Forum Moderators: open
Especially sites with many links from site A to B with the same Anchor text across the site.
As far as I can tell the links are not worthless they are just devalued.
Also I think the amount of PR passing has been devalued.
Any Ideas.
You can be sure If I advertise shiny red widgets and spend my money doing it, I am only promoting a page that is targeted to shiny red widgets and would be at home in those serps.
Also, I can see many serps driven by "off topic" links, and, I agree with those who say g are not theming, as already pointed out in this thread, the actual connections by words alone do not take into account the bigger picture.
My speculation is they have turned up the filter on duplicate content and dampened internal anchor text.
I don't see how it is in G's best interest to devalue paid links/adverts.
You can be sure If I advertise shiny red widgets and spend my money doing it, I am only promoting a page that is targeted to shiny red widgets and would be at home in those serps.
Sure, but the only sites that pay for links are e-commerce or affiliate sites. This means that, if Google didn't devalue paid links, it would be favoring commercial pages over information pages in competitive categories. That would violate Google's stated corporate mission, which is to "organize the Web's information and make it universally accessible."
However, they are still not #1 for the term search engine in their own serps, so that would lend credence to your idea.
[google.com...]
Paying for links is 'buying friends' which means there is no guarantee of its quality.
thus is it in googles best interest to ignore / devalue paid links
So having commercial sites is bad for the SERPs? Wouldn't that mean adwords is bad for Google? I mean if I run a search for Soda and Pepsi's page pops up, I'm not going to be disappointed.
I disagree with paid links don't guarantee a good result. If you go out and buy a link for "Blue Widgets", I'm pretty sure you're not selling "Red Thingees".
no... but it doesn't mean that you are the best result for blue widgets. It means that you think you are the best result. But of course we all think we should be ranked number 1
They have not purchased links. All on topic linking inbound (that i know off) and outbound. They do have a substancial amount of reciprical linking though....
Im still looking through results grasping for answers.
Europe, So having commercial sites is bad for the SERPs?
I didn't say that. My point was simply that, since Google's stated mission is to organize the Web's information, it wouldn't make sense for them to give more weight to sites that pay for links. That would tend to favor commercial pages over information pages, thereby detracting from their corporate mission.
Wouldn't that mean adwords is bad for Google?
No, of course not. Ads aren't bad for THE NEW YORK TIMES or THE GUARDIAN, so why should they be bad for Google?
I mean if I run a search for Soda and Pepsi's page pops up, I'm not going to be disappointed.
No, but you might be disappointed if cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com bought a bunch of PR9 links and you got their site instead of Coke, Pepsi, or the Soft Drink Institute when you searched on "soda." :-)
No, but you might be disappointed if cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com bought a bunch of PR9 links and you got their site instead of Coke, Pepsi, or the Soft Drink Institute when you searched on "soda." :-)
Well if cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com put in more effort with their site than Pepsi did, they deserve to be on top.
I think the fact that buying a couple links would put you on top of Pepsi is more a factor of a poor search engine than of sites taking advantage of it.
Well if cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com put in more effort with their site than Pepsi did, they deserve to be on top.
Google doesn't judge effort when it calculates search results, and it certainly isn't looking to reward sites that have shelled out money for inbound links.
An algorithm might identify paid links by modeling human actions. Awhile ago I was interested in investigating the paid link market. It was not overly difficult to find a bunch of sites selling links and a bunch of sites buying links.
The basic process I followed involved identifying certain seed links that were clearly identified as paid links, checking all backlinks to these websites that bought links, than checking to see if other sites served as backlinks to more than one of the original buying sites. Links in close proximity I also assumed were paid.
For example, Site A clearly identifies links to
red widgets, blue widgets, green widgets as paid links.
I check the backlinks to the red widget site and see site B is also a backlink. I go to Site B and find that in addition to linking to red widgets it also links to blue widgets (another known link buyer). A link to green widgets is missing, but right next to the blue widgets link is one to yellow widgets. I now suspect that the yellow widgets link is also paid.
If later on Site C I find a yellow widget link in close proximity to one of the others, my confidence will rise that they are all paid.
The way in which G is attempting to control paid links has been in place for a while and it is algorythmic. This can dampen the effects of a few high PR links but not a smart link buying campaign.
"Off topic" links are also as effective, if not more effective than ever. Theming is the biggest myth in the history of SEO.
I think AB was spot on when he said to take a really close look at internal anchor and dupe content. IMO, most of those that lost pages will find these things mostly work themselves out after the "shakeup" settles down.
A search where the top 100 results are the sites with the biggest budjets would not be as good as one with a bit more variety.
If you look at your site you will see some of your internal sites has lost there PR(white Bar) those pages they are now lost in the serps or bad ranked and they are also bad for your Theme of your site.
Of cuase its summer, but htat only has a value of about 5%.
Another thing Google is not that popular as before be cause of there results, thats why you see a little boost in MSN.com
I hope this helps.
zeus
Another thing Google is not that popular as before be cause of there results
Any proof of this? G's popularity may be affected among those webmasters whose sites were penalized or dropped for whatever reason. But is there proof that their market share is indeed going down? Remember that there are many more G users out there who are not webmasters or savvy about the goings-on of the Web.
No.
Well if cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com put in more effort with their site than Pepsi did, they deserve to be on top.
Google doesn't judge effort when it calculates search results, and it certainly isn't looking to reward sites that have shelled out money for inbound links.
If cheap-discount-pepsi-by-the-case.com lands number one for soda due to paid links then they have a large marketing budget indeed and are therefore, one must assume, are amoung the more prominent companies offering pepsi by the case online. Should they be number one for "soda" - No, probably not but argueably neither should pepsi or coke (as either of these would reflect bias and likly not be what the sercher was after).
But ive got to admit some results I get are pretty bad.
I think that Google is really Simple. Fast. and Easy to use, but without the results they are nothing...
I do still like Google and hope the results get better...
But from a sheer user standpoint, their results are horrible. If I needed to do a search for something, Google would be one of the last places I would go.
If you can't find something on G you don't know how to use it or it does not exist. It is not G's fault that the site you are looking for has their URL as the title of every page. Learn to use advanced features or even the (-) that will help more than anything.
The problem with that thinking (IMHO) is that in order for ANY product to have (and keep) mass appeal, it has to be easy to use for those WITHOUT advanced knowledge.
Let's face it...99% (or more) or the internet population couldn;t care less about advanced search features. Look at how many URLs are still typed into a search box everyday. All the masses care about is being able to type that phrase and find what they want. While Google still (for the most part) delivers the goods, there is simply no denying the quality is no where is used to be (by a long shot).
Having said that, I've taken a look at the Beta MSN, and they're no better (over 5 pages of cloaks/redirects found in one search alone)
Maybe due to the fact that many people use sneaky tatics redirects, etc etc.
I think that Google still has much business because there is no other 'real' se, apart from y! etc but some people just dont like the feel - layout etc...
In my market Id say i have the best keyword. we offer the best product, So i dont mind about that, im talking about when im searching in general!
And yes i can use the advanced stuff, but like last posts says not everyone can.
I noticed that Google now has added 'did you mean...' and gives more options some good some totaly off!
I done a search for blue widgets and it came up with 'did you mean... 'blue widgets in alaska' '
I dont know how they worked out what to put there maybe the amount of specific searches etc who knows to say the least i wasnt impressed... heh
im not exactly complaining Google is good to my sites :)
As for links... I track my links and the links of my 3 main competitors and we all tend to use the same pleaces to advertise and get a link back from. Meanwhile I dropped like a rock with this whole situation and they stayed still. I have(had) a PR6 and they have PR5 or less. Suddenly I get a white bar or a grey bar with showing no PR, and I dropped 20 places in the rankings. It makes no sense. I have been replaced by crap sites that do not have anything to do with the search. I have gone through all the sites above me and so far the only thing I could find that was different was a googlebot tag I have on my index page, that none of them have... also they have either no robots.txt file or they have a modified one with many specifications... perhaps google is eliminating the use of such tags?
