Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Something is up. We monitor google.de very closely and the SERP's have remained very static for a couple of weeks now. No jumping around of sites as we have seen over the past months with the exception of a few sites that should not be ranked as highly as they are. Last time I saw this there was a big shake up. Lets hope for the best results ; )
[edited by: tedster at 5:39 am (utc) on May 1, 2009]
And now it's not only my sites, but some of the sites I host for other people on other servers (different hosts, IP ranges) are experiencing the same thing. Just big traffic drops from Google, but no SERP changes.
"site:" results seems to have stopped dropping, although all link data disappeared from one of my domains in the new look GWT, but they've come back now.
Extremely frustrating.
Google.de now gives back a set of results with mostly price comparing sites on page one. One or wo sites are commercial or with usefull content. All competitors are way down +2-3 pages. Why arenīt the price comparing pages not affected. With their link building with a lot of links in a short time, they must have triggered a filter?
Is it the relation between incoming and outgoing links?
One of my sites is also suffering from this penalty and we did nothing wrong and have been writing great articles and content for years, white hat SEO links, by forums, blogs and social media. I also believe we tripped a filter and hope to see the site come back soon.
No it is not, it comes once a week now instead of the usual every other day since the penalty. Last time it cached was the 18th of May!
It's not a one week thing, could be months. I have been in this for 3 weeks going on 4. I believe as a few have mentioned here before, it is a wire we tripped or a filter that google applied to it's algorithm and I am still hopeful sites will come back soon.
[webmasterworld.com...]
"This is definitely connected with spammy incoming links - we just got it confirmed by a Googler on a conference in Poland."
So it is NOT a case of "I fell -50 positions so there is no hope." This is giving a name or label too much power. I know two sites penalized last week that are already back from being down -50 after making a number of changes. And yet, there may well be other sites that are relatively locked in - and their total profile may be quite different.
It's important to keep your head, and to put a well-made thinking cap on top of it.
I read the whole thread. Idolw did say a googler confirmed this with him so now it is back to the drawing board to remove any spammy links I can find :)
One thing I did like about that thread was allot of positive responses, a few webmasters did say their site returned after some time, so not all hope is lost my friend. I am still optimistic.
This is definitely connected with spammy incoming links
If you see a lot of spammy incoming links and your business definitely did not place them, then I'd suggest indicating this to Google in your reconsideration request. I know of several situations where this kind of action seemed to help, in that the penalty was lifted soon after.
Google does not want to allow others to knock you out of the rankings this way (it's often called google-bowling).
Backlinks would seem to be a major area of concern.
However, I've no idea what to do if those backlinks can't be removed. Does Google re release those sites in time ?
Your competitors can tomorrow pay one or another cheap service for not more than $100 and knock you out top.
Here will be more honest from search enignes to ignore such a links and do not give any value to them then punishment site that very oft do not have anything to do with it.
1) You may have just paid $100 to PROMOTE your rival
2) If you are small-fry, you probably are not worth someone spending $100 (or at least the opportunity cost of that $100 is too great- more could be achieved by spending it elsewhere
3) If you are worth spending the $100 on, you may very well be immune to this type of G-bowling. Authority and Trust grant certain levels of immunity. The likely result is that the links are devalued, and the link seller punished.
No, what seems to be happening here is that the immunity has been somewhat lessened. This is particularly clear for the mega-brand link buyers, who really have been able to act with impunity up til now. Also caught are some small-time link-buying dablers.
My gut says this is the natural conclusion to the Vince suite of algo changes. First of all, give the Brands a boost so they can stand in their own right. Stabalise the SERPs. Then, remove the crutch that the brands previously relied on- paid links. Stabalise and re-normalise SERPs. Expect the Brand dial to increase and ImmunityRank(TM) to dial-down over time.
The NICHES that existed in a paid-link arms race were probably collateral damage, and may very well get their own footprint to allow this to continue. Alternatively, they may find their industry playing by new rules- to be successful, they may have to "Brand up".
Final thought. MegaBrand Corp spends $10m on AdWords, and $2m on paid links. Paid links no longer work. What are they likely to do with that spare marketing cash?
ImmunityRank(TM)
;) I love it!
I have typical example with one of my site that is 6 year old authority site and is not immune.
Every year at least once or twice site faced -50 or -300 or whatever penalties for almost all terms.
After 4-6 weeks come back to old positions.
I still think that it is ridiculous to be punishment for spammy incoming links because it is out our control.
Link should be not counted and link seller should be punished but not site that do not have control over links.
I have typical example with one of my site that is 6 year old authority site and is not immune.Every year at least once or twice site faced -50 or -300 or whatever penalties for almost all terms
[Emphasis mine]
The problem here is that different people have different concepts of authority. Good information and first page SERPs on a few kewords is not "Authority".
Is your site THE go-to place for information (think Which?, Consumer Reports, WebmasterWorld)? Referenced by .gov and .edu (proper ones, not old, lapsed domains)? Recognised as a brand by, say, 3-5% of your target market, and used by 1-3%? If not, you may have a good informational site, but its not an authority.
Also I am seeing in my logs that now people are searching for:
"my_author_name_on_my_site + my_keywords"
because they obviosly can't find my site in top of SERPS for my big keywords.
Something has to be done here.
Does anyone know of sites bouncing back yet that did nothing? Tedster you mentioned the sites you saw back had made changes-- link removal? Do you happen to know if they did a reconsid request also, or just came back this quick after changes?
We are aware of a few that did reconsid requests just a few days ago that are not back yet but it is just too soon.
If you're under some kind of penalty for linking, then this will certainly only delay any kind of comeback.
"What you think about this - just got couple of really quality backlinks including one pr8 backlink, of course niche related."
The biggest mistake you can make IMO. Google has mapped the PR8 - PR9 links by now and they have an idea who sells and who doesn't. If all you have is four cheesy forum links and 7 directories a PR8 will stand out!
Remove bad links by asking nicely (maybe sending $10-$20?), and ask for re inclusion.
.
Seems to have been another big drop in traffic over this weekend.
Memorial Day weekend, ignore it.
