Google Is Working on an Algo Fix - to help wrongly demoted sites

[tedster]

Here's official news that many sites have been waiting to hear. Google fellow Amit Singal is quoted in Wired:

"We deeply care about the people who are generating high-quality content sites, which are the key to a healthy web ecosystem," Singhal said.

"Therefore any time a good site gets a lower ranking or falsely gets caught by our algorithm - and that does happen once in a while even though all of our testing shows this change was very accurate - we make a note of it and go back the next day to work harder to bring it closer to 100 percent."

"That's exactly what we are going to do, and our engineers are working as we speak building a new layer on top of this algorithm to make it even more accurate than it is," Singhal said.

[wired.com...]

[freejung]

It appears to me that Google has done a great deal to create artificial stability in their results. Most of the time they're much more stable than they were 5 or more years ago. There are occasional exceptions to this, and then people notice and complain. In 2002 the results totally shuffled around every month, and we just accepted that as the climate in which we were doing business.

[Bewenched]

Went ahead and did a re-inclusion request today, no telling if that will help at all.

We've done nothing wrong, but then again we did nothing wrong when they rolled out the Florida update which screwed us for about 6 months.

This couldnt have come at a worse time of the year for ecommerce sites.... everyone is getting their income tax checks back now.

-----

FYI, Texas Gal here ;)

[edited by: Bewenched at 8:12 pm (utc) on Mar 2, 2011]

[realseopro]

@jerseyguy - well if you turn on your "Show NoFollows" button, all those pink links say otherwise. OSE doesn't see 'em as dofollow either.

And I disagree with the blanket remarks about Texas earlier in the thread. But everyone's entitled to a little venting. Just don't hate on the whole state.

[MrFewkes]

This kind of crying about google has been going on for about 9 years.

They always do people over - always.

Nothing has happened to bring them down in 9 years - and the way us lot carry on crying and bleating like lost sheep all the time like this - nothing ever will.

We are owned. This is not a call to action or anything - I am aware this forum is not for that - but action is what is needed - not crying.

:) (im being polite?)

[netmeg]

(re-inclusion can take up to several weeks or more, even when they work; manage your expectations accordingly)

[Bewenched]

@MrFewkes
Well ... without all the bleating and carrying on how will they know that something is wrong? They monitor our posts here and I do believe that they do take our posts into consideration. At least I hope so..

I'm trying to remain positive and trying not to think about who will get laid off this time if traffic doesn't come back.

[MrFewkes]

Bewenched,

Point taken - I hope things come back for you and your staff.

I am coming from the angle of the whole big picture - google are too big and too dominant. All we do is cry and hope - its all wrong in my mind - we just dont do anything.

Will they listen? Not if it doesnt benefit them.

I have to curb my words.

I wasnt affected by this change - but boy do I feel sorry for those who were.

[dickbaker]

They're not going to roll back this update, so I expect that any changes my site will see from a re-examination will not restore my rankings to anywhere near what they were. Out of 600 top key phrases I'm tracking for my site, 90% or so of the pages had double or triple digit or even infinite drops. This new algo doesn't like my site. ;)

Maybe I should call some politicians who owe me favors.

[wyweb]

@realseopro

And I disagree with the blanket remarks about Texas earlier in the thread

Their are some sharp minds in Texas. I lived there for years and knew many of them. It is unfair to condemn an entire state just because their ruling legal system doesn't have the capacity to take on a major internet player.

I didn't think I was doing that. "Blanket" remarks mean referencing an entire section. I believe I used the word "most."

If it gets in front of a jury a slick Texas attorney can probably sway them, and they've got a few down there. Slick attorneys. They'll emphasize "loss," "lay-offs," "business destroyed," "families put on the street".

They'll stay away from terms like "entitlement" though. If it gets in front of a Texas jury, I can see it going against Google, even if it shouldn't have.

Look, It's Google's game. It's their court. It's their ball. It's their rules. If you don't like em, don't play. Don't even suit up.

I wasn't condemning Texas. Hell, I'm a southern boy. Redneck even. I love that state. Lived there for years. Their thinking is backwards sometimes though. Government. Not you.

[brinked]

sadly there are a lot of people who will always have a gripe with this update. From what I can see they did a great job moving down a lot of poor quality/similar cheap type sites.

A lot of people who complain do not realize that there site just is not that great. People feel a certain entitlement to a SERP just because they have ranked there for so long, getting away with shoddy content and a poor spammy/paid backlink profile. Gone are those days and now are the days where unique, updated, fresh content is what works.

[MrFewkes]

Brinked - in my experience - my competitors do best with

Non-updated
Non-fresh
Non-unique
Forum profile inbound links

This update hasnt effected that - the above 4 items are what works.

That guy isnt a MFA though - so in that respect the update has worked in that it hasnt hammered him. Its just he a different kind of baddie I suppose.

[brinked]

MrFewkes,

There is just too many different kinds of sites out there to try to make a 1 size fits all. Some sites do not need to be updated frequently to thrive.

I can only go by the SERP's I monitor which only cover 8 different markets, only 2 of which are e-commerce.

What I am seeing is competitors who have multiple sites with similar content get knocked down. I am also seeing sites with poor backlink profiles get knocked down very far (lots of witewides, over useage of keywords, linkwheels, comment spam etc)

There is always a reason why a site ranks as high as it does, just like there is a reason why a site ranks as low as it does. You are seeing only the negatives of this site, but google clearly sees some value in it, unless the competition just is not that strong.

Remember, there are hundreds of factors. This site can be very popular on social groups, have strong backlinks that you cant see etc.

If you're whole approach is to wait for your competitors to all get knocked down by google, then that is the wrong way to go about it. All you can do is focus on your site and your business and make it better than your competition, and if you do that you will see the fruits of your labor in time. People have a way of finding out the best in a given market and then sharing it with others.

[apauto]

For those of you affected, have you noticed a traffic increase from Yahoo or Bing?

I just noticed that my Yahoo/Bing referrals are up since yesterday, almost double. Still low compared to Google...

I'm wondering if people aren't finding their intended search on Google, and going to other engines...

[walkman]

A lot of people who complain do not realize that there site just is not that great. People feel a certain entitlement to a SERP just because they have ranked there for so long, getting away with shoddy content and a poor spammy/paid backlink profile. Gone are those days and now are the days where unique, updated, fresh content is what works.

Google has already admitted that they screwed up and a lot of sites were caught for no reason, still you go on and preach nonsense. More Catholic than the Pope? Now it's really a bad time to rub it in, if your site hasn't been hit.

[edited by: walkman at 10:55 pm (utc) on Mar 2, 2011]

[dataguy]

You know, before this update occurred Google said they were going to sacrifice relevance to improve quality.

And you know what? Google's search results are not nearly as relevant today as they were a week ago.

I guess they delivered on what they promised.

I'm starting to look forward to the day when Google is completely irrelevant, not just their search results.

</rant>

[Spencer]

In the early stages of this update I did mention most of the issues mentioned in these threads, but unfortunately my posts were deleted. I'm glad I bothered to post, but would really like to be have my membership deleted from now on. I find the people that oversee this forum too eager to accept the opinions of the old faces and too eager to dismiss the comments of those of us who do not post regularly. Please do not bother contacting me Tedster, just delete my membership ... I've had it with you all :-)

[limoshawn]

Seems like google may be "fixing" their algo update, we are back to getting crap traffic today, after 5 days of good converting ecom traffic.

you all knew there was another side to the story, here it is, we have been fairly happy since the algo changed, our adwords content spend was down significantly and we had good, converting organic and adwords search traffic. ecom/info site, no adsense or affiliates.

back to the rat race!

[limoshawn]

and a lot of sites were caught for no reason

I don't remember them saying "a lot"....

[tristanperry]

"Google: We've Made No "Significant" Changes To The Farmer Update" - [searchengineland.com...]

So seems the algo 'fix' was a tad overhyped and it's only been minor tweaks thus far? This isn't to say that a noticeable fix isn't coming, of course.

[TheMadScientist]

Emphasis Mine ... Source linked in the preceding post.

Sites that believe they have been adversely impacted by the change should be sure to extensively evaluate their site quality. In particular, it’s important to note that low quality pages on one part of a site can impact the overall ranking of that site.

That's saying something right there.

[brinked]

Walkman, I am not rubbing anything in. Heck I did not win in this update, only 2 sites gained a few positions and a handful of really old sites were dropped, pretty much costing me about $60 a day in income.

From what I see, overall this is a good update. Will there be innocent sites that get hit? Of course there will be, thats part of the game, you cant please everyone. Everyone complains that sites with crappy content, duplicate sites rank too high etc, now google is doing something about it and everyone complains.

I am not saying a lot of people on here do not have a reason to be sour. The fact of the matter is, a lot of people come to me, some from these very forums and they all sound the same, it goes something like "my site no longer ranks for these terms, I do not know why google would do this to me, it has always ranked high and now sites of lesser quality outrank me". When I ask to see there site, 90% of the time there are obvious reasons why there site was hit.

If your site was dropped, you need to take a step back and evaluate your business. If you take a hit you need to do something about it to improve. I feel for a lot of people who are losing business from this undeserved, but there loss is someone elses gain. What about that high quality site who can never rank because of the spam that ranks ahead of him?

From my perspective, this update has done more good than it has done harm. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but there were a lot of disgruntled webmasters before this anyway.

This is kind of similar to a person being rich, cruising through life with very little effort, maybe the money they had was not deserved. One day they wake up and they realize they spent all there money, they did nothing to invest and protect themselves, and not wanting to go back to how there life was before all that money, they are going to blame everyone but themselves.

You can blame google all you want, google does not care, I have been through so much because of google over the last 12 years, I developed an alcohol problem because of updates just like this, depression so bad I did not want to wake up in the morning. I eventually came to the realization I had to just change up the game plan, trial and error, take notes until I find a winning formula. If you took a hit, do not depend on google, take matters into your own hands and make some changes. Do not be afraid of making changes to your site, update the home page, add a blog to it, make a facebook app, get on twitter, start focusing on your brand and not what google thinks of you and then good things will happen.

[Reno]

be sure to extensively evaluate their site quality
(Emphasis mine

This word ~ "quality" ~ keeps coming up over & over & over, yet we have NO idea what it means, because it means different things to different people. And the only people that count are in the Googleplex, and they ain't sayin'. Or rather, what they are saying is empty spin. It's not a rats hair different than a politician saying we need "change", or Tide saying it is "New & Improved". Utterly & totally meaningless.

......................

[chrisv1963]

A crappy old website I made years ago with free hosting is now on the first page (10th position of 11,000,000 search results). This website has 7 pages, more broken outgoing links than links that still work and has been updated for the last time almost 6 years ago. The quality of the website is awful. I even forgot it was still there. In the eyes of the new Google "quality" algo this is a cute little website that everyone needs to see.

[Reno]

it’s important to note that low quality pages on one part of a site can impact the overall ranking of that site.

I agree with you Mad, that is saying something. It says small sites made up entirely of big so-called "quality" pages may have an advantage; and it says if you have a big site with some pages that may be "thin" (because they do not need to be fat!), it could hurt you.

So here's my question:

Does it make sense for siteowners to evaluate each & every page in their site and make the determination as to whether the page will help in the Google algo evaluation, and if it will not help, does it make sense to do a "noindex, nofollow" on all those pages? and also, remove them from sitemap.xml and outright block them in robots.txt?

..........................

[JohnRoy]

>> is now on the first page
For what keyword?
- these nonsense sites will always be on top when searching for "old nice free hosted special longtail widget"

[browsee]

@brinked, we are not blaming G for the change. We are suggesting that G released this gigantic change without proper testing. Look at the example from Chrisv1963, there are thousands of examples like that. It is fine to defend G, as they did pretty amazing things in the past. But they really screwed up this time.

[vandread]

Reno I'm currently thinking about this as well, specifically to get Wordpress tag pages de-indexed in Google as they could be considered thin content. But since I have no idea if it actually impacts my site's overall quality I'm wary of changing it.

[kd454]

I am seeing the same thing regarding older crap sites, I have several and this update did nothing to them, actually seeing a little more traffic to them.

My older more authority sites took the big hit.. Has nothing to do with quality of the articles, there is another profile these sites fit in that I cannot put my finger on.

Funny that one of my sites that has the same structure, content, link profile and age got a nice boost from this update, when the others took a hit.

Makes no sense what so ever.

[walkman]

Google has told us that it made no manual change to help improve how the Cult Of Mac site is doing, nor is it making any types of manual changes along these lines.

I call BS on that one. A few hours after Matt Cutts noticed and promised action, he magically came back up. Google got embarrassed so they are trying to spin it

[chrisv1963]

Funny that one of my sites that has same structure, content, link profile and age got a nice boost from this update, when the other took a hit.

I'm seeing the same for 2 sites I own. Site 1 (about 1000 pages) is 11 years old. Site 2 (about 18000 pages) is 10 years old. The structure and quality of the sites is similar.
The site with 1000 pages got a boost. The site with 18000 pages took a hit. It almost looks like the number of pages is playing a role in this algo.