Anyone else noticed todays SERPS change which may be limited to the UK results (unconfirmed) it seems that deep-linking has been devalued, and anchor text too. The trend seems to be more brand focused tho im having difficulty in seeing how some brand sites are ranking for some unbranded terms when the main site doesnt seem to support the keywords.
What makes a branded site?
- Volume of searches for the brand name?
- Click through rates to the site?
… if so what about sites where the company name is a keyword? Surely they should rock.
Expect more insight soon as i begin to take apart these changes (unless they revert back in the next few days). Fingers crossed we’re not looking at another Florida update in time or Christmas:(
Not seen anything yet…but i think there were similar suggestions recently from American webmasters over on webmaster world. Wasn’t it around this time of year that the Florida update was released. Just in time for Halloween and thanksgiving :-)
Hi Colin, indeed it was. I’ve already mentioned this to the team. It could yet be a simple datacentre wash as things are bouncing around a bit but its still of concern.
Oct 8 2010.
Google just threw all the pieces of the puzzle up the air again in the USA, and in Canada too ! Since july, Google has my site take a dive of 90% and bounce back by 311%. Now it’s roller-coaster time again. Just relax, if your site has quality pages to offer …things will go back to normal in a week or so. You have to appreciate the fact that Google tries its best to get the cheaters out of the SERP results game, that’s a good thing. They’re more efficient than most countries’ governments at booting cheaters out!
The changes Google are implementing are definitely worth watching. They will definitely keep us on our toes for the coming months. Thanks for the insights. :)
I over see quite a few sites and have noticed Google has been very very inconsistent lately, especially for new(ish) sites and extreme for sites less than a year old.
It seems the rules of the game have changed. One site we have get’s no impressions or visits from Google unless we completely change the text on the homepage and then for 2-3 days afterward you get the traffic you’d expect for the site!
I made sure there were no knee-jerk reactions to this and we’ve seen some sites begin to return to where they were. It looks like its not on-page this time, its something to do with links. Luckily for us we have 2 sites in the same industry one which fell and one which stayed so we’re looking for differences in techniques and link types to see what type of link has been devalued (we’re thinking reciprocal at the moment but don’t quote me on that)
I’ve not been bothering with reciprocal links for at least a couple of years now, and with the exception of usual fluctuations I’ve seen no difference to any sites recently, so you could be right about recip’s being devalued.
BTW I followed the link from DP to get here, so it’s true, original content does attract links and visitors!
LOL thanks, i try to be original… just gotta work on being more fluent and writing longer articles.
My website has been hit hard by this chnge. I have gone from top 5 on some keywords down to page 280 in google. Im a fancy dress website and halloween is the busiest time of the year. This has absolutely killed me at the moment.
Looks like google is completely losing it!
One of my sites was ranking #1 in google consistently for over a year for 3 different keywords. I build very clean high quality links for that site for years, and now it dropped heavily for all keywords.
Now several sites that build links with xrumer (forum spam links on totally unrelated forums) are ranking high
for these keywords.
I have tested myself with xrumer ( on different sites) and notice a increase in rankings for the sites that I build low quality links to.
Something definately is going on, I cannot imagine that this is what google wants to achieve: they devalued highly related sidebar / blogroll links, and value spammy low quality in content links a lot higher.
Meaning google is telling us to spam as heavy as possible. This will get your site ranked high!
I’ve been into seo for over 10 years, and this is then single most insensible update that I have ever seen.
Analyse some back links of the top 10 ranking sites in the iPhone niche, and you will see for yourself.
Another example is limera1n.com ( the latest jailbreak tool for the iPhone) is not even ranking top 8 for it’s keyword limera1n
Is google losing it, or is this just a temporary thing?
Its sad but for the moment, link spam and black hat techniques are winning the race against cleaner linking techniques.
n Defense of Google. Despite it’s recent behavior!
Some web-masterss get hit really hard when Google does it’s dancing number, Recently, the hM website (heartMonitron.com) has been hit pretty bad too …only to come back stronger after the dust settles. If you publish pages with quality content …Big G will figure it out. If you are up to using dirty monkey tricks …the same applies: Google will figure it out, most of the time.
For almost three years now, hM has relied on “on-page” content, and nothing else. No effort was ever made in the way of a linking campaign. That is the long-haul way, give it five years. From minus 90% to plus 300 %, that is the way it goes with big G (Google). This is a slower, but solid approach. A growth rate of 540%/year is fine with me. Publish quality content and give it time !
In a way, I am happy that Google acts this way, they are efficient at taking the cheaters and the other, way too numerous, peddlers of bullstuff out of the rankings.
It should remain that way! Cheaters out!
An interesting proposition and one that i know works however sadly most clients need results quicker than that.
What about those, far too numerous, e-mails we all receive from outfits who propose PR 9 one-way links, no less. Always for so many Dollars, Euros or Pounds …while their fake special lasts.
I refuse to buy their tainted meat ! Am I right or …am I just plain dead wrong?
I happen to believe that, sooner or later, search engines will identify fake links …as fake links. I reserve the right to be wrong !
LOL I agree. Theres some local SEO competitors who’s entire strategy is paid links – great for agency revenues, bad for clients long-term budgets!
I am not sure what happened. My main website dropped off the serps, but my blog which is in a folder on the domain shot up I think Google is seriously going crazy.
October 21st and still no update. One would think that it has been dropped altogether. Actually that would be nice…:)
Mark
I just dont understand it. I’m fairly new to SEO but have been as white hat in my approach as possible and for the last 6 months the site has slowly done better. I’ve built better links and content probably then most competitors, and was creeping up on them.
A month ago the game changed. Since the start of September all my main pages which I’ve built links for and added content to have been thrown around like a rag doll by google. My less optimised pages are less effected!? A couple of days in Google SERPS every 2 months is not enough and plummeting the business.
Hi Luke. out of interest what was your link building strategy – where did you get links? Im looking for correlation with what we’re thinking.
October 22nd, 2010. Google is doing its cursed number again !
I just made a great “para” – SEO discovery : Do NOT write copy for Google only, write for the benefit of your readers. Then, when Google decides to throw all the pieces of the puzzle up in the air, as it did again today, you still get plenty of traffic from those sites who deemed your copy of interest.
SEO experts keep repeating that content is king. Now I believe you guys!
Write for the benefit of your readers, never mind Google. On the long term: You Win !
I built the links through email campaign and asking nicely. The links are one way mainly, and from related sites, some are on links pages but several are from main website pages. Some links are also from forums and blogs.
Haven’t been in the Google SERPS for a while now.
oh lord im such a newbie cant differentiate between serp and pr could you please explain a bit? thanks ^_^
SERPS is the position, pr is either a little green icon on the google tool bar that does not really mean anything any more, writing press releases or the google pagerank algorithm for which mer mortals such as we will have no access
I have a number of sites which have been hit hard today, having spent huge time on content and links. What is so galling is that crap sites with rubbish content and links are now ahead of my sites. I do a lot of deep linking and am interested in the post at the top that google is now maybe ignoring deeplinks ? The point is, if it’s a level playing field, fair enough, but it’s a complete guessing game, makes no sense…
Its a tough one as the serps are still in flux. a few days ago things appeared to be back to normal(ish) with some of the deep ink pages that were ranking appearing a few positions below where they were originally… its all v annoying.
Thanks. Can you elaborate what you are saying about the deeplinking changes… thanks.
Hi Craig. Not at the moment as it appears several changes are being rolled out over the last few weeks. first internal pages disappeared and are now back. some people are reporting that unrelated sites are being listed and lately i think site wide links have been hit.
At the same time as all the comments above my six month old thin little 4 page affiliate site had made it onto the first page and was climbing nicely. At the highest point it is in number two position outranking microsoft, and toptenreviews. But since october my site has been dancing from not in the listings at all to page 10 to page 6 then position number 2 for a few days then it disappears. I have added more unique content and fresh backlinks but I am a little confused!
Have your sites settled down or are they still dancing?
Theyve settled a bit. I think internal link cosistency is key (sounds daft but it works) and i think site-wides have stopped working.
“I think internal link consistency is key”
Could you clarify what you mean by that? Do you mean use consistent anchor text for internal links? Or consistent format (for instance, using or not using the trailing / when linking back to the home page)?
Or are you talking more about having a more silo-like structure, where you are linking primarily only to closely related pages?
“…and i think site-wides have stopped working.”
I am assuming you mean EXTERNAL inbound site wide links (as opposed to internal sitewide links in, say, the footer).
And one last question: Do you see this as some sort of a penalty, or devaluation of ALL links, because of over-optimized external inbound linking? Or do you see this as ONLY affecting suspect links? Would you recommend against starting a link building campaign at this time until the picture becomes clearer?
Mark.r – (hey same name as mine lolz) yes i mean both internal link consistency and siloing (i call this verticals) – as long as you haved 301′s and your canonicals in check you can link to / /index.php and other variations – tho for internal linking its best to stick to one uniform url stye
yes i mean sitewide external links – think about these powering an internal page of targeted content on your 3rd party sites tho to get extra power in that link to your site. all site-wides are boilerplate and (usually) have reduced power if pointing out from the site
i think now more than ever you need to be whiter than white… look at upping your unique domain link count – i.e. avoid sitewides, article marketing and other such links that rely on the same base url’s
Thank You, Mark, for your comprehensive answer.
“…look at upping your unique domain link count – i.e. avoid sitewides, article marketing and other such links that rely on the same base url’s.”
Aside from DOMAIN diversity for incoming links being more important, would you also say that TYPE DIVERSITY (for lack of a better description) would also be more important?
By this I mean, should people who are trying to get high PR do-follow links ALSO try to get low PR / nofollow links so as to have a diverse link profile?
In essence, is it best to keep your link profile looking “natural”? Is there some sort of a ratio (say, four nofollow links for every dofollow link, for example) that would be a good rule of thumb?
Thanks in advance.
to be perfectly honest the mix of nofollows etc shoould happen naturally. if you think this is key get your client to do lots of blog commenting etc as your time is best spent elsewhere. i dont think type is really an issue, its all about unique domains, in content links from a mix of internal and if you’re competitors are buying links, home page links.
i dont have a ratio as all markets are unique.