New Google Update 24th April

[crazihos]

The funniest one Ive seen is payday uk wiped out of search

The above happened a week or so before the webspam update mate so not related. (Marcoose beat me to it above).

IMO the screw up here is that for years the only way to compete in google was to get links with anchors. Then overnight they hit any site that has done that.

How many affiliates in the past 3 years have gone out and asked sites for links with "www.brand.co.uk" as the anchor instead of "money term" - hardly any.

A lot of brilliant sites gone and a load of old untouched and now outdated sites replace them. Rubbish! lol

 

[Marcoose]

Im actually thinking about buying some Google shares. What they've done is genius in a lets-screw-everyone-over-so-all-they-can-do-to-get-traffic-is-pay-for-it kind of way.

 

[chippyb]

maybe if google spent less time doing other things and more time on the update it would of worked better.

for example in google type do a barrel roll
or zerg rush

 

[boxfish]

How many affiliates in the past 3 years have gone out and asked sites for links with "www.brand.co.uk" as the anchor instead of "money term" - hardly any.

I would think most people who know what they are doing have a varied link profile with natural looking phrases

What stands out to me is on IM/SEO/Domains forums when anyone links to their own sites they use exact keyword anchor text on the link, yet when they they are naturally linking to an article in a newspaper or on another site they use something like descriptive phrase giving you an idea what the article is about. You can usually tell the type of site you will land on from the anchor text as your inbuilt bullshit sensor starts going off.

This type of information must stand out a mile to Google.

 

[xstu74]

(My Opinion) It definitely a move to generate more income from PPC..It won’t be long till facebook launch their own search engine (this year) and that will be the biggest kick in Googles rear

 

[Marcoose]

(My Opinion) It definitely a move to generate more income from PPC..It won’t be long till facebook launch their own search engine (this year) and that will be the biggest kick in Googles rear

I read recently it's not going to be used for web search, just for Facebook. I really hope you are right though!

 

[xstu74]

I read recently it's not going to be used for web search, just for Facebook. I really hope you are right though!

At this point id say your right they dont have the number of engineers to take Google on but theres no doubt they will develop it further. They are the biggest threat so id be very supprised if they dont.

 

[xstu74]

What makes you think that Facebook wouldn't follow in Google's direction of providing search results, i.e; PPC?

For the amount of development resources, time and effort to provide users with relevant, genuinely useful organic search results - free of charge - where is the incentive?

Oh i 110% agree its all about the ching ching

 

[crazihos]

I would think most people who know what they are doing have a varied link profile with natural looking phrases

Most will mix it up a bit but mainly with variations on a money anchor - i'd have said if you focused heavily on www.brand.co.uk links a few years ago you were throwing money away - but thats come home to roost now.

 

[Blossom]

What stands out to me is on IM/SEO/Domains forums when anyone links to their own sites they use exact keyword anchor text on the link, yet when they they are naturally linking to an article in a newspaper or on another site they use something like descriptive phrase giving you an idea what the article is about. You can usually tell the type of site you will land on from the anchor text as your inbuilt bullshit sensor starts going off.

This type of information must stand out a mile to Google.

I don't know, I do quite a lot of interviews with people and I give them exact match links to their sites as a courtesy thing (and I'd expect the same in return). Obviously I don't do their keyword research or whatever for them, but I give them something helpful. And if people request certain anchor text I always give it.

It's more helpful to Google to have something more descriptive than 'click here', which is the instinctive anchor text to give.

Obviously there are plenty of people abusing the system and lots of very blatant exact matches going on. To resolve it to any kind of decent level you'd need some kind of mini algorithm to test site authority in addition to flagging suspiciously high exact matches and that would be tough to organise properly (although if they've done something with these foundations it would explain why a lot of big brands have been left untouched. But then brands largely do remain untouched in these updates).

 

[denchomsky]

Good example on this site of a legit site that got shafted - http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/

 

[Marcoose]

Matt Cutt's latest post on his blog. As if anyone cares about anything other than Tuesday's update right now. What makes me laugh is how he's trying to look like a good guy by showing a helpful email he went out of his way to send to a webmaster lol.

 

[crazihos]

For me this sums up much of the latest update - but the op articulates it a lot better than I would.

Google wanted to lessen the benefit for traditional SEO backlinking efforts, and for the most part, they did so. However, what they didn't realize is that most of the BEST sites use those same tactics to rank -- because for years it's worked and you've had to do that if you wanted to be on page one for just about anything commercial. So when they threw the switch on this update, those links got discounted, and tons of great sites disappeared from the results.

Leaving what? The guys who don't do any SEO, don't care about their sites, or aren't very professional in their approach to their sites. In other words, the low quality stuff that is out of date or out of touch has risen to the top of many queries. And, of course, the "big box" stuff that doesn't have to do much SEO because every time they sneeze they get another million links aimed at them via the media.

I wonder if Google is learning their lesson: almost all sites use SEO tactics Google doesn't like. If they turn off the effect of those tactics, they turn off the quality of their search results. "

Taken from a comment on google webmaster central.

 

[pugyrob]

For me this sums up much of the latest update - but the op articulates it a lot better than I would.



Taken from a comment on google webmaster central.

The comment you posted is about the best summary of the update i have read out of a LOT of comments and opinions! SPOT ON.

Businesses were faced with "let's sit on page 7 for 8 years and make no money OR employ seo tactics that Google reportedly doesn't allow. I say reportedly because the biggest brands in most niches buy more links individually for SEO reasons than all of the smaller sites combined. Google know this so how they can say that this update was to level the playing field makes my blood boil.

Fair enough do what you like with your search engine, i understand that, but don't try to dress it up as a moral update which is basically a load of balls.

 

[max99x]

For me this sums up much of the latest update - but the op articulates it a lot better than I would.



Taken from a comment on google webmaster central.

spot on! couldn't agree me with the quote you posted, sums it all up.

 

[julian]

having done this shit for over 10 years if your sites been affected in some way then there is something wrong with your site - you might think it ticks all the pink hat seo boxes and its the mutts nuts but its obviously not..

If you just do it properly and play the game on the sites you really care about then you'll be fine!

 

[chippyb]

having done this shit for over 10 years if your sites been affected in some way then there is something wrong with your site - you might think it ticks all the pink hat seo boxes and its the mutts nuts but its obviously not..

If you just do it properly and play the game on the sites you really care about then you'll be fine!

But what if u think you have been playing by all the rules, i haven't tried to cheat my way to my ranking but i got hit

 

[Blossom]

Leaving what? The guys who don't do any SEO, don't care about their sites, or aren't very professional in their approach to their sites. In other words, the low quality stuff that is out of date or out of touch has risen to the top of many queries.

To play devil's advocate...not necessarily. If I do a search for some kind of tradesman, do I want a spammy directory, an affiliate/blog site or a real tradesman who is too busy working to worry or learn about SEO? Do I care if he/she hasn't updated their website in the past six months as long as the basic info is right? Will I appreciate the site more because it doesn't have fifty million internal links in the footer and some poorly written and pointless copy stuck there instead of contact details? Would I prefer a company to spend more resources improving their products and customer service than on SEO? Of course I would.

But all this is in an ideal world context, not a practical one Which is good because otherwise I'd be out of a job.

 

[max99x]

having done this shit for over 10 years if your sites been affected in some way then there is something wrong with your site - you might think it ticks all the pink hat seo boxes and its the mutts nuts but its obviously not..

If you just do it properly and play the game on the sites you really care about then you'll be fine!

Disagree!!!

If that was the case sites that I had created and purposely got dodgyish links to and not great content wouldn't have climbed places, where as sites i've not got any dodgy links for, good content, serves a purpose has dropped!

 

[Ashton]

5 sites up, 0 sites down.

I don't know a lot about SEO, I don't follow seomoz, seobook, etc... I just write content on my sites and occasionally guest blog for others, everything seems peachy at the moment