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]

[netmeg]

Right, that's a famous example that's been going around and around, and guess what - people keep linking to it!

[Simsi]

My guess re. exact match, from what I am seeing, is that it's not the domain that's being downgraded per se, it's the value of the keywords used in the anchor text of links coming in. That is, I reckon up to now anchor text that matched the domain name had an artificially high boost and this may now be levelling out.

I consult on a handful of exact match domains with very few inbound links that are holding (so far, touch wood!) and on 3 exact match domains that have a reliance on links and those are the ones that are being hit at the moment.

All might change obviously - that's just an early-bird observation.

[dawnstar]

Google 'Make Money Online' right now and you find this

I truly despair, most of my sites have been torched overnight and stuff like this are ranked Number 1?

[backdraft7]

Google are probably doing mini tests constantly, adding/removing things for the next couple of days and seeing what is removed and is not removed to then fix any problems with it.

In the mean time, we'll start packing as our businesses all fail.

[agent_x]

Giving my sites a quick once over and I can see some areas where Google might think I was over optimising - like a link in the footer of the page back to the home page with the site name as the anchor. I never thought things like that would have any SEO benefit, it was just something that everybody did. But I guess Google must thing that I thought it would. But really, page 1 back to page 18 just for little things like that? Really?

[Regular_Joe]

If I make one of my sites a "famous example", will you all link to it? I could sure use the traffic about now... LOL

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Looking up a singular word in search will now highlight the plural of that word in the url if it exists. e.g. a search for widget will highlight widgetsworld.com/some-page

Part of the apparent exact match tld adjustment?

[deadsea]

Before this update shopping oriented search results for items that are too big to ship via UPS or Fedex were *HORRIBLE*. Now searches such as "refrigerators", "leather sofas", "lawn tractors", "furniture" and the like look much more plausible to me. There used to be a lot of exact match domain results and lots of crap with almost none of the well known brands that actually sell the items. The exact match domains are mostly gone now and recognizable brands actually show up.

I'd personally like the results to be a little more localized and show more of the brands that are popular just in my area. But overall for those types of searches, this algorithm looks like a big improvement.

[hal12b]

It's 1984!

[bluemonster]

Again.. Grrr .. Google is sooo soo evil ! My blogs can't take it anymore.

[Leosghost]

My EMDs are on .com, .net, .org or .fr..with a few .info ( where .info fits perfectly following on the word before it ) ..but mainly ( about 90% ) .com and .fr..
I don't think from their positions, that one could say that in general those tlds are getting hammered ..or hoisted up..

Things like .ca etc ..I don't look at..not my target markets..or not a big enough part of them for me to pay them any direct attention..

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Hmmmm... did the keyword meta description tag just get deprecated ? I see the following as the #1 result description for the top keyword in my niche.

MORE. Description Description Description Description. TITLE TITLE. Title. Title. Description. undefined. undefined undefined. undefined. Description ...

It's fair to say that as a description that's pretty useless.

[brinked]

I am confused. Is this the "over optimization" update or a new "web spam" update?

If they are the same, severe over optimization can in fact be considered spam. If you are losing rankings my guess would be 1 of 2 things.

1. A majority of the backlinks your site has was considered to be webspam by google and you now lost those backlinks which had an impact on your site.

2. There are over optimization issues found on your site.

[tarzan007]

I guess the last week's update is No.1

1. A majority of the backlinks your site has was considered to be webspam by google and you now lost those backlinks which had an impact on your site.

No.2 is coming this week

[synergy]

Hey this is awesome, just in time for Google to penalize my site for being targeted by a hacking group who is pointing #*$!, pharma and other bad neighborhoods through compromised servers to my site. At this point, I am using .htaccess to 403 forbid access from these sites. I hope it tells Google that these links are NOT authorized.

[ErnestHemingway]

Amazing how Google can crush you into million pieces, rip you apart and all your family plans with just one update which makes no sense.

Good thing I never kept all my eggs with guys at Google, they are just like a snake.

[crobb305]

At this point, I am using .htaccess to 403 forbid access from these sites

I have wondered myself if this would work. For that matter, Google should let us disallow links in GWT, but that doesn't seem likely to happen. The reported links aren't even accurate. Nevertheless, 403 might be an interesting strategy, but I have heard of webmasters with noindex, nofollow on their site still getting "unnatural links" messages.

[maddawg]

@Brinked - Google is trying to steer clear from calling this over-optimization. They don't want people to think this is about performing SEO. Check out Cutts here: [macworld.com...]

That said, this is totally about over-optimization and from what I am seeing, over-optimization of backlinks.

They have tightened up on people building links for the sake of ranking, but not for branding and traffic.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm seeing more spam than ever right now. Looking up some popular spam keywords such as Viagra or New Shoes has pure foreign spam(.tv) ranking top 5. I'd say they rolled out the algo push and right now the human reviewers are very busy wiping out the trash that surfaced.

What I'm not liking however is seeing ebay(user gen content) and Wikipedia(user gen content) ranking ahead of known professional experts.

[smithaa02]

This is the worst we've ever been hit. What's interesting is how dominant the name-brand 'national' sites are today for a lot of our industry searches...both for the main phrase, variants and long-tails. They're not as relevant...but google doesn't seem to care. Looks like it's tough to be a Mom&Pop site in the eyes of google :(.

[Panthro]

I feel like there's a lot of crossover with the synonym updates here. Just an idea, though.

[christian guy]

How long do you anticipate this Over-Optimization shuffle will take? a few days? In the past didn't Google re-shuffle their index and re-include a lot of websites that were penalized or taken out previously?

[snickles121]

Youtube is taking over results too. Just another google property taking results. Manipulative tactic to get everyone to pay for placement ads.

[SEOMike]

Google has yet to touch the most egregious link spammers for some niches where we have clients. For one site, 99% of their link base is a two-word keyword that matches their URL and they still rank number one.

[Marshall]

I think it is Google's way of forcing people to buy AdWords, IMHO.

Marshall

[Planet13]

Google has yet to touch the most egregious link spammers for some niches where we have clients. For one site, 99% of their link base is a two-word keyword that matches their URL and they still rank number one.

Ditto.

Exact same thing in my niche.

[netmeg]

Preliminary lists of who got hit and who didn't. PRELIMINARY.

[searchengineland.com...]

[driller41]

Is the common factor monitorization rather than EMDs - all my sites that were affected have affiliate income streams.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

At this point, I am using .htaccess to 403 forbid access from these sites. I hope it tells Google that these links are NOT authorized.

Google has no way of seeing the 403 code you have set up because they don't visit pages by following links, they visit known urls directly. Thanks for that list link netmeg.

[londrum]

there's a good comment in the searchengineland article. i know i cant print the searchterm and site here (which is dumb), but look for the comment by 'samuel darwin', and check out the site that comes up.
try and explain that. biggest joke of all time

[Edit: just noticed Sgt_Kickaxe spoke about this a few pages ago]

[edited by: londrum at 7:39 pm (utc) on Apr 25, 2012]