Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
None of the sites I actively manage have seen any change, but one that I've consulted on has been decimated. Before October it was 3rd for some one and 2 kw searches. It dropped a couple spots around Oct 20th. Dropped a couple more on Dec 7th, then went to page 3 on Dec 20th. Is now fluctuating between page 6 and farther back.
This site has been up for about a year, and no real changes were made during this drop. All other sites in the serps for these keywords stayed in place except one - the #2 site. It was previously THE authority site, but had been moved and had a 301 redirect to the #1, new authority site. #2 dropped a little on Dec 7th, then to page 3 on Dec 20th. After the 20th, there have been a few days when the #2 site has moved back up and is now back at #2, while the site I've consulted on has dropped further, usually at the same time #2 moved back up.
While it may be that G has made no changes to the algo, I'm convinced they tweaked the weighting on some "filters" that resulted in these changes. Both sites were unchanged, yet bounced around at the exact same times. The dropped site had too much duplicate content and not enough good links from trusted sites. It was also heavily optimized for a few keywords.
I can't figure what factors caused the #2 site to drop and then recover, but it seems that G tweaked some things a little Dec 7th, hit the same things harder Dec 20th, then adjusted some in following days which brought the #2 site back up to #2. Hopefully they will continue to adjust and bring back the rankings for those who have been unjustly dropped...
[edited by: tedster at 9:57 pm (utc) on Jan. 1, 2007]
Although my results have not yet come back, the top 30 positions have not moved alot since the 20th for the keywords I follow.
the 1 major thing that I have noticed is the emphasis on the Meta tag Description, has anyone else spotted this?
Do you know if the penalty only impact a subdomain or the entire domain?
Exemple :
www.example.com
sub1.example.com
sub2.example.com
I have to correct my first answer.
I stated in my first answer, that since August 17th, all subdomains move in and out of the filter at the same time.
Just discovered that 2 subdomains had come out of the filter Dezember 30th complete independent from the other subdomains still in the filter.
The financial impact is not high, the 2 recovered sub domains are at normal month only 7% from my earnings, but it gives hope for further changes.
Sparky74 - Huh? I thought Google ignored this tag... Am I missing something?
yep, the meta description tag is one of the ways Google detects duplicate content. It is also usually the text used for the snippet below the title in the SERPs.
And yes, I have noticed more of an emphasis on meta description tags...just rewrote my entire site's tags yesterday, as whilst they were unique, they obviously weren't unique enough for this update/refresh/everflux.
obviously
?
Around Dec. 15th there was a major drop in google search results for many pages that (at least in my case) has not been lifted to this date.
The affected pages have not changed for quite a time, meaning: There is no sense in breaking your minds about what WE have done wrong.
A lot of these strongly affected pages base in the German speaking region of Europe meaning: .de .at .ch
What to do? Nothing. File it to Google, but there wil be no answer. Wait it out (it may take months) and think of ways how to make your financial life less dependent on google search results (which will be quite difficult in the Germany-region as around 90% of the users exclusively use Googles Search-engine.
Sad, but thats the way it is!
Yet another data refresh, yet another random reorganization of senseless penalizing and unpenalizing.
Yes. It seems the "Data Refresh Comedy" continue in 2007. One of the pages I watch keep jumping between around 38 and 433 :-)
- Ranking changed for me starting around December 3rd or so. Terms
that I've ranked well for, for years, started dropping slowly.
Terms that I was # 2 for were now # 8; Things that I was # 7 for,
were suddenly # 13.
- On December 18th, I made wholesale changes to 4 of my sites under
my domain (I have a subdirectory structure). I added a copyright
statement to about 100 pages in 4 of my 9 websites.
- On December 20th, I was obliterated. Gone, good-bye. I didn't
rank anywhere, except 2 or 3 terms, that weren't my main search
terms. I did not go supplemental, but all my supplemental pages
were listed first for the "site:" command. Several of my bigger
pages were missing from the index, but most were there. My
sitemap diagnostics said I was missing 20 pages, which consisted
of directory/page combinations that didn't exist and were not
referenced on my sites anywhere (I verified this). Also, sitemap
diagnostics yielded a "403" (forbidden) listing one of my main
subdirectories as the culprit.
- Googlebot visited by site from 12/20 - 12/30, and grabbed a few
pages here and there, but the rate of Googlebot visit was much
slower than what I have been accustomed to.
- No traffic for 10 days, until December 30th, when my ranking came
back, similar in nature to what I was seeing in early Decemeber.
That is, less than what I have seen in prior years, but at least
back to what I was seeing in early December.
- On January 2 (today), I notice that the "site:" command yields
my pages in the index first, then followed by supplementals. I
hadn't checked this in a few days, so perhaps this was restored
days prior.
MY CONCLUSIONS (all IMO):
1) Algo change/tweak at beginning of December;
2) Massive across-the-board website page changes should be
avoided like the plague;
3) Further Google algo change/tweak, post early-December, has
been rolled back;
4) We should all be on alert, BUT IMO you should do nothing to
your sites, until the dust settles. Otherwise, you will not
have a working baseline, for moving forward and adapting.
Happy New Year to All!
Doug
Have sites that don’t appear to be affected by this as well though.
Tough way to start the year that’s for sure.
Is there a penalty filter for subdomains? For all subdomains? This is first time I heard this and then I realize it seems to be true.
Anybody else experienced this too in the past or having the subdomain filter penalty right now?
Site command on 26th December result some of the good links at the top (5 out of 170) at the top followed by supplemental result mostly orphaned pages(14 of them) and then followed by 165 pages.
Today I am getting supplemental result at the top followed by 170 pages.
Does anybody over here can explain me how to come out from this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Ron
I had been ranking for months in #1 and #2 in the serps for a lot of my search terms and since the 14th and 20th I am running at #6 thru #10. That being the case I have moved from 500 plus searches from google a day down to about 50 or so.
A lot of these strongly affected pages base in the German speaking region of Europe meaning: .de .at .ch
Yes Google seems to have thrown the kid out with the bath as usual.
1) Algo change/tweak at beginning of December;
MC states they changed to constant update. I think we see a lot of chaos from that building up. I really wonder how they control for chaotic effects, which must occur on a system with data this size if you increase the frequency of changes. If they can't at the same time go through their whole index, one change might be in the system working itsself through additionally, while the next is infused. This will also lead to chaos in my opinion in a non technical way, meaning there is so much change you can't really test anything meaningful as there is the threatened everflux will change the data, while you are doing the test.
some observations for my domain but first a tiny bit of background.
10 year old site in uk. 1.5 million pages. 18 million users in 2006.
No changes to usual traffic activity in december until 28th then bang. annhiliation. I have pages for places that exist nowhere else on the web. I still dont feature. G still indexes huge amounts of pages. PR remains the same. Cant really start blaming G as I dont believe I have an automatic right to top positions and to be fair have enjoyed years of nothing but rises.
I should add that I am not a webmaster but a publisher and have no real knowledge of these things work.
My question really is does the above sound like a penalty ( I am still number one for my site name) or just part of this update/flux?
I realise that if I have been penalised there is little I can do but am interested if any one here could shed some light?
Do you see any supplemetals when you run a search;
site:www.yoursite.com
Now, I'm thinking about moving this website to a new domain (like start an other website).
It's a 1 year old website, so maybe waiting for month and month in this situation it's not the better idea?
What do you think about that?
srry guys
thanks for responding
yes - all of them
18 november, same here, ill have another drink:(
Drink Cappuccino instead :-)
You and zegiv might wish to tell us more about what you see in:
site:www.yoursite.com
There is a search term used on 2 of my domains.
One is on
theme.example.com
which has a penalty. This domain writes much about this search term.
The other is on
name-of-a-geographic-region.com
The search term is there also in a title line,
because a shop in this geographic-region offers this search term.
This domain has no penalty.
Now big surpirse, theme.example.com is on rank 1, the other on rank 3.
I just wanted to celebrate the escape of theme.example.com out of the filter, but comparing 10 search terms from October 2005 where theme.example.com was not in the filter, it showed that I am no where and this all shows, theme.example.com is still in the filter.
apologies for banging on and/or showing my ignorance but what does this mean?
Check on this DC's:
[209.85.143.107...]
[66.249.89.107...]
[72.14.235.107...]
Hi Again resellerapologies for banging on and/or showing my ignorance but what does this mean?
No worries. IMO, and mostly. When Google see or classify pages as Unworthy, it turns them to supplementals and they mostly lose rankings on Google's serps.
Please don't regard above as solid fact, but only IMO.
Since this date, my Google traffic is near 20 visitors per day (it was 2600 before this).
From 2500 a day down to 500 a day.
Seems this is luck in unluck :-)
You and zegiv might wish to tell us more about what you see in:
site:www.yoursite.com
Google list 5 pages, all supplementals. The home page is not list in.
If I use the filter=0 option, Google list the same 5 pages. Next it list the home page and a lot of pages (not in supplementals).
If I use the "Search in french pages" option (with filter=1), Google list the home page and a lot of pages (not in supplementals).
My website was 12000 pages in November (10000 of them where supplementals), I've delete 10000 of them and now it is near 2600 pages.
Before I delete them, Google list them after the 5 pages describe before, all of them in supplementals.
Now I'm boring to wait for month and I think that I can be a better idea to move the content to another domain, but I've never do it before, so I'me not sure to dont make a mistake...
