Google update... going after EMD's

[cc976a]

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

Perhaps - but the drops in SERPs people are reporting (disappearing altogether) almost hints at penalizing, rather than turning down.

Be interesting to see how this unfolds.

 

[newguy]

Perhaps - but the drops in SERPs people are reporting (disappearing altogether) almost hints at penalizing, rather than turning down.

Be interesting to see how this unfolds.

Hmm, maybe instead of turning down, they have applied a slight penalty to exact match (and partial exacts) domains if certain criteria are met. Just throwing ideas out there as possibilities. Maybe in the coming days we'll get a clearer idea of what's going on.

 

[Systreg]

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

Well, it was good while it lasted, Wikipedia is now showing back at #1 already and mine down to #2 lol

 

[murph]

Hmm, maybe instead of turning down, they have applied a slight penalty to exact match (and partial exacts) domains if certain criteria are met. Just throwing ideas out there as possibilities. Maybe in the coming days we'll get a clearer idea of what's going on.

I think this is the case. Deffo a penalty in alot of cases. Ive seen a few EMD phrases and a few non EMD vanished completely. Certainly valuable keyphrases. Gave up looking after page 15! That's some penalty.

 

[Systreg]

I have another one that's been acting strangely for a month or so, it's a product name with 260 exacts, product prices are high £xxx - high £x,xxx, it's the EMD for the term, it has been at #1 for pretty much the last 3 years, in the last couple of months it vanished for about 3 weeks, couldn't see it anywhere, then came back to #1 and then vanished again, I saw it was page 3 of serps yesterday, then it was nowhere earlier today, now it's back at #1 again, no doubt it'll vanish again before tomorrow, strange as it's not a new site you would expect to be dancing around.

Only has 1 back link to it, virtually no content apart from a couple of hundred words, all images are completely broken along with template images, it's just has a load of old dead aff links and descriptions on 24 pages, nothing else apart from that.

 

[Murray]

I haven't read this whole thread but the first couple of pages annoyed me..

I'm a moderator on a large SEO forum, for me to keep reading at the start of this thread "SEO Is dead" is absolutely rediculous..

Everytime google updates something someone screams "SEO IS DEAD!!!!" it happened in 2003 with florida.. here we are all the years later and people are still screaming it.

Maybe one day it will be true, not yet

 

[cc976a]

Personally I'm going to try and weather out this storm.

Just read a theorised (but likely) definition of Cutt's 'low quality' statement - it's affiliates and MFA (although I would imagine adsense sites will get off more likely as they will provide revenue for G)

Low quality doesn't have to be content thin mini-sites, or even scrapped / spun content with doorway pages and redirects. G has said for a while they regard affiliate sites as lower quality, looks like they are trying to show it.

You haven't got to do much digging to see it's affiliate sites who have been targeted - the EMD appears to be a bit of a smoke-screen, but accepted, as of course affiliaters are primary users of EMD.

Are your sites that have been hit affiliate based - anyone have any EMDs or part EMDs that have dropped off the radar but were not mainly affiliate based?

 

[Aegean]

But if I wanted to start a real company offering coach holidays to Scotland, it kind of makes sense to call my company "Coach Holidays to Scotland Limited" and have my website on www.CoachHolidaysToScotland.co.uk.

After all, marketing is all about telling people what you do. There's nothing uniquely 'SEO' driven about taking this path.

Its easy to say that but in fact I completely disagree. I think its very unlikely you would call your company "Coach Holidays To Scotland Limited", just as its unlikely to see a business called "Ford Dealers In London Ltd" or "Hotels In Manchester Ltd".

In fact, your company is much more likely to be called "Martins Coaches", "ABC Trips", "Wrinkly Tours" etc. Google knows this.

 

[murph]

I've seen sites with no affiliate links hit. I think they have literally taken every phrase domain out there and applied criteria. If it trips the filters, it's chucked...

Edit: in fact I suspect they've taken every search phrase and looked for EMDs in the top x results. Then assessed and applied filters.

 

[retired_member34]

I should know better at my age than to go on t'internet in a bad mood.

 

[arkvard]

Isn't it a known fact that searches like to see EMDs in the search results as they can relate to the site instantly and its easy for them to remember.

Just been reading somewhere else about pregnancy .co .uk, which does not get much better than that for a domain name. "He has spent months developing the content on the site. He's also acquired legitimate government links and has grown a big community around it, yet he's been completely delisted from Google. He doesn't even rank in the first 10 pages for 'pregnancy' (or any other major term)"

If a site like that can get wiped out with a great one word domain name, good content and links then what chance do most other sites have!

I understand the theory of clamping down on really long tail keywords as EMDs but short memorable ones doesn't seem right at all. Not only will site owners lose out but also the searches as well...

 

[murph]

Isn't it a known fact that searches like to see EMDs in the search results as they can relate to the site instantly and its easy for them to remember.

Just been reading somewhere else about pregnancy .co .uk, which does not get much better than that for a domain name. "He has spent months developing the content on the site. He's also acquired legitimate government links and has grown a big community around it, yet he's been completely delisted from Google. He doesn't even rank in the first 10 pages for 'pregnancy' (or any other major term)"

If a site like that can get wiped out with a great one word domain name, good content and links then what chance do most other sites have!

I understand the theory of clamping down on really long tail keywords as EMDs but short memorable ones doesn't seem right at all. Not only will site owners lose out but also the searches as well...

Good example of where this has obviously gone wrong. There really should be an appeal process for all of this. That domain you cited has ok looking link profile and the site is far from low quality.
The other thing i'd say is the penalty seems so harsh. Sure drop a page or two which would presumably be where the site would rank without any EMD boost... But -page 20 or whatever it is is very harsh!

 

[dashu1]

So perhaps a good test would be for someone with an EMD that's been hit to move their entire site onto a totally non-EMD, and then redirect the EMD to it and see if that brings it back again.

 

[retired_member36]

Isn't it a known fact that searches like to see EMDs in the search results as they can relate to the site instantly and its easy for them to remember.

Just been reading somewhere else about pregnancy .co .uk, which does not get much better than that for a domain name. "He has spent months developing the content on the site. He's also acquired legitimate government links and has grown a big community around it, yet he's been completely delisted from Google. He doesn't even rank in the first 10 pages for 'pregnancy' (or any other major term)"

If a site like that can get wiped out with a great one word domain name, good content and links then what chance do most other sites have!

I understand the theory of clamping down on really long tail keywords as EMDs but short memorable ones doesn't seem right at all. Not only will site owners lose out but also the searches as well...

The site you mentioned is one of the ones i was talking about earlier in this thread, as you stated you cant get better, its a great site which me and my partner have looked at in the past while expecting.

 

[JMOT]

So perhaps a good test would be for someone with an EMD that's been hit to move their entire site onto a totally non-EMD, and then redirect the EMD to it and see if that brings it back again.

Yes I was thinking the same thing

 

[arkvard]

The site you mentioned is one of the ones i was talking about earlier in this thread, as you stated you cant get better, its a great site which me and my partner have looked at in the past while expecting.

Yep, I think their algorithm is well screwed up at the moment!

 

[anthony]

Good example of where this has obviously gone wrong. There really should be an appeal process for all of this...

But isn't this the pointer to the main issue? Google is too central to everything, and their position as a search engine really is a misnomer these days. This is what comes of allowing one company to dominate a big chunk of our online experience.

 

[cc976a]

So perhaps a good test would be for someone with an EMD that's been hit to move their entire site onto a totally non-EMD, and then redirect the EMD to it and see if that brings it back again.

Strangely none of my EMD have been hit against their exact match phrase.

My hit is part EMD match on healthy exacts in the GKW tool.

G have removed ALL affiliate sites which dominated 90% of the sector - now only 4 'retailers', foreign sites and pointless blog posts (I mean really pointless - adds no value whatsoever) remain.

Based on what I've seen, and examples looked at, I'm not sure redirecting from an EMD to a non-EMD will help - it appears to be the site that's more penalized.

If you've disappeared it's probably site based, if dropped a few placed it's probably loss of bonus on the EMD

 

[JMOT]

I haven't read this whole thread but the first couple of pages annoyed me..

I'm a moderator on a large SEO forum, for me to keep reading at the start of this thread "SEO Is dead" is absolutely rediculous..

Everytime google updates something someone screams "SEO IS DEAD!!!!" it happened in 2003 with florida.. here we are all the years later and people are still screaming it.

Maybe one day it will be true, not yet

Denial of the events unfolding in the last 2 years is more ridiculous than a contentious thread title designed to spark debate

Googles evolution and war on SEO in 2011/2012 is something Hilltop, Florida and all the updates since has never come close too. Now add the new Google compare functionality forcing SERPS further below the fold. Add local. Add even more PPC listings in the north rail of the page. SEO has a decreasing CTR that has in the last 2/3 years become less and less.

If you look back objectively there has been 10 years of absolute abuse by SEO's gaming the system. 10 years of lost ad sales revenue to Google. The concept rarely changed in that whole time. Now 2011 and 2012 occur and the absolute core concept of gaming google is under attack with more variables at play than a NASA manual.

If you believe running a business off SEO is viable then good luck to you. I think with this latest twist of the knife there will be more folks agreeing that SEO is basically fecked for them.

The thread that I really kicked off with the contentious title recently had many folks here saying (summarizing not exact quotes):

"naaa SEO isnt dead.. I just reg'd an EMD, put in a few careful links and now I'm on page 1 flying... your talking bollocks"

&

"I surfed thu penguin easy because I didnt automate my links, google wont touch EMD's... how can they"

&

"I've never link built into my domains and they rank just fine"

My point is peoples level of utter blindness to the current course Google is on of completely fucking with SEO to force people into PPC & their unwillingness to think outside the box.

Dont get me wrong there is still huge cash to be made and this will yield opportunity for others. Imagine all those site owners going "yipeeee I'm number 1...that EMD is gone!"

Its an eco-system, I get that. Paid search is the top of the food chain and its eating everything in its way.

So why dont people think about these things like an ecosystem?

Whats this update going to do to Google? Why have they done it? Whats changed at Google? What services are they now pushing as paid inclusion in the SERPS? How does this potentially change how users interact with the SERPS?

If people dont ask themselves these questions in relation to building longterm stability rather than "how can i rank a new site" they are stupid.

Agree, disagree, whatever.

 

[JMOT]

Isn't it a known fact that searches like to see EMDs in the search results as they can relate to the site instantly and its easy for them to remember.

Just been reading somewhere else about pregnancy .co .uk, which does not get much better than that for a domain name. "He has spent months developing the content on the site. He's also acquired legitimate government links and has grown a big community around it, yet he's been completely delisted from Google. He doesn't even rank in the first 10 pages for 'pregnancy' (or any other major term)"

If a site like that can get wiped out with a great one word domain name, good content and links then what chance do most other sites have!

I understand the theory of clamping down on really long tail keywords as EMDs but short memorable ones doesn't seem right at all. Not only will site owners lose out but also the searches as well...

yeah I read this too and cant believe this got nailed. Its genuinely a quality quality site.