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Would a dup content filter apply to only one keyword?
My other keywords are ranking ok. Google dropped my old domain with the last update and picked up my new one. Googlebot spiders my page everyday and has indexed about 10 of my pages.
Do you know exactly when the sites recovered? Was it at the Austin or Brandy updates?
wellzy
One site recovered to #40 spot before Austin, then #12 spot after Austin then #1 after Brandy. Of the others only 1 recovered before Brandy. As for the others, I am not sure if it was Brandy or the changes that caused the recovery because I made the changes to these sites after Austin.
By the way, my new domain name is the keyword for which I am being "Filtered". Any input on this?
That's why I say that it is pre-selection not filter. The point is you can't be filtered out if you never get in. If you start to think "how do I get into the selection" first and then start to worry about how you can tweak your way up the SERPs I think that you will make more progress.
With regard to outbound links. I've added links to the ODP and Google directory, Yahoo directory cats etc that my site is listed in. If Google is going to put my pages in any cluster I want to make sure it's the right one :o)
Best wishes
Sid
Well it is a PR 6 but anything we seem to do with this site helps us as it has over 5k of pages in google and is considered an authority.
I have just updated my site with your idea and will report back on what happens.
How long did it take for your site to go from #40 to the top again?
The top 40 was quick. The top 15 took several weeks and #1 was a month later with Brandy.
Hi Allan,
How confident are you that it was things that you did that made the difference rather than some change that Google made at the Brandy update.
The reason I ask is because I have a site which had a number of pages at #1, for a couple of years, for a range of terms which was dropped to 50 ish at Florida. I made all sorts of changes after Florida and dropped to 450 at Austin. Then at Brandy the pages went back in at #1 for all of the terms for which it had previously been #1 for. During all of this time if I searched for those terms +www I popped back in at #1.
The point is that I added relevant inbound and outbound links, I broadened the context of my English and added stems and synonyms and other semantic matches both to existing pages and made whole new pages on "context terms". I cleansed my site of any bad out links, duplication etc etc. Having done all of that I have absolutely no idea if it was something I did which regained my position or something that Google did. I suspect very strongly that my pages should always have been at #1 and that Google had a bug that was fixed at Brandy.
Best wishes
Sid
To get back to top 40 I only added the directory element. I went from out of top1000 to top40 (actually I think I was #34). To get to #1 I'm not sure if it was me or just Brandy. Brandy meant several of my sites recovered. So it is hard to say for certain.
Still I find the vast majority of sites are filtered. The really annoying thing is Google filters based on city terms, which reflects 99.9% of the terms I target. I have sites which are located in areas where they areone of only a handful of sites that are related to the city, yet are no where to be found for the city terms. The filter has gone overboard and as a result these sites sit in exile. I am planning on testing the directory element with these sites as well, but I would prefer if they could rank well based on richness of content. Google causes Whitehat webmasters to consider the darkside.
I'm going to test directory too. How many other links should i put on one page?
I think I know the answer to this one but I'll ask the question anyway. Does the anchor text of the outbound links contain your term?
Are your outbounds concentrated on your index page?
I have done something similar to what you describe and whilst I don't know for sure that there is a causal relationship between doing this and getting back to #1 there is no doubt that I have got back to #1. I'm going to try repeating it on another site and see what happens.
One very useful side effect of this is the fact that I've gone from #7 to #1 on Teoma. By the way the results on Teoma for my niche are absolutely spot on from a relevancy point of view. There are other things that I've done which could also have affected the Teoma results like stems and synonyms.
Best wishes
Sid
To answer your questions:
>Does the anchor text of the outbound links contain your term?
Yes, this is a must. I thought I said that but I guess I forgot to mention this.
>Are your outbounds concentrated on your index page?
Yes, but if you want interal pages to show for a particular keyword then you must repeat for the internal pages. I found that at first I recovered for my main keyword but didn't recover for secondary terms from internal pages that were also filtered. I repeated the method jumped back up for these terms as well.
Buy another domain name... Make a one page site, optimized for your two keyword phrase. Point some links from your old site to it. Watch the magic... It rises to the top for the very phrase you have been filtered for.
That's why I say that it is pre-selection not filter. The point is you can't be filtered out if you never get in. If you start to think "how do I get into the selection" first and then start to worry about how you can tweak your way up the SERPs I think that you will make more progress.
That's interesting Sid, but in practise I'm having trouble understand why you wouldn't make it to the selection for a phrase you are optimized for.
Thanks,
J-F
That's interesting Sid, but in practise I'm having trouble understand why you wouldn't make it to the selection for a phrase you are optimized for.
Exactly. That's the hard part and it can be for all sorts of reasons. Dupe page issues, insufficient inbound links and no fresh content, dead end site with no out links and not enough backlinks to be an authority (particularly if its the index page that used to rank), more than 1000 sites for your term that don't have any of these problems, etc etc. You need to really understand your site/pages then you can do something about it.
If you do a search for the terms you watch and put +www after the term and your site pops into the top 10 then you have something to work with. If you search for the plural of a term and you go into the top 10 but you are not in the 1000 for the singular or vice versa then you have something to work with. If you are not in the 1000 for "big widget hunting" but you are in the top 10 for "big hunting" then you have something to work with. If you can confirm that your site does not have dupe issues, has plenty of back links etc and it looks like Google just made a mistake for some of your terms including one "problem" word. I would write to GoogleGuy using the key Brandy update and explain all of the experiments you have done with SERPs and the results that you are seeing.
But first you need to explore your site and its backlinks and really understand its place on the web.
Best wishes
Sid
If you do a search for the terms you watch and put +www after the term and your site pops into the top 10 then you have something to work with.
--edit--
Does anyone know how I can go about contacting GoogleGuy and getting this checked out by them?
I have a site that ranks at number 3, but vanishes when you put +www after the search term. Should I be worried?
Lifes too short to worry!
Are you using relative or absolute urls for internal links.
Try +a.
Best wishes
Sid
Does anyone know how I can go about contacting GoogleGuy and getting this checked out by them?
Hi Madman,
GoogleGuy said this.
>>"The keyword I'll be looking for is "brandyupdate" as all one word, either by email towebmaster [at] google.com" Not sure if he is still looking but you might be lucky.
Best wishes
Sid
If you do a search for the terms you watch and put +www after the term and your site pops into the top 10 then you have something to work with.
Thanks Sid for the reply. I'm in the top 10 with +www (or in related 3-word phrases) and nowhere to be seen for the 2 word search. Plenty of incoming links, good content also from a semantic viewpoint, but no outgoing links. Might be the reason.
My site does not show (checked the first 40 pages) at all when searching for only KEYWORD but shows on place 6 when searching for +KEYWORD. Before Florida it was constantly on place 1-15 (shifting a little). I have done most of the stuff that is alread written, the only bad part is my low PageRank (3) - could that matter so much?
I have done most of the stuff that is alread written, the only bad part is my low PageRank (3) - could that matter so much?
I have a couple of PR3 sites that have been dropped but not sure if that is a contributory factor. It may indicate that you don't have very good backlinks from on topic sites though.
Also look at outlinks and growing your site. Read Brett's Theme Pyramids article first though.
Best wishes
Sid
Thank you for supporting one of my options. I beleive it would work well. And I may even do it.
However, I'm trying to keep it as "white hat" as I can - not just because of any search engine guidelines, but because of my visitors, who like good, honest, authoritiy site.
In 3 months of existance this site was hand picked by few major travel guides as a good resource for a city in question. I would like to keep it going that track. So other domain just to target a keyword is still just b) option.
Pitty to see sometimes content is not a king. Although, maybe with some more inbound link it would improve regardless of negative attitude towards what google see as "over optimisation"
I typed my search term with the "+www" after it and have excellent ranking. Without it I'm not listed.
What's this mean and what do I do?
Could you elaborate on the importance of this?
Thanks very much in advance,
M
As a result of the discussion on OOP I made a page with a reasonably competitive 2 word search term -2.5 million - top 20 SEO'd
Title
H1
H2
H3
H4
and 85% KWD
I don't bother with DESC or META KW any more
It's still No.1 after 3 updates
Since Florida have not lost any SERPS, but have gained over 150 new No.1's without changing anything
GranPops
