Is Google demoting blogs? We see them disappearing from SERPS.

[stcrim]

In just the past few days, we have noticed several blogs that normally do very well in the search results, no longer do. It is as though Google shuffled the deck, pushing blogs down in the results.

Our sampling is about 10 sites - anyone else seeing this?

-s-

[tedster]

Are these blogs all on their own dedicated domains, or subdomains of another site, or subdirectories? I'm also wondering if they are hosted independently or on a blogging service.

[trakkerguy]

No change in the 35 or so that I work on...

[Rosalind]

10 blogs isn't much of a sample, unless they are all on varied topics and entirely non-interlinked. Because if they are related in any way, then one of them losing its link juice, for whatever reason, could affect what you are seeing on all of them.

[stcrim]

They are all top level domains with individual IPs. (I'm old school on IPs).

They have about 5 different subjects. They all have outbound links to very informative, non-related blogs and websites.

They all have Google Adsense and Amazon affiliate links on them.

They all slipped dramatically between Thursday and Friday of this week. They are not invisible - on a tiny handful of terms they still do well and they are doing well in blog.google.com. But with that said, 9/10 of their traffic is gone.

Any thoughts? Additional questions?

-s-

[julinho]

Do they have the same themes? same plugins?
Are they hosted at the same server (i.e., with same security vulnerabilities)?

Run Xenu to check out outbound links.
Run a Googlebot spoofer to see how Googlebot sees the code of your pages.

[stcrim]

We are starting to see lots of people with this same problem. Anyone else dealing with this?

-s-

[Timetraveler]

I've seen it but it's for sites blogs whom are selling links. Even one or two sold links got them thrown to page 6. Usually a "sponsored" or "paid" section was on the navi bar.

[Wlauzon]

I think Google finally figured out that a lot of blogs are nothing more than adfarms with RSS feeds.

[Jane_Doe]

Lately I think they have been turning up the trust rank dial, which may hurt blogs indirectly because they usually get most of their link from other blogs, and not really high trust places like colleges, newspapers, government sites and nonprofits.

[Quadrille]

Also, the sheer number of blogs is still increasing exponentially, which must occasionally lead to a rejig with dilution of benefits.

[CainIV]

I don't see a drop for blogs in the sectors I watch. I do have a few questions which might help us get to the heart of the issue for you.

They are all top level domains with individual IPs. (I'm old school on IPs).

Are they hosted on the same C class server? If you are unsure, you can find out by searching for 'c class checker' and using free tools to determine this. If they are hosted on the same C class server, they may be more prone to wholescale 'network' drops (one blog drops and so do 4 others at the same time)

They have about 5 different subjects. They all have outbound links to very informative, non-related blogs and websites.

Do they also have inbound links from very informative websites?

They all have Google Adsense and Amazon affiliate links on them.

Not usually a problem unless overdone, or in the case where there is little content on each. Make sure each affiliate link is nofollowed. Use htaccess if possible to redirect a page from your website to the affiliate site for each link, as opposed to linking directly.

Are the blogs also linked together themselves?