Crazy Google Dance In The Last 24 Hours

[TheGreene]

Ok, I've spent some time searching for a pattern and here is what I found out:

First of all, on March 7-9th there were at least two types of updates, one, probably for content (too much ads) and second one for backlinks - that's why so many debates.
I work in a payday loans niche, so most websites here have no ads. Three of my websites got hit, also several competitors' websites got hit.

As for my websites, I have exactly the same backlinks as most competitors do: no PBNs, some business catalogs, some comments, profiles, paid catalogs like botw etc,
so the quality of the backlinks can be excluded since other websites with same links are still ranking.

The next thought was anchor text density, but I haven't found any pattern here since some websites with much more spammy anchor text profiles are still ranking.

After some more research I might have found the reason - ratio of low quality to good quality backlinks.
Low quality = the website has no organic traffic at all (checked via ahrefs).

Just think about it, if the websites can not be found in Google, so how did anyone add a link to it?
Most of the websites that got hit had at least 1/3 of low quality links, while the websites that are still ranking have at most 1/4 of such links.

I'm pretty sure that these ratios vary from niche to niche.

Hi,

My site was getting 100K traffic a month and I got hit. I was ranking #1 for many Medium/ key keywords .. The update that u thought was Ad Related do u believe that update was first? Because my site dropped Mar, 7th.

 

[littlewebdragon]

Just think about it, if the websites can not be found in Google, so how did anyone add a link to it?

This part makes no sense. So right now am creating site/web2.0 and it is not yet in google, and yet I'm adding links as it is my web property.

 

[incomescout]

Just think about it, if the websites can not be found in Google, so how did anyone add a link to it?

To add to that, if the IP ADDRESS of the website with YOUR link doesn't register as ever visiting your website in the past, then why would there be a link on there?

The only way a site could ever link to you is if they've visited your site in the past.

 

[TheGreene]

To add to that, if the IP ADDRESS of the website with YOUR link doesn't register as ever visiting your website in the past, then why would there be a link on there?

The only way a site could ever link to you is if they've visited your site in the past.

This one makes no sense either. That's not how IP's work.

 

[incomescout]

This one makes no sense either. That's not how IP's work.

Hey. Maybe I worded it wrong.

My point is: if Website A hasn't visited Website B, and Google has records showing this, then why would there be a link from Website A to Website B?

If I were to link to a specific website I would, at the very least, have to visit that page at least once, right?

 

[TheGreene]

Hey. Maybe I worded it wrong.

My point is: if Website A hasn't visited Website B, and Google has records showing this, then why would there be a link from Website A to Website B?

If I were to link to a specific website I would, at the very least, have to visit that page at least once, right?

A website is not a human, A website is controlled by a webmaster. Google does not keep tabs on the webmasters nor knows the webmasters. That's how a PBN is built and thats the logic behind how it works. Google cannot differentiate if its your website or Bob's website down the street. Fake WHOis' Different hosting C BLOCK IP's and u call it a day..

You don't need traffic to have links from other authoritative websites. Ofcourse this can raise a redflag and have ur site monitored but legit businesses can have links from neighbor businesses or businesses you own yourself. Without 'Organic Search'

 

[Lauriat]

To add to that, if the IP ADDRESS of the website with YOUR link doesn't register as ever visiting your website in the past, then why would there be a link on there?

The only way a site could ever link to you is if they've visited your site in the past.

dude what are you smoking?

 

[grandeurior]

This update has really been one of those that reveals nothing and Google still claims nothing major.

 

[aidenhera]

Hey. Maybe I worded it wrong.

My point is: if Website A hasn't visited Website B, and Google has records showing this, then why would there be a link from Website A to Website B?

If I were to link to a specific website I would, at the very least, have to visit that page at least once, right?

google would never include such thing as ranking factor because they dont know who's the visitor. even if they have google analytics, gwc, google chrome,youtube etc theres still alot of other traffic sources and browsers they cant control.

 

[TheGreene]

dude what are you smoking?

He was not aware how it works. Its okay

This update has really been one of those that reveals nothing and Google still claims nothing major.

This update has stuck two fingers in my ass, and has not taken it out since Mar, 7th, 2017.

 

[incomescout]

A website is not a human, A website is controlled by a webmaster. Google does not keep tabs on the webmasters nor knows the webmasters. That's how a PBN is built and thats the logic behind how it works. Google cannot differentiate if its your website or Bob's website down the street. Fake WHOis' Different hosting C BLOCK IP's and u call it a day..

You don't need traffic to have links from other authoritative websites. Ofcourse this can raise a redflag and have ur site monitored but legit businesses can have links from neighbor businesses or businesses you own yourself. Without 'Organic Search'

Gotcha

 

[incomescout]

dude what are you smoking?

Just asking questions. I didn't know about something, and another member cleared it up for me. That's what forums are for, right?

 

[larryc]

Hi,

My site was getting 100K traffic a month and I got hit. I was ranking #1 for many Medium/ key keywords .. The update that u thought was Ad Related do u believe that update was first? Because my site dropped Mar, 7th.

Hi, I was ranking top 1-5 for my pretty competitive keywords and everything dropped 100+ positions on Mar 7th.
The reason that I think there were at least two updates is because Barry from Seroundtable has made a research of other websites which lost rankings on the same day, which, appeared, to be ad related.
And most debates on forums and comments argue between on-site (ads) and off-site (backlinks).

So two things I would do, analyze backlink profiles of competition and disavow some (not all) of LQ links or add more HQ links to decrease the ratio.
Second, if you have ads, get rid of them, at least for now.

 

[larryc]

This part makes no sense. So right now am creating site/web2.0 and it is not yet in google, and yet I'm adding links as it is my web property.

Yes, but when the ratio of LQ/HQ backlinks become higher than average in your niche, you get flagged by Google.

 

[Renfield-Files]

You have a great point i have a new e-commerce site i have been working on full time and that one took a severe hit. I have a local site which has a decent amount of black hat seo that one came back to better before. The SEO on my ecommerce site is of higher quality since i had built all of the links manually.

I'm putting band-aides by posting new articles on my money sites. 500-1000 words, good use of H2 and slowing down anchors. Let G watch my new content only. The storm is already gone. Just the
Trash we need to clean up. No drama nor paranoia please!

 

[CEBEP]

Hi guys, just joined this thread. Huge loss of traffic, both PBN and no backlink sites. Another example i get into top 5 with whole website 3 days ago and was thrown to oblivion in a day. I guess ads the reason. The matter is not in IP's or backlinks profile. Share your situation.

 

[german seo]

@gazi9695 @asawako

I used the seobility crawler for doing it. You can crawl once in 24 hours with the free account and a free wordpress plugin
called smart Archive Page Remove and a broken link checker. Crawl your site first, make your changes, and crawl 24 hours later to check if your
site seo improved. Mine went from 58 to 80.

First you delete tags and categories in wordpress, then remove tags and categories pages using the free plugin, smart Archive Page Remove,
check with a broken link checker if there are any problems and redirect if necessary. Finally crawl your site with seobility again to see if there are any other issues.

Then go to search console and remove the pages, you have hidden with the plugin, you can recover them in
an nstant if necessary.

You should see a jump in ratings 24-48 hours later, but it will not last as big G has to recrawl several times
to acknowledge the changes, so should see a recovery 4-5 days later.

 

[incomescout]

Hey guys, so quick update:

Since the March 8th update, I've been experimenting to see what might be causing the traffic decline.

I'm happy to say that my normal traffic levels are back.

Since March 8th, here are the things I did:

• Removed all AdSense ads
• Changed from one CloudFlare account to a different one
• Removed the WP-Rocket plugin
• Signed up for Google Search Console
• Disavowed some shady links

This could be a total coincidence, so I don't recommend going crazy changing each of these. It's possible that one (or several) changes made a difference. There's no way to know for sure.

Just wanted to share my experience.

 

[TheGreene]

@gazi9695 @asawako

I used the seobility crawler for doing it. You can crawl once in 24 hours with the free account and a free wordpress plugin
called smart Archive Page Remove and a broken link checker. Crawl your site first, make your changes, and crawl 24 hours later to check if your
site seo improved. Mine went from 58 to 80.

First you delete tags and category pages in wordpress, then remove tags and categories using the free plugin, smart Archive Page Remove,
check with a broken link checker if there are any problems and redirect if necessary. Finally crawl your site with seobility again to see if there are any other issues.

Then go to search console and remove the pages, you have hidden with the plugin, you can recover them in
an nstant if necessary.

You should see a jump in ratings 24-48 hours later, but it will not last as big G has to recrawl several times
to acknowledge the changes, so should see a recovery 4-5 days later.

German, I had my site like this

I had my content ranked on my html porition of the site www.mysite.com


but i had catagory dup pages on www.mysite.com/blog/category/my-post-title/

^^ if google saw that catagory pages, wouldn't they just lose rank on the blog section and not my main section where i was getting 99% of my traffic?

 

[german seo]

Nope, the ratio content/dupe matters. As mainly blogs were slammed it's logical how it works, they all have tags and categories. As they ratio is better for bigger blogs, mostly small blogs got hurt, while the big ones soared. Low content/dup ratio.