Something is up with Google..
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xplosiv
Power Member
- Oct 18, 2014
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Something bizarre is happening on my end too. I have a bunch of quality pages on my site constantly losing to thin rubbish. But its not just the content, I have significantly more site authority and SEO juice to my website (mix of white and blackhat). I think this may be Google devaluing PBN links.
If you really think about it, it wouldn't be too difficult to put them under a microscope, especially with services available from BHW where they put the same links to websites on every site... like what are the chances of all these websites linking to the same exact external websites?
If you really think about it, it wouldn't be too difficult to put them under a microscope, especially with services available from BHW where they put the same links to websites on every site... like what are the chances of all these websites linking to the same exact external websites?
conrulez
Power Member
- Dec 29, 2009
- 539
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Of course ANYTHING is possible, but I doubt it's a MASS devaluing of PBN links. Specific networks that they may find? Sure...All day long. But across the board devaluing..No way....
I have not personally seen what you have OP, but....I have seen an uptick in traffic for "spammy" type sites. Others have held positions. Hopefully for you and others they are just tinkering around the edges and your rankings return. Will update if I see anything different on my end.
It's taking them a while to pick up links right now, that's what I'm noticing on my end. All my clients are back to moving up as of this moment, but new keywords aren't being picked up for new clients for 1-2 months already since I started - only the on-page optimized keywords, not any of the ones I'm chasing through anchors on PBNs. Previously the links were being picked up really fast, within a matter of 15-20 days I was seeing new clients already showing up on Google for target keywords, now nothing. So hopefully it's just a hiatus and we see them start counting links quickly again.
No offense but this pattern of thinking is just a bi-product of the previous penguin hit back in 2011.. it has caused people get paranoid and start spewing unfounded conspiracy theories. There is nothing to suggest they are devaluing all PBN links - that seems really far fetched and I think we would hear mass uproar across the forums if that was the case because everyone would lose all of their rankings (just like they did when Google first penalized everyone for crappy directory links).
You're also talking about blogging. Unless you don't know how to protect yourself and leave the most obvious crumbs, Google would be penalizing their own services (blogger?)..
Why would Google not want people to feed good articles / text into their system if it's valuable, that would be counter-productive to their own search engine which loves content and links.
conrulez
Power Member
- Dec 29, 2009
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Just to clarify....Are you seeing it take that long to index the links and then see results OR are you saying that the links are getting indexed but no effect until months later (if at all)?
Thanks.
xplosiv
Power Member
- Oct 18, 2014
- 609
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I am just throwing out the only common thread that most of us probably have here. If google started weeding out PBN's (or atleast putting less weight on sites that don't get much traffic), then that will be a cause for concern. At the end of the day, its all open to discussion -- I have bought some decent links lately but they don't seem to be doing much of anything at the moment.
Whereas there used to be instant dancing after indexing (and a gradual improvement in SERPS). I agree that much of the paranoia around penguin is unfounded, but I have first hand experience with it completely destroying my income stream. I'm doing much better these days and staying ahead of the curb.
Some other things that might be of concern is when Google started dropping pages out of the index. I constantly see some pages on my site go in and out, and I strongly suspect this is probably going to affect the link graph... especially on web 2.0's, articles, and other properties SEO's build out on campaigns. It could definitely be a sign that things are going towards a higher standard of quality when it comes to ranking... there are billions of pages on the web every day thanks to spam, it is plausible that G is taking steps to counter all that information.
Whereas there used to be instant dancing after indexing (and a gradual improvement in SERPS). I agree that much of the paranoia around penguin is unfounded, but I have first hand experience with it completely destroying my income stream. I'm doing much better these days and staying ahead of the curb.
Some other things that might be of concern is when Google started dropping pages out of the index. I constantly see some pages on my site go in and out, and I strongly suspect this is probably going to affect the link graph... especially on web 2.0's, articles, and other properties SEO's build out on campaigns. It could definitely be a sign that things are going towards a higher standard of quality when it comes to ranking... there are billions of pages on the web every day thanks to spam, it is plausible that G is taking steps to counter all that information.
Scratch what I said, they are picking up links on time. I do see for example that GWT picked up my three PBN links for my new client over the past two months, yet it's not having any effect on anchors.. he's not showing up anywhere for the target keywords. This wasn't the case before. When the new penguin started kicking in around October-ish, within 15 - 20 days of me making a PBN I already saw movement toward 4th - 3rd - 2nd page.. This is the first time in a while I haven't witnessed my PBN(s) move someone up quickly (it has never taken up to 2 months).
That being said, some of those PBNs are pretty new, and it's possible that Google is still taking time to take them into account in their system, plus you never know how long until Google actually starts weighing that link for value.. it can say indexed but it can take longer to really put weight into that link from my experience and have it start counting toward rankings.
guardofseo
Newbie
- Jan 6, 2017
- 5
- 2
Please update on how things settle down eventually.
Plausible, but if that was the case we would see a way bigger hit on top sites. I look at various competitors and they have such a garbage link profile (far worse than mine) and yet they dominate the top rankings, there is really no consistency here. In some cases guys get penalized for making a few directory links, and in other cases I see guys in the top with 200 ref links from a low quality directory and hundreds of other directories, and still no hit for months, years even.
conrulez
Power Member
- Dec 29, 2009
- 539
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Which to me SCREAMS that it is NOT an automated penalty at all. It's all manual. Total hit or miss. Personally I think on the overall scope of things, it's just a numbers game. By that I mean literally build multiple sites for any and ALL keywords. Whichever one makes a run to the top, great. The others? Maybe they'll rank at some point. Maybe not. Just a cost of doing business. Harder and more expensive? Sure. But weeds out the weak too. I'd also chase the same keywords with spammy sites too. I think they've proven that you really NEVER KNOW what's going to rank.
Banditoseo
Regular Member
- Jul 17, 2016
- 268
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I've seen similar movement. The more optimized you are -- external anchor text, title, H1, homepage link -- the worse it is. If you can't remove links, try de-optimizing your titles and/or reducing keyword density. That helped me.
I assume it'll settle down somewhat in the near future, but I think this is also part of the new normal.
I assume it'll settle down somewhat in the near future, but I think this is also part of the new normal.
I agree with this completely. I've got a client with many sites, and he's always creating more. I've told him when he creates one new site in a new niche, go ahead and create a second one in the same niche. I'll do SEO on both. If both rank, great. But it's more likely that one might rank and one won't. Even with similar SEO done to both.
Lately (last 4-6 months) it just seems like there's a lot more of a "hit or miss" with ranking a site. Creating two sites instead of one is not that big of a deal for person that's always creating new, fairly small, trivial sites to just create a pair of sites instead of one.
Not good news, or practical, for the guy who's trying to create a big, real, authority site - he can't just whip up a second site fast and cheap.
moneyflower
Power Member
- Jan 22, 2016
- 618
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Sorry, what Tool did you use for the SERP rankings you attached to this post?
- Mar 21, 2013
- 24,772
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That's not even a conspiracy, they've had this algorithm for years now....one of their researchers released a paper on it.
They've gone as far as releasing a update without a press release, then all the "gurus" like Rand Fishking and Rusty Brick didn't publish anything about it cuz their systems didn't detect anything, then a month later Google said "oh by the way we had an update 30 days ago called Hummingbird". And then the "gurus" rushed to post shit like "man we KNEW just something was up but we didn't publish it because yaddda yaddada"....
It s a game of keeping webmasters in the dark. Google would rather you not know they exist, unless of course you're buying adwords.
I use Rank Tracker from SEO Powersuite. You have to save the campaign and then you click the Progress tab to see the latest changes (arrows up or down).
xplosiv
Power Member
- Oct 18, 2014
- 609
- 156
The more this carries on, the more it seems like the new algorithm likes links from established websites, and links that have been live for a long period of time.
I've bought PBN packages this year which have traditionally worked fantastically. I always use them as safely as possible (like sprinkling extra social signal, low to no EMAT, getting links fromm web 2.0's and legit links)....
... but they seem to be doing fuck all this year.
I have a competitor now outranking me for some very profitable terms, hes got good links BUT they are also ancient.
I have seen this trend a few other times for other sites.
De-optimizing pages somewhat also seems to help minimally as someone mentioned before.
I've bought PBN packages this year which have traditionally worked fantastically. I always use them as safely as possible (like sprinkling extra social signal, low to no EMAT, getting links fromm web 2.0's and legit links)....
... but they seem to be doing fuck all this year.
I have a competitor now outranking me for some very profitable terms, hes got good links BUT they are also ancient.
I have seen this trend a few other times for other sites.
De-optimizing pages somewhat also seems to help minimally as someone mentioned before.
xplosiv
Power Member
- Oct 18, 2014
- 609
- 156
I have my own PBN too and they have not lost any significant links. Most of the links that come from BBC, huffpost, other media tend to stick pretty well and they retain their original metrics. This is potentially looking at the popularity of websites that link to your money site, and giving them weight the more traffic they get.
Lets face it, most PBN's will not hold the attention of a real user for very long and get very little traffic. I think that G could take this into account and give a webste a user satisfaction type signal, and then positive results make the links FROM that site weigh more too. I will be experimenting with getting my PBN's to rank for some decent keywords and see what happens.
Lets face it, most PBN's will not hold the attention of a real user for very long and get very little traffic. I think that G could take this into account and give a webste a user satisfaction type signal, and then positive results make the links FROM that site weigh more too. I will be experimenting with getting my PBN's to rank for some decent keywords and see what happens.