Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2013

[gyppo]

< continued from [webmasterworld.com...]

I'm seeing daily switching between 2-3 datasets across around 600 keywords. Seeing roughly 10-20 keywords swapping in & out of positions.

[edited by: tedster at 2:47 pm (utc) on Mar 1, 2013]

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

They don't care, that's why it a registered throw-away domain that redirects.

Probably their own network link farm.

It's cheaper to get those things up and running for 2-3 weeks for the cost of a domain name registration then throw it away when it tanks, rinse, repeat.

Yeah yeah yeah.

It would still be nice to know exactly what's being seen, especially since at times there seems to be rampant skepticism and speculation here.

But, since you seem to know what they're doing without even looking and Google waits about 3 weeks to trust a redirect these days, when exactly is the "throw away" domain redirected to the new location they'll be using next? Is it before or after they get caught and how long before or after? Also, how do they know exactly when to redirect it? And how is it redirected through what would have to be multiple locations for them to make any cash more than a month or two without losing all PageRank through the redirects and also becoming extremely obvious?

Maybe rather than asking too many more questions it's better to just wait for an answer from the source of the information about what's going on since something about the reply for exactly how they're doing it just doesn't quite seem to "fit" with reality these days, especially the redirect part since it take 3 weeks for redirects to be trusted and the domain in question was only registered a week ago.

I'm actually beginning to wonder if maybe the reason SEO seems to be "stuck" in 2005 is we are so quick to jump to conclusions about the "why" of things today being the same as they were then we don't explore and try to figure things out like we used to, but rather assume we know what the answer is and "write things off" as "the same as they've always been" even though there may be completely different causes for things today that make the end result look the same as it did yesterday?

[nickreynolds]

A little more info. The site actually redirects to another payday loans site. The links are pure spam - guestbook comments, hidden links, crummy social bookmarks etc.
My guess is that this site was just set up as an intermediary to pass on link juice, but by chance is ranking for this particular search term.

[rango]

@nickreynolds, I think I know of the example you're talking about. Was reading an article on it elsewhere though that example was about casino bonuses. Just spammy sites in any case.

The analysis was as follows:

The main site being redirected to was in fact banned from Google so it would never rank.

So the way to drive traffic for them is to register these other domains, flood them with comment spam and dominate results for a very limited time. Worth it because of the high value of the links.

The spammy sites that are ranking are not there to pass on link juice - they are there to pass on traffic to a site that can't get any rankings because it's penalized. And they don't care if the new ones get penalized, because they'll just add more crappy sites to keep the whole farce up. If there's any sort of freshness boost, then the are getting that as well for a brief period.

When Google has penalties that only update sporadically, they open themselves up to these tactics. The panda refresh only happens once per month (so far, roughly). So between one refresh and another the spammers create something, rank it and wait for it to be penalized. Probably the best reason to hope that Panda will in fact become fully baked into the algorithm.

Anyway, it's all nasty stuff really.. but it sounds just like what you're describing.

[Wilburforce]

Anyway, it's all nasty stuff really

It does give a very good idea of what Google are trying to deal with, and why they penalise.

However, the number of false-positives coupled with the fact that this junk is still getting through pretty clearly spells failure so far.

[HuskyPup]

@backdraft7

Well folks, I'm out...time to go comb the classifieds and concentrate on other more controllable and profitable efforts. My site is now below the point of providing even a poverty level income, so not worthy of further discussion here.

I hear ya backdraft7, I'm doing the same, it's absolutely pointless in providing unique, quality sites only to be scraped by the world's largest scraper just to generate a misleading and faux SERPs trying to force people to go to their products.

I was doing this before those boys even went to Uni and I admired their ambitions when they contacted me in the 90s to help them out, all for free of course ... What an unbelievable change of events and as Leosghost would probably say "Only achieveable in the USA with some extremely duplicitous characters" plus with the assistance of a government desperate to control everything.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Interesting about the spammy sites.

Is the phrase "redirected to" being used technically or loosely?

Technically:
You click on spammy site 1 in the results and end up at spammy site 2 with a single click and no delay.

Loosely:
You click on spammy site 1 in the results and any click you make takes you to spammy site 2.

If it's technically, it almost has to be cloaked for it to rank and I'm wondering if it's more the freshness than the links in either case since it has been known to give a short term "boost" in a number of niches.

[Kelowna]

Is the phrase "redirected to" being used technically or loosely?

Technically:
You click on spammy site 1 in the results and end up at spammy site 2 with a single click and no delay.

301's work best for this.

1- build the site with a ton of these links to it.
2- when the site gets caught, 301 to the next.
3- rince and repeat.
4- the 301 only takes 4 days to start kicking in and you are back in the money by weeks end.

This is the business model that Google prefer's right now. No black and white animal worries of any kind with this model as the sites are built to fail, but make a crap load of money for the few weeks they are up.

[ColourOfSpring]

1- build the site with a ton of these links to it.
2- when the site gets caught, 301 to the next.
3- rince and repeat.
4- the 301 only takes 4 days to start kicking in and you are back in the money by weeks end.

It's crazy that Google would make a site rank high based on links that have penalised other sites - makes no sense at all. You'd think they'd mark those links off as useless so the above 4 step loop could not occur. Tip to Google engineers: it's the links. Focus on the links. Don't focus on the sites being linked to.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

301's work best for this.

1- build the site with a ton of these links to it.
2- when the site gets caught, 301 to the next.
3- rince and repeat.
4- the 301 only takes 4 days to start kicking in and you are back in the money by weeks end.

If the 301 is working/effective, spammy site 1 shouldn't show in the results spammy site 2 should so there should be no noticed redirect like was being stated in this thread.

What am I missing here?

I've redirected on many occasions before and the original location being redirected doesn't show in the results the final location I'm redirecting to does once the redirect is noticed and counted (noticed and counted have been two different things, especially lately).

[Kelowna]

If the 301 is working/effective, spammy site 1 shouldn't show in the results spammy site 2

Google chooses which site to show, the links kick in almost right away. It does not matter as far as making money goes which site shows. They only last a few weeks anyways, then 301 again. rince repeat, rank and bank.

It has always been about the links

[Convergence]

What am I missing here?

You may be "over thinking" it. It's quite simple based on the Google's insatiable appetite to index NEW sites and It's blasé attitude about EXISTING sites. We see this in the affiliate world DAILY.

Register disposable domain name - .info seems to be the preferred choice.

Based on referrer, in .htaccess allow the bot to crawl, redirect all other visitors to website of choice.

Load sitemaps in UNIQUE WMT accounts.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Google will go haywire crawling the brand NEW site, nearly instantly displaying the new pages to test their impression vs click ratio.

In the fourth quarter alone we submitted hundreds of these type of sites to the Google's spam team. They DO take them down and delete their indexed pages. However, until the Google implements a "sandbox" period - this will continue...

[HuskyPup]

Bingo:

It's quite simple based on the Google's insatiable appetite to index NEW sites and It's blasé attitude about EXISTING sites. We see this in the affiliate world DAILY.

I knew that, I just could not write it so concisely:-)

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

I think what you're saying about the "new" factor makes quite a bit more sense to me today than the "links" factor. I know of more than one site in the top 3 with only 1 inbound link that's not a "scraper spam" link and before people think none of them are in a competitive niche or area, I'll just put that to rest, because some are, which means it's not "all about" or "only about" the links. There are definitely other relatively major factors in play.

[Convergence]

I think what you're saying about the "new" factor makes quite a bit more sense to me today than the "links" factor.

Exactly.

All the sites we found, and reported, were registered within a couple of weeks.

I suspect the Google's incorporating Panda (and probably other named algos) into their normal indexing is to try and combat this as they crawl the pages instead of running separate updates. Only time will tell...

[Str82u]

even though there may be completely different causes for things today that make the end result look the same as it did yesterday

Perhaps a similar loophole opened up, it did seem that there was a year or so that we didn't see those tactics working but now it's like we're competing with ourselves from 7 years ago (yeah, that's an admission).

[Wilburforce]

Tip to Google engineers: it's the links. Focus on the links. Don't focus on the sites being linked to.

Amen to that!

[Kelowna]

I think what you're saying about the "new" factor makes quite a bit more sense to me today than the "links" factor. I know of more than one site in the top 3 with only 1 inbound link that's not a "scraper spam" link and before people think none of them are in a competitive niche or area, I'll just put that to rest, because some are, which means it's not "all about" or "only about" the links. There are definitely other relatively major factors in play.

All I can say about that is... WRONG!

It has always been the links and still is. Just because you can not see them "yet" they are there, no link power, no rank, period. Unless the search term is very unique. Any page ranking for a competitive term has to have some link, juice, pr, power, whatever you want to call it pushing it there, onpage alone will not work. Even the nicest car in the world needs gas to get it to go.

It is a well known fact that an old domain picked up at an auction works even better than a new domain. New domains take way more links to push them to page 1 than old ones. Fresh new content? spun crap works just fine for these rank and bank, period.

Enough of this for now, think I hit my 3 post per year limit.

My last word of advice, DO NOT BELIEVE ME or anthing you read on message boards for that matter. Go and do research yourself. Test and see for sure what works in the tough niches. Don't be lazy, do the work. Just because someone posts alot does not mean they have the answers you need, only your own research and work can be trusted. Oh ya... and some people lie on purpose just to try and confuse you :-)

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

All I can say about that is... WRONG!

It has always been the links and still is. Just because you can not see them "yet" they are there, no link power, no rank, period.

LMAO! The sites I'm talking about aren't new. One's 5 years old.

My last word of advice, DO NOT BELIEVE ME or anthing you read on message boards for that matter. Go and do research yourself.

Best advice you've given.

I don't. I have. I know you're incorrect.
It's not all and only about the links today.

[Convergence]

@TOI

+1

[Kelowna]

LMAO! The sites I'm talking about aren't new. One's 5 years old.

5 years old with lots of juice.

Well you have more posts than me, and have been a member much longer so you must be right. Why believe someone who works in the tough financial niches for the last 15 years.

You LMAO at me and you dont even know how a 5 year old site can rank? Good luck with your research

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Well, I've put pages in the top 5 recently by adding them to an xml sitemap with no mentions anywhere else on the web. (Tons of link power from xml sitemaps, right?)

I know exactly how and why the 5 year old site I'm referring to can and does rank. It's topical, the search ends when people hit it, it doesn't need links and it doesn't have any. No one who uses it would link to it, because it's something they would tell others in the industry about, but not put up a link to on their site. Everyone else is a competitor, some major companies you may have heard of before, so there's no way they would link to it either.

I know exactly how and why it ranks. I built it the way I did for a reason, and it works very well, thanks. It's actually been pinned to #1 for the main phrase target since a week after I put it up.

Oops, did I just indirectly say I've been doing this a bit more than a month? There goes the recent join date ploy... Bummer.

[Kelowna]

Well, I've put pages in the top 5 recently by adding them to...

OK, my turn to try and one up you.

I have a site not found anywhere in google right now, it will be in the top 5 by next Thursday for payday loans... and I wont even use a 301! hows that?

Now I have to run and pick up the grand kids, you guys have fun and get back to google update talk, we have sidetracked this thread long enough.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

... and I wont even use a 301! hows that?

Nice!

Have a good day and I wish you the best in the rankings. It has been fun discussing, but you're right, we've sidetracked long enough.

[Kelowna]

and dont forget this...

My last word of advice, DO NOT BELIEVE ME...

[Dymero]

For the first time I've come across a 7-result SERP that is not solely a brand name. Though the keyword is based off a brand name, it's more like [widget accessories] than just [widget].

When I last checked this SERP two weeks ago, it was normal 10-result SERP. A sign of something new to come, or just a test or bug?

[nickreynolds]

Re message 4557056
That site is now no longer in serps

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

That was quick. Thanks for letting us know.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Okay, this is an interesting one. I know the page counts are estimated and I know I've been seeing alternating site: page counts lately, but today I got different totals for page count estimates in "different directions" on the first 5 pages.

So, the site: page 1 estimate was down from yesterday.
page 2 was up about 20% from page 1
page 3 was down about 15% from page 2 but up from page one.
page 4 was up from page 1 and page 3 but down from page 2.
page 5 was up from page 3 but below page 2.

[Andem]

I saw a very nice increase in traffic on March 17th which has continued. I don't know whether this was because other sites were negatively affected by a Panda roll out or because my continued user interaction numbers were beneficial.

All I can say about that is... WRONG!

Nobody on this forum can make any such conclusion. Your opinion is nothing more than your own opinion.

Just because you can not see them "yet" they are there, no link power, no rank, period.

Not true. You can make all of the conclusions that you want, but unless you have access to every piece of Google code (and can read it), then your assumptions are nothing more than speculation. I would be willing to bet a very large sum that no one human would be able to, in a day, comprehend and process the amount of code Google produces for ranking on a weekly basis.

[vic_mackey]

I'm stunned that there are still people who believe:

#1. Google gives a flying F@ck about organic
#2. The organic results you see aren't exactly what google intends them to be

and for transparency sake, I am a proud flag waving black hat who hasn't lost an hours sleep over any google update for the last 3 years.