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I can't just tell all the people to stop linking me with the same keyphrase.
What to do?
That you have a great site?
Oh please Wall Street Journal, please don't link to me.
C'mon, high PR off-topic links are obviously great, and a sign of quality. Reams of low PR off-topic links, that's another story.
can not control what others do, so google will not penalise for this.
To answer your question, caustic. I don't think there is a consensus. Off topic links still matter it would seem at least as much as before. Maybe even more. GoogleGuy even hinted at this back in Domerelda. It is possible the sites that are missing now may come back in as the calculators of local rank, since they seem to match all prior relevance criteria. This may be the update, or perhaps Galen, that gives us the answer to that. It seems more likely, however, that this will be the update that leaves us with more questions, than answers.
I only built around 300 of them
Google is targeting commercial sites optimized for specific search phrases.Maybe, but there's more to this than meets the eye. Maybe they've identified common affiliate codes and are down ranking anyone who has them in their source code.
When I include all 6 keywords in allinanchor: i.e., my great city hotels motels condos, my index page comes up number 1.
If I include the city name followed by 5 keywords, e.g., my great city hotels motels, my index page still comes up number 1.
If, however, if I only include the 3-keyword city name followed by 1 lodging keyword, my index page is not to be found.
On the contrary, if I conduct a search using all 6 keywords, my index page comes up number 1, however if I use less that the total 6 words, my index page is not found. Before the Florida update my index page would appear in the top 5 for a search on the city name followed by any one of the lodging keywords.
This all suggests to me that Google is requiring an exact match to my 6 keyword phrase and is penalizing my site for other than an exact search match to my 6 keywords. I have observed that my two main competitor sites which are optimized as I have done retain their number 1 and 2 spots. The only thing I can see different in their listing is that it shows a Directory Listing whereas mine does not although I am listed in the DMOZ directory the same as they are.
My back-links have anchor text with the same 6 keywords as in my title. Since FLorida my PageRank has increased from 4 to 6 whereas, but my home page is lost except for an exact match to my 6 keywords.
Any suggestions as to where I should begin to reoptimize my site?
If, however, if I only include the 3-keyword city name followed by 1 lodging keyword, my index page is not to be found.
To test a theory, what happens when you add a fifth word
1) common words such as a, an, and, the
2) words that don't appear, e.g. nosegay
3) words that appear but are not optimised e.g. price, car
4) -asdf
Kaled.
PS
When you say "is not to be found" try to locate using [google.com...] and set results per page to 100.
>>To test a theory, what happens when you add a fifth word
1) common words such as a, an, and, the
Site not found.
2) words that don't appear, e.g. nosegay
Site not found.
3) words that appear but are not optimised e.g. price, car
Site found (#1) if two adjacent non optimizes words found on page added to first 4 keywords, i.e., my great city hotels complete guide. One word, i.e., complete won't do it.
4) -asdf
single -asdf site not found in top 100
If -asdf -jgtu added to first 4 keywords results in site position #2
Though not conclusive, this does tend to support the bayesian-spam theory that was discussed in another thread. If correct, then Google have lost the plot. I posted a thread explaining why in the simplest and most obvious way but WW declined it. This is not a theory that I could ever have come up with because it would never have crossed my mind that a corporation the size of Google could be so stupid. Well, we live and learn!
If this theory is correct, eventually Google will drop it or the public will drop Google.
Kaled.
"slash dot" is not a money keyword phrase. Inbound link text with money keywords killed my sites for those keywords.
Thoughts about internal v. external links? I seem to have some conflicting evidence there.
MQ
In fact, I really think it is a 'limit' like Spam Assassin...if you have 2/5 factors, you may be fine, but if you have 3/5 your site is dropped....
These are just my own personal theories from all the talk, observation, and two of my own sites that were affected.(the rest were not)
Josh
i believe there is little or no difference from internal to external, however IMHO internal links should be more trustworthy therefore should pull even more weight.
finer9
I have 10s of domains both dashed keyword and non keyword laden I have recorded no data that would lead to this being penalized. I'm very confident its incoming and internal link anchor text only. Should be simple to over come the filter and come back but what a slow pain in the butt with so many domains and links. I think Google is just keeping us busy while the real algo comes.
I use them because they reformat to the proper size, in theory, with ALL browsers.
super_seo
>>Google is targeting commercial sites optimized for specific search phrases<<
Your right. Optimized for 1 or 2 keywords. Regardless of how much relevant content.
Nicola
>>Maybe they've identified common affiliate codes<<
Yea, and I think it is adsense. Maybe if 1 or 2 high volume keywords that advertisers pay higher dollars for are being clicked too often on the sites that are gone, then G is making sure that you cannot make as much money as they do. We need some way to know what percentage of the sites gone for 1 or 2 KW’s had adsense running. Still my best guess, because we didn’t do anything. And this indeed seems to be the one constant. People do not know why their sites had disappeared for 1 or 2 KW’s.
kaled
>>When you say "is not to be found"<<
I mean not found in the first 1000 places using a tool somewhere on the net that tells you your position in G up to 1000. So I’m NOT in the 1st 1000, but only for the 1 or 2 KW’s.
>>I posted a thread explaining why in the simplest and most obvious way but WW declined it.<<
They have been doing that a lot lately. More now than during other G updates, this in of itself says something about this update and perhaps the sponsors of the forum. But it seems to me that every time something negative about G get said, there are a least a couple of positive things said about G right afterwards. I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t get killed, so I have someone sitting beside me here to see me post it.
super_seo
>>It is then taking a bell curve approach to filter your site from the results. The line of the graph being the inbound link anchor text and the peak of the bell curve being the most popular link anchor text phrase that you are using.<<
I have a lot more relative links that no less then 900 sites in front of mine. I have inbounds from 3 major universities, NASA, and 2 trade publications.
Theory about older site. Our site is going on 4 years old and it is gone from 1 or 2 KW’s. If it is the adsense thing, then G needs to be reported to the FTC., (Federal Trade Commission). Should be done anyway because if G hasn’t done anything wrong, this will squelch any wrongdoing theories, and if they have, the need to be penalized and that needs to be made public before the IPO so investors and Wall Street will know for sure.
[edited by: jim_w at 7:51 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
not meaning to dilute your post, but i couldn't help laughing, when i read the above line
BTW, I didn't call someone to watch, they just happen to be here and I was showing them messages about the update. But see what happens when you grew up in the 70's? ;-)
They are now considering reconstruction of the data tables which involves expanding ID fields to 5 bytes. This will result in additional 2 bytes per every word indexed throwing the total index size to be multiplied by 1.17. This procedure will require 1000 new page index servers and additional storage for temporary tables. They are hoping to make this change gradually server by server. The completion of the process will take up to one year after that the main URL index will be switched to use 5 bytes I
