Google Cracks Down on the SEO Industry [Archive]

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minstrel

11-29-2003, 01:12 PM

This article was discovered by cbp, one of the WebProWorld MVPs (Thanks, cbp!) and mentioned in his post in the Whats going on with Google? (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=46195#46195) thread. Given all the consternation about Google's recent activities, I thought it worth departing from my usual practices and reprinting the article here (author grants permission to do so on his page - see below).

November 28, 2003
Google Cracks Down on the SEO Industry
As this week comes to a close, there is no doubt that the most significant development in the Internet marketing world was Google's latest update and algorithm change, undergone around the third week of November, and dubbed by the search engine community as "Update Florida".

The soon-to-become-public mother of all search engines decided to crack down on the search engine optimization industry as its IPO draws near, and implemented a filter against thousands of sites that appeared to have been artificially over-optimized for certain competitive (and commercially appealing) keyphrases, wiping those sites out of the rankings.

What triggers the filter is still a subject of debate, although evidence points to the use of common search engine optimization techniques like placing keywords in the page title, increasing keyword density on the page, or placing keywords in the anchor text of inbound links.

The fact that these techniques have been widely used by many legitimate businesses, has caused thousands of perfectly relevant sites to disappear from the rankings, toghether with sites that clearly abused these techniques (for example, pages belonging to bogus networks of sites that link to each other, created and controlled by unscrupulous webmasters to artificially boost PageRank). We can safely say, therefore, that in its attempt to weed out spammers, Google has thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

A large debate is now going on over if Google did right or wrong, and over what may have been its underlying motivations to take this course of action. Opinions range from the belief that Google did the right thing, to the theory that Google implemented the filter to force the eliminated sites to buy AdWords (paid sponsor listings). One way or the other, one thing is certain: with this move, Google has put a question mark on everything we knew about search engine optimization.

In the meantime, thousands of businesses owners who used (or abused) search engine optimization techniques to push their pages to the top of the Google rankings (making a lot of money in the process) have now found their businesses destroyed. One more proof that focusing on only one Internet marketing strategy (especially search engine optimization, where we will always be at the mercy of the people tweaking the algorithms) is a recipe for disaster.

The evolution of Google will be an interesting development to follow in the months to come. If you want to read more about Google's recent controversial algorithm change, you can read the following articles (they are somewhat lengthy, but will give you an accurate picture of what's going on with Google these days, and of what we may expect from them in the future):

searchengineguide article (http://www.searchengineguide.com/lloyd/2003/1125_bl1.html)

search-marketing article (http://www.search-marketing.info/newsletter/buyads.htm)

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You can freely reprint this article provided that you include the following resource box:

Mario Sanchez is a Miami based freelance writer who focuses on Internet marketing and web design topics. He publishes The Internet Digest (http://www.theinternetdigest.net), a growing collection of web design and Internet marketing articles, tips and resources. You can freely reprint his weekly articles in your website, ezine, or ebook.

stitches

11-29-2003, 09:55 PM

Thank you for posting this article.

busy1

11-29-2003, 10:10 PM

November 28, 2003
Google Cracks Down on the SEO Industry

What triggers the filter is still a subject of debate, although evidence points to the use of common search engine optimization techniques like placing keywords in the page title,

What does this mean exactly? What are we suppose to put in our title?
I understood that we were to optimize our title to relate to the content of the page without spamming.
Lynn

minstrel

11-29-2003, 10:17 PM

What does this mean exactly? What are we suppose to put in our title? I understood that we were to optimize our title to relate to the content of the page without spamming.
I think it's the people who were optimizing "with spamming" who need to worry, i.e., stuffing keywords into their title tags, more into their alt tags, and more, out of context, into the page content... I don't think you need to worry, Lynn. As far as I can see, your title is fine.

cbp

11-29-2003, 11:00 PM

Please don't flame me for this:

Not sure I totally agree with this, but maybe:

Spam = unethical manipulation of search results to get an unatural higher ranking.
SEO = ethical manipulation of search results to get an unatural higher ranking.

Maybe what Google is doing (and wants to do) is clamp down on ALL attempts (spam & SEO) to get an "unatural" higher ranking and return the search results to a more natural state of things ...

What say you?

CBP

janeth

11-29-2003, 11:22 PM

Lets take http://www.scroogle.org/ (Thanks Catalyst)
Then lets take a look at words like custom web design and building custom web sites.
There where some really good sites that where in the top to start with that are no not in the top 1,000 why?
Because one of the sites used the word web to many times. It was in the title, description, key words, alt tags, and text. This was a clear case of Spam. Just because these companies build web sites is no reason for them to use the word in there text. They should have used a different word like ----- who knows.
Like the article said Google threw out the baby with the bath water.
If we are not allowed to tweak the sites for our key words then how is Google going to know where to put our sites. I guess the Google Bot knows more then the people that own the site.
You just that you where a web designer really you want to sale gifts.
I do hope Google gets some good competition soon and I also hope Yahoo drops them ASAP.

minstrel

11-29-2003, 11:47 PM

Please don't flame me for this:
Don't worry... whether you agree or disagree, I think that may well be the way Google sees it....

Maybe what Google is doing (and wants to do) is clamp down on ALL attempts (spam & SEO) to get an "unatural" higher ranking and return the search results to a more natural state of things...
I think that probably is the goal, whatever "natural" means...

janeth

11-30-2003, 01:15 AM

This is what we have found on our own and have also read on other forums. These are only a guess. Also Google could change the filter back at any time.
We have been reading and studding which sites fell and which sites stayed this lines up with what others have said and what we have found.
It also lines up with what John Scott is saying at http://www.internet-marketing-research.net/
1. Stay away from multiple links from the same site.
You need one link per site.
Your links need to change from site to site so they all are not for the same key word.
2. Do not put your key word in the title.
3. Do not use your key words in H1 tags
4. Do not have words in your body text that match your key words. You can use the word custom web design one time but after that you need to use web design, web, custom but do not reuse custom web design if it is your key word.
If the anchor text, title, page text all have the same key words then Google knows your trying to trick them and they will kick you out for those key words.

The filter was only used for search terms Google felt would be abused.
So you need to make sure the search terms your checking to compare things with where some the of searches Google used the filter on.

excell

12-01-2003, 12:58 PM

janeth

12-01-2003, 01:23 PM

excell,
I do hope you right but so far they seem to be happy with there new results.

excell

12-01-2003, 01:30 PM

The indexing of web pages in the way they prefer is the prerogative of the indexing search engine.. the display and the algorithm is their right as well.. however, it is not within my scope as a web designer and marketer to change to a model that is not correct or which does not *optimise* or make best the medium as a channel between the web site and it's target market...

That means:
correct usage of page elements
free flowing content that speaks
correct linkage to and from my neighbours on the web

and a whole lot more.. try to take that out and penalise for it? I don't think it will work. :)

janeth

12-01-2003, 01:43 PM

Hi excell,
Our home page a lone was ranked for more then 200 key words we lost a lot of those but have found we get just as many people and on some days more from our links to other sites.

There is no way I would ever remove my link pages just to make Google happy or remove sites that I trade more then one link with us.

We have also started using http://www.webworldindex.com/ for a lot of our searches now.

I also hope Yahoo drops Google soon.

excell

12-01-2003, 01:52 PM

ooooo.. I don't quite think the link you gave has an unbiased or full picture either.. it's results for me are way off mark.. never mind.. back to google...
I still have hopes for them and really would like to see them win for another round.

They have been good for many.. searchers & web site owners alike. They have been popular and with good cause.

Let's see what happens, I wouldn't bury them yet.

janeth

12-01-2003, 02:10 PM

What bothers me or scares me as we where riding a long fine with out a worry in the world when this happened.
I do hope they fix the problem and stay on top. But I want there to be more then one big search engine.
I would like to see about 4 the same size as Google. I also think Google is helping make this happen by doing things like there doing now.
I'm sure I'm not the only one looking for another place to find searches now.

minstrel

12-01-2003, 03:53 PM

Janeth.. are you advocating that designers go against common sense here?

Sorry, but to not use page elements as they are intended and communication effectively with your audience is going too far.. there is no way on this planet that I would cater to a search engine algo in such a way.
See my post in the Scroogle thread (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=46794#46794).

If you look at what Google seems to be doing (with emphasis on "seems", implying that we are indeed still guessing), they are adjusting penalties for flagrant violations or borderline abuses of practices that we were always warned against (by search engines, though unfortunately not by some SEO "experts", and no I am NOT putting all SEO people in that same basket).

So, no - I don't think this is an alert to go against common sense - on the contrary, maybe it's a reminder to go back to common sense.

Steven Glover

12-01-2003, 04:20 PM

Oddly enough this latest change didn't even effect us. Our rankings seem to have stayed where they were for our keywords. I wonder why? Am I not doing my SEO properly? Do I need to go to another seminar?

I'm sorry for those that were effected recently I kn ow it sucks.

janeth

12-01-2003, 04:28 PM

Hi Steven,
The changes only effected some of the search terms and not all of them.

JayDrake

12-04-2003, 03:42 PM

1. Stay away from multiple links from the same site.
You need one link per site.
Your links need to change from site to site so they all are not for the same key word.
2. Do not put your key word in the title.
3. Do not use your key words in H1 tags
4. Do not have words in your body text that match your key words. You can use the word custom web design one time but after that you need to use web design, web, custom but do not reuse custom web design if it is your key word.

At first this all seems a little crazy to me, but in looking at it from the viewpoint of wanting to create relevant results rather than rewarding people for their amazing ability to format their site, this is at least somewhat sensible. I don't know how fact based these points here are, but the themes behind this and a few other things I've looked at seem reasonable.

1. Getting an A on this test means you are somehow cheating. (Something one of my physics professors once told our class.)

Basically put, Google doesn't want sites that people put a lot of time into optimizing for them. They want sites that are good for people.

2. Multiple links from the same site seem innocent enough. How much did you pay them to be your friend? Sure, some people may just like your site that much that they put a link to you on a few or several or hundreds of their pages. More likely, however, you're buying ad space and that hardly makes you relevant. I love and hate the thought of something like this being implemented. At once it seems to level the playing field while kicking sites in the teeth who sell advertising across their pages. If this is real, it's a great example of putting the searcher before the searched. Too bad noone wants to pay me to search the web.

3. Along with the multiple links thing, I've heard some talk of reciprocal links being penalized. Nothing could please me more. Reciprocal links don't show popularity. They show community. Stop whoring links on your own site in exchange for links back to your site. If you really and truly have a site that rises in it's own merit other people -should- link to it because they like it that much. This is a more true measure of popularity to be certain.

janeth

12-04-2003, 03:52 PM

Hi JayDrake,
I love
#1. Getting an A on this test means you are somehow cheating. (Something one of my physics professors once told our class.)

rlrouse

12-04-2003, 04:13 PM