Google doesn't like content anymore - am I wrong?

[specter]

I have some good pages on my site: they are unique, rich in quality contents, but they are far from getting a good ranking on G.
On the contrary, I see in top position for my "niche", pages with no text, or even removed...

That is the new Google policy?
Do contents have definitely loosen their importance?


Thanks

[Pjman]

I'm a firm believer that the results are worse these days for monetary reason. Have you had to go to page 2,3, even 4 more times these days?

I sure have...

How do you increase your revenue while losing market share, make them stay on your site longer. It really isn't rocket science,

G's really motto "Make results just good enough so they don't revolt!"

[Lorel]

they are unique, rich in quality contents, but they are far from getting a good ranking on G

Are they also something that visitors will want to link to or refer to others? Unless they are, then maybe you need to make some changes so they are, being as Google has just about eliminated every method we can use to promote those pages ourselves.

[louieramos]

Are your contents all similar to one another? Are you covering the same topic over and over?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

G's really motto "Make results just good enough so they don't revolt!"

This may not be that far from the truth considering that organic results are often no longer shown above the fold.

[tangor]

If one is in a "niche" then how different is your presentation from all the other offerings?

You might not be hit for "duplicate" but might be hit for "yawn" or "nothing to see, move along" or (dreaded) "copy cat".

There's unique and then there's unique!

[specter]

Google has just about eliminated every method we can use to promote those pages ourselves.

Yes, that's also my opinion...

...When I say unique, it means unique.
I have good pages but not many visits. it's a loop: no visits, no popularity, no popularity, no ranking, I suppose...
So, altough the site provides very important information, Google doesn't like it, and doesn't rank it well.
On the contrary, as already said, in the top positions for that keyword there are some unrelevant pages, with no content (a closed forum for example) or with 4-5 years old contents...

Those are the Google paradoxes...

[tangor]

Unique is a site about Padleskitalism. Anything else is what's out there and a bunch of others, too. Padleskitalism is UNIQUE. (Just invented it... but is not unique any longer since Bing and Google will have this indexed lickety-split.)

I think my websites are unique, too. Me and 1,000+ similar minded folks. I do think that my PRESENTATION of same is a tad more unique (less hoops, more direct, etc.)

Padleskitalism is a study of padding less for the skit and alism is just an appropriate ending. :)

[PayMePerClick]

It's all about links. Internal links. External Inbound links. And some content. So many people rank ahead of us that have unique content AND a ton of inbound links. Are they obtaining these links via white-hat methods? No, not always. But good luck getting Google to read any complaints or reports without having a NY Times article being written.

Example: Go type in "venues" on Google. Most people would logically think a searcher is looking for a specific venue, or a list of venues. Why are there TWO definitions of the word "venue" on the first page?! Why is there a top 10 listing for a poetry website in Southern California that has a few venues for reading poetry listed?! I am not even in America. Venue Insurance? Get lost, Google. Bully.

[Lorel]

Content needs to be not only unique but one of the first with that unique topic, otherwise it gets buried under other "uniques" on the same topic.

[HuskyPup]

Example: Go type in "venues" on Google.

Why is there a top 10 listing for a poetry website in Southern California that has a few venues for reading poetry listed?!

A few? 350+ venues is a few? It would seem to be fairly popular to me.

Venue insurance? I don't have a problem with that either, strangely enough I do have an annual venues insurance for outside events.

It's all about links. Internal links. External Inbound links. And some content.

I don't solicit nor have even ever asked for links, I have a new site with some 200+ pages built since Panda was launched and all the pages are ranking well, some are even #1 and I do have some strong competition for many of these products, the difference is that my pages are superior in every aspect of widget information, images and site architecture, any page can be accessed with a maximum of two clicks...Google likes that, the user likes that, and when I've got the site to 1,000+ pages any page will still be accessible with a maximum of two clicks.

[chrisv1963]

the difference is that my pages are superior in every aspect of widget information, images and site architecture, any page can be accessed with a maximum of two clicks...

Sounds like my main website. Some users even sent emails to tell me how good and informative it is. A group of investors wanted to buy it last year. It got pandalized ...

[specter]

We are only wasting our time talking about uniqueness/not uniqueness: someone should explain me why an empty forum stands in first position since the last year, with only a page saying: "this forum has been removed"; what should be its "uniqueness"!?!
My site is not unique, obvious, but unique are the information that it provides, it's something very specialized in its scope, but stands in 18#...
The same for the site architecture: absolutely unrelevant.
Something gone wrong with that new algo that generates weird results and surely doesn't resolves spam issue in the serps. Unless...that is a calculated strategy to get a mass migration on paid advertising...

[tedster]

Something gone wrong with that new algo that generates weird results

Absolutely agree. Sometimes it goes very far south.

[Reno]

the results are worse these days for monetary reason

People on this forum are probably tired of me constantly criticizing Google, but I can't help it because I totally agree with the quoted statement.

I do realize that many folks refuse to believe that their beloved Google-of-Old would put profits before quality. Well, we can agree to disagree, because Google-of-Old has been gone for a long time and at this point I am convinced that monetary considerations are the primary focus (and have been since IPO days).

Individual engineers at G may not want that; Matt may not want that; but the people higher on the ladder want it and they call the shots. The proof is in what we see ~ worse results; organics below the fold; too many penalties for utilizing other methods to generate traffic (like link swapping); Google properties taking over more & more spots... the list goes on.

The one thing I'll grant Google is this: Organizing "the world's information" has GOT to be just about as big a job as has ever been undertaken. But they've done a better job in the past, and now they are losing ground on quality, even as profits go up. Losing quality may bug the PTB on some level, but it would bother them even more if profits dropped, and at Google2011, money trumps everything.

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[specter]

I'd like to clarify that I don't "love" Google, just like many other here, I suppose. I won't cry if someone criticizes Google...
The fact is that for many of us, getting good ranking on the Major search engine is a basic question.
Besides I'd like to escape from Google as fast as possible but there are no alternatives; I'm getting few visits from Google, thrue, but ZERO from other engines; there are no competitors...
Seems that there is no way to escape from the new Google commercial policy...

[netmeg]

There are plenty of crappy results for areas that don't even run any ads. I absolutely agree that there are issues, but I don't agree that it's all about AdWords.

[HuskyPup]

The same for the site architecture: absolutely unrelevant.

Firstly it's irrelevant...and secondly you have a lot to learn if you believe that!

[minnapple]

I have an eleven year old hobby web site that has a lot of content that can be found on many other websites.

My site gets many kudos and a load of traffic from social sites, not because of the uniqueness of the content, but by how a few content sources are logically paired together, and organized in a way that makes for a pleasurable user experience.

Google mostly ignores the site, generating 5% of the traffic and the rest comes from social sites.

Content is king? Google is all? We all really need to rethink these old standards.

[Kenneth2]

Google Panda places heavy emphasis on brand factor. The page of the branded site could have zero content but they would still rank well because of better brand score.

An example in my case
#*$! review page of branded site has almost zero content (awaiting user input ? ), appear on page 1.


#*$! review page (same product) of my site has plenty of words and images. but appears on page 3.

Brand is the new king, content is queen.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

After the IPO Google seemed to be trying to balance quality results with all out commercialism and profit seeking. They managed to do this for two or three years but more recently they have been speeding towards owning the Internet - total commercialism and to hell with SERPs. Their raison d'etre used to be providing the best search results. This is now a distant third to their quest for profit and total dominance.

Each time a new search engine comes along and fails it confirms to them that they are becoming more and more untouchable. They can do what they like and they are a commercial organisation that owns all World's information. That is a situation that makes me distinctly uncomfortable. As soon as a search engine pushes organic results below the fold in favour of adverts there is something seriously wrong. They need to be controlled.

They are happy to break laws in countries all over the World knowing that if challenged they just say, "Sorry, our mistake. We won't do it again" or use their legal might to challenge the laws that don't suit them in court.

What is developing is not nice.

[specter]

Firstly it's irrelevant...and secondly you have a lot to learn if you believe that!

Managing sites since 1995 I do not believe to have something to learn about sites construction and architecture...
My site structure is ok. Besides, many "relevant" sites has a very bad structure bud rank very well...
So that for sure is not an issue...

[specter]

There are plenty of crappy results for areas that don't even run any ads. I absolutely agree that there are issues, but I don't agree that it's all about AdWords.

In fact, my site is not a commercial site, nonetheless, it was struck from the new Google arrangement.
But I think it's a "side" of a policy mainly conceived for business sites...

[specter]

Google Panda places heavy emphasis on brand factor. The page of the branded site could have zero content but they would still rank well because of better brand score.

That could be right. But doesn't explain why no branded sites stand in top rankings...

[Zivush]

Accept it or not - that is how monopolies work and Google is a monopoly and not non-profit social organization..
They want virtually untouched profits free gain with no regulations and no anti trust laws.
They want to do anything they want to do and as a result of that they created this Panda Algorithm update - To weaken any big site around while giving some shallow/scarper sites shine for while.

[tangor]

Whoa! Google is as google does, ie, it's a biz and every thing they do is about money. No "social organization" behind that. But freely admit we get conflicting signals as to what to do next. We'll always be behind the eight ball with every algo change... They do it, we frantically try to figure it out... which comes back to the OP's topic: "Google doesn't like content anymore"...

[shazam]

There is some real truth in the op's title.

I have personally recovered a half dozen pandalized sites by essentially making them more directory like. They all had too much content on the home and other main pages. I removed the excerpts completely, added star ratings in their place and made the main pages nothing more than a crappy directory, and goo loves them once again.

I had another site just last week that was really starting to compete in an insanely competitive niche. The site was trash, so I spent a few days really making it user friendly with a great structure and layout. I increased the quality of the user experience 1000 fold and added some top notch content. Well, as could be expected, the site was instantly penalized and sandboxed. I'm sure I could ruin the site, and restore what it was, but I refuse to do it and will pay the price in lost revenues. Luckily for me, there are some attractive media buy options available in this niche so I may just start investing and testing traffic quality from other sources. These days, I would rather spend my ad dollars outside of adwords just as a matter of principle.

It's clear that one of goo's goals is to make seo an unprofitable and unworkable solution, thus increasing revenues and creating more unemployed folks. Giving away free traffic to the best sites in highly profitable niches is no longer part of the business plan. Rather, buying companies and directing traffic to goo owned pages or advertisers is where they are obviously headed.

[Reno]

It's clear that one of goo's goals is to make seo an unprofitable and unworkable solution

Yes yes yes. I posted years ago that one of the most stupid and destructive Google penalties (there are so many) is for "over optimization", which I read as "you're doing TOO GOOD a job". Google was rewarding mediocrity back then and they reward it now. In the process of killing off SEO, they could not tell the forest from the trees, so they've killed off or seriousy injured millions of really good content sites. A self fulfilling prophecy, as far as I'm concerned. Google purposely decided to burn the village to save the village, and the current mess is what they have left.

Addendum: Were there / are there sites that use black hat SEO and thus deserve to die the death of a thousand cuts? Absolutely! But for every one success, there are ten failures. By "failure" I mean that black hat is still ranking; or, a good, clean, well designed, decent content white hat took a bullet.

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

[walkman]

You say you have content but is it "unique and compelling" ? Does anyone, anywhere else, use the same words or talks about that same topic? Then it's not unique and GoogleBots on Google's 'support forums' will gladly tell you that *

_{* This does not apply to brands or sites that can embarrass Google on Twitter, Wired or NYT}

Content is useless, I noticed it after the second Panda. Now looking at Wisegeek (by accident I went there) their content is actually very good and very much improved. A few weeks ago they had no ads either and when I checked they saw no traffic increase at all.

The downside of having no content sites is that Google will ban them for being thin, maybe in the next hour. Of course you can't complain because you had a "thin site."

Bottom line, as some have mentioned, enjoy the Google monopoly, they don't care and have no incentive to care, until their earnings hurt. Google's advice, the algo and our position always change. They only thing that doesn't change for the worst are Google's earnings, going up with each 'search quality improvement.'

[Simsi]

Obviously the quality of content should be the #1 ranking factor but it isn't. But that's no-one's "fault". It's just that technology isn't advanced enough to do that yet. Until then it's down to us to be resourceful.

The main issue is that Search is in it's infancy and it's far, far away from where it needs to be. That should hopefully change one day but even if it does there will never be enough effective spots to keep everyone happy.