27 June screwup - theory

[donelson]

We have a bunch of sites that have been badly affected by the 27 June screwup.

However, we have one site that is still #1 for the two main keywords.

I have looked at various theories, to no avail so far.

Here's another ---

Do any of you have badly affected sites in which the home page has AdSense with pictures right above the AdSense banner?

I have four pix semi-aligned above the three- or four-text AdSense listings.

Google actually wrote me an email a while back saying this was okay as long as the pictures were not intended to mislead visitors, just to "draw the eye" to the AdSense area.

BUT, the site I have that's not affected by the 27 June screwup does NOT have these pix above the AdSense area.

Yes, another screwy theory --- anyone else think this might be a problem?

[colin_h]

It's a common occurance, mainly caused by the fluctuation in data centres that supply your results. Each DC has slightly different priorities and gives differing results accordingly ... at present all hell is breaking loose, so it doesn't make much sense.

Ever-flux seems to be just that.

All the Best

Col :-)

[akreider]

I have a new site that was created in the Fall of 2005, had a huge surge in traffic on March 28th. It maintained the high level of traffic until June 28th where it fell to almost the exact bottom of the SERPs (for very rare terms). It has remained at the bottom.

I have another site with an extremely similar structure (eg uses the same template), just a different subject (kind of large blue widgets vs small blue widgets), which has not show any significant fluctation either on March 28th or June 28th or any other time since the Fall of 2006. Perhaps a significant difference was that I created it several weeks after the first site.

My experience agrees with people who've said that this has nothing to do with a filter being applied (or any other kind of penalty for doing a certain practice). If there was a penalty, it would have been applied to both of my sites - and I didn't see that.

[kidder]

Something is breaking loose that's for sure - I just did the morning scan of the data centers to see how things are today. Right now all I can find are the "brown" results for my sites so I would say at this moment things are worse. At least earlier in the week I could find some good results on some DC's. The thing that is hard to take is the quality of the sites that are now holing down key places.

[Wibfision]

Yes, 64.233.189.104 which had remained good for my site now shows similar results to the other data centers. It would appear that the remaining hope has disappeared.

[AustrianOak]

It's very clear to me and many others that this IS A PENALTY of some sort. Why would complete white-hat sites that have been around for years, ranked well always, provide unique content on a weekly basis get bumped down 3,4,5 pages while spam, scrapper, and other spam sites get the #1 position.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..

I for one have been screwed since April 26th, then June 27th got the final axe. What can be done? I don't think anything can.. how can we make a white-hat site more white-hat when spam sites are being rewarded?

Just hopeing for some light at the end of the tunnel..

[tflight]

While I want to continue to have hope, I'm now seeing a few disturbing things. Someone asked Matt to explain his "I believe any changes on the 27th were refreshing data used by an existing algorithm" comment and he replied:

that just means that it's not a new algorithm. It will be perceived as a big change to some people, but most people won't notice much difference. And that algorithm is refreshed with new data we compute every few weeks. Hope that makes sense.

There are a few people who think they see a PR update and backlink update becoming visible now. I just checked my backlinks and they are about 1/4 what they were yesterday. That can't be a good sign.

I think I need to start looking for a new job. :(

[sandpetra]

Page Rank update is under way

[kidder]

It would be interesting to know how far and wide this whole June 27th Google problem has spread. Looking at my market sector I can quickly identify at least 3 other sites that have been hit besides now 4 of my own. The first couple of weeks have been stressfull but now with 5 years of work on the table I am considering buying the biggest black hat I can get my hands on. Wake up Google the good guys are hurting!

[FrostyMug]

well, even pages sacked since june 27th are getting higher PR updates... what is going on? :(

[pechspilz]

LOL
One of my small sites (230 pages) just has gone into supplemental. Completely. This may well have to do with a PR update because this site has only 3 IBL.

[FinanceGirls]

Earlier in the week we noticed that people were findind us using more keywords and so traffic was slowly going up. Since yesterday traffic has started to go back down and we noticed we had dropped another spot. What took our place, a site with hardly any content. Just a list of affiliate links. I was thinking Google was going after affiliates, I guess not.

[tigger]

the problem is with all this messing around no one can say for sure what G is going after, in fact the results are so random it makes me wonder if G really knows anymore and like yourself I'm seeing spammy affiliates popping up everywhere

[FinanceGirls]

How does one go about learning how to be a black hat? We've decided to cross over. No joke. We talked about it this morning, and when my other partners see tonights stats, its going to be a definate. Please private msg me if you have any good resources.

[edited by: FinanceGirls at 7:57 am (utc) on July 14, 2006]

[peter andreas]

Things are inconsistant at the moment. We have gone up in the google directory (ranking above sites who now are 10's in front of us in the serps) and got improved PR. It seems to change every day, they through some crumbs then before I can pick them up they vacuum them away. I still think it will settle down for the best-ever the optomist...

[Wibfision]

The next "data refresh" must only be a week or so away now. Maybe that will restore us. What exactly is a data refresh anyway? Quoting from Matt's blog, back in September 2005, he says:

Usually, what registers with an update to the webmaster community is when we update an algorithm (or its data)

We know he has said the algorithm is the same - so what have they done with the data? Beats me what goes on in the 'Plex.

[jetteroheller]

Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 all my domains, affected from June 27 or not, increased about 20% in traffic.

[night707]

Google traffic still down at zero since June 27 and it seems to be making sense going from white hat to black hat. Big G doesn`t seem to like quality sites anymore.

[kidder]

For some very competitive 2 keyword word searches I am back at number 1 to 3. But only my index page gets any search traffic. And it's only 1 site from 3. Internal pages are still very much in the can. I guess you could call it a "tweak" but I've jumped above a spam site. gotta be happy with that.

[iam david lee]

Hi all

Is the update still going on or is it finished... one of my sites is showing 10k pages on some datacenters and 900 pages on some datacenters...

i am not sure which server is using the lastest data, anyone know which one?

thanks

[iam david lee]

is the new data going to be from
64 IP servers
or 72 IP servers...

[Hissingsid]

is the new data going to be from
64 IP servers
or 72 IP servers...

Both

and

neither!

The 72s have 2 distinct data sets on them according to my sensitive term. So even if someone had an answer to your question it wouldn't be the right answer.

I'd just choose one you like and pray.

Sid

[G_Smitty]

Wow! I noticed today that many of the top sites in my sector have been replaced by directories and scraper sites. The directories and scraper sites are full of links and copied content form previously top ranked sites.

One of the top ranked sites once hijacked my home page.

At least Yahoo and MSN have been consistent with my site over the past 6 years. I roll the dice with Google.

[Northstar]

I noticed this thread seems to be dying down. Did any one regain the losses they had on dooms day (June 27)? I know my poor Google traffic is still in the crapper. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that in the next update things improve even some would be nice.

[appi2]

For me still way down on page five. ONE just ONE sale since.
Six years online
So I suppose thats it. numb...
Thanks google.

[here should be all those words mummy never told you to say]

Anyone know where I can get a ground to air missile? Certain jet im after.

[ltedesco]

Nothing yet! :o(
I guess everybody still waiting for the 2 or 3 weeks that Matt mentioned.
It will come back!

[FinanceGirls]

I just sunk under yet another no content all aff links site. Traffic went up briefly but not its gone way down.
:(

[jetteroheller]

Did any one regain the losses they had on dooms day

Since July 12 a small improvement over several sites,
regardless effected or not effected from June 27

[pixellion]

All of my 15 sites have disappeared completely from Google. All these sites have been steady since 1998. All of them have vanished and I made zip everyday.

So, now I think of Google as only a channel to find targeted visitors. I have now started to focus on other channels such as mass email marketing etc. In my situation and experience email marketing brings in more traffic than any free web traffic combined.

Screw Google. I'm not going to waste any more of my time figuring out what's going on with Google...

[Lorel]

The two sites I have been watching that lost a lot of their pages are both having pages replaced in the index BY THE HOUR.

[SEOPTI]

So our new slogan "It's nice to be black" :)