EMD Update Analysis

Ok I think I have it.

If your sites fit into this scenario you were probably hit.

1. EMD
2. Title same as EMD
3. Meta Keywords same as EMD
4. H1/H2/H3 same as EMD
5. EMD in the url like so /exact-match-keyprase.php
6. Your EMD keyword had a decent amount of searches per month. Very low amount of searches EMDs were devalued but not totally beaten to nothing. If the searches were a decent amount then you took a huge hit. The site was probably completely barred from google more or less.

A few of my completely BS sites did not fit the above and did not take a hit. All of the rest of my sites fit into the above and took a big big big hit with the exception of those fitting into number 6. Very low searches EMDs did not take a complete hit.

Can anyone confirm similiar results?

I am not agreeing with this. Most of my EMDs fit exactly into this scenario but were actually pushed forward. it had everything to do with content, and not the optimization or setup of the page. Sites that were EMDs with nothing amazing on the page got dropped, while EMDs with basic traffic that had multiple articles and links to nonrelated sites moved forward. It is as simple as that.

Google definitely targeted money keywords with this. What I mean is that I have exact domain name matches for many products, and those took the worst hits. Exact match domains for obscure health conditions, services and anything else Google could not immediately monetize with Google Shopping withstood these updates relatively well - some even increased in rank slightly.

On some product sites which were hit with panda/exact domain name algo this time around, some still rank first page for the plural versions of their primary keyword(s). For example, my page 1 keyword for "office chair" was thrown back 50+ pages (not demoted as Matt Cutts would say but a flat out penalty). But "office chairs" still ranks page 1 in nearly the same position.

Overcoming this problem is not an easy solution. The reason is that I, just as many others here, have good ranks in Bing/Yahoo. Now if I go trying to fix something that is not technically broken, my organic ranks in Bing/Yahoo will be lost. This would leave me and others that attempt to fix the problem with Google lose much of our Bing/Yahoo traffic - making us more dependent on paid ads to generate traffic. Maybe this is Google's intentions or maybe its not. Regardless, its a losing proposition for webmasters that try to appease a Google that seems hell bent on abandoning organic search and monetizing each and every keyword query they can.

I have enough sites split across many different niches to see the trends in how Google is rolling out these updates to limit consumers from purchasing products from any other location then Google. I know, many Amazon and eBay listings (with search parameter URLs nonetheless) still hold great positions. But don't forget that Google, Amazon and eBay are all partners in the mega-lobbying group launched last month named The Internet Association. This working relationship they have may provide their members additional benefits which the average webmaster is not entitled to.

assphuck
Well thats the finest explanation of recent update and a lot of people were asking about that...

Not sure I agree 100% with OP's analysis.

Let's say you own dogwalking . com.


1. EMD

Check

2. Title same as EMD

Homepage would have a title same as the EMD

3. Meta Keywords same as EMD

Pretty good chance you would use "dog walking" in the meta


4. H1/H2/H3 same as EMD

Not unusual at all to have, "Welcome to Dog Walking" in H1 tags on the homepage


5. EMD in the url like so /exact-match-keyprase.php

If you're using WordPress and you have an article "Dog Walking in the City" then you have the EMD in the url


6. Your EMD keyword had a decent amount of searches per month. Very low amount of searches EMDs were devalued but not totally beaten to nothing. If the searches were a decent amount then you took a huge hit. The site was probably completely barred from google more or less.

Seems like dog walking would have a lot of websites that match the above criteria and if you check the SERPs there are plenty of sites with EMDs on the front page.

I'm leaning more towards quality and backlink profiles. EMD != MNS. There are a lot of EMD sites that didn't move or moved up in the shuffle. But I see a lot more complaining about the shuffle from people who had an EMD that was also a MNS.

Of course, not all EMDs that got hit were MNS but there was (reportedly) also an overall Panda hit at the same time which drove down some lower quality sites as well.

The hard part about assessing this algorithm change is that you had two different factors hitting sites at around the same time. So people may be trying to find rhyme or reason why their EMD sank but the hit might have been a Panda penalty.

So far so good, from my little investigation, the EDMs that were hit had little content/pages and poor back links.

It's easy for the search engines algo to spot this.

I found lots of EDMs still ranking..

SEO is just about quality..unfortunately, a lot of people are not ready to accept this
simple reality.

john1444 said:

SEO is just about quality..unfortunately, a lot of people are not ready to accept this
simple reality.

Click to expand...

If I had $1 for every person who has come to one of my authority sites asking to guest post and has submitted a "quality" post that could have been written by a third-grader, I would be a rich man today.

Quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I usually tend to interlink my sites for backlinks. Most of my sites with sitewide links coming from other sites got hit. The links were from a relevant site.

Says the guy complaining his site was hit in another post.

john1444 said:

So far so good, from my little investigation, the EDMs that were hit had little content/pages and poor back links.

It's easy for the search engines algo to spot this.

I found lots of EDMs still ranking..

SEO is just about quality..unfortunately, a lot of people are not ready to accept this
simple reality.

Click to expand...

tnx op

I think my EMD got hit today, I made an update in the home page day before yesterday and zero visitors. watching it for about 1 week after that i will roll back to old post and see if ranking is coming back.