EMD Update - big question is...

DamageX said:

I didn't say he should start over doing the same damn thing all over again. What I meant was it's faster to start over than to fix problems you may have accrued over a long time. But yeah, I should've been more specific. I don't disagree with you.



You weren't hit by the EMD update. There were two other updates very close to it. Specifically a Panda update right around the same time.

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Umm.. Yes, I was hit by an EMD update. I'm not an idiot. I know when the EMD update was, I know when the Panda was and I know when the Penguin refresh was. Let me restate this again. I was hit by the EMD update which was the first update.

Dont give up on the domain....I have quite a few EMDs, many are still ranking and only a few of mine got hit.

What was the cause of the hit? Having crappy links. Those sites of mine that I use a homepage link service are still killing it. Those that don't have quality links plummeted.

All Google did was greatly devalue EMD domains, if you had a good supporting link structure you'd be OK. So start building it.

I'd just build links. I was number 1 with just 12 links before. Competition has hundreds.... but just last month he overtook so. Quality link structure and where the links are coming from should be what you're looking for.

You also have to maintain it. Some links get removed so you need to be vigilante and create when links are dumped.

Don't give up on existing EMD domains, and fix them as suggested above, but going forward we should pull back on relying on them so much. EMDs were never really necessary for ranking a site that had well selected, low competition keywords at its core, but was nice icing on the cake for ranking high and fast. This feature, however, clearly makes them stand out like a light bulb to big G these days---a phrase in the domain that also dominates the content of the site, telegraphs that it's a one keyword website, which translates to 'spam' in Google's eyes.

So, add more good keywords to your new sites, buy an aged domain, get some high PR backlinks with random anchor text corresponding to 6-7 or more keywords instead of just one, etc. This combination should come off as more natural looking to the Google, not come across as a thin keyword site, and the use of an older domain may omit it from negative scrutiny by the G algorithm altogether.

to follow up -

if anyone wants to dump their previously well ranking websites and start new, please donate your websites to me.

point being is that you can recover. whats frustrating is seeing all theese people that had good ranking sites dumping them and starting over. especially when you can recover.

build good quality links, remove crappy links, and diversify.

Dan Da Man said:

Regurgitation at its finest! Tell that to my sites that were not EMD that got hit by the EMD update and are now not ranking in top 1,000. Yeah your right tho. They devalued my domains to rank #5,433 in the serps.

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...DUDE.

If your site isn't an EMD then it did not get hit by the EMD update.

http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

Please read this. If your website traffic fell at the same time, then it was a PANDA update. A major panda refresh occurred AT THE SAME TIME.

Like, you say "Oh I know when Panda happened and I know when EMD happened it was EMD I'm not an idiot" but they occurred literally on the same day.

It was panda.

Windmill said:

It was panda.

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