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Remember back in the day when AltaVista was the top search engine and they changed their index
When Alta Vista was the top SE there was a dance every day. On-page factors were most important then. Tweak a page, submit - number 3. Tweak again, submit, number 94. Repeat, now you're at 18. Everybody was tweaking and submitting and the SERPs changed on a daily basis.
When Google came along with PR and its once every so often update it spoiled a lot of folks. On-page factors weren't as important and tended to be ignored. Back links and anchor text are king and queen. If you got to number 9 on the SERPS the easiest way to get to number 3 was get more backlinks and anchor text.
So if -- repeat if -- Google has done some tweaking of the algo to make on-page factors more important (or just in some way decreased the weight of PR and anchor text) it's time to, as Brett says in his Successful site in 12 months... [webmasterworld.com], do some "simple old fashioned seo from the ground up."
As soon as the dance ends get the tools out. Start with pages a number of positions above yours in the SERPs and find out why they're there and not you. Pull the pages apart, run them through a keyword density tool, check the backlinks (not just G, use ATW also) and anchor text, use sim spider or a text browser to see where the keyword phrases are falling on the page, etc., etc.
<aside>Is there such a thing as 'over optimization?' Sure, it's called not falling within the accepted (or expected) ranges of the SEs algorithm. Pages with too few keyphrase repititions or too many keyphrase repititions, whether in individual components (title, head, body) or the page as a whole are not ranked as well as those that meet the SEs expectations. Reliance on PR and anchor text has tended to obscure this.</aside>
Sorry I went on so long and started to sound a bit pedantic, but it's back to the basics, folks. This is where we find out if we actually know anything at all about SEO.
Jim
Edited
The four truths:
1.Google is updating
2.Outcome is pure speculation until everything is factored in.
3. when it's done - it's done
4. some will laugh and some will cry
I think I am in the crying category..almost literally. I have just discovered two more keyphrases that I have completely disappeared on. I wish I knew what I have done wrong.
Umm...so... your saying that we should optimize our pages to realize an advantage in the serps right? Yeah....
It's good advice I guess... I mean if you don't optimize you won't reach the top.... but.... if you do optimize you may get filtered.... but if you don't you won't make money.... but if you do, the money you start making may go away.... but....
Hey! I got it... let's buy boat loads of Adwords! Then we can gautantee a spot on the page and all we have to do is out bid each other!
woo hoo....
I think I am in the crying category..almost literally. I have just discovered two more keyphrases that I have completely disappeared on. I wish I knew what I have done wrong.
Impossible - #1 is still in progress....
No more posts for me in this thread.... ;)
This is the time to be making observations, not drawing conclusions.
Correct. I've seen major changes happen just before the dance ends. It may look much different then than now.
if you do optimize you may get filtered
No, that's why I through that aside in, there's seems to be a heck of a lot of confusion as to what 'optimize' means.
Just in terms of keyphrase repitition: Too few repitions and the page is not optimized; similarly, too many reps and the page is not optimized. When you hit it just right, what the SE expects to see -- it's optimized!
And yeah, if a page isn't optimized its going to get 'filtered' in a way -- but it is not an actual filter and it is not a penalty. It's simply how the page scores according to Google's algorithm. If a page hits the algorithm dead on it's ranked high, if not, it's ranked low and you find it on page 250. (And then of course, there's where and how Google throws in other factors such as PR into its overall algorithm, but let's keep this simple with basic on-page stuff for now.)
As I said, wait for the dance to end and then get the optimization toolbox out -- before another dance partner has a chance to stomp on your toes.
I remember that.
I was in first place for a very important phrase for three years.
When Altavista dropped my site to page 4 or 5, everyone stopped using it and moved to that brand new place called google so they could find me again.
;-)
my thoughts exactly. well said!
When Altavista dropped my site to page 4 or 5, everyone stopped using it and moved to that brand new place called google so they could find me again.
I used to think Infoseek was the best search engine, if only because I ranked near the top of its SERPs for so many topics. Of course, there was a lot less competition in those days than there is now. :-)
woo hoo.... "
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to kick google back where it hurts so they will stop with this BS. SEO's have no respect from google because we are not the ones bringing in the money, advertisers are. But.. what if we get rid of their advertisers? Imagine a google result page with no adwords!
Possible? you bet.. and easy too. I've been thinking about it for a while. Simple script that installs on the browser and gets rid of google adwords for the user. Better life for the user without advertising and better life for all of us here.
How to make it popular? a webmasters coalition effort for profitability - distribution is the key.
So.. hopefully someone will start this soon and if not, I just might do it myself.
All the other DCs have problems like this: the search is for "Red widgets" and the pages for "purple widgets" and "blue widgets" are shown first, the page for "red widgets" is no where to be found. Throughout the site there are many examples like this.
Yeah, those Adwords are just SO damn annoying everyone will download this. Get a clue.
Optimize means to change and test until an efficiency or balance is achieved....
Pretty straight forward.... and yet not...
A week ago keyphrase repitition was all the rage... really just subtle "optimization"
I'm not talking about weighed and measured and found lacking.. that will happen...
The algorithm is there for a reason... to score and rank pages. It is also changed every now and then to defeat exactly what you are advocating....
Yes... look at what people are doing and how they managed to stay in the serps... but be aware that what you do today may end up dumping into the bowels of the serps... no problem, start over again.
My advice.... build a good site. Target the audience you want to frequent your site. That's right... target the audience and not the serps position you want to get...
Targeting serps leads directly to the bottom of the stack... not right away... but as your pockets get lined you will be willing to "optimize" more and more...
It's a very, very, very fine line....
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to kick google back where it hurts so they will stop with this BS. SEO's have no respect from google because we are not the ones bringing in the money, advertisers are. But.. what if we get rid of their advertisers? Imagine a google result page with no adwords!
Possible? you bet.. and easy too. I've been thinking about it for a while. Simple script that installs on the browser and gets rid of google adwords for the user. Better life for the user without advertising and better life for all of us here.
How to make it popular? a webmasters coalition effort for profitability - distribution is the key.
So.. hopefully someone will start this soon and if not, I just might do it myself.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to kick my parents back where it hurts so they stop this B.S. I get no respect from my parents because I'm not the one bringing in money, they are. I'm freeloading. But...what if I get rid of my parents? Imagine my parent's house with no people!
Possible? You bet.
Yes, now they just need to be factored in.
I know we haven't finished, and everyone's got their opinion, but we are close enough to finished that I'm weighing in with my two bobs worth.
My two sites that have tanked, vs my 23 others that have either improved or stayed the same, have
(1) Far less text on the home page.
(2) Much higher keyword density for keywords they have tanked on. Partly because of less text on page, so easier to accidentally go high density
The two sites that have tanked, have ONLY tanked on keywords I have got high kw density for on home page. They remain well ranked where anchor text is DIFFERNT to the same as keywords I have optimised(over) for.
I am sure this is the problem. I purposedly set my incoming links with a few poplular keywords that I did not then "optimise" for. I am fine on these keywords
I can see nothing to tie in inbound/outbound links/anchor text as any problems as not showing on my sites.
ALL the site that are now ranking high that I have tested have lots of home page text/low KWD or both usually.
My answer
Add more text to your home page.
Reduce keyword density.
Good post steveb.
Google listed backlinks range from a low of 4 to a high of a little less than 100.
PR's range from 4 to 5.
Text to HTML ranges 27% to 50%
Titles have 1-3 occurences of the keyword
One is a placeholder page for a sold out business (no longer n operation)
One has a hyphen in the URL keyword-keyword
The SERPS are not even close to allinanchor, allinurl, allintitle or allintext.
In short, I am unable to determine a pattern now.
On this term I went from a staedy #8 or 9 (since dom/esm) to who knows where. There are numerous sites in the top 50 results whose only relevance is the link to my site.
The Google Directory Cat comes up #46, and the snippet is about my site, but when I click the link it takes me to the Cat from before when my site was included!
All is conjecture at this point. I would be interested in hearing conjecture backed up by data, or in just hearing interesting data, but I do not believe that anyone here has the answer at this point.
The results I see look vaguely familiar to results that came up a long time ago. In other words, these are mostly "mature" sites, and they are ranked similar to results I might have seen a year or more ago. But as soon as I say that, here comes a CNN Story dated 3/12/03 in the top 20.
Go figure...
WBF
1. Links manager, link spamming
2. Tons of text in div's and set to invisible.
3. lots and lots of resized H1 tags via a stylesheet.
Funny thing is, these sites aren't all that bad, they should naturally rank high without these spam techniques. Whats interesting is affiliate sites employing these tatics got smoked. There seems to be a filter of some sort that says if you have more then x number of backlinks you won't suffer as much of a penalty.
Only two things could be happening.
1. Google is broken.
2. Google dropped all those index pages and is showing a lot of very questionable results on purpose.
Take your pick...
In short, I am unable to determine a pattern now.
Exactly. For every example of whats being observed and why its happening, there is another example that contradicts.
And then i thought, hey, why didnt google use www2 and www3 for staging this massive update so we wouldnt have to bite our nails until it was done....nah, they hate us :)
Naw, they are doing you a favor by allowing you to watch.
For now follow the advice of GG and take a walk around the lake or do like steveb and europe, observe, take notes and watch how this thing (like it or not) is being constructed.
I think it could all be quite simple.
It may be that the google toolbar gives all our SEO secrets and info to google, who then uses them to tweak their algo, filters, and specific penalties. - Maybe even on an individual level.
ianama
Naw, they are doing you a favor by allowing you to watch.
