View Full Version : Google is so messed up??... what have they done?
Fingers
04-08-2004, 07:30 AM
I used to have (about 3weeks ago) a number of sites in the top 10 out of millions...Now thay are no where to be seen ??
What are they trying to achieve with this new search?. Example Search for mortgages for doctors and 2nd place returns nothing to do with mortgages. in fact the top 20 results return quite alot of nonsence. So much for providing only relivant webpages....
Now this really puts the cat among the pigeons. How about a frames.htm page with NO meta tags NO description NO Keywords NO content. All this page has is a name. Would you think this would return 3rd place out of 53,000 sites? when I search for that 2 word page name.... It has 1 alt tag which related to a web stat which was "web statistics" I have now change this as I never thought this would happen.. No other engines have even looked at this page never mind puting it 3rd.
So what are we to do now Google? Have web pages with NO content at all?
I have a feeling either Google will U turn or they plan to have some sort of crazy pay per rank system ( due to the flotation )?
I for one am confused. And will not do a thing to any of my sites ( which are doing very nice on all the other major engines ) Untill some sort of order is established with google. If anyone here or else where thinks they know how to crack the new google system, Then I am sorry but they are talking Bo$#ox.
Found the same to be true with my site,search phrases and key words that my site use to have the #1 slot for are now filled with sites that don't even have the key words or phrases in the page and my site is burried so deep I can't find it. I have managed to work my way back towards the top but appear to be blocked from certain search phrases and key words that I use to rank very high with. I have seen no change in my Yahoo and MSN ranking, in fact when it comes to search engine refferals Yahoo has been beating Google by as much as 25%.
WGH
If you are talking about the site in your profile, I am not surprised ...
You are sending many poor "signals of quality" to Google. (eg keyword stuffing on home page - what use is that to the user?)
CBP
Thats one of my many attempts to get back where I use to be, thanks for the critique. I used to have it nice and clean but after losing my position I started trying everything I could think of even some of the bad things, its all an ongoing process to figure out just what the heck they want.
P.S. Just for the record the key word spamming has helped more than anything.
ace-lynchburg
04-08-2004, 03:55 PM
I do some SEO for some of our website customers. Several of them, who dropped out of Google during the November 15 Google Dance, wanted me to do the same thing you have done - break all the rules that the top people seemed to be breaking. I strongly advised patience. Their sites were properly optimized and were following all the rules. Google was just playing games with their algorithm.
Luckily, almost all of them listened to me. As of this writing most have been restored to their page one positions and are glad they did not resort to search engine spamming.
Thanks for the advice! I removed the key word spamming, we'll see what happens. I really didn't want to want to spam my site with keywords but I was willing to try anything, things were just starting to roll when that happend. Right now my google referrals are still very low but my Yahoo referrals have really taken up the slack, so I am actually doing better than I was before, I guess the lesson is don't rely on one search engine.
I removed the key word spamming,
What you really need to do is sort of "keep it there", but write some paragrahs about your business or industry that incoprorates those words into the paragraphs - ie make it valueable content for your visitor .... search engines like content.
CBP
Would Google consider my list of forums in the lefthand colum as keyword stuffing? Right now I'm close to where I was before the big hicup so I'm a little leary of trying new stuff, however I guess if I totally mess it up I'm not out that much since I have a real job and this is just a hobby. However EA Sports emailed me today they are sending me a free game for putting one of their banners on my website.
I not sure...
I think it all comes down to how smart you think the algorithm has got at working out the meaning of a page (by all accounts its getting smarter).
The Google and Yahoo guidelines are really clear - they both say something like "build sites for the users and not search engines" .... based on this you could make the assumption that the algorithms will be getting smarter all the time to finding the sites that the built for the user and not the search engine ... so if you do anything on your site (regardless if its spam or not), that is more aimed at the SE and not the user ... you have to do a risk/benefit analysis - ie is this worth it?
I have talked in a number of other threads about Google's use lately of the words "signals of quality" - you have to ask am I sender poor "signals of qaulity" to the SE? In your case, is the SE smart enough to pick up long lists of keywords on a page and realise thats its not content and is just overuse of keywords - while it may not break the specific SE guidelines, it could possibly be sending a poorer "signal of quality". Another eg (not on your site) is the use of links exchange scripts/software - this is sending a poorer "signal of quality" as it could be interpreted by the search engine that you are exchanging links purely for the boost in ranking and not for the benefit of teh visitor.
CBP
Fingers
04-08-2004, 07:43 PM
Has anyone got any ideas about my original post
Now this really puts the cat among the pigeons. How about a frames.htm page with NO meta tags NO description NO Keywords NO content. All this page has is a name. Would you think this would return 3rd place out of 53,000 sites? when I search for that 2 word page name.... It has 1 alt tag which related to a web stat which was "web statistics" I have now change this as I never thought this would happen.. No other engines have even looked at this page never mind puting it 3rd.
I find this totaly contrary to any rules of search engines at all.. How is google putting this page 3rd out of 53,000 when there is nothing to the page but a name? It has 2 sites linking to it that are not doing very well on google (due to the change}. This site has also never been submited to any search engines. Google must have spidered it through a link, I think.
It sorta blows out any SEO theorys out the window dont you think?
Are the keywords in the anchor text of incoming links?
This is the most powerful way that many of the SE's determine relevance.
CBP
Fingers
04-08-2004, 09:13 PM
No they are not. the links simply say "Enter Site" the page google has Cached is completely blank ( which it would be ). Yet pages that have the right content are no where to be seen. :) Nice going google I for one will not be ringing my stock broker.
So on the basis of me having 2 sites linking to a site which for all intense and purpose only has 1 page which is blank apart from it has a name. I have managed to get 3rd out of 53000 sites. Whoo HOO I am now going to write a book, I have cracked the google code. The secret is do not have any content at all just name the page for the keyword of your choosing. :)
This is most strange.
The more I look into the results from google for different searches the more I think google is not working as I think they have planed (I Hope). If it is, then I think we might find they will no longer be the top dogs. The results are not good from searches. All I seem to get in the top slots are more search engines or directories or pages not even relating to my search.
How long does it take someone to simply move over to Yahoo (for sake of argument) when they are frustrated with the google results. Not long at all.
I did a search for mortgages for doctors - the 2nd ranked site was Oxford News (is that the one you are talking about?) - it ranks well for doctors and there are 4 references to the word mortgages on the page (they are actually links and there is some speculation that G may give extra weight for them. - thats why they rank for those keywords.
CBP
Fingers
04-08-2004, 10:07 PM
Thats just one of the strange results IMO. I meen out of 122000 pages I would have thought there would be atleast 50 that accualy offered mortgages for doctors. I would say these would be more worthy of a top 10 slot.
The framed page I am on about, I dont want to give a link to as it is on a temp URL but search for
moto trader
And check out what google cached
>moto trader
I assume you mean the third site down. A blank page is in the cache.
I am not sure what you think the problem is - its not unusal to see a blank page in the cache when the site used frames
CBP
Fingers
04-09-2004, 04:18 AM
I dont have a problem at all?....
The point is that Google has put this page 3rd !!!
Does no one find this very odd indeed? I for one do. If this is to be the way Google works then I look forward to reading SEO theorys for getting pages top rankings.
Does no one find this very odd indeed?
Not really - the term moto trader is not really competitive and this site is the only one with the term in the page title that I could see (Google put a lot of emphasis on the title) - none of the other site have these words in the anchor text of their backlinks which also are of great importance - so no real competition for this.
I reckon I could rank number one for moto trader for a page within a matter of weeks - all it would take to beat the sites there would be to put it in the page title, a few links to the site with moto trader as the backlink anchor text ... should be enough (if not, maybe mention the words a few time on the page.
CBP
Fingers
04-09-2004, 04:49 AM
You are missing the point completely cbp.
A blank page has no right to be placed anywhere regardless of what links to it. Or what the page is called. Granted this page is not strictly blank to the user. But the Google spider does not know this? ( or if It does then I would like to know how )
I just don't get it, I do a search for "diet" first website has the word diet plastered everywhere! its repeated at lest 200 times and not in the form of readable content, its just links diet this and diet that talk about key word stuffing, did I mention it has top billing. Ok next site doesn't mention the word word diet anywhere at all it has it in some graphics and it has the second place slot. Once again the third website doesn't mention the word diet anywhere. 5th page diet shows up 3 times that's 5th place out of 26,000,000 websites.
So tell me how this works again? The first website broke all the rules and is rewarded with top billing, the next 4 websites don't even try to optimize their websites and they get first page results, what gives?
The first website broke all the rules and is rewarded with top billing
What rules?
The first site:
The keyword density of diet on that page is only 9% - that pretty average --> nothing wrong with that. Given all there incoming links have diet in the anchor text, no surprise ranked number one.
The second site:
Lots of links from on theme diet sites (esp DMOZ) - does not mention word diet in text of page - but company name is Cyberdiet ---> stemming (the site is very topical to diet, so Google did a good job here with the stemming)
The third site:
Very high PR, combined with some backlinks with the keyword diet in the anchor text are getting it this ranking
I stop here as this is taking too much time.
CBP
jackson992
04-10-2004, 10:42 PM
CBP:
is there a way to see the anchor text for links we have coming into our sites?
is there a way to see the anchor text for links we have coming into our sites?
I just do a manual check of selected backlinks via Google and sometimes HotBot to see what text they use as the anchor text. Unfortunately it does involve some 'leg work'. I do recall seeing for sale a software tool that could do this.
CBP
Fingers
04-11-2004, 05:30 AM
Not sure what your story is cbp. But I do get the impression your looking at Google through rose coloured glassed.
But I do get the impression your looking at Google through rose coloured glassed.
So then, what is your explanation for the reasons that the above sites rank where they do?
CBP
jackson992
04-11-2004, 04:30 PM
I firmly believe it is anchor text and back links. That is all there is to the rankings these days
bubblystuff
04-13-2004, 09:56 AM
Hopefully google will get its act together. I am losing more confidence everyday in the ability of the engine. I am beginning to sway towards yahoo for reliable statistics.
Well I tried stuffing my mainpage with the word "forum" pretty much like the diet website I mentioned in an earlier post, anyway it didn't work ended up losing position so switched back in a hurry. I guess for now I'll work on link exchanges and just worry about making my website work for people not search engines.
That diet page is not keyword "stuffing" - the density of the keyword 'diet' on the page is only around 9% - thats low to average. The reason they rank well has nothing to do with that - its all about having the keywords in the anchor text of incoming links and they have a lot --> hence the top ranking.
But, then again, according to fingers "I do get the impression your looking at Google through rose coloured glassed."... but he "used to have (about 3weeks ago) a number of sites in the top 10 out of millions...Now thay are no where to be seen ?? ". All my sites rank in top 10 for all their targeted keywords in both Google and Yahoo.... and if I can do that by "looking at Google through rose coloured glassed", I'll take that any day :-)
CBP
jackson992
04-13-2004, 11:44 PM
I'd be willing to bet tho cdb that that's because you have a ton of incoming links and not SEO the way Google used to be
I'd be willing to bet tho cdb that that's because you have a ton of incoming links and not SEO the way Google used to be
It no secret - lots of content; each page focused on a keyword(s) (in title, HI, description, highest kw desnity) and anchor text of links to that page matching the the keyword focus of that page. A couple of sites do not have many backlinks, but the anchor text matches the page -- other do have a lot, but they are in more competitive areas for that keyword.
But I also have a lot of oneway links (non-reciprocated) and a lot of links from pages on a similar theme, especially dirctories (authority/expert sites) (if you think they are important) - I assume I get those due to the value of the content that people perceive the site has.
CBP
jackson992
04-14-2004, 01:21 AM
Hi cdb:
I do all of the above also except I only have 83 backlinks for my highest site with a PR of 5. However, the rankins have sucked since The Ides of March
Fingers
04-14-2004, 03:29 AM
Ok So if this is the case -
Your site will only be ranked high if you have links to it from other high ranking sites.......
Is this not drasticly limiting the result for the user?. Is it so inconceivable that a new site without any links to it might not have something to offer in the way of relivant upto date content?
Which brings me back to moto trader once again. This page is TOTALY BLANK, can you tell me cbp what relivance is that to anyone?
Is this not drasticly limiting the result for the user?. Is it so inconceivable that a new site without any links to it might not have something to offer in the way of relivant upto date content?
Its been this way since day one with Google. Thats how Google got to be the dominant search engine - it ranks sites based on links (combined with other factors) - the only thing that appears to have changed recently is the sophistication with which it appears to be analysing the links.
Which brings me back to moto trader once again. This page is TOTALY BLANK, can you tell me cbp what relivance is that to anyone?
Its not blank!!! I'll give you the same answer that I gave you earlier in this thread:
I am not sure what you think the problem is - its not unusal to see a blank page in the cache when the site used frames
You replied
You are missing the point completely
What do I have to do --- the pages are not blank. The cache is blank, but that just becasue of the way the page is set up using frames. There is nothing wrong with that, except if they fix it they will probably rank higher.
The site is relevant to the search term as its not a competitive term, even though its under construction still. It is ranked where it is as this is the way Google ranks sites. I do agree that it is not a site with any content, but they have made it relevant to the keyword.
CBP
Fingers
04-14-2004, 05:34 AM
?? Yes the page is TOTAL BLANK ??
Are you now telling me Google do not use spiders and now have some guy sitting looking through all these sites?..
This page is totaly blank to a spider......
If you fail to see that then your glasses are not only rose but steamed up also.
Can I ask you this.
Do you think that google is working better for the end user than it did before this change?
For the third time ... the page is blank in the cache becasue the sites uses frames.
This page is totaly blank to a spider......
That frame is blank. But the page and the other frames are visible to the visitor.
Are you now telling me Google do not use spiders and now have some guy sitting looking through all these sites?..
Who needs glasses? - where did I say that?
Do you think that google is working better for the end user than it did before this change?
Which changes? Google has been changing its algorithm constantly since day one.
Maybe we all need to take a deep breath and agree to disagree.
You started this thread with:
I used to have (about 3weeks ago) a number of sites in the top 10 out of millions...Now thay are no where to be seen ??
There was no change to the ranking algo around that time - if you had a number of sites in the top 10 that dropped to no where, it most likely means that Google have detected something about those sites it did not like. From the title of this thread you came here to blame Google for this and look for other examples of where it got it wrong, when there may be something you have done to break thier guidelines. Throwing blame at Google and calling me names is not helping your sites.
Why not put this thread back on a useful track and post the URL's, their main keywords and tell us about where they used to rank and where they are now. There are a lot of competent people posting here who can take a look.
CBP
Fingers
04-14-2004, 06:10 AM
That frame is blank. But the page and the other frames are visible to the visitor.
Yes BUT how does google know this?
jackson992
04-14-2004, 04:23 PM
CDB:
I am sorry but you are quite wrong. There was a huge algo change where tons of webmasters got trashed by Google. My only guess right now is because they went away from SEO and have started weighing more on anchor text and links in. This is why Yahoo is showing far more relevant results right now
I am sorry but you are quite wrong
As far as I know there was not been a change in the ranking algorithm for at least a month or so (Austin was the last real change). Some sites did go up and down recently, but from what I understand that was more related to the "addition of new data" and the alleged more sophisticated analysis of link patterns that Google has been doing.
CBP