Can Penguins Fly?

[claybutler]

My self, I had one very important page just disappear. Most of my others have maintained and a few have even swapped which is odd. By swapped I mean having page "ABC.html" in #3 on the SERPs and then that one disappears and is replaced by page "DEF.html". The two pages have similar content but Google swaps out a page that had been ranking for a couple of years with a newer one of similar content value (but fewer inbound links). So far it's always been a new page replacing and old page but all the new pages are also WP blog pages and the old ones are static html. So they aren't equal in that sense.

Several years ago I had my entire static site disappear from Google for six months (it came back stronger than ever all on it's own). But was very tough on my business and it happened during the peak of the recent global economic collapse. After that I vowed to spread my risk by starting a blog. Now my blog brings in most of my traffic and my blog has been immune to every update.

Of course, it makes me nervous relying so much on Google's traffic but that's only because Google controls virtually the entire search market.

In my stats, if I have a 1000 unique visitors from search, maybe 60 would be from Bing, 35 from Yahoo, 20 from others and the rest from Google. I'm not trying to rely on Google so much, it's just that 90% of my audience uses Google.

It's kind of frustrating.

[Rocketman1]

Penguin only affected about 3% of sites http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/goo...earch-queries/

Penguins can't fly but they can't swim
Cormorants can do both
Hummingbirds are the only bird that can fly backwards (but can't swim)

[C0ldf1re]

Thanks for all the helpful replies to my thread!

... isn't this old news? Diversify your link profile?

Once again, more-star is a real-star. It is old advice, but seems to have become more urgent.

... google will see people getting to the top of the tree, they're going to shake the tree. I don't blame them, why should they give you free advertising?

Hmmm... Perhaps because that is what they promised when they first started? Google knew what honesty meant when they started up. They seem to have forgotten.

at least at the present time, most of my sites have improved. I just suspected other sites being penalized...

That seems to be the way. It is not so much that we move up, it is more that our rivals move down.

Ok, I am being completely honest, yes some of our sites got pretty savaged. One got smashed and we had carried out no external optimisation. I don't think it is just to do with the link profile. Based on my experience it has to do with a few other things as well...

Yes. I am sure that Google only tell us a small part of their algorithm changes.

... Could Google be manually targeting things?!? Who knows...

I doubt that Google have the resources to check the web manually. If Google send a human to look at your site, it is probably because a rival has complained about your site.

... of course Penguins can fly but they have to buy a ticket like the rest of us...

Thanks, Ron. I hadn't thought of that answer!

... Google offered a form where you can point out to them less relevant results. I filled it out...

Perhaps many of us missed that form. It might help some people if you could find the link to share.

... I'm not trying to rely on Google so much, it's just that 90% of my audience uses Google... It's kind of frustrating.

Exactly right, Clay. But we are all caught in the same trap. Until some other search engine manages to challenge Google successfully...

... Penguins can't fly but they can't swim...

Let's not let Google make us lose our nerve!

[chrisJumbo]

I doubt that Google have the resources to check the web manually. If Google send a human to look at your site, it is probably because a rival has complained about your site.

No, they don't have the manpower to check the entire web, but when people "out" a site on the forum and it makes their recent update look really sad, I'm sure they could. As Deep noted in a different post, their code must just be becoming such a mess with all of these apparent if-then-else, select-case, do until, for i to infinity, etc. exceptions.

[C0ldf1re]

... As Deep noted in a different post, their code must just be becoming such a mess with all of these apparent if-then-else, select-case, do until, for i to infinity, etc. exceptions.

Somehow, I doubt that that is a real problem. Google will be employing the best-of-the-best software engineers. All these problems can be solved with enough talent and dedication, and you can hire those.

What you can never guarantee to hire is genius, a different way of looking at the problem. When it comes to innovative ideas, we small webmasters can still hope to outsmart the Google army.

[Jeffwend]

We have about 80 seo clients and only one has tanked. Three got the emails about unnatural link profiles but they have remained steady or even gone up slightly in their rankings. (with these three we are going to work on anchor text diversity and a little more deep linking)

The one that tanked is one that the client was one wanted us to only build links around two keyword phrases. We tried to explain why they needed more diverse anchor text links but they insisted about it. Now guess what, it tanked for those two keywords. So now we have a meeting with them next week to explain why we are now going to go against their original wishes and change up the link profile and make edits to the links that we have control over.

[C0ldf1re]

We have about 80 seo clients and only one has tanked. Three got the emails about unnatural link profiles...

What emails? Please post the gist of them, obviously omitting things that would identify the sites. Those of us who have never been caught by Google don't know what to expect!

[Jeffwend]

What emails? Please post the gist of them, obviously omitting things that would identify the sites. Those of us who have never been caught by Google don't know what to expect!

One email came on 3.21.12 and two came on 4.19.12

Here is the email they send out:
"
Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.123site123.com
We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team "

[C0ldf1re]

... Here is the email they send out: ...

Many thanks indeed, Jeff!

This has knocked a lot of my previous thoughts on the head! Up to now, many of us have been relying on the idea that Google would never penalise inbound links. The obvious reason was that a webmaster cannot control inbound links. If "bad" inbound links can harm a website, then an unscrupulous SEO'er could "poison" a rival's website by buying or spamming such links to a competitor's website.

It looks like we had it wrong, or that Google have changed their policy. It seems crazy to allow SEO'ers to "poison" a rival's website, but I'm sure that many of them will now do it. Another of Google's "improvements" that actually make things worse for the honest webmaster!

But, again, many thanks for helping this forum with this important information.

[SENtelligence]

What emails? Please post the gist of them, obviously omitting things that would identify the sites. Those of us who have never been caught by Google don't know what to expect!

There was a post about it on Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/google-w...etworks-117079

BTW, only one of my sites sank. Ironically, it was the least "over-optimized" one

It seems to me that what's killing Google is the diversification of its algo. They are trying to incorporate more and more signals, and eventually they risk making their recipe for quality search results totally incoherent.