Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:56 am Post subject: Google: There was the Florida and now the Austin
I think if you use to have good ranking before, check again. Jeez .. I lost a lot of top 10 rankings this weekend. Actually, I thought it was just me until I read the StepForth newsletter. I don't know how many of you guys are effected by this. Maybe you guys can share your experience.
Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 76 Location: Glasgow, UK
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2004 10:06 am Post subject:
My rankings have been fluctuating since Florida, from top 10 to out of the top 1000 and back, like a yo-yo.
My theory is that some pages may have been over-optimised (not spammy but may be triggering some filter). I'm experimenting with diluting keywords in title tags and anchor text.
Also expecting more changes as Google continues to shake itself up.
I lost some rankings and gained others. It's been a wild ride and it's only going to continue for awhile until Google finetunes this latest algo.
Just keep building content, with changes in mind. I wouldn't go back and revamp prior pages (except maybe the home page and sitemap). The reason I say this is because algo's change too frequently from one SE to the next ... you could waste all your time chasing rankings instead of producing good content and more sites.
As Sean mentioned in today's newsletter, other SE's may gain more prominence, at least for awhile, because of Google's tweaking. Your current SEO may work great in Inktomi, Altavista, MSN's new SE, or any of the other SE's out there.
Just stay focused and don't panic.
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
Taking "super affiliate handbook" as an example, Sean has lost his #1 position, down to the second page of the SERPS, but look at the top three: #1 is just a single paragraph on a PR4, #2 and #3 are both smart pages with redirects!!!
The key words only appear once; looks like a definite go at seo.
As a followup, I have been reading the most ludicrous conspiracy theories on this latest update. The best are:
Google is penalizing heading tags
Google is penalizing bold text
Google is penalizing any more than one occurence of a key word
Google is penalizing meta keyword tag keywords
And to save the best 'till last: Google is penalizing pages with AdSense on them so they don't have to pay so much for the clicks
I have the solution however: we just host a .txt file
I have the solution however: we just host a .txt file
Sounds good to me and I agree, conspiracy theories abound, it still comes down to quality content and more and more in niched themed content sites. When one page goes down the tubes, another picks up in its place.
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
The SERPs on "super affiliate handbook" are really puzzling. And who would say Sean's site hasn't got content?
I didn't say it didn't have content ... I said as one page drops, another picks up when you have a content site. So while it is puzzling at the moment, the light may shine down the road
I'm looking forward to more from Sean as well.
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
I don't have an issue with my pages being dropped. I've had 4 pages drop this time (only to the 2nd page) - it was 3 last time but one has come back.
The bigger issue is why Rosalind's page has disappeared. That highlights the fact that Google's algorithm is all wrong.
What most people are finding (including myself) is that if you are looking for something specific, Inktomi is doing a much better job of finding it. This was the key part of Google's algorithm - it was easy to find something if you knew what you were looking for.
The first part of the problem is over-optimization penalties. In the Florida update, my 33 Days to Online Profits page dropped from 2 to 780. That can only be a penalty - Hilltop, LocalRank, Semantics and so on couldn't have caused a drop like that. BTW, that page has gone back to number 2 in this update.
Now, that's probably the reason for my SAH page dropping but it's much less harsh than it was during Florida.
The other main problem with the results is that irrelevant pages are ranking well. IMHO, this is possibly due to Google using their "Applied Semantics" software. I've posted about this on my Members Forum so if you own my book, go there. If you don't, I'll sum it up here.
Semantics is currently used by AdSense and is one of the reasons why ads that don't quite seem to match show up on your pages. It works quite well but it's far from perfect.
Basically, what they do is analyze pages to try to find "relationships" between words and phrases. For example, pages about Tony Blair will often mention "British Prime Minister". Once the crawler sees this enough, it decides that those phrases relate to each other.
So, if someone searches for "British Prime Minister" a page about Tony Blair that doesn't actually use the phrase "Bristish Prime Minister" could be returned.
That makes sense and is quite a good addition. Where it's all going wrong is that pages that happen to mention a phrase in passing (or have the words scattered around the page) are being made more relevant due to the use of other words and phrases that Google thinks relate to the search.
I've seen lots of examples of this and the use of Semantics is the only explanation I can come up with. I could definitely be wrong though.
Anyway, as I said, semantics couldn't account for pages completely disappearing from the results - neither could Hilltop or LocalRank. That can only be due to a filter.
The problem with the filtering is that an optimized page does not equal a bad page. If Google wanted to get rid of spam, thats what they should have done - it's really quite easy to do. Hit big sites that spam the SEs and the news would travel fast. It's kind of like "crime fighting" - take out the ringleaders.
Anyway, I'm sure Google is working on fixing their problems - all of their data centers are unavailable so they obviously dont want us to see what they are doing.
BTW, try a search on a regional Google like google.it - the results tend to be quite different.
Wow ... it's creating quite a stir this time. During Florida, I lost a lot of good ranking but they seems to jump up again, especially around Christmas, with some new keywords as well (what a gift, ey).
Then ... this time around, they are doing it again. I guess the thing about all this is that not only we lost our good rankings, but Google is also showing up nonsense results.
I didn't tweak the page as such. I did add one line of text to it but it wasn't for SEO reasons. That line of text had already been indexed prior to this update.
The page originally dropped to 780 during Florida. It went up to around 90 during Google's post Florida changes and moved up every week. Prior to "Austin" it was at about number 20. The Austin update moved it straight from there to number 2 (where it was pre-Florida).
BTW, I added the line on Dec. 22 - it possibly made a difference then but it's hard to tell (things were still changing a lot).
The page originally dropped to 780 during Florida. It went up to around 90 during Google's post Florida changes and moved up every week. Prior to "Austin" it was at about number 20. The Austin update moved it straight from there to number 2 (where it was pre-Florida).
Does the page have any external backlinks?
It seems pages with lots of internal links and no external ones may have been devalued (at least on some updates).
Quote:
The bigger issue is why Rosalind's page has disappeared. That highlights the fact that Google's algorithm is all wrong.
That site has actually very few direct (non-affiliate) backlinks (reported on gg), so it doesn't surprise me too much. From those backlink pages it appears only a few include "super affiliate handbook" in a link.
Btw I see the SERPs exactly as before the last update (it appears my searches redirect to an unapdated datacenter).
It seems searches from US IP's redirect to updated datacenters. If you see the "old" SERPs, "translate" the SERP to English: it will show you the new results.
If you see the new SERPs, try google.it - as Sean said - to see the old ones.
Does the page have any external backlinks?
It seems pages with lots of internal links and no external ones may have been devalued (at least on some updates).
None of my product reviews have external links pointing to them (except one I think). That page was the only page like it that was dumped in Florida. I lost two other rankings but they weren't product reviews.
The only reason I can think of is that it's easy to get a really high keyword density with a 5 word phrase (or 4 that Google counts). The keyword density of that page was probably higher than any of my others. That coupled with a 100% match on anchor text, 80% title match, 80% H1 match must have triggered a filter (I assume).
Quote:
That site has actually very few direct (non-affiliate) backlinks (reported on gg), so it doesn't surprise me too much. From those backlink pages it appears only a few include "super affiliate handbook" in a link.
It was basically number 2 for over 3 months prior to Florida and occasionally number 1 so the previous algo had it right. That's the problem with the new algo. In the past, the actual home page of a product wouldn't always be number 1 but in 99% of cases it would be close. Now, some are nowhere to be found.
Sean, what about the speculation I've seen that "product pages" are being filtered out because Google wants them in Froogle?
If Froogle fed the products, and Google sets Froogle results within standard SERPS (I've seen these) maybe Google really doesn't want product pages directed fed in? Does that make sense? LOL
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Your host: Allan Gardyne. Earning a good living from affiliate
programs since 1998.
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Private Messages
Log in
and I agree, conspiracy theories abound, it still comes down to quality content and more and more in niched themed content sites. When one page goes down the tubes, another picks up in its place.
