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bupper2
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 11/20/2003 03:08 pm
After reading some more of this very long thread, I have come to the conclusion that "gone from google" applies to new sites (less than 3 months old) or sites that have been completely revised (less than 3 months ago). Can anyone dispute this finding? Does anyone have an old site that is now "gone from google"?
If this is the case then everything will be well again. Just give it some time.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7036
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Posted: 11/20/2003 03:23 pm
Yes, I can dispute your finding that "gone from google" applies to new sites. I have a site that's been number 1 in google for its term for the past 3 years. PR5 site, now completely gone. It's not just new sites, even old white-hat sites are suffering.
Keep in mind, though, that everything is still being updated and we've had times before where sites disappeared like this and then they eventually came back to where they were supposed to be in the index.
If you do things right and follow the rules then your site will be back. If you spam and keyword-stuff and do all sort of shady things then you might lose your ranking. But if you follow the rules then you'll be back.
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bupper2
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 11/20/2003 03:51 pm
Bhartzer, of the sites that you lost were they recently revised? The sites that I have left alone have remained fine. The sites that were new or that I recently revised were the ones that suffered. One of my sites was quite old as well but I recently revised it. Did you do the same?
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ferret77
Joined: May 31, 2002
# Posts: 354
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Posted: 11/20/2003 03:54 pm
I noticed one of my competitors immediatly bought adwords for the search phrase he lost
hmmmm... maybe that is what this is all about
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DANXtendlife
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 58
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Posted: 11/20/2003 04:18 pm
ferret,
No offense, but the argument that this is all about money and Google is trying to force webmaster's and SEO's to buy Google Adwords makes no sense if you think it thru.
First of all, Google's one and only product is relevant search. That's it. They got to be the best (up till this point) because they gave the people a product that was better than the rest: relevant search results.
For Google to intentionally ax thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of sites and display crappy results means destroying the integrity of their product, and, hence, their company's very worth.
That's not to say Google can't screw up and create an algo that engenders lame search results. Omnipotence is not an inherent facet of business. But they would have every incentive to correct such a screw up as quickly as possible -- once they determine it was truly a screw up.
Another problem with that argument is, if what I've seen is any indication, many content sites got knocked back or disappeared, while spammy garbage is taking its place. It's the content sites that are participating in the Google Adsense program, from which Google obviously makes a princely sum.
Adsense has given Google a huge means to monetize a great deal of the web, without having to "force" people to sign up for Adword campaigns.
Take my site that lost the index page. Google has been losing plenty of money they were making from me because less visitors means less people clicking the Ads. Multiple my site by thousands of content site disapperences and it can really add up.
I don't imagine many of these content site owners are going to jump on Adwords.
-Dan
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DANXtendlife
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 58
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Posted: 11/20/2003 04:24 pm
Now, also, just imagine Google goes lame and stays lame for, say, 4 to 6 months. Let's say they did this intentionally to force SEO's and webmasters to buy Adwords.
So, joe blow is doing a search on the web and uses Google.
He sees a bunch of crappy search results and a ton of Adword advertisers in his face.
After a few weeks of this, he concludes Google has lost it and moves to competitors.
Within just a few months Google will quickly loose the ascendency they have obtained.
Makes no sense for a company with as much to gain as Google for striving to always give the best search results just for a few more short term Adword dollars.
-Dan
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ferret77
Joined: May 31, 2002
# Posts: 354
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Posted: 11/20/2003 04:54 pm
yeah your are probably right
at first I thought you guys where jsut bitching about your sites being dropped but I have noticed some seriously messed up results
if you type in "new york web design" , one of personal favorite searches
number 2,4,5,6, 10, 12, 14, 16 etc all have nothing to do with web design
now "ny website design" those are relevent results
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randytayler
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 1
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Posted: 11/20/2003 05:07 pm
[EDIT: Everything I speculated below is apparently wrong. Thank goodness.]
DANX said "Now, also, just imagine Google goes lame and stays lame for, say, 4 to 6 months. Let's say they did this intentionally to force SEO's and webmasters to buy Adwords."
What if it was just for 2 months?
Imagine you're some VP of Sales, in charge of boosting Google's revenue, even if it's just a bump to last you until the IPO in January. You show your books, and wow, look at those figures, folks! Look at how Google is skyrocketing these past few months! Buy buy buy!
So during the holiday season - when plenty of web-vendors might be desperate enough for sales that the DO resort to adwords -- you dump sites that aren't also buying adwords. That's what I'm seeing in my area. Content sites that were previously listed (including mine) are now gone; junk sites have moved up to take their place. Content sites THAT ALSO BUY ADWORDS remain in the top spots.
Is it a stupid idea? Yes, for all the reasons you pointed out. Are VPs immune to stupid ideas? I submit that they are not. And that this one could sure look intelligent from a financial point of view; after all, come January, you can just go back to being the best search engine out there.
It's not like you're Ask Jeeves or something. You're GOOGLE. Yahoo uses you, Alta Vista uses you -- you're almost 75% of the web search engine market. You can lose almost a third of your "customers" (who, admittedly, aren't paying you a dime to use your search engine) and STILL be in the number one spot for searches online.
So, I can see it making sense to some idiot upstairs, but I sure hope it's not true. If things pop back into place within a week or so, then we can rest easy that Google hasn't begun extorting the web.
[EDIT: Hurray! My site is back where it belongs in the listings. Google isn't resorting to extortion.]
[ Message was edited by: randytayler 11/20/2003 06:28 pm ]
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cpowell
Joined: Nov 01, 2001
# Posts: 256
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Posted: 11/20/2003 05:11 pm
I have a large number of sites, some in very competitive areas, other in not so competitive. Some have been indexed for years with very high Google rankings, others are newer. Some have alt tags frequently on the pages, others do not.
I do not see much in many of the theories that are being thrown out in this thread. I do not mean this as an insult in any way to those making the theories, but I hope I can help us get closer to a conclusion.
1.) I am quite certain that over optimizing on a site has nothing to do with what is happening. I have sites with alt tags on every image that have maintained top placement. I also have sites with alt tags that have lost placement. In many of the searches I have performed the top sites are filled with opt tags.
2.) As for the theory of punishing sites for having a large number of links pointing to them with the same anchor text in the link, I feel that is unlikely even if google were to apply it only to highly competitive phrases. One of my sites that did not lose positioning has a high number of links pointing to it with the primary search phrase as the link text in almost all cases, yet no problems on that site. Also from a perspective of common sense, if enough sites link to another site with a certain phrase, it is likely that the text is the name of the company. In such a case you would expect a company like New York Life to get punished for New York Life Insurance which would make no sense. They however are not.
3). I would consider the possiblity that google is penalizing sites that seem to be using obvious linking networks even if they are done through exchange. However, I see too many cases of sites that have ridiculously obviously linking strategies that are sitting pretty at the top so I don't feel this is the case either. Although I would expect it to kick in at some point.
4.) The most consistent pattern I have seen is large numbers of lower level pages showing up where top level pages used to be. It is possible that Google is deemphasizing links to a page and giving more credit to the entire sites where the links are going.
5.) Hopefully and most likely, this is just a temporary glitch and things will be back to normal soon. I feel that many of the results I am seeing are less relevant than those that were previously displayed.
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stevenjm
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 824
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Posted: 11/20/2003 08:05 pm
Just to add more confusion:
The majority of my sites use frames with optimised noframes with minimal incoming links (just a few quality links) I have noticed my pages are all holding steady in good positions(some have actually improved and sub pages are now getting much better rankings) - GO frames  Perhaps pr is being given more weight this time around.
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bupper2
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 11/20/2003 09:32 pm
Stevenjm, your theory might explain a decrease in rank but it would not explain why sites literally drop off for certain keyword phrases. Like I said before I have a site optimized for two seperate single keywords. Last week it ranked well on both. This week it ranks the same on one of the keywords but the site doesn't come up at all in the search results for the other. Both keywords have the exact same density. Both are in the title and description. Both keywords are always used together wherever they appear on the site. If my theory is correct all of your sites are older than 3 months and you have also not made any significant changes to them in the last 3 months. Am I correct?
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stevenjm
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 824
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Posted: 11/20/2003 10:05 pm
"your sites are older than 3 months and you have also not made any significant changes to them in the last 3 months. Am I correct?"
incorrect.
I have noticed on one reasonably new site though that it was listed properly and has reverted to an old cached version for several weeks.
(and is nowhere to be seen)
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bupper2
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 11/20/2003 10:30 pm
Steven, please explain further. I don't quite understand your response. Are you saying a lot of your sites are new or recently revised and only one has dropped off?
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stevenjm
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 824
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Posted: 11/21/2003 12:00 am
Yes a few are less than 3 months old or had recent changes but only one has had trouble(was getting up in rankings then disappeared and went back to an old cached version)
Odd though that this one did not use frames and the others did.
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DANXtendlife
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 58
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Posted: 11/21/2003 04:23 am
PR is not being given more weight "this time around."
Earlier in the thread I detailed how for the competitive keyterms I've disappeared for (along with some other excellent content sites)...our site PR's were 6.
The garbage that has replaced us (low or no content, cheesy redirects, spammy pages etc) have low PR's of 3 and 4.
Dan
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SEOK
Joined: Jul 24, 2002
# Posts: 288
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Posted: 11/21/2003 05:51 am
Just checked google for a couple of keyword phrases and it has gotten even worse overnight. They are on the edge of being completely irrelevant...
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maxfalcon
Joined: Nov 21, 2003
# Posts: 1
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Posted: 11/21/2003 06:22 am
I think the conclusion is that the problem comes from backlinks anchor text. In fact I have two sites, in two different industry. For the first one, I have exchanged links only with the name/URL of the site (not really related to my keywords) because I wasn't aware of the fact that puttin gkeywords in your backlinks was helping you for your rankings. It has not been affected by the recent changes.
The second one, which I have run a heavy link exchange campaign with keywords linking (because the industry is so competitive that you can only count on SEO), has completely disapeared from the search results.
This is a pattern that seems to be confirmed.
Maybe Google is trying to clean its index by searching the spammy sites for removing them??? I joke.
I hope this is not permanent.
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ArtSaturn
Joined: Nov 21, 2003
# Posts: 1
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Posted: 11/21/2003 06:37 am
>> So can anyone dispute these theories based on their own findings? <<
My analysis suggests that, technically, the changes hinge around:
- incoming anchor text
- on page SEO for the 'offending' search term
- the authority status (or otherwise) of the site concerned
A specific combination of these leads to the problems.
The most recent change (Thursday, not last Saturday) seems essentially to have been another cranking up of the importance of authority. This generally increases the ranking of those big deep-pocket vanila web sites of course (Amazon, etal).
The question I have been toying with on my SE blog is... why? The net result of the changes is a serious depreciation of Google quality. The supression of focused niche sites, and the emergence of sub-pages from vanila authority sites, decreases the depth of what is on offer on that vital first page of returns. This much is obvious. So why would they do it?
Of course, people are speculating above that Adwords is the answer. That desperate webmasters will rush out and buy. Maybe.
Another possibility though is IPO. Those deep pockets mentioned above? Are those companies not going to be more inclined to invest when they see what Google can do for them in terms of income generation? Do they not have an interest to maintain the new status quo? Again, maybe.
Whatever the driving force here, Google is certainly playing with fire. With Yahoo's change to Ink surely just around the corner, and MSN brewing, this might well be the last time they can get away with this sort of caper.
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ferret77
Joined: May 31, 2002
# Posts: 354
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Posted: 11/21/2003 07:53 am
it would appaer that sites with the highest PR , that mention the phrase in the page text seem to be number one, at least for my terms
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2create
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 11/21/2003 08:19 am
Yep. PR definitely seems to win out with the keywords I'm competing with. Right now, 3 of the top 5 sites have a PR of at least a 6 and before the top 10 were 5's or lower. I'm sure this varies from search to search, though.
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