Is google now making it harder for known SEO people to rank?

[brinked]

I have an interesting dilemma right now. I have been launching some small content rich websites that have very very little competition.

I mostly put them on my one dedicated server that I have reserved for small projects like these. I noticed that these websites have been harder to rank than very similar sites I have been hosting on a shared hosting account through dreamhost.

I kept on disregarding that theory but the more and more I put up websites, the more I notice how much more ridiculously easy it is to rank for websites being hosted on the dreamhost account.

By competition, I mean these 2 word terms have the domains available for registration in .com format so thats a good indication of the very low competition. I have a full unique content rich 6 page site with great content, images, unique videos I personally took etc that have not ranked anywhere for 2 months.

A domain I registered and did nothing with ranks #3 for its 2 word phrase. I did not even assign nameservers, the "Welcome! This domain was recently registered" page is indexed in google.

So my question is, has google labeled my as a known SEO person that they are labeling as someone that tries to game their system so a different set of rules are being applied to me?

Of course, I can just be paranoid, but this has happened too frequently recently for me to just dismiss. I need to further explore this to make a better decision.

[netmeg]

I doubt it. Considering who can rank for what, out in the world.

[Propools]

IDK. Doesn't seem like a conspiracy theory or anything but it may have some merit.

I've often wondered if the Big Boys keep track of IP information and associate it with people, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbes, tertiary stuff; then tic-tac-toe it.

[Propools]

Which makes me wonder.........
The more granular the data we put on a site, isn't that all the much more than can be gleened from a site or about a site designer.

"Schema" anyone? That's the ultimate granular detail.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I doubt there is a rank scale assigned to webmasters based on SEO knowledge but it may happen indirectly. If Google is profiling webmasters as individuals it may also assign individuals a trust rating and in turn that may cause your sites/pages to be accepted quickly, or not so quickly.

You notice with Google+ that Google seems to care less about individual domains and more about the domains assigned to you as a group. Same in GWT where you're asked to reveal authorship information.

[mrguy]

Are you using your own nameserver on your server and do you have different IPS or are they sites all one one shared IP.

If you answered yes to both, then it's not hard at all for Google to profile you.

To think that Google wouldn't do something like that is like actually thinking Google doesn't do evil.

[jsherloc]

Do you guys believe that Panda could/would play a role in this type of "identification/intent classification", if it really is happening?

My paranoid mind is starting to think that there is some type of classification at play here. If there is, does Google simply believe that the benefits of the services/data/tools they provide webmasters will easily outweigh any of the potential negatives of using these same tools, and thus they'll be able to ignore/drown out/downplay webmaster's complaints and requests for slivers of clarification again? Something tells me the answer is "yes"...

[scooterdude]

Yes, but they make exceptions to keep us guessing

[FranticFish]

I think you give Google far too much credit.

I was asked to assess a website for a potential client today and found doorway pages ranking. They followed this format:

- title on key phrase
- link on that phrase to the 'proper' page on site
- 100 words supporting the phrase
- javascript redirect long the lines of window.location.href to the 'proper' page

Ranking! Not sniffed out by the algo! Duh!

[netmeg]

"Known" SEO people, black hat, white hat, grey hat and raspberry beret rank for all kinds of things.

[HuskyPup]

This week I removed a brand new site I launched only two months ago. It's a fabulous retail widget site, completely different to all my other sites, carries no AdSense and has the two best trade backlinks available and is on a great trade single .co.uk keyword.

I removed it because even though Google had it indexed it was sending absolutely no traffic to it, in the last two months it has had 74 uniques.

I don't know whether it's me or Google.co.uk however this past three months I have found launching new UK sites absolutely abysmal, established ones are usually updated within 24 hours, new ones, nigh on impossible.

[FranticFish]

I know you have far more experience than me, but you're scrapping the site after 8 weeks?

Might what's happening not indicate that there's a new trust filter in play? Or could it be a glitch affecting new sites because Google's resources are currently occupied elsewhere?

The most common piece of advice I read here is 'ride it out'.

[brinked]

Responses are very interesting so far. Let me provide more information to help answer the questions brought up in this thread.

All the sites on this server all use the same nameservers that is a domain owned by myself.

Every single site on this server was effected negatively by the panda update, even a simple 1 page site hosted for an old client.

Just 1 of the sites hosted on this server has made about a 80% recovery from the panda update.

This server's ip was found in a blacklist about 2 years ago, I noticed when I used the phpmail function to send out some email updates and most emails did not get delivered. It has not been in any blacklist db since then.

Also, all domains on this server have a private whois through NC.

Penalty removal/prevention is my career. Its what I live by each and every day so my outlook is to never discredit google, and always assume even the most bizarre things can be a ranking factor.

I am not scrapping these sites at all. I actually love situations like this. If this server in fact does have some type of filter on it that would be great news for me, it is rarely that simple to find 1 common factor that can be easily addressed.

A perfect example was about 4 years ago when I had 2 similar sites on the same server. Both were ranking for some of the same terms but they were both different sites with different content. I removed one of the sites from the server and it started ranking higher than my original site in about 2 weeks. That is the day I discovered the same niche, same server penalty.

I am going to dig deeper into this and see what I come up with and hopefully rule out the server.

[HuskyPup]

but you're scrapping the site after 8 weeks?

Nope, I've removed it, I am going to launch it under a new domain since there is evidently something wrong with G.co.uk at the moment and I've noticed this for the last 4-5 months.

I am becoming as intolerant towards Google as they are towards webmasters in general...they can go on believing the cyber world revolves around their algorithms, I've some news for them, the real world does not.