Google Launches Update Targeting Spam... Again? Penguin Update

[netmeg]

Matt Cutts "In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can't divulge specific signals because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics."

[insidesearch.blogspot.com...]

Sites affected by this change might not be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise, but the common thread is that these sites are doing much more than white hat SEO; we believe they are engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:31 pm (utc) on Apr 25, 2012]
[edit reason] added quotes - updated link [/edit]

[BaseballGuy]

@BaseballGuy - sounds like this particular keyword received special treatment for specific over use of links on a specific page. All other page URL's escaped, i assume. Y/N?

Yup. Google webmaster tools didn't send me a message at all.

I had 6-8 months of American workers commenting on blogs and leaving links back to my site, some with optimal anchor text, some with not. Do and nofollow. The comments were not spam, they were participating in the discussions intelligently.

The rest of the URL's actually got better with Penguin, but those weren't the money pages (kinda sorta).

The money page for the money keyword got busted to page 8.


I had ~10 affiliate links on the money page.

I had 8-9 instances of the desired keyword on the money page.

The page was 5 years old and had almost 2k worth of words on there.

Nothing spun, all intelligent information, which was most relevant to the keyword search at hand.


So I lowered keyword density, took down all but 5 affiliate links and still, nothing.

[Whitey]

The comments were not spam, they were participating in the discussions intelligently

@BaseballGuy - One or two links here or there - OK - sure.

But this seems like a campaign [ i don't know of course ]. Intelligent or not, this type of thing was always a candidate to get busted, because it's rare to build links naturally. I mean, seriously, whoever built links freely, it's such an antiquated method and time consuming. Most have vested interests in e-commerce, few in citational linking [ which is probably not as corrupted].

In fact so rare, i reckon any money site is in line for getting busted, and the only sites getting a free pass are branded sites.

Look, you're not alone, there's probably hardly a siteowner on these boards that haven't gotten invovled with links. Now it's busted - forget paid links, or folks that work for money to build links.

It's all busted. Google doesn't have to worry about differentiating paid from non paid. It's all busted by virtue of " over optimization" characteristics.

If you have anchor text links on money terms - you're busted.

If you have more than one instance of the same keyword phrase in anchor text, you're on the high roller for getting busted.

If you have repeated IBL's from the same domain, it may bust you if it's seen as influencing your rankings.

If you paid for these links, chances are it doen't matter any more. Everyone's busted - link brokers, link builders, advertisng networks, bloggers the whole bunch and their customers.

What folks here have to understand is that the game has changed. Forget about 12 years of the past. If you can still afford it, if you haven't had your livelihoods stripped from you, then you must look to building great websites, great usability, exceptional content, and brand. Build a business - not a website. SE enablement is easy.

But i seriously wonder if many have enough resources to entrust their livelihood's to Google again. Build as if Google doesn't exist - as it's an unhealthy relationship to depend on.

Google's goal is clear, it want to own ever listing on it's search platform, it wants to determin every result it chooses that it shows without external manipulation , it want's every business on the planet to subscribe through it's assetts, and it want's "real business' " - not simply websites. It want's full control.

Anything that interfere's with this is commecial spam to Google to be removed by priority.

[tigger]

is anyone else seeing the serps stable now? The terms I've been watching seem to have not shifted much over the last few days -

Looks to me like if you were hit 19/24 then you are out of game till the next Panda release, or not !

[kidder]

Whitey - Great post and good advice, we've been brand building since October last year, its the only real way forward that I can see.

[petehall]

@tigger yes they look stable to me. There was another Panda refresh on the 27th... suppose the next one will be around the 20th of May. I have a lot of work to get through between now and then...

[HuskyPup]

is anyone else seeing the serps stable now?

Slighty more stable but still a lot of crap out there however I can confirm there has definitely been another update within the last 48 hours or so since I have a load of new and exclusive product pages all suddenly appearing for their keyword terms at the top of the SERPs.

These are not big money keywords, simply my trade widget products that Bing had indexed at least a couple of weeks ago.

[BaseballGuy]

@Whitey

So what is your new strategy?

I went out and bought a copy of Xrumr. I also got an invite to a private black hat forum. Learned a lot over the past week and a half.

All of my black/grey hat friends websites are doing just fine, Panda after Panda after Penguin. I went over to their houses and saw their analytics/sites with my own two eyes.

Meanwhile, a small guy like me was busted for doing "white hat" linkbuilding by Matt Cutts.


So, the way I see it....time to get smarter. I wasn't doing things "smart" because I had nothing to hide from Google or anyone. I thought the practices that I was using were above the table, Cutts even gave examples over the years of certain things that were allowed.

The black/grey hatters out there have always known they were "on the wrong side of the Google law", and as such got smart. Idiots like you and me wrongly believed Google was on our side and would reward us.

So the black hatters are still around, making thousands of dollars a day.....while guys like you and me were wiped off the face of the map.

Ok, mea culpa for believing the propaganda coming out of Cutts mouth. Time to get intelligent and get my rankings back.

[jkdt0077]

Have to say I'm joining you on that one BaseballGuy

[nippi]

Baseball guy. You are black hat. Just not smart black hat.

You faked links, pretending they were real.

Its not white hat.

Why would you think this?

[tigger]

with G constantly moving the goal posts a lot of webmasters that were whiter than white will be moving to the dark side - its time to give G a bloody good slap

[Leosghost]

Be very very careful with xrumer..it used to be a powerful tool,but, you can cut yourself with it , and cut other people, very many who post in "black hat" fora have a problem with truth..there are nowhere near as many "experts" in them, as they would have you believe..and "no refunds"..

Many many tag teams ..as in 3 card trick or Find the Lady ..or Three-card Monte..

[BaseballGuy]

@Leosghost
@Nippi

Blackhat to me is hacking a server and dropping links.

I'm not a blackhat. Also the forum I joined is very closed to the public. I have known several members in real life for many years. I know what I'm getting myself into.


Everything else is "Grey hat" as far as I'm concerned. Be it spamming the search results or cloaking or whatever else. It's all (for the most part) script kiddie time. The really successful ones write their own software.


Honestly, I know there are more experts on WebmasterWorld than pretty much any other SEO forum out there.

However there are certain "tricks" that still work and will continue to work and you just need to decide if the risk is worth the reward.

I went from everything, to nothing, overnight. I was erroneously labeled a "spammer" by Cutts, as I'm sure a good portion of you guys were.

Kinda like the insecure boyfriend who always accuses his girlfriend of cheating.....until one night she had enough and decides to cheat. I got 2 websites on deck right now that are doing great. They are smaller, less profitable sites, but I'm going to be putting more effort into them as the weeks go by.

Spamming works, you just need to do it intelligently.

[diberry]

I think part of the problem is that Google definitions of things like spamming and blackhat have changed over the years, and whatever you're doing today might get you in trouble with them tomorrow.

In my case, doing nothing for SEO - just writing pages for visitors - got me dinged. It's laughable. There is absolutely no position you can take in regards to SEO - blackhat, whitehate, even ignoring SEO completely - that Google won't ding you for *if it helps them*.

So the only long term strategy that makes sense to me is to build up other sources of traffic, and take Google traffic as icing on the cake.

[edited by: tedster at 2:01 am (utc) on May 10, 2012]

[Leosghost]

I don't define black hat, but I do know many of the fora..( private and public )..and I know xrumer, sick etc.. hence my comments..

They have also been used for many years to bring competitor sites to Google's attention, ( in deliberately unwanted ways ) as what some are just discovering as "negative SEO"..but in many cases people have also used them unwisely for their own sites, and shot themselves in the feet..

Diversify as well..become less "search dependent" lest the tools should blow up in your face..and be very very aware of smoking guns that can lead back to your door..particularly if you are holding inventory and with only or primarily web based traffic to shift it..

[diberry]

Diversification is the only long term strategy that makes sense. What's white hat today may be black hat tomorrow. Or, as I've discovered, paying absolutely no attention to SEO can get you a spammer penalty. There's no fairness, because Google isn't providing a service: they're trying to own and dominate the web you want to be a part of. They're never going to make it easy for anyone for very long.

I'm not putting anyone down for going black hat - I'm getting punished for going black hat when I didn't, so it's all laughable and you might as well try whatever you want.

But don't spend all your traffic-building time/energy/money on trying to rule Google. Spend a big chunk of it on building alternate traffic sources, and that way your Google traffic becomes icing on the cake. Then if they slap you with a penalty, whether you're "guilty of breaking Google Laws or not, it doesn't hurt so much.

[edited by: tedster at 2:01 am (utc) on May 10, 2012]

[nippi]

I define black hat as breaching google webmaster guidelines.

I disagree there is anything such as grey hat.

There is just black hat, and blacker hats.

[BaseballGuy]

@Leos

Thanks and I do appreciate the warning. But I operate with 10 tin foil hats on. I'm only saying this in the forums because what I have started, isn't even under my name for payments/registration/etc.

Unless Matt Cutts has mysteriously figure out a way for his algorithm to detect bio patterns when my fingers touch a keyboard, good luck with that.

In my humble opinion, two things are going to come out of this update:

1. Lots of people are going to be looking for full time job.

2. Those of us left, will be smarter in our ways and will have multiple revenue streams so once Cutts and his band of SS agents strike again, we won't be caught with our pants down.

And I'm not that stupid to build spammy links into the money sites lol. I'm also smart enough to cloak the true intentions of the sites that do get spammy links built into.

Wipe me? You gotta wipe everyone else out as well.


@diberry

That's what everyone has been saying since Florida. Have we learned from our mistakes or if Google mysteriously rolls back the Penguin algorithm tomorrow and things go back to the way they were......

How many of you out there would seriously make changes? Don't lie to yourself and say "Oh yeah, for sure....I saw the writing on the wall this time".


SEO's (generally speaking) are some of the laziest people on the face of the planet. My money site? I probably put about 15 minutes worth of work into it per MONTH for the past 4-5 years, and was making in the tens of thousands of dollars.

I do have other business ventures, so even though my "money site" is wiped out, I have enough left over in my war chest to rebuild and go somewhere else. Not alot, but enough.



Now please excuse me while I go rip the Star of Mountainview off the face of my website that Cutts forced it to wear before he sent it to the Google ghetto.

I'm going to go get my rankings back.

[reseller]

In short Google's Penguin Update is:

- Anti-Small Business sites

- Anti-SEO in general (Both White hats & Black hats)

In order to survive, I think SEOes and Small Business owners would be forced to adopt new sets of SEO techniques which wouldn't necessarily be in accordance with Google Quality Guidelines!

[edited by: reseller at 8:28 pm (utc) on May 6, 2012]

[Donna]

Now please excuse me while I go rip the Star of Mountainview off the face of my website that Cutts forced it to wear before he sent it to the Google ghetto.

I'm going to go get my rankings back.

That's what I said the last time I got wiped out, 3 years later I am in the top 1-3 at last . Dedication and persistence , that's all it takes .

[BaseballGuy]

In order to survive, I think SEOes and Small Business owners would be forced to adopt new sets of SEO techniques which aren't necessarily in accordance with Google Quality Guidelines!

Ding ding ding!

Long gone are the days of browsing an SEO forum and getting the answers you need. Nowadays, you're on your own. Experiment and see what works for you. Over the course of a few weeks to a few months, pay close attention to the search results and you will see empirical evidence of the algorithm in action.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Penguin update did nothing more than wipe out the weak websites and wiped out the competition for the small businesses that actually knew what they were doing when it came to SEO.

I predict some very profitable weeks/months ahead for those who weren't wiped out by Penguin. Good for you guys!

[Jez123]

That's what I said the last time I got wiped out, 3 years later I am in the top 1-3 at last . Dedication and persistence , that's all it takes . 

Yeah.. That's what I thought up until this update . Tomorrow you might be where I am .

[Whitey]

Blackhat to me is hacking a server and dropping links.

Well that would be disgraceful black hat. But this isn't a conversation about morality. It's about what works and what doesn't.

Tricks is short term. I doubt if anyone can get any scale doing tricks.

If you're doing tricks, then you're not listening to what some key people on these threads are recommending. Build brand. Be passionate about that.

[kidder]

While on the subject of BH - I bought a bot a while back and ran some of my own tests on a "throw away" domain. To my surprise that website is holding its rankings today in a highly competitive market.

[BaseballGuy]

While on the subject of BH - I bought a bot a while back and ran some of my own tests on a "throw away" domain. To my surprise that website is holding its rankings today in a highly competitive market.

I got an affiliate site, with literally nothing more than affiliate links. It's pulling in a few thousand a month.

Penguin actually helped out the site with the traffic lol.

You kinda gotta stop to wonder.....

[Wilburforce]

But this isn't a conversation about morality. It's about what works and what doesn't.

I agree that there is no point in moralising about this. Collating information would be more useful.

I think there are several factors involved, and the interaction between them makes it difficult to separate issues from effects.

I see several likely mechanisms:

1. Outward links - even relevant unpaid ones - may be attracting a penalty if they fall foul of a mechanism in the algorithm.
2. Backlinks - even if they are free and unsolicited - may be attracting a penalty if they fall foul of a mechanism in the algorithm. On these two points, all the algorithm can do is look for patterns. It can't tell the difference between a public resource, a co-operative network and a link farm.
3. High keyword density may not be penalised, but certainly at least now carries less positive weight.
4. Synonyms now carry more positive weight. On these two points, it does now look as if the Department of Work and Pensions would be higher placed if half the occurrences of that phrase were replaced by the Office of Jobs and Retirement Income. If my business is widget plankering, I should only mention it once, even if it is very relevant for anyone who is looking for a widget plankerer, and who - like the rest of my customers - never calls it throcket moldering.
5. Singular and plural are inverted. My widget page does well for Widgets, and if you search Widget my widgets page comes up. My widgets page, however, is not in the top 200 for Widgets.

That the results are a mess doesn't suddenly make black-hat a Good Idea. Someone in Google will be evaluating this, but not with keywords that apply to more than a small sample of probably very mainstream industries. They probably haven't tried Search Engine, or considered that anyone might need more than one.

I think tweaks will continue, which makes the task of figuring out what on earth they are doing even harder. The fact that it is difficult requires clear thinking, not hand-wringing or witch-hunting.

[diberry]

@Wilburforce, I think that's a great summary of what we're seeing.

[edited by: tedster at 2:02 am (utc) on May 10, 2012]

[nuthin]

About time Google cut down on blog commenting spam and any other type of back link work that is being generated by dodgy spammers. Hopefully kill off all you dodgy spammers. We have been waiting years for this and after this update we will still be waiting.

I suggest they wipe all authority for said sites that have gained their power and associated rankings from dodge blog comment spam, article and forum spam and make them gain their authority and rankings again. :)

We can dream. Wipe them all out, I say.

[CainIV]

I'm not following.....I did not get any message whatsoever, yet for my best keyword, was wiped down to page 8 with Penguin. This from being in position #1, then #2 for 4 years.

The point was, my sense of this update was that it had nothing to do with unnatural link notices and that those unnatural links emails were 'data collecting' emails so that Google could tweak and sharpen the algo based on feedback from webmasters, then execute this and a series of potential updates in the future.

Feedback.

[mike2010]

I went out and bought a copy of Xrumr

nice job, sherlock. Now we know what their gonna penalize next.

[BaseballGuy]

@Cain

Interesting theory. As quick as I am to dismiss people.....I gotta say, you make a very interesting point. It makes sense.....however my website had more than a few authoritative links, including a few links from the NY Times and Chicago Tribune newspapers. Yeah, I did "blog commenting" but it was by hand, and it was an intelligent reply to the blog discussion, so no spam.

@mike2010

I think Google already has a bead on xrumr and the rest of the blackhat forums.....if Google was any good at detecting SPAM, then why hasn't Florida, Caffeine, Panda, etc knocked spam out of the rankings?

My blackhat buddies (in real life) laugh their asses off every time we get together for a beer and I complain about how Google is killing the mom and pop and they continue to rank despite Google's best efforts.

Tens of thousands of other "White hatters" out there got raped by Penguin. They got caught up in the witch hunt unfairly.

It's because they cannot get rid of spam altogether. I'm just realizing this....I'm playing on the wrong team.

I used to be so dismissive of grey/black hatters....to the point of talking #*$! to their faces about how stupid they were. I thought I was better than they were.

It will happen to you and that "Nuthin" guy who posted above you.

One of my buddies makes upwards of $20k/mo. doing SPAM for his clients. He tells them that he is going to spam the search results and there are some pretty unscrupulous webmasters out there who pay for his services. They continue to rank despite Google's best efforts.

I'm just telling you what I have experienced....I'm jumping ship to the winning team.


Enjoy Cutts and his mantra of "we love white hat SEO".


Oh btw....for those of you thinking that Google rewards white hat SEO, I also got a bridge for sale in Arizona if you're interested? Just put a new set of Michelin tires on her....low miles!