Page Similarity Tools

[will 68]

Like many others on here I had a couple of sites wiped out in the recent google change. Both these sites have been steady earners for me for over 3 years.
I have been thinking along the lines it was some sort of duplicate/similar page filter, which has stuck these sites into small sort of google black hole by this I mean both sites are fully indexed in google, but never appear in any search results. I have looked at these sites using the 2 page similarity checkers which I know of: http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php and http://tool.motoricerca.info/similarity-analyzer.phtml using the webconfs tool I see an average page similarity of 55%, but using the motoricerca tool I sometimes see a page similarity of up to 80%.

I have always used the webconfs tool and have just recently found the motoricerca tool and comparing certain pages they both give some very different results. I just wondered what you all thought of both these tools, especially those effected by the recent update and who has used the webconfs tool and believes their site is fine as far as page similarity is concerned. Also does anyone know of any other similar page checker tools.

Will

[renegade]

You're right, the results do differ wildly but I suppose it all depends on your definition, or more importantly, Google algorithms' definition of similarity.

The motoricerca tool is able to differentiate easily between the text and HTML content so we can bet Google can do this too, there could be seperate thresholds for HTML and text similarity or any combination, and I'd love to know those values!

[justnozy]

Don't think there is any doubt (maybe among other things) there was a duplicate content filter in there.

Our main earning site was controlled by a "do it & worry tomorrow" guy. I preached & preached about duplicate content - but it was always - yeh I'll sort it tomorrow - overnight 75% of pages wiped out.

I think there is also some truth in the sandbox theory though - new content does seem to get into serps very quick - with, in honesty, no due merit - then bomb - then what seems to be a good natural ranking ( if you take the time to check through your "betters" and dismiss the new stuff i.e no way should be there's ). In fact it almost seems to me better adding cr*p content than doing a short term ppc campaign - the results are faster & cheaper - but the long term effect ????

But this is of course with google. New content zooms up the serps, bombs and then seems to find it's "natural" place.

With MSN & Yahoo I have rankings that are simply ridiculously high when you look at the experience, maturity, and real content of my peers. It will be interesting to see if a "sandbox" eventually comes through.

Meanwhile of course there are two choices - dance or wait for the slow waltz