Google update... going after EMD's

[xstu74]

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.

Its likely as with most penalties that it would pass through to the new domain over time, but that said its worth a try

 

[martin-s]

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.

That's a very narrow view. There are all sorts of companies, particularly with modern and entrepreneurial owners, who have gone this route.

We Buy Any Car is the most obvious, but just pick up any Yellow Pages.

 

[addz123]

I think this update has completely killed the domain trader industry.

Why?

Because Google has basically penalised ALL sites using an EMD which havn't built up enough size/age/links. If you develop an EMD now it seems you will be indefinitely penalised site-wide until you're big enough, regardless of your content quality or site. Even if you can afford to wait for the penalty to lift until you're big enough, there's no telling when that will be or if the time will ever come.

You could literally have put the same site on non-EMD and be ranking fine, yet because you used an EMD you are being targeted as spam. It's not just a query dependant devaluation of rankings, it's a full blown site penalty.

I have a site that's extremely high quality, domain is relevant to the niche (and actually a brand) yet it looks fucked:

StudentMoney.co.uk

The exacts "student money" doesn't even get any searches. I bought the name for brand value, not seo ranking.

Seriously, develop a site on a keyword domain at your own will now.

 

[kate-brownhill]

What a funny world we live in

In this thread we have several posts from people developing "real" sites frustrated that Google lets temporary crap sites outrank them, and even more frustrated that Google needs to keep changing its alogorithm to keep abreast of these temporary crap sites. Yet here you are, in the same thread, giving insight into how to produce just such sites.

Utter nonsense. Firstly no one said anything about "crap sites" None of the sites we have ever developed for clients are crap so please don’t put words in my mouth or make silly assumptions. Secondly, please could you point me to the insight you claim i gave on how to produce such sites?

 

[philiporchard]

I think this update has completely killed the domain trader industry.

Why?

Because Google has basically penalised ALL sites using an EMD which havn't built up enough size/age/links. If you develop an EMD now it seems you will be indefinitely penalised site-wide until you're big enough, regardless of your content quality or site. Even if you can afford to wait for the penalty to lift until you're big enough, there's no telling when that will be or if the time will ever come.

You could literally have put the same site on non-EMD and be ranking fine, yet because you used an EMD you are being targeted as spam. It's not just a query dependant devaluation of rankings, it's a full blown site penalty.

I have a site that's extremely high quality, domain is relevant to the niche (and actually a brand) yet it looks fucked:

StudentMoney.co.uk

The exacts "student money" doesn't even get any searches. I bought the name for brand value, not seo ranking.

Seriously, develop a site on a keyword domain at your own will now.

Is this really the case that EMDs car being penalised compared to the same content on a non EMD domain? I'm surprised this is the case.

For example if your company was called London Gazebos, would you therefore recommend registering LG-R-Us rather than LondonGazebos.co.uk, to avoid being penalised for having your primary keywords in your domain?

 

[Ashton]

Ergh, trying to figure out how to react to this... do I spend on high quality links, or do I wait and hold out? or do I move to a new domain? Or do I switch to a static site... the choices...

 

[addz123]

Is this really the case that EMDs car being penalised compared to the same content on a non EMD domain? I'm surprised this is the case.

For example if your company was called London Gazebos, would you therefore recommend registering LG-R-Us rather than LondonGazebos.co.uk, to avoid being penalised for having your primary keywords in your domain?

Well my site was penalised above. I've not been chasing any keywords, I've been implementing a white hat strategy of producing excellent content and hoping to get natural links and long tail traffic.

The only thing Google has cared about it's that I'm using a keyword domain. From sites that I've seen survive/disappear there's a v.strong indication that unless your site is over 1 yr old you will get completely penalised for having used an EMD. Even pregnancy .co.uk was hit as mentioned above (< 6 months old). Since the algo was targeting EMDs, I can't imagine the same site built on a brand domain would have taken a hit too.

I've built much lower quality, smaller sites on EMDs in the past which are all still ranking, having not even been updated in over a year. However it looks like because they are over 1 yr old they could be surviving. I have no idea but maybe increasing the renewal date of your domain for another couple of years will send a signal to Google that you are not a spammer and have long term intentions for the site.

 

[murph]

Ergh, trying to figure out how to react to this... do I spend on high quality links, or do I wait and hold out? or do I move to a new domain? Or do I switch to a static site... the choices...

I'm facing similar questions! This update has singled out EMDs, is there a recovery even possible? Thing that gets me is that if you read Mr Cutts on TW, and the previous things he's said he's never implied a penalty. More a toning down of any bonus.

 

[retired_member34]

Particularly after a heavy lunch.

 

[Marcoose]

I'm still trying to get my head around this update. My main EMD sites haven't been effected by the update even though two of them are pretty new (2 months and 5 months). One is still ranking page one (UK) for a pretty large keyword with minimal backlinking and the other one has maintained its position. Domain 1 is over 15 years old. Domain 2 is over 14 years old. It isn't links that are holding them up so it must be the keywords, domain age and site content.

I am also checking through sites I have put online for the sake of having them indexed and most of them are where they were before. These are as thin as you like so can't really explain that. This really does look though like it is more than a simple EMD nerf.

The good news: Most of my main sites are brand rather than EMD. The bad news: A fair % of my domain portfolio is probably worthless...... although most of my domains are brand anyway so maybe the good outweighs the bad.

 

[grantw]

I think this update has completely killed the domain trader industry.

There was a time not long ago when GKT didn't show search figures and the term EMD didn't exist!! Back in those dark ages of a few years ago end users bought generic memorable domains that were relevant to their business or bought brandable domains that they specifically needed - that hasn't and won't change.

In my experience most end users (and established domainers for that matter) don't give a crap about 'EMD', local exacts blah blah blah......The only domainers affected by this will be those that have bought loads of rubbish domains based solely on Google search figures and rely on sales to people that actually understand terms such as EMD...ie domainers/affiliate marketers who in general weren't willing to invest much in a domain for their next spammy MFA site anyway!

Grant

 

[kate-brownhill]

Ok, I stand corrected. So you spend hundreds of man hours developing a quality website which adds value to a shopping customer, then black hat the hell out of it, promising your customer who you charge to develop it, that the site will survive in G for a few months before being penalised.



Again I stand corrected. Re-reading your original post you give insight into why you should create such sites, not how:

We developed a good looking site which is aimed at selling cheap barbecues. Over 130 customers who have bought from him have testified to the quality of the site with their wallets and they are all happy with the bargains they received. It certainly was not crap. Sorry I did not invest hundreds of hours in Encyclopaedia type information on the nature of BBQs and how they have improved mankind. Seriously, get off your high horse and welcome to the real world. Would love to see some your great sites that you have produced as you obviously have such high standards.


By the way, you have again put words in my mouth. No one has ever said anything about "black hat the hell out of it". We just have a formula that we follow when we want quick rankings and it certainly nothing sinister. Just a few perquisites for the domain in question and some careful planning. Certainly not much worst then other "black hat" tactics like err… sponsored (read paid) links for example, which by the way I see some of your sites heavily rely on. Also, maybe I have missed it but could you point me out to this great content that you seem to expect everyone else to have yet, for some reason, I can’t seem to find on your sites?

What is that saying again? Those who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones?

Oh and one last thing. If you are going to quote me, at least have the decency of quoting the whole line and dont edit it so it makes your point look somehow more valid. This is what i said:

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

and this is what you quoted me as saying:

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

You dont work for the Daily Express do you?

 

[gordi555]

I personally think it's a large over-optimisation penalty from Google and the EMD contribute to it. A lot of my EMDs are fine but it's mostly affected internal pages that are optimised (a lot) that don't live on an EMD.

I'm doing some experiments into if I can reverse the large deranking by removing the optimised features and seeing what happens. Mainly lowering keyword density and trying not to have main keyphrase the most common term on the page.

If I have some positive results I'll keep this thread updated.

 

[Ashton]

I personally think it's a large over-optimisation penalty from Google and the EMD contribute to it. A lot of my EMDs are fine but it's mostly affected internal pages that are optimised (a lot) that don't live on an EMD.

I'm doing some experiments into if I can reverse the large deranking by removing the optimised features and seeing what happens. Mainly lowering keyword density and trying not to have main keyphrase the most common term on the page.

If I have some positive results I'll keep this thread updated.

Taking the same steps here, cutting down the keyword density, removing some crap links and some strong site-wide links.

 

[retired_member34]

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.

It may be total concidence, but I have been following a geo website that has ranked #1 in G for some time. It is not an EMD, but ranked #1 purely because the EMD for the town was 301d to the website. Yesterday the homepage disappeared from the SERPs. Even if you search for site:domain.com the homepage does not appear, but the interior pages do. All interior pages still seem to rank where they did before, but the home page has vanished.

 

[retired_member26]

The .se , .dk sites might be explained by the "fact" that Google generally pushes out algo changes in English languages first and then adjusts the others later.

Lot's of .com.au and co.za domains in the first page. That is interesting.

 

[kate-brownhill]

There is a theory on EMDs that says that they have some over optimisation protection as they are more likely to be linked to using their name. So, for example, bluechips.co.uk will be less likely to receive an over optimisation penalty if the vast majority of their anchor text is "blue chips". It makes sense. It could well be that Google have just removed or greatly reduced this OO protection causing many who had a free pass through the algo's net to now be caught by it and drop from the serps. Can people who have had sites disappear state what % of their links are the same as the domain?

 

[thecat]

In my opinion Google is a mess at the moment and all these updates need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Take one of my sites for example, a .co.uk exact match for the term "cheap golf balls". The site was made in 1 night about 2 years ago.

It has no real optimisation carried out, each page is pretty much 99% duplicate content, it is full of affiliate listings as the main content, no links, never updated, yet it has strengthened in rankings after every update.

At one point this was not in the top five pages of Google, over time it has been creeping its way up the serps and within the last week it has been 5th in Google. Today it is 2nd (At time of writing) The .org.uk exact match is also at the bottom of page 1.

I have many other examples like this.

I didn't think this had been rolled out anywhere but google.com yet?

 

[domainseller200]

I must say I mainly expected it to target long domains like extendablediningtablewith6chairs.org.uk but a member on here owns a well-developed premium, one-word, 9 letter undergarment .co.uk. The site has ranked #2 since I joined this forum, today it ranks halfway down page 6, so it seems it targeting all of them.

Jeez I go away for a family weekend break away and Google repays me by doing this

What is even stranger is figleaves.com has also dropped down for the same keyword as I was ranked for (they were 3 and I was 2) and they are now 55 and I am now 66

Out of all my sites which I have checked, only 2 have dropped (they are both .co.uk domains, none of my ranked .org.uk haven't been affected) and I can confirm that both have dropped from the top 5 on G to page 5/6 for the main ranking keyword, however they are both still ranked and bringing in the longtail as they were before.

 

[addz123]

There is a theory on EMDs that says that they have some over optimisation protection as they are more likely to be linked to using their name. So, for example, bluechips.co.uk will be less likely to receive an over optimisation penalty if the vast majority of their anchor text is "blue chips". It makes sense. It could well be that Google have just removed or greatly reduced this OO protection causing many who had a free pass through the algo's net to now be caught by it and drop from the serps. Can people who have had sites disappear state what % of their links are the same as the domain?

My StudentMoney.co.uk site has 95% anchor for "studentmoney.co.uk". It only has around 10 links anyway and I wasn't targeting that term - all of my traffic is from long tails and inner pages. Now it's been completely penalised.

It also makes no sense to put an insanely high benchmark for quality on EMDs in order for them to prove themselves. Like I said it's not been based on quality anyway - I have amazing sites on EMDs that have been hit and then shitty 20 page affiliate sites that havn't been updated in over a year ranking no1. My Studentmoney.co.uk site that was hit has got average visit time of 3:30 minutes and 27% bounce.

The only thing I can think of is that this EMD update uses an algo that compares the keyword domain to how often the keyword appears on the page (or at least looks optimised in page titles, h1/h2 etc). I also thought they could use factors such as domain renewal length, website age, outgoing links and trust, however I feel like most of this stuff has been disproved when I look at EMDs still ranking.

P.S I still don't see how an EMD that survives both Panda and Penguin deserves to then get a site-wide penalty. Don't see why Google couldn't just lower rankings for the EMD query. It's almost like Google feels they had no other alternative because they feel the original algorithm had too much reliance on the keywords in the domain that they'd rather just penalise webmasters then fix their own algo.