Penguin update synopsis

[julian]

I wonder if G will start to look at the over CMS use -Joomla, WP and the like and go back to 'old skool' flat file .html!?

 

[crazihos]

Google therefore done a decent job for 'man in street' searcher?

When my moms buying stuff online (eg washing machines*) she spends a couple of hours if not more looking at sites to pick one.

Whether they were all really great sites or not she'd happily lap up affiliate style sites as part of the enjoyable buying experience.

Now if she searches "washing machines" in the top 10 she has a choice of 8 retailers all offering the same products, one review site (which which she would have to pay to join) and wikipedia in case she wants to know the history of washing machines.

Out of the top 30 results 27 are retailers.

For people like my mom Google is now rubbish.

* I have no idea what the washing machine search results were like before penguin btw - its just the first product I thought of and the results seem typical.

 

[rob]

I dont see how pages of aff site with dupe or 500 words of possibly spun low grade content would enhance the buying process.

 

[dougs]

wait a year

The none retailer sites that have to play games just need some time to workout what to do...the good ones will be back though.

We had numerous sites hit but I am very happy, we are very good at adapting. We had a huge list of great things ready to implement but Google was rewarding our rubbish and others rubbish...so that is what we gave them

Opportunities galore now.

Doug

 

[boxfish]

I've got no link to them whatsoever but this site is a great example of affiliates adding value

http://camerapricebuster.com/

This is a good one too and it seems to have held up in the rankings

http://snapsort.com/compare/Canon_EOS_450D-vs-Canon_EOS_550D

I think 99% of aff sites probably deserved to have been canned though, mine included.

 

[julian]

very true

Whereas prior to this update she would have had an extra fifty or more sites advertising washing machines from the twenty-seven retailers that now dominate. Who more deserves the prime Google position, the company that holds millions of Pounds of stock or somebody sitting in their bedroom doing nothing but trying to trick Google and punters into thinking they're the retailer.

very true

Btw, I'm generalising here, some affiliate sites offer genuine added value and deserve reward for their hard work but the vast majority are just dressed up affiliate feeds

I think if your aff site/flog makes it through this update then you should be ok.

Bring back Zyra - ohhh those were the days..

Wait..most of you were still swimming around in your dad's sack back then, so I doubt you know of the ledgend of Zyra..

 

[crazihos]

Originally Posted by Sean
Whereas prior to this update she would have had an extra fifty or more sites advertising washing machines from the twenty-seven retailers that now dominate. Who more deserves the prime Google position, the company that holds millions of Pounds of stock or somebody sitting in their bedroom doing nothing but trying to trick Google and punters into thinking they're the retailer.

That is true and its not me having sour grapes but I honestly dont think things are better now than they were before. The yellow pages was fine for lists of retailers but its a bit dull on the internet

To me most average affilaites added something - like combining the products a variety of retailers sold so I could see a larger range in one place, or even displaying them better than some merchants do or highlighting features, sales etc..

I still think they have killed far too many sites (not just affilaites) as most sites were using the same link tactics to rank and now a lot of the results now look a bit samey which is a shame.

 

[dougs]

check in a year

results will be better and all dodgy sites will be gone.

no longer can you buy domain, add auto generated content and spend $500 on dodgy links and rank

Doug

 

[retired_member34]

results will be better and all dodgy sites will be gone.

no longer can you buy domain, add auto generated content and spend $500 on dodgy links and rank

Doug

That sounds like good news to me.

 

[dougs]

it was a good ride though

It just became much too easy to rank rubbish......now the sites that are cared for or have big money spent on them will win...how it should be.

As I keep saying big opportunities for anyone who wishes to do some work....no more whinging about if I had been around in 2002 I could have made a fortune....the clock has been reset

Doug

 

[Ashton]

When this started I decided I should experiment a bit... a blog I started a week ago is now ranking on page 3 for a competitive sector, no links to it really and just a few posts...

Now i just have to understand why... and the net is my oyster!

Also... I think Dougs point is that all the people who thought they knew SEO and had it down, have just been thrown for a loop. SEO has somewhat... refreshed I guess. Peoples sites have litterally been killed by the thousands and thousands, which means there is more room for new sites and if you work hard you can take those positions.

Edit2: Although its worth noting that there are some issues with penguin which hopefully will be sorted out, like the issue of the 301s (look up 'payday loans' for an example)

 

[JMOT]

Google just re-released its guidance on 301's. I think for the specific reason its planning on making them be handled via GWMT in future to force the spammy 301's out.

My best guess would be that shortly, if you 301 a domain without having authenticated and linked both sites in GWMT google wont recognise it.

They know full well the game of whack-a-mole being played on terms like payday loans.

They'll fix that hole well before they fix the backlinks issue in GWMT eg just being able to tick a box saying "delete these links from counting" allowing fast easy cleanup to keep mr cutts happy.

 

[Blossom]

Also... I think Dougs point is that all the people who thought they knew SEO and had it down, have just been thrown for a loop.

Bit of a generalisation, not everyone has been affected/penalised by this.

 

[JMOT]

Agreed. Thats the whole point of negative SEO. You spank someones site you want to get nuked with loads of exact anchor links hoping that either:

1) you trip an OOP filter and they tank automatically
2) you trip a manual review for them and google engineer see's all the other links in their profile that they've bought even if you claim the spam wasnt you on re-inclusion.
3) you contact google about the spam and they nuke you for all the other seo thats been done that you deffo did do.

Its a big problem for google and site owners because links is still how the whole organic world functions.

 

[Blossom]

How simple would it be for Google to just neutralise directory sites so they neither reward nor penalise links from such sites. It would mean they become irrelevant and would make negative SEO pointless?

That's what they (Matt Cutts) told everyone they were doing years ago. That's why so many people believed negative SEO didn't exist.

Maybe it's just that they don't want to put the resources into it, there must be an insane number of spammy sites and links created every second.

 

[Blossom]

Are directory sites even relevant these days?

Well yes. And to be honest I personally believe that the more elitist ones shouldn't be allowed to get away with what they do because it's more unethical on so many more levels than what the hundreds of smaller directories do.

It's full of contradictions anyway - you aren't allowed to sell links, and yet it's ok to sell premium directory listings because it means you're vetting the sites and not just accepting everyone that submits (according to one Google video I saw). That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard, if you're being paid for it you're more likely to accept any junk site than if you're not.

The attitude is basically 'the sites we like can do what they like'.

 

[stender]

Are keyword domains still given extra weighting after this update?

 

[addz123]

Just did a 301 on a smaller, penalised site. Working so far.

 

[Blossom]

Does that extend to affiliate sites as well? Have Google ever voiced an opinion on affiliate sites?

Not sure if they've ever said anything publicly about affiliate sites (although they likely have at some point), but it's been pretty clear by their actions that they hate them. I think affiliates are more subject to fundamental/much older algorithm and quality rules rather than being specifically targeted by these updates. Older affiliate sites will always do better/survive I think, but I'm not an expert in that area.

Facebook has made it extremely clear they dislike affiliates as well.

 

[Blossom]

I wonder if it's not that they hate affiliate websites as such, but the majority of lower quality affiliates that have taken up a large portion of organic search results that could have and probably should have been displaying higher quality small business sites, etc.

I agree that they hate those, but I think it extends right down to the links. They are pretty easy to spot and set up a general rule for.

The only time I've ever had a new site jump around the results was when I put affiliate links on it a couple of weeks after creating it. It was all over the place. I removed the site-wide aff links and the homepage aff links and it settled within a couple of weeks. It wasn't an amazing site, but it's the same model and approach I've used on all my other niche sites that have never had a problem. Hasn't been affected by any of the Panda/Penguin stuff either, so I assume it passes quality control...for now anyway.

Apparently the recommended advice is to nofollow aff links, might try that on Blossom as it took a bit of a hit pre-Penguin.

Edited to add: One of the reasons I've probably evaded issues is that my sites target long tail terms rather than short exact match.