FuryKyle
Elite Member
- Nov 19, 2010
- 2,487
- 1,378
Google released an update to their algorithm named "Webspam Algorithm Update" today (4\25\2012) which was basically the "Over SEO" optimization penalty that Matt Cutts mentioned a few weeks back.
Its effect? Panda was nothing compared to this. While they claim only 3% of their queries are affected compared with the whopping 9% (talking hundreds of millions here) Panda had when it was first rolled out, this update seems to have impacted us the most. The term "us" here encompasses not only blackhatters, but also regular white-hatters and your average joe SEOer.
Most of my sites that I had had campaigns running for the past 2 months were hit bad - REAL BAD. They got knocked off from page 1-2 to page 10-50 after the update was released. They were the highest of quality with 100% perfect grammar and were of course unique. They had correct information with images everywhere, perfectly optimized for a curious visitor searching about my keyword. Other sites that didn't have any backlinking done to them over the past few months retained their position, and for some pages, even slightly increased in rankings.
So how does the SERP look like now?
Shit. Absolutely terrible.
Am I saying this because my sites got knocked off and I'm just using this as an excuse to get the update rolled back? No. Try searching for "making money online" and you'll see what I mean. A blogspot.com web 2.0 property is ranking #1 for that extremely hard keyword - WITH NO CONTENT
All I see is a measly, half written title with zero content, nothing. I guess now we know how de-optimized Matt wants our sites to be
Sites with 1 backlink are outranking my ultra high quality sites. Estores like Amazon are pretty much dominating the SERPs now eventhough they have 0 backlinks and the quality is just terrible. Irrelevant stuff pops out everywhere in the rankings for major keywords now. I guess pretty much every site that had moderate backlinking done to it (whether whitehat or blackhat) is hit.
What does this mean?
It opens a whole new field in the SEO industry - negative SEO. If you can't beat 'em, spam 'em. It's already been proven countless times that this can be done. In fact, I've already tested this myself and it does work.
The SEO industry is also going to take a big hit as links aren't valued that much anymore. What matters then? I honestly have no idea. If sites with 0 backlinks can dominate highly competitive keywords, why waste my time and do SEO? I spent loads of time and money creating high quality backlinks and still got hit in the end, what more those who spammed their way to the top?
They claim that they want us to "focus on creating content" instead of building links and they will eventually rank us. Yeah man, then the only thing that will ever get to read my content are your spiders. Is the traditional "link building" concept even viable anymore? Giants are dominating the SERPs.
Why I think this happened
Matt Cutts probably got sick and tired of people calling him Matt Cunts and getting insulted everywhere by us blackhatters and is doing this to prove he's boss. (Look at the end of his post about this update - he calls himself "distinguished engineer" AKA IM NO CUNT you piece of shits, I'm a distinguished engineer). You might not think that he doesn't really care, but he lurks around these forums a lot and getting called a cunt is definitely something to get upset about. I personally don't endorse the substitution of alphabets in his name - after all he's only doing his job, but Google has never done anything this drastic in my entire SEO career. Completely blasting away sites that are actively being backlinked? Why let shit sites take their place when our sites have amazing quality and is enough to satisfy your searchers?
They've gotten the whole concept mixed up. In their heads (or at least in Cutts's head), sites that are being backlinked = spam sites with low quality garbage that needs to be kicked off and penalized. In reality, sites that are being actively backlinked have generally higher quality content than others because web owners don't spend money backlinking to shitty sites that they created half-heartedly.
That's all for now. Share your thoughts.
Its effect? Panda was nothing compared to this. While they claim only 3% of their queries are affected compared with the whopping 9% (talking hundreds of millions here) Panda had when it was first rolled out, this update seems to have impacted us the most. The term "us" here encompasses not only blackhatters, but also regular white-hatters and your average joe SEOer.
Most of my sites that I had had campaigns running for the past 2 months were hit bad - REAL BAD. They got knocked off from page 1-2 to page 10-50 after the update was released. They were the highest of quality with 100% perfect grammar and were of course unique. They had correct information with images everywhere, perfectly optimized for a curious visitor searching about my keyword. Other sites that didn't have any backlinking done to them over the past few months retained their position, and for some pages, even slightly increased in rankings.
So how does the SERP look like now?
Shit. Absolutely terrible.
Am I saying this because my sites got knocked off and I'm just using this as an excuse to get the update rolled back? No. Try searching for "making money online" and you'll see what I mean. A blogspot.com web 2.0 property is ranking #1 for that extremely hard keyword - WITH NO CONTENT
All I see is a measly, half written title with zero content, nothing. I guess now we know how de-optimized Matt wants our sites to be
Sites with 1 backlink are outranking my ultra high quality sites. Estores like Amazon are pretty much dominating the SERPs now eventhough they have 0 backlinks and the quality is just terrible. Irrelevant stuff pops out everywhere in the rankings for major keywords now. I guess pretty much every site that had moderate backlinking done to it (whether whitehat or blackhat) is hit.
What does this mean?
It opens a whole new field in the SEO industry - negative SEO. If you can't beat 'em, spam 'em. It's already been proven countless times that this can be done. In fact, I've already tested this myself and it does work.
The SEO industry is also going to take a big hit as links aren't valued that much anymore. What matters then? I honestly have no idea. If sites with 0 backlinks can dominate highly competitive keywords, why waste my time and do SEO? I spent loads of time and money creating high quality backlinks and still got hit in the end, what more those who spammed their way to the top?
They claim that they want us to "focus on creating content" instead of building links and they will eventually rank us. Yeah man, then the only thing that will ever get to read my content are your spiders. Is the traditional "link building" concept even viable anymore? Giants are dominating the SERPs.
Why I think this happened
Matt Cutts probably got sick and tired of people calling him Matt Cunts and getting insulted everywhere by us blackhatters and is doing this to prove he's boss. (Look at the end of his post about this update - he calls himself "distinguished engineer" AKA IM NO CUNT you piece of shits, I'm a distinguished engineer). You might not think that he doesn't really care, but he lurks around these forums a lot and getting called a cunt is definitely something to get upset about. I personally don't endorse the substitution of alphabets in his name - after all he's only doing his job, but Google has never done anything this drastic in my entire SEO career. Completely blasting away sites that are actively being backlinked? Why let shit sites take their place when our sites have amazing quality and is enough to satisfy your searchers?
They've gotten the whole concept mixed up. In their heads (or at least in Cutts's head), sites that are being backlinked = spam sites with low quality garbage that needs to be kicked off and penalized. In reality, sites that are being actively backlinked have generally higher quality content than others because web owners don't spend money backlinking to shitty sites that they created half-heartedly.
That's all for now. Share your thoughts.
