour of one of my sites. I´m stable, but recovery seems much slower than yours.
Another shining day awaiting for you to do some site-repair work. Google knows exactly how to keep us busy.
And talking about being busy. Try always to start your busy day with a cup of Cappuccino. Your site will get better ranking on Google serps that way :-)
>>LegalAlien
We tanked for all our main phrases on September 22nd and immediately dropped around 150 new customers a week.<<
My site tanked on 22nd July and then around 22 September recovered around 50% of its pre-Allegra Google traffic.
So there was something happening around 22nd Sept. for sure.
Wish you all a great day and a successful discussion on the mother of all forums, Forum 30. Only on WebmasterWorld :-)
Good day to you Reseller. I have taken to drinking Triple Espresso in the morning and rough French Muscadet in the evenings ... just my own way of "Dealing With Consequences of Jagger Update" ;-)
>>>Legalalien<<<
I've stickied you some dns stuff on your Super Servers query.
Best Wishes
Colin
Our situation on about 10 of our sites is EXCATELY the same as yours. Not sure what to do, how come you're so confident that your sites will recover? I was at first but now it's dragged on so long I'm beginning to think I have had a penalty of some kind applied.
btw. we were in top 3 position for allof these sites prior to Jagger update.
Have you tried searching for your site inside "" , e.g. "www.mysite.co.uk" , according to some people if your site is not returned top then you may have some kind of penalty, if it is then you are possibly ok. I tried this on all of my sites, some come nowhere near top and some are 5 -10 but none are top.
I tried it for other sites which have stayed in pre Jagger positions and they are top!
[edited by: needinfo at 9:40 am (utc) on Dec. 15, 2005]
for me yes, one day I was ranking well the next pushed to forth page! which is where I've held
Colin
you should try triple vodkas thats been helping me get through Jagger
I used to have www.myurl.com forwarding to www.my-url.com but we changed it over a year ago so that both domains had their own sites on completely different servers and IPs and no real crosslinking at all
I've just done a search "www.myurl.com" and the non-hypenated site is now showing pages from the hypenated site which obviously don't exist and have never been on the site! so if you click on these results no page is dispalyed and a 404 comes up
I'm now worried that somehow G has in its database a copy of the hypenated site but on the non hypenated domain and could be penalising one or both sites for dupe content
I'm amazed that G has somehow mixed these two sites up, but not sure how to get this resolved? or even if I should be doing anything assuming that maybe "g is broke"
As you might have noticed there is a HOT discussion, Matt Vs Jeremy, going on right now about buy/sell links as well as the nature of backlinks. It could be just by incident that all this is just happening right after the end of Jagger update. Or it could be that sites have already been penalized for the same for sometime.
I guess, fellow members whose sites have been affected by Jagger, might wish to reconsider their backlinks and buy/sell liks strategies.
Very interesting developements indeed!
SuperServers.org -- Is anyone familiar with this?
Enter nonexistantsite.superservers.org and you'll see the failed GET request due to DNS failure. Blatently not all cached. I've filed a C&D for all my domains.
