Google update... going after EMD's

[Ashton]

Anyone notice if there was a correlation between wordpress sites and lower ranking? I'm thinking of switching back to static...

 

[peacock]

Anyone notice if there was a correlation between wordpress sites and lower ranking? I'm thinking of switching back to static...

There probably is a correlation, but that's more due to that WP is the CMS of choice for many link farms, black hats, etc etc

Of course G could easily identify WP sites and mark them down a notch but that would seem harsh on the many many high quality sites and genuine bloggers.

 

[kate-brownhill]

could be a factor. None of our sites are WP. All static or opencart and have seen no reduction at all. I am talking over 30 EMD sites. Most number 1 some top 3. Just keeping my fingers crossed that its not coming.

 

[sdsinc]

You've got to understand their logic though, an EMD is no assurance of a good site!

Exactly, in fact their aim is not to shoot down EMDs, but to penalize low quality websites that get undue boost from EMDs. So it's not a war against EMD per se.

 

[Admin]

there is a WP plugin that removes most indications its a WP site (from META headers) could be worth a try

 

[retired_member36]

there is a WP plugin that removes most indications its a WP site (from META headers) could be worth a try

Sounds interesting, whats it called?

Anyone notice if there was a correlation between wordpress sites and lower ranking? I'm thinking of switching back to static

A few of my EMD, have not been hit YET! and they are on wordpress, ive also checked a few ive sold in the past which have actually improved (they too are on wordpress, Pissed me off a little because they have had no new content at all, and are now out ranking some of my sites lol). The sites that have improved have had NO link building done to them! And only have adsense on, no other affiliate streams.

Build a site with relevent content and build it well to web standards, keep it updated, build a presence and community.

I said earlier in this thread that ive seen some big sites hit on the keywords ive been keeping an eye on. One of the sites in question belongs to a member from here and i know his site is very relevant to the Exact match keyword (Loads of quality content etc).

 

[ratboy]

At the end of the day. And i've seen this time and time again.

Built a quality site, that people want to link to, visit and talk about. And there is no problem.

Doing things the quick way doesn't work any more.

 

[PoshTiger]

It's not a WP issue - I've had joomla sites go down.

The lack of new content + EMD seems to have hit my sites.

 

[Ashton]

Regarding: "Build a quality site"

My site has tons of unique regular blog posts, unique content and high quality links. However its being outranked by 3 page no-content sites with crap links. There is more to this than that.

 

[Brassneck]

I'm also curious to know if anyone has spotted:

• Any difference between .co.uk / .org.uk movements?
• Any move away from G's preference for .uk sites in Google.co.uk .... has anyone seen .com's come up?

When I search for something like "Dublin Ireland" I am now getting loads of non .uk sites. That seems to be a lot different to before.

Stephen.

 

[JMOT]

This will send CTR on ppc up nicely thus ppc's in general will rise... again.

 

[JMOT]

Hmmm this is also going to make Bing look super relevant as Bing loves an EMD....

 

[Ashton]

A site with 52 backlinks is now beating my site with 6 thousand backlinks, among those backlinks are many high PR and <100k alexa sites. Interesting.

 

[murph]

Regarding: "Build a quality site"

My site has tons of unique regular blog posts, unique content and high quality links. However its being outranked by 3 page no-content sites with crap links. There is more to this than that.

Agreed. There is no way this is about quality content, nor frequency of fresh content. Deffo backlinks involved. Almost suspect a mini penguin focused exclusively on key phrase domains. Probably concentrating on money terms.

 

[JMOT]

dont think its even on money terms, i think its across the board. I'm seeing pissy little emd keywords taking a bashing... even local trade+location emd's have dropped.

 

[kate-brownhill]

Doing things the quick way doesn't work any more.

That’s not really true. There are still quite a few methods that can get a site ranked very quickly and for competitive keywords as well. You only need a few prerequisites and you can get it done. However, there is no saying how long it will stay ranking. We have had it as short as 3 days and as long as 6 months (and counting). So it works, but short term only which some in the blackhat world will argue is easier than doing all the hard work and investment on one site. I.e. many now argue, that its best to always have 5 sites on the go and as soon as one hits the top 10, build another one. A conveyor belt with always more just behind ready for the final push to go to page1. Seeing some 100% white ha sites go down lately, its hard to argue against if it fits your business model (i.e you dont care about building a brand)

One example. We had a client that paid us to get a BBQ site to page1 of Google. He bought a container load of Outback bbqs from a company that went bust and could not pay the remainder 50% FOB price of the container to get it released. We placed an open cart site and ranked it within 3 weeks for some nice keywords. He sold 80% of the container just from that and the site is now penalised. The only guarantee we gave him was that we will get the site to page 1 for the agreed keywords for a period of 5 weeks between April and August. We also had two more sites ready just in case but they were not needed in the end as the one site held up for well over 9 week before the penalty. He does not care as he will never be doing this again so for him it was the perfect model.

So, it still works if you know how, but not for the long term.

 

[Admin]

Great insights into what can be done with a plan and skills to match. Thanks for sharing.

Admin

 

[Systreg]

dont think its even on money terms

I had one today for a low advertiser term that's not a money or commercial term, it's 1000 exacts, I was #3, Wikipedia was #2 and another site I'm a member of was #1 for the term, they have 150,000 back links and a large site/forum on a .com which is also #2 on google.com

My org.uk only has about 50 back links and the site consists of just a home page and a links page, mine has now gone to #1 over night , the other 2 have gone to #2 and #3, although it's not a term for anything commercial, I like being where it is as it's scam related and fits my NNN domain perfectly, might even go and put some more pages on it as a result

 

[cc976a]

dont think its even on money terms, i think its across the board. I'm seeing pissy little emd keywords taking a bashing... even local trade+location emd's have dropped.

So what's going on with sites taking a bashing on non EMD's?

My site is still top of G for it's EMD keyword (low xxx exacts) whereas the keyword it was near top on SERPs for 12 months (keyword within URL) has disappeared completely. This has local exacts of mid x,xxx. This seems to be one of the biggest complaints - and one nit yet answered or explained.

Seems to have been penalized. Had fresh regular content, did everything white hat and G friendly - and yet keeping nose clean didn't make a difference.

Nothing from G or Cutts on this!?!

 

[newguy]

So what's going on with sites taking a bashing on non EMD's?

Maybe they've turned down the value of exact and partial match domains.