Google "waiting period" after May 14 payday update?

Hey,

I've been doing blackhat SEO for a LONG time, but after the May 14 update I notice something is off. It seems Google has implemented some sort of 'waiting period' to attempt to prevent churn & burn. For example I can blast a site with the exact amount of network / sape / gsa that would easily rank before May 14, but now the sites get stuck on pg 2-5 and won't budge. The strange thing is that it's like no matter how many links you pump at a site that's in this 'filter', it doesn't move. I'm hoping the filter only lasts a month or so and then the sites will rank but that's yet to be seen.

Anyone else running into this issue?

Yes, I'm seeing pretty much the same thing with all my sites that were launched after may 14. Same backlinks as sites that are currently ranking (built pre-update), but these new sites all seem to be "stuck." It's been over a month for these new sites and most of them aren't even top 100 yet. Before the update, they would be ranking on page 1 after about 3 weeks with the links I was sending.

I hope that it IS just a new waiting period.

How many article are there on your site?

The amount of articles is irrelevant to ranking. For example check 'buy Viagra online' and you'll see a bunch of 1 page sites ranking with hacked links.

But - my sites have ~4-6 pages. I've tried just about every strategy with gsa / sape / network, even without gsa at all. The results are pretty much the same.

And yes @TwistedSEO, I have sites that ranked pre-update with the SAME links that are still ranking fine.

It's got to be a waiting period otherwise I feel like all of my currently ranking sites should have dropped.

Someone in another thread on here made a very good point. What if they simply - instead of instantly calculating a rank increase / penalty, delayed the algorithm's reaction until it had time to properly assess the backlinks... Makes sense, and would be a pretty good way to "break spammers spirits" because it's unlikely that a churn and burn SEO would keep building links for a full month.

Yes it takes more time now. For me, it takes around 1 month to get out of that waiting period. Once the period is over, websites instantly shoot to the place where they deserve. Either they get tanked or make it to page 1

@umerjutt00 Have you actually had a site created after May 14 that popped into pg 1? What rank was it before it popped into pg 1 and how long did it take, a full month? Thanks for the response!

Yea i recently tried few weeks back as well and actually didnt even show up till later on so I'm not sure what could be going on

I'm noticing this waiting period as well and not just on churn and burn. Perhaps it's to give time for the algo to catch up with understanding the backlink profile in its entirety before they rank it allowing G to to "burn" the site before it has a chance to shine.

Anyone notice this with YouTube as well?

I personally don't rank YouTube videos - But after May 14 I've tried ranking aged domains, new domains, etc and the results have been pretty much the same. I can pump a site up to top 20-50, but it just gets stuck there no matter how many / quality of links I pump at it. The waiting period is only logical conclusion I was able to come to regarding this. Also we're not talking about just spam - I have a very large private network and direct access to SAPE. I've tried building only PBN + super hq sape and the results were the same. Let's hope it only lasts a month - possibly the most annoying update ever by G.

On one test - we took an aged domain that already had relevant content but no links. We built like 3 PBN links and instantly it popped into #29 on a very competitive keyword. We built some more links - being extremely careful with the anchors and the next day it dropped to pg 7 and has been suck there -- Even after 20x PR3-5 TF20+ sape links. lol.

Graph here - https://clients.micrositemasters.com/shared_reports/520cb9fc1b6751145be7b8376de77300

Pretty much the only conclusion is that this filter is very easy to trip - and once you've tripped the 'waiting period' filter - the site isn't going to budge for some time.

Google are doing also their job, they have action those all blackhat doing, but we know it is not permanent, we can make also a new blackhat idea, thats the knowledge .

seo-addict said:

On one test - we took an aged domain that already had relevant content but no links. We built like 3 PBN links and instantly it popped into #29 on a very competitive keyword. We built some more links - being extremely careful with the anchors and the next day it dropped to pg 7 and has been suck there -- Even after 20x PR3-5 TF20+ sape links. lol.

Graph here - https://clients.micrositemasters.com/shared_reports/520cb9fc1b6751145be7b8376de77300

Pretty much the only conclusion is that this filter is very easy to trip - and once you've tripped the 'waiting period' filter - the site isn't going to budge for some time.

Click to expand...

Seeing similar in regards to taking longer to see movement.

In regards to "tripping" this "filter", if this was the case couldn't one just do a quick blast to some of the top website in page 1 and make them go to a waiting period also?

hnmfvnxe said:

Seeing similar in regards to taking longer to see movement.

In regards to "tripping" this "filter", if this was the case couldn't one just do a quick blast to some of the top website in page 1 and make them go to a waiting period also?

Click to expand...

Heeeheee funny you said that. I've attempted a SMALL amount of negative SEO on 2 of the top 5 sites on one SERP. And now they are gone. After only a couple hundred guestbooks. X_X..

seo-addict said:

Heeeheee funny you said that. I've attempted a SMALL amount of negative SEO on 2 of the top 5 sites on one SERP. And now they are gone. After only a couple hundred guestbooks. X_X..

Click to expand...

Very interesting...might have to do some tests of my own.

There's probably a number of factors at work here, the alleged "new site boost" or "site audition" along with what ever hair trigger filter is causing sites to disappear for up to a month. I've got numerous examples since Payday usually from 2 weeks to another keyword that's clocking in disappeared at over a month now.

Here's an interesting example from one of my SERP reports.


This is a very low competition keyword, it's a product name +model keyword.

The page isn't over optimized at all.
Haven't built a single back link to the page.
Haven't built a single back link with this keyword's anchor text.
It's from a new site (registered in April) with still very low authority.



I haven't seen a pattern like this with any of my rankings before. It's like a mini-version of the waiting period where my site got a freshness boost in the first 2 pages, then kicked it back (but not out of SERP, my more competitive keywords disappear all together), and now it's back in play.

Thanks for your report, that would be make sense. This is perfect example to explain what happens right now. It make the new site, or we can say new page. Big G will hold you, and test u, if you are bad guys. So there may be a cure, just wait, and do something not spam, OR spam more harder, see what it make some progress. Hack PAGE, powerful weapon

@seo-addict: Started 2 sites on 1st June. When they were indexed, one was at #30 and the other was at #70. Started link building and both sites showed some positive movements. Both made it to page 2 and then got stuck. I tried throwing in few high pr links but still nothing. Then they just dropped off and were nowhere to be found. Meanwhile i continued building links and around after 1 month, they suddenly appeared on page 1.

This is how it went:
#30-40 -> page 2 -> gone for 1 month -> returned back.

Thank you very much seo-addict and umerjutt00 for this kind of topic and discussion! It is one of the most important discussions on forum at this moment IMO.

I want to share my experience too.
I am pretty new in all these SEO world, but I did learn a lot last couple of months.

My story begins at 28th April 2014 when I registered brand new domain and started website. I did all the on-page SEO until 9th May when I finally finished it. Perfect on-page SEO, silo structure, 15 subpages with 15 hand written perfectly optimized around 500-word-articles.

Then on 11th May I started building approximately 100 top quality PR1-PR7 SAPE links to my site daily. I stopped when I reached about 1500 SAPE links.

On 13th May I appeared on #65 position for medium competitive keyword and in top 100 for almost all my keywords.
I have been facing big Google Dance all these days and I finally reached #29 for main medium competitive keyword. Then I stucked. I stucked for all my keywords on positions between 11-35.

I was building PR6 and PR7 links, but nothing changes, still on same positions, even 1-2 positions lower.

Almost 2 months later, today, on 4th July, I am still sitting on same positions, still facing Google Dance, one day I am 11th, other day 21st.

I absolutely agree with OP, there must be some change in G algo. My competitors that are ranked top 3 positions are PR0, junk backlinks, around 500, 1-2 year old domains. With all that SAPE power I should outranked them, but there is obviously a "waiting period" where G check many factors.

I know I failed with backlink profile and anchor text diversity, but I finally (1 week ago) decided to achieve natural backlink profile and anchor text diversity so I start building High PR Web 2.0s and took a service for diversity. We will see how it will affect my rankings, will I ever break top 5 positions for my main keywords.