The Ebola Google Update [October 2014]

[liberox]

It`s pretty strange "GSA Curse Hysteria" ((1) GSA SER got hit bad. Like 100% correlation.) - You have to understand very well that SER is a Tool and it`s Your own decision how to use it. I seriously doubt someone do SER BLASTS directly to the main site* exc. the case it`s churn and burn or some kind of newbies. Some of these could be penalized exactly as the people who do the same with Xrumer, the Demon, SeNuke and so..

I`m very happy by that update for the sites I maintain with and only with SER:

2) General link blast services will destroy sites --- Probably yes, but who in the real world do that? ^^^^


* - You even CAN use SER for DIRECT LINKS (as it`s been used for the second`s example above and many others) in case You have unique, never used before, human written content and %spinfolderdelete%

 

[KiDMaTiX]

Interesting things going on here.
A clients website is still top 3 for Local Pack Listings, however has dropped a page or two or even a few or more in organic results for over 100 keywords, where that client site used to be ranked spots 1-8 for 60 keywords!

A Competitor's site which was one of my clients once upon a time in the same industry, with no purchased 'backlinks' to his site, i believe there are only 2 backlinks total, has employed LocalVox which focuses solely on social media posting and their local directory posting services (found out through extensive research) is now taking all of those spots my client used to take.

Let's play.

 

[himanuzo]

Ebola name.... strange.. lol.

Think about quality over quantity in order to a SEO game at Google.

 

[ill-repute]

I have a site that uses SER spam blasts and it is still holding its position. I have another with Sape pointed directly to it—no impact from the Penguin/Ebola update.

I'll continue with Spam and Sape, thank you kindly.

Two things to consider:

If you did happen to move up, depending on how well you did, it's not necessarily because the algorithm favors your site, but because some of those ahead of you got knocked out, so you inherently moved up.

Secondly, please put things into perspective. One: Google did not take you off the internet (I read that claim in another thread). Two: Understand the HUGE risk of financial loss when you are relying on your Google SERP for income. If that's the game you want to play—cool, I'm playing the same game, but after all the updates that have happened over the years, don't tell me you didn't understand the risk.

For those of us who actively build links to game the algorithm, that immediately puts you on Google's playing field. You are trying to win favors from Google. That is not a strong position to be in. But the money is good, which is why you do it. Just bear in mind the associated risks.

I applaud those who keep on truckin'. That's the kind of mindset to have. How many times have you heard that spamming no longer works, but after every update, Spammers continue to prove the claim wrong.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

The data on this index is old and Googlebot is doing a deep crawl on some of my "innocent" sites which were hit.

I think some of the clean sites that got hit unfairly may get a pleasant surprise in a few weeks as the new deep crawl data is indexed.

During these big updates they simply nuke a large part of the index, leave a core index in(sites they "trust") then crawl again from there. That's why a lot of younger sites were "hit", but some will eventually come back.

 

[baqir14]

So, we should not use GSA anymore for tier 1.

 

[testyy]

The data on this index is old and Googlebot is doing a deep crawl on some of my "innocent" sites which were hit.

I think some of the clean sites that got hit unfairly may get a pleasant surprise in a few weeks as the new deep crawl data is indexed.

During these big updates they simply nuke a large part of the index, leave a core index in(sites they "trust") then crawl again from there. That's why a lot of younger sites were "hit", but some will eventually come back.

These are my exact thoughts also.

My website is 4 months old powered by PBN links, web2.0s and other links -> no GSA and other spam
GA analitics data bouncerate - 20%, average site visit duration 14 minutes

It is completely of Google, the top 10 is now dominated by 1 good website (used to be 3-4) and other JUNK.
All my keywords jumped from 2-5 to page 10. Really, really junky websites are up there so I am gonna give it 2-3 weeks, if nothing happens I'm just gonna start fresh in the same niche.

 

[Kepler]

P3 knocked one of my site's positions down for several keywords.

I have used no black hat SEO on it whatsoever and it's actually famous for having the best quality content compared to the other sites in that niche. Everyone uses it as a reference instead of the others.

It has 8.5k backlinks (which is much more compared to the other sites); most of which are either from relevant sites in the same niche or articles on big media sites.

It also has the highest on-site score (using multiple SEO graders) than all the others and many more social signals.

What the fuck is Google doing?

 

[luxer]

Keep in mind that the OP's points are NOT facts but simply an experience.

SSL sites do get hit as hard as any other. New or old SSL, doesn't matter.

Innocent sites rise and get hit at the same time. Nothing new here, that's Penguin.

And so on...

If you ask me, they just push out a bunch of updates and monitor who actively tries to fix things by building new links/blasts/rebuilding sites/etc.

I barely reacted to an update (good or bad effects), and over time I always re-gained my rankings if they dropped on untouched sites.



This is such interesting information, i wish i had read it one hour ago =o

I feel honestly that any time webmasters/seos/blackhatters/whatever you want to call us, put in an effort, that building links always pays off, as long as you stay smart about it (certain percentage legit/certain percentage spam/ect)

If you decide that GSA SER is your go to and dont diversify then yes, expect to get spanked,

but if you use that in combination with PBN and press releases, and social signals and all the other bullshit that goes into doing seo that it sort of balances out.

Is that not better than sitting back and waiting to see what happens?


Regards Luxe

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Keep in mind that the OP's points are NOT facts but simply an experience.

SSL sites do get hit as hard as any other. New or old SSL, doesn't matter.

Innocent sites rise and get hit at the same time. Nothing new here, that's Penguin.

And so on...

If you ask me, they just push out a bunch of updates and monitor who actively tries to fix things by building new links/blasts/rebuilding sites/etc.

I barely reacted to an update (good or bad effects), and over time I always re-gained my rankings if they dropped on untouched sites.



This is such interesting information, i wish i had read it one hour ago =o

I feel honestly that any time webmasters/seos/blackhatters/whatever you want to call us, put in an effort, that building links always pays off, as long as you stay smart about it (certain percentage legit/certain percentage spam/ect)

If you decide that GSA SER is your go to and dont diversify then yes, expect to get spanked,

but if you use that in combination with PBN and press releases, and social signals and all the other bullshit that goes into doing seo that it sort of balances out.

Is that not better than sitting back and waiting to see what happens?


Regards Luxe

Well yes. And no.

You can destroy a site by running a technique against it - that's the problem here. You build your squeaky clean site and it's gone.

 

[redrubies]

No, keep it and track every little piece of data.

No way. I have never ranked like I have ranked since getting rid of analytics and webmaster tools. I'm not fixing what's not broken.

You shouldn't post that here lol

Yeah, I know. People keep pm'ing me and asking what it is. The part that said "I don't want to share" went right over some people's heads.

 

[archon10]

The Ebola Update is upon us! Google calls it "Penguin 3.0" for some reason, but that's not a suitable name for this complete disaster. First of all, penguins deserve more respect. Also this update is about killing innocent sites.

So what do we know about The Ebola Google Update right now?

1) GSA SER got hit bad. Like 100% correlation. See http://forum.gsa-online.de/discussion/14362/penguin-3-0-hit and http://forum.gsa-online.de/discussion/14363/penguin-3-0-is-rolling-out

What does this mean? It means you can destroy your competitor's websites using GSA.

(Pro tip: That other tool also will destroy your competitor sites.)

2) General link blast services will destroy sites, everyone who bought blasts of any kind. You know what this means, see above.

3) Lots of collateral. I have a 100% clean, non-commercial, non-profit, charity site I contribute to - gone. This one is main reference to try and understand what's going on : innocent sites often reveal what an algorithm change is all about.

4) Personal identification being used en masse. Your Gmail and Google accounts are giving them your whole list of sites. Once they take one down, they take ALL down. Notice most reports around the WWW "all my sites are down". They're tracking you, folks! I've been warning about Gmail and trackers for a long time. One of the world's foremost black hat link sellers has analytics and google tracking code in their site! If you bought black hat links there you are busted today.

5) Some of the top results for very expensive keywords are javascript redirects. Don't wanna out they kw's I checked but the well known one with initials BV #3 result is a redirect. The other well known one with initials PL #3 result also 100% black hat links.

6) SSL sites got a major boost.

So far this is what I got to share with ya. What are your observations on the Ebola Update?

wow, paranoid much?

 

[archon10]

I don't want to share an experiment that I have been tweaking for quite a while because I don't want it flooded, nor do I want google to pick up on it. I have shared it with a few people here and they can vouch that it works. But I am ranking very hard keywords and it is not costing me anything. I will say this, and you can go from there. If you don't have analytics, the googlebot will pick up the stats from the statistics log that your host provides. There are ways to manipulate that log. Use your imagination and take it from there.

wat???? No. google does not use analytics data for search ranking. l2data, lady.

 

[wizdorf]

I recovered from Penguin.

But one thing I don't agree with is that SSL's saw a boost, any proof of that? As far as I can tell penguin has always been about backlinks and not onsite factors.

 

[SerpEvil]

It`s pretty strange "GSA Curse Hysteria" ((1) GSA SER got hit bad. Like 100% correlation.) - You have to understand very well that SER is a Tool and it`s Your own decision how to use it. I seriously doubt someone do SER BLASTS directly to the main site* exc. the case it`s churn and burn or some kind of newbies. Some of these could be penalized exactly as the people who do the same with Xrumer, the Demon, SeNuke and so..

I`m very happy by that update for the sites I maintain with and only with SER:

2) General link blast services will destroy sites --- Probably yes, but who in the real world do that? ^^^^


* - You even CAN use SER for DIRECT LINKS (as it`s been used for the second`s example above and many others) in case You have unique, never used before, human written content and %spinfolderdelete%

sorry but you can't call think RANK in any way.you have no sites ranked above.rank=1-3 first page of google search.pos #30 or pos # 500 is the same

 

[SEO Power]

So, we should not use GSA anymore for tier 1.

Your question is just like asking "so we should not use PBNs anymore?". If something gets hit, it doesn't mean thar it no longer works. GSA still works and it shouldn't bother you that sites using GSA got hit if you understand the risk of the game. So, keep using GSA to supercharge your tier 1 and tier 2 links ONLY if you are building churn and burn sites.

 

[luxer]

Get rid of analytics.

what if you keep Analytics but spoof a bunch of traffic under the keywords that you are targeting...

any opinions??

 

[AsgharSK]

I'm holding track of most things, even built some 'fake' sites,I built all of those links slowly and I built about 50% of them on inner pages,In the future I won't use exact match anchor text for incoming links at all.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

what if you keep Analytics but spoof a bunch of traffic under the keywords that you are targeting...

any opinions??

Analytics is a lightning rod for penalties. Google uses it to track people. Now they're phoning back to www.google.com too so they know exactly who you are if you're logged in.

 

[MediaConsult]

got a new site (couple of months old) with very little SEO... after the update some keywords are rank 1
guess I got lucky