Google Penguin's Unbelievably DEVASTATING Effects on SEO
- Thread starter SuperLinks
- Start date
apoorv
Regular Member
- Aug 31, 2011
- 301
- 62
My results are pretty much random. Some sites got hit and some sites didn't.
I've never used Google Analytics or any G service on these sites. The ones that have an insane amount of content (500+ pages), a decent, varied linking profile, etc have been hit. So have 5 page sites. I've not paid attention to keyword density, or any on page optimization ever so that shouldn't be the reason either.
For the keywords I'm targeting, I'm down to page 3-5 in most cases while the first three spots are sites that have irrelevant content or no content at all! Some have a heck of a lot of tags on one page linking to other sites. Some are direct links to affiliate products. Some sites aren't even sites, they are just bookmarks.
The worst part (at least for now) is that the rankings aren't even moving. They are stuck. While I'm hopeful that there will be some movements (for the better) over the next couple of weeks, this is crazy. For most of the long-tail keywords in my niches, the results are nonsense of the highest order.
The only site that hasn't been affected has about ~25 pages, targeting moderately competitive keywords, decent variation in anchors, the articles aren't overly optimized neither are the pages themselves. It pretty much shares these characteristics with most of my other sites (including those that have been hit). Of course, everything is just conjecture at the moment, still the results I'm getting are hardly anything to go by.
I've never used Google Analytics or any G service on these sites. The ones that have an insane amount of content (500+ pages), a decent, varied linking profile, etc have been hit. So have 5 page sites. I've not paid attention to keyword density, or any on page optimization ever so that shouldn't be the reason either.
For the keywords I'm targeting, I'm down to page 3-5 in most cases while the first three spots are sites that have irrelevant content or no content at all! Some have a heck of a lot of tags on one page linking to other sites. Some are direct links to affiliate products. Some sites aren't even sites, they are just bookmarks.
The worst part (at least for now) is that the rankings aren't even moving. They are stuck. While I'm hopeful that there will be some movements (for the better) over the next couple of weeks, this is crazy. For most of the long-tail keywords in my niches, the results are nonsense of the highest order.
The only site that hasn't been affected has about ~25 pages, targeting moderately competitive keywords, decent variation in anchors, the articles aren't overly optimized neither are the pages themselves. It pretty much shares these characteristics with most of my other sites (including those that have been hit). Of course, everything is just conjecture at the moment, still the results I'm getting are hardly anything to go by.
I'm in a fairly small (but very profitable) niche market and the MAIN influence of google ranking in the past week has been based around the URL vs. keyword. For example, for a specific three word keyword I saw the immediate results post-G update to reflect the sites with the keywords in the URL being shot to the top, while other sites without these kw's in the URL aren't so lucky. The sites that are now in the top few positions were at the bottom of page 1 at best before, and one wasn't even on the first page.
Even further, the URL's don't necessarily have to have the keywords in the actual URL, it can be in the inner-page URL. For example:
Keyword: "Dull Red Widgets" (obviously substituted for the real kw, but I'll reflect the results as-is)
Current Rankings:
1)xxxxx.com/Catalog/Dull-Red-Widgets
2)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com/buy-sell-dull-red-widgets-etc-etc-etc-.....
3)Manufacturer Website (interesting how they're outranked here, but interesting point to mention is that they don't sell "dull" versions of their model, if you get what I'm hinting at... Say they only sell the newer, shiny version)
4) xxxxdepot.com/buy-Widgets.php
5)domain.com
6)main-competitor.com/products/widgets/red (this site was ranked #1 for a long time until last week)
7)xyzxyz.com > Widgets > Widget Devices
8)domain.com/dull-red-widgets (same site that is in #5 spot, but with a different inner-page)
9)buyredwidgets.com
10) poopsite.com/pdf/xxxxxxx/red.pdf (This is on PAGE 1... Really Google? Seriously? It's a PDF that this unaffiliated website STOLE from the manufacturer's website and slapped it directly on their server. No changes, no iframe, no nada.. just good old fashioned plagiarism and that earned them a spot on the first page with companies that are making millions on top of millions of dollars annually).
Page 2: No thanks, I think the point is proven here...
Another interesting point to note: ALL of the first page results have "Dull Red Widgets" in the page title or description in some form, not always in that order but the three words are ALWAYS there.
What my initial observation is? Keyword stuffing of URL's, Page Titles, and Page Descriptions is the path to success with this new, and very backwards, G Update. Is this a long term strategy, most likely not. Will G make revisions to this algo, I assume yes and pray they do.
Why is my site not on page 1? Well, the site is relatively new (went live 1/1/12) and I have not actively promoted it to the level I want to. This is a side venture on top of my existing career. I do have a web2.0 article on the last spot of page 5 and my site is in the middle of page 7. On top of that, It looks like i decided to launch my site's marketing tactics during the middle of this %&*$ storm of anti-SEO... Go Figure. I want the #1 spot, and ultimately my site will be on page 1 for the KW's I'm pushing, but at this time there are other factors that are equally, if not more, important in the long run. The site is a B2B service/company and will thrive more so on the CRM and Email Nurturing than short term SEO, so that is where my focus lays until we can all start to make sense of this G debacle. (I'm still doing SEO, not giving up!)
Even further, the URL's don't necessarily have to have the keywords in the actual URL, it can be in the inner-page URL. For example:
Keyword: "Dull Red Widgets" (obviously substituted for the real kw, but I'll reflect the results as-is)
Current Rankings:
1)xxxxx.com/Catalog/Dull-Red-Widgets
2)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com/buy-sell-dull-red-widgets-etc-etc-etc-.....
3)Manufacturer Website (interesting how they're outranked here, but interesting point to mention is that they don't sell "dull" versions of their model, if you get what I'm hinting at... Say they only sell the newer, shiny version)
4) xxxxdepot.com/buy-Widgets.php
5)domain.com
6)main-competitor.com/products/widgets/red (this site was ranked #1 for a long time until last week)
7)xyzxyz.com > Widgets > Widget Devices
8)domain.com/dull-red-widgets (same site that is in #5 spot, but with a different inner-page)
9)buyredwidgets.com
10) poopsite.com/pdf/xxxxxxx/red.pdf (This is on PAGE 1... Really Google? Seriously? It's a PDF that this unaffiliated website STOLE from the manufacturer's website and slapped it directly on their server. No changes, no iframe, no nada.. just good old fashioned plagiarism and that earned them a spot on the first page with companies that are making millions on top of millions of dollars annually).
Page 2: No thanks, I think the point is proven here...
Another interesting point to note: ALL of the first page results have "Dull Red Widgets" in the page title or description in some form, not always in that order but the three words are ALWAYS there.
What my initial observation is? Keyword stuffing of URL's, Page Titles, and Page Descriptions is the path to success with this new, and very backwards, G Update. Is this a long term strategy, most likely not. Will G make revisions to this algo, I assume yes and pray they do.
Why is my site not on page 1? Well, the site is relatively new (went live 1/1/12) and I have not actively promoted it to the level I want to. This is a side venture on top of my existing career. I do have a web2.0 article on the last spot of page 5 and my site is in the middle of page 7. On top of that, It looks like i decided to launch my site's marketing tactics during the middle of this %&*$ storm of anti-SEO... Go Figure. I want the #1 spot, and ultimately my site will be on page 1 for the KW's I'm pushing, but at this time there are other factors that are equally, if not more, important in the long run. The site is a B2B service/company and will thrive more so on the CRM and Email Nurturing than short term SEO, so that is where my focus lays until we can all start to make sense of this G debacle. (I'm still doing SEO, not giving up!)
I've been hit pretty hard on my main site. Let's just say, for example, my site is www.freedogtraining.com.
"free dog training" - I moved from #1 to #6. All other keyword are position #20-#30 or worse (they were all on page 1 before the update). Most of my blog content is not even in the results at all. Ranking tool just shows "N/A"
One thing funny I've noticed as well:
"dog training" - I floated between position #3 and #5 - now is #55. Instead of being www.freedogtraining.com it's ranking www.freedogtraining.com/Join.aspx (today) and yesterday it was ranking www.freedogtraining.com/Faq.aspx. These two pages contain the phrase "free dog training" ONE time in the footer. How is that relevant?
"free dog training" - I moved from #1 to #6. All other keyword are position #20-#30 or worse (they were all on page 1 before the update). Most of my blog content is not even in the results at all. Ranking tool just shows "N/A"
One thing funny I've noticed as well:
"dog training" - I floated between position #3 and #5 - now is #55. Instead of being www.freedogtraining.com it's ranking www.freedogtraining.com/Join.aspx (today) and yesterday it was ranking www.freedogtraining.com/Faq.aspx. These two pages contain the phrase "free dog training" ONE time in the footer. How is that relevant?
I am assuming that if you go to Google and type in your domain with quotes "freedogtraining" that the join and faq page is ranking better than your homepage. Whenever your inner pages out rank your homepage in a domain quote search, you have a penalty.
3 different anchors over about 400 backlinks. The rest of my backlinks are web 2.0 profiles which are about 4000 in total.
And I partially agree with Mikey946 above me. It is a bit early, and I would be willing to stake my SEO knowledge that Google will come out with a "new" algo called Polar Bear (Polar bears eat shitty little penguins)
I wouldnt make any drastic changes for a couple weeks unless you feel like re-doing all your other work later. Just MY HUMBLE OPINION, but we shall see soon enough
I agree 100% here, sit back and let Google do all changes based on the feedback they're getting, and trust me I'm sure they're hearing it from all angles. In a few weeks or more, even if nothing has changed, we'll have a better grasp of what the hell is going on and how we can work with it.
Nice proposed name for the next G Algo (POLAR BEAR)!
If I type "freedogtraining" in google (with quotes) I get www.freedogtraining.com as the first result.
envisionary
Junior Member
- Jul 28, 2008
- 132
- 42
I am not. I had sites tank and some that did not and they all used adwords as well.
Also I am sure of this being an off page penalty...I am not sure of the details but there is NO way this is an on page penalty.
100% on this....sure there could be some on factors that would change your ranking...but to tank a site based a form or this or that makes no sense to me, or anyone else that actually got a penalty I believe.
Thanks
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ija61
Senior Member
- Mar 2, 2011
- 976
- 644
I like when I see thread like this so here is my story.
Am mentioned before I'm not in the IM and I do not provide SEO for website how earn money from advertising. I only work on offline business website. For those how do not understand this idea (not try to offend any one with this) I'm talking about offline business like an online store for people to sell their products or presentation website where people come an call to make an order or come to the store/factory etc.
The site that I'm working now is a an website for translation services in my country. I target around 7000 an more keyword... I try to target all the word that a person can type when looking for a translation services. The website have around 7000 webpages and a few hundreds will come, all are indexed, and the domain is a 1 year old. I'm on page one for around 85-90% of the keyword that I'm targeting.
I have a primary keyword with around 1 mil searches/month.
In sept-oct last year I was on the second page for that keyword this after an good (in my opinion) on-site SEO and huge blast of SB a few bookmarks and a few more directory submitting. After this my website start to go down (it also have a few dances before) but this one look more serious. After the panda update it was got down. At this moment I decide that it was time to stop the SB blasts and go with a more "high quality" backlinks (BIG MISTAKE). I try this strategy until march when my website hit the bottom (page 12 for my primary kw).
After this I restart the old, "low quality", "out of fashion" strategy with big, huge blast of SB backlinks (just build the backlinks not try to index them only let G discover) on all kind of blogs... And here my website start to rise from 12 to 8 in a 2-3 weeks. I continue to do the work (I build backlinks directly to my main page and also to the inner pages, almost all 7000) and my web page come to 3rd page about 2 weeks a go and now is on second. The only thing that I have done is blasting huge amount of SB blasts.
My opinion about the new G algorithm is that it's targeting the on page SEO and not the off-page. Maybe some of you remember the time when was enough to put your keyword in the alt tag and you hit first page, like those days are gone also the days when you generate your content and insert a high density of your kerword in it are gone.
Second SB/ Xrummer and tools like this and people that can understand what a server is and not thing at it like the place where my website lives. People that try to understand G algorithm and not say things like I "HATE G", and and think more closely to the machine and not to Google adsense, was and will always be in the business.
More than that I do not see how software that build backlinks on a push of a button can have so much succes. Just thing how a program looks like and how difficult is for a programer to build such a software and after this think if that software is so good as you thing. Try to thing to a seo strategy and then draw a simple algorithm (yes draw it on paper, here we call it logical schema) based on that strategy, and the think what resources do you think you will need to run that algorithm.
This is my opinion and hope I will not be shut for this
P.S.My site is build looking from the users/visitors site of view since I need to convince that visitor not just to click but to became a client and buy my products/services.
Am mentioned before I'm not in the IM and I do not provide SEO for website how earn money from advertising. I only work on offline business website. For those how do not understand this idea (not try to offend any one with this) I'm talking about offline business like an online store for people to sell their products or presentation website where people come an call to make an order or come to the store/factory etc.
The site that I'm working now is a an website for translation services in my country. I target around 7000 an more keyword... I try to target all the word that a person can type when looking for a translation services. The website have around 7000 webpages and a few hundreds will come, all are indexed, and the domain is a 1 year old. I'm on page one for around 85-90% of the keyword that I'm targeting.
I have a primary keyword with around 1 mil searches/month.
In sept-oct last year I was on the second page for that keyword this after an good (in my opinion) on-site SEO and huge blast of SB a few bookmarks and a few more directory submitting. After this my website start to go down (it also have a few dances before) but this one look more serious. After the panda update it was got down. At this moment I decide that it was time to stop the SB blasts and go with a more "high quality" backlinks (BIG MISTAKE). I try this strategy until march when my website hit the bottom (page 12 for my primary kw).
After this I restart the old, "low quality", "out of fashion" strategy with big, huge blast of SB backlinks (just build the backlinks not try to index them only let G discover) on all kind of blogs... And here my website start to rise from 12 to 8 in a 2-3 weeks. I continue to do the work (I build backlinks directly to my main page and also to the inner pages, almost all 7000) and my web page come to 3rd page about 2 weeks a go and now is on second. The only thing that I have done is blasting huge amount of SB blasts.
My opinion about the new G algorithm is that it's targeting the on page SEO and not the off-page. Maybe some of you remember the time when was enough to put your keyword in the alt tag and you hit first page, like those days are gone also the days when you generate your content and insert a high density of your kerword in it are gone.
Second SB/ Xrummer and tools like this and people that can understand what a server is and not thing at it like the place where my website lives. People that try to understand G algorithm and not say things like I "HATE G", and and think more closely to the machine and not to Google adsense, was and will always be in the business.
More than that I do not see how software that build backlinks on a push of a button can have so much succes. Just thing how a program looks like and how difficult is for a programer to build such a software and after this think if that software is so good as you thing. Try to thing to a seo strategy and then draw a simple algorithm (yes draw it on paper, here we call it logical schema) based on that strategy, and the think what resources do you think you will need to run that algorithm.
This is my opinion and hope I will not be shut for this
P.S.My site is build looking from the users/visitors site of view since I need to convince that visitor not just to click but to became a client and buy my products/services.
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gamingmaster42
Regular Member
- Jul 21, 2010
- 475
- 181
This is one bullshit update. My site dropped from #2 for a 5000+ exact search to the second page, and now on #4 there is... a Hostgator suspended site page for one of my competitors :smash:
andee
Regular Member
- Jul 24, 2010
- 217
- 83
Its bullshit all right last night I was trying to search for a canadian online pharmacy that accepted paypal (needed a special type of shampoo)
so I searched for "canada pharmacy paypal"
Nothing but bullshit spam results for viagara and cialis for everything in the top 10.
nice going google.
so I searched for "canada pharmacy paypal"
Nothing but bullshit spam results for viagara and cialis for everything in the top 10.
nice going google.
I think a big part of this has to do with on-page anchor text and overuse of keywords/related keywords in the content. In each of my non-homepage articles I had an in-content link (with the same anchor text) that linked to domainname.com. Every site that replaced me has nothing like this; they also have extremely low keyword densities.
Also, I got hit hard and I had zero ads above the fold.
Also, I got hit hard and I had zero ads above the fold.
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I have a very similar setup (different niche) with 10k + pages. Was enjoying excellent ranking and traffic then Bam... My top fold is/was all about lead gen. It is being reversed tonight so it will show on the btm of the page tomorrow under my high quality kinda unique city page content. That is the only change I will make for one week to see if it makes any difference... I have several similarly designed sites and they all took a hit. Like others who posted here I've found pages ranking that are 2nd-3rd choice for a given term it's quite strange, seems in some cases the lesser optimized (off page) pages are doing better. I also noticed a competitiors site with no top fold and fresh (no links) city level urls ranking #1 now... Seems like google cares a lot less about links... I understand goolge may tweak things in the coming days so who knows if this exercise is worthwhile but I'm tired of doing nothing... My opinion is that goog made 2 big changes over the last few weeks the first had to do with off page anchor diversity and link source and the second called penguin was all about on page. The fact that both came in rapid succession has confused the issue immensely and spanked some of us very hard.
SuperLinks
Elite Member
- Jul 14, 2008
- 2,903
- 852
I look forward to your feedback. I've spent quite a bunch of time on the Webmaster Forums today, and PM'ng several members who got nailed with large sitewide lead gens that took up alot above the fold.
I know we saw an off-page link analysis update rolled out about a month or so ago, and as you mentioned I believe Penguin was primarily focused on the onsite optimization. That doesn't mean that it was all onsite, but I do believe a large majority of this algorithm update was based on the onsite optimization and those sites that were overly optimized were hit the hardest.
manny521
Supreme Member
- Sep 15, 2011
- 1,449
- 370
I don't think penguin was onsite b/c only the pages on my site that I linked too are not ranking. I have over 1000 pages on my site and most of those pages are for super longtail keywords and all those pages rank #1 or #2. I only backlinked to my money pages as thats where I make money. All those other pages are blog posts and are informational articles about the topic I am selling.
It probably a little bit of both, but you would think if penguin only targeted onsite seo, then all my pages wouldn't be ranking. Again, only the pages I have linked to are not showing in the SERPs.
I think one reason I could of been demoted by penguin is that I need to better balance the number of links I have across my site, number of links per page.
If anyone has any recommendations for a service or tool that will help me create more links to more of these pages, I would appreciate the recommendation. There is one service in BST that I use where you can submit unlimited urls/keywords and they place your links in wiki's which I currently use. Also, I am thinking of subscribing to onlywire.com that pushes your blog posts to 40 social sites and gives you backlinks.
I have five money pages on my site and they are no where to be seen, so what I am thinking is that I should just rename the url for those pages so its different and 401 those old urls and start over ranking those 5 money pages. What do you think of this strategy?
It probably a little bit of both, but you would think if penguin only targeted onsite seo, then all my pages wouldn't be ranking. Again, only the pages I have linked to are not showing in the SERPs.
I think one reason I could of been demoted by penguin is that I need to better balance the number of links I have across my site, number of links per page.
If anyone has any recommendations for a service or tool that will help me create more links to more of these pages, I would appreciate the recommendation. There is one service in BST that I use where you can submit unlimited urls/keywords and they place your links in wiki's which I currently use. Also, I am thinking of subscribing to onlywire.com that pushes your blog posts to 40 social sites and gives you backlinks.
I have five money pages on my site and they are no where to be seen, so what I am thinking is that I should just rename the url for those pages so its different and 401 those old urls and start over ranking those 5 money pages. What do you think of this strategy?
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- May 1, 2010
- 2,442
- 470
I have tested this before. Much before any panda update. The homepage and other pages got filtered because of keywords density and anchor over-optimisation, so only the page you did't built any backlinks to is ok. It is a page level penalty.
