florida massacre

[betterHalf]

no doubt you will all be aware of the latest google update currently taking place. It certainly does seem to have generated a lot of angst... personally, my 'niche' sites have been smacked into oblivion, my 'general' sites show no change, and rather hilariously, my sites that rely on zillions of 'spam' pages have shot up the rankings... nice work googlers!

There's a lot of theory out there about whats going on, including "conspiracy to promote adwords" theories, "virus in the database" theories and so on. Real fact of the matter is, google has ALWAYS hated SEO-activities, and almost by definition, MUST hate SEO activities. Reason being, google exist to serve up "quality" search results, and seo "warps" the quality of those results. Case in point, it all used to be about "pagerank", and inter-site linking determined rank...until everyone figured it out, and linked to a 1000 other sites as a matter of course as the first "SEO" trick. If you look at it up to a few days ago, what had happened (rather predictably, because as quantum mechanics says, you can't observe something without changing it!) google, by dominating the market, thereby deformed the web itself, by forcing all of US to adopt practices we wouldn't normally have bothered with (another case in point - hands up if you write reams of junk keyword-rich copy instead of real content. Most SEO'd sites read like they were written by a 5 year old, due to the (previous!) necessity of inserting the keywords everywhere).

So what do we have today? The new googlefilters trip out sites google thinks are "overtly" seo'd, yet do nothing about the problem of REAL spam pages, the problem that forced most of us into SEO in the first place (remember when you could create a useful "content" site and see it on page one? Remember how it slowly got pushed down the results by single-pagers for viagra and donkeysex dvds?). Result, google searches STILL full of cr@p, but SEO'd sites (most of which ARE relevant BTW; why go to the trouble of SEOing if you don't have any relevancy for what your vistitors want??!!) dumped down the pan.

Why did they do this? Look at altavista. Top dog a few years back, till everyone learned how to spam into it. Quality suffered, searchers left, and google took over. The googlers have learned THAT lesson, and don't want the same thing to happen to them (which is actually the way it was going!). Hence rejigging to make it (they hoped) impossible for SEO-bods to 'force' their way into organic listings. Never mind all the pornospamsites and suchlike, kill the seo crowd first - same principle as any revolution - kill the intellectuals first!.

Personally, am doing rather well out of it, but must point out that it looks to me like google are basically screwed, because they are initiating a full scale war between the seo fraternity and themselves. Google programming population? Few hundred. SEO population? Few hundred THOUSAND. Google programmers? On salary. SEO programmers? Need to earn commissions to eat. Anyone care to take a bet on the way this is going to pan out??!!!
:-)

[UKOffer]

As I don't understand SEO properly my approach has been to just sit back and don't think too hard about how to crack Google. This has meant that most of my traffic has had to come via PPC.

Funny thing is that the latest dance has been very good to me and some of my sites that were sitting on a PR 1 or 2 have gone to PR 4 and 5. More importantly traffic has increased as a result.

One day I'm going to get round to employing a proper SEO company to sort me out!!

Kieron

[getvisible]

personally, my 'niche' sites have been smacked into oblivion, my 'general' sites show no change, and rather hilariously, my sites that rely on zillions of 'spam' pages have shot up the rankings... nice work googlers!

What is the linking structure like? How many links did you give it from ur main site to the other sites?

Real fact of the matter is, google has ALWAYS hated SEO-activities

Wrong - Google has always hated activities that contravene its Terms of Service!

Putting keywords in your title and description, having a site map, improving internal linking etc is not something Google hates.

Good SEO is about taking Google's terms of service, the products you want to sell/promote and the technology you have and building something. People go wrong when they try and beat Google.

Reason being, google exist to serve up "quality" search results, and seo "warps" the quality of those results.

It may be better to say "and improper seo"warps" the quality of those results.

Case in point, it all used to be about "pagerank", and inter-site linking determined rank...until everyone figured it out, and linked to a 1000 other sites as a matter of course as the first "SEO" trick.

Nope - recently the text in those links was more important.

The new googlefilters trip out sites google thinks are "overtly" seo'd, yet do nothing about the problem of REAL spam pages,

Wrong - some of those that know me know some of the VERY juicy keywords I have got to #1 by "over-optermising" sites. It's not over-optimising per se - it's how you do it!! ;-) It's not that you've got a "big pencil" it's how you use it!!

remember when you could create a useful "content" site and see it on page one

I still do!!

Remember how it slowly got pushed down the results by single-pagers for viagra and donkeysex dvds

My apologies - I'll move into another market - SHANE I'm kidding - I've got nothing against donkeys!

Result, google searches STILL full of cr@p, but SEO'd sites

Not necessarily - I see a lot of BBC pages, Guardian etc - and they're certainly not SEOd - they're optimised for usability etc.

impossible for SEO-bods to 'force' their way into organic listings.

I love a challange - and I like most SEOers I "see every threat as an opportunity"!

Never mind all the pornospamsites and suchlike, kill the seo crowd first - same principle as any revolution - kill the intellectuals first!.

This is not a revolution - it's business and in business its survival of the fitest. If people can't stand the heat they should take up religion or sell flowers at a train station or something!

In fact it's the intellectuals that are winning as they could see what was going to happen it's is those that was caught up with today and not planning for tomorrow.

they are initiating a full scale war between the seo fraternity

Nope - they have declared war on the spammers, just sometime they aren't always as adept as Oliver Cromwell, they often seem like Prince Rupert!

Anyone care to take a bet on the way this is going to pan out??!!!

Yep, my money's on the guys that get up at sparrow fart, look at google, look at their own sites, work out how they can make it better and get on with it. The winners will spend more time solving than criticising.

It's a tough world, and sometimes you've just got to accept it as it is and get on with it!

[FleaPit]

Interesting analysis there Lee. Couple of things, do you have any idea why some sites have been burried and others continue to do well? Do you know why your sites haven't been torched and can you say this without hindsight. I have looked at number of causealities and have a couple of plausible theories but nothing concrete as yet.

As far as spam goes, I don't think Google is losing the war, I know they are! Even techniques from the Jurassic period are doing well with white text on white background, Google just hasn't got a clue. If their algo could really pick this stuff up then it would get it right 100% of the time not 1%!! The only spam it can act on is when individual sites are reported that's all, and to be honest i don't think they care if the site offers relevant content albeit via somewhat spammy methods.

The fact is this Florida update is a major shift by an apparent scoring of seo not soley to rank pages highly but to burry pages that trigger the 'artificial seo' filter. Unfortunately, at the moment this is very much hit and miss with a number of excellent, highly relevant, great content sites being crucified. This is collateral damage, as the military would say, but very heavy indeed. I can imagine a few more tweaks over the coming months the results of which could be better, worse ... who knows. Fact is nobody could have seen this update coming, if a particular site survived then it was not by design. There are many sites which followed the google guidelines and adopted a moderate level of 'natural seo' i.e. pretty much clueless however, they have still been slammed which is disconcerting to say the least.

[getvisible]

Interesting analysis there Lee. Couple of things, do you have any idea why some sites have been burried and others continue to do well? Do you know why your sites haven't been torched and can you say this without hindsight. I have looked at number of causealities and have a couple of plausible theories but nothing concrete as yet.

Without giving my consultancy services for free - he he - I'd take a good look at cross-linking and the ip range of the servers. This isn't transparent from simple searching.

I also I'd look at the nature of those sites - why do they rank highly - just to lean people in a direction not all sites have £ or $ on them.

Fact is nobody could have seen this update coming, if a particular site survived then it was not by design.

Just call me Mr Disagree man! I think the general tone of the update could have been predicted and to a certain degree some of the spefics - what no one could forsee was the weight they attached to those specifics!

There are many sites which followed the google guidelines and adopted a moderate level of 'natural seo' i.e. pretty much clueless however, they have still been slammed which is disconcerting to say the least.

Who's to say it may not be the proces of link building that could lead to removal.

I don't want to do people's job here, all I want to do is raise questions that people think about and come up with rational theories then they try and prove themselves.

But be aware you are always going to see exceptions to your rule as there are many, many elements to the google algo!

[adigaskell]

This might be of use:

http://www.searchengineguide.com/llo.../1125_bl1.html

[watcher]

I dont think that any index pages have been removed - just that for some key phrases they are way down the SERPs. For other keyphrases, those index pages can can be brought back.

I've certainly noticed more of my internal pages showing up and I see more internal pages in general are being returned.

I don't believe in the commercial filter theory - I can do plenty of commercial type searches and I get a page full of merchants appearing which Google would say is a good result. Although, I think a lot of affiliates are going to find that a problem.

In the long run, you just can't rely on a particular set of search phrases - build a strong theme (especially for linking purposes), fill it with content but try and give it your own little twist. Just as in the physical business world differentiation is key.

[getvisible]

is that a wig or Grecian 2000?

yep completely agree - the second filter as I said before looks at the linking nature of a predifined (highly commercial) set of results.

[missey]

Does anyone think this may have global implications. I know there are a lot of people who have quit work because their Google SEO pages have made them a fortune?

[missey]

Wondering what sites have been removed by Google in the last update?

http://www.scroogle.org/

Enjoy.