Can Penguins Fly?

[C0ldf1re]

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

Well done! There are so many "authority" sites, that it is a full-time job trying to keep track.

[chrisJumbo]

Where have you been? There have been quite a few posts about NegativeSEO of late and even a team of such attacked some sites and got them the notice. Many feel that NegativeSEO is much easier these days then positive. Google has now built into their algorithm a link spam checker of some sorts. Too many of these links and bam you are hit.

So Google should now (within Webmaster Tools of course) give Webmasters a way to discount links instead of sending them on a wild goose chase. The fact is Google can't prove whether or not someone participated on their own or someone did it to them. People are lining up on Fiverr making good $ attacking good sites. I don't know what Google needs to do at this point, because almost anything eventually can be gamed. People are much harder to game, but how many people would it take to have a more manual site inspection. Maybe charge for it. And if you pay for it and pass then your site gets some sort of bump. At least you would have a way out of dealing with the nonsense. And if you know your site isn't up to muster, you certainly aren't going to pay for a manual review.

Of course I guess you can just pay for Adwords which I think ultimately is what Google wants. As someone else noted, they should just move to a pay-to-play model entirely, but of course I think thier business would deteriorate pretty quickly. And they know it to, thus the continued games.

Anyway enough of my rant. I know I am beginning to sound like a sore loser and I don't mean to.

Here is #10 for a very competitive phrase in our Niche: twitter[dot]com/#!/recentrates. A twitter feed with 42 followers?!?
#8:cdrates[dot]me/. A total keyword stuffed page. Does have some age (4yrs). Also potentially supported by a private network of blogs. Another site in the top 10 ratesorama (4,5) is also linked to on similar pages.

The other sites aren't bad sites. Bankrate[dot]com which has a gazillion links like Wikipedia. Bankaholoic which interestingly enough is owned by bankrate. Purchased for like $10MM some years back. #3 has been around for as long as I can remember.

Ratesorama has been around since 2010. Probably in cahoots with or owns cdrates[dot]me. Similar link network. Quite a few they probably own/control. So I guess maybe that is the way to. Build your own network of sites you can share links across. Since it will be done by a human you can probably get around Google's lurking eyes.

Anyway, I meant to stop the rant 2 paragraphs ago.

[Jeffwend]

I think the only solution is junky links count for nothing. They don't hurt, they don't help, they are just a waste of time. If a blog is a splog only used for link building, de-index it. Then if people want to game the system collecting junky links they are only wasting their time, they are not hurting or helping the target site.

[chrisJumbo]

Jeff, I would agree, but then what is a junk link.

Check this out. Pr6 from Spyglass. usseek[dot]com/search/?string=best%2520savings%2520account&language=en&s tart=20 - just a fake search engine.
Pr5: businessweek[dot]com/american-express/news/ - glorified article directory. (looks like you can just submit "bookmarks" going to have to give it a try.
Pr5: dark-redemption[dot]com -- only two posts. Give me a break. Your telling me Google can't figure out this isn't a quality site. I bet If I run there links it will share links with other blogs in the same "network".

Now maybe some of these are just supported by other junk links and de-indexing/de-valueing one would bring them down. I don't know. Maybe I should report them. Certainly seems like a bunch of carp to me.

cd :O)

[claybutler]

I don't buy the common conspiracy theory that Google punishes sites to get them to buy adwords. Besides being just a nightmare to implement and with no guarantee on rates of return, it also destroys the reason people use Google. If Google started fetching crap results (to encourage adwords signups) people would stop using it and then no one would buy adwords because there would be no audience. I believe that they are trying their hardest all the time to make excellent results pages. The better the results, the greater the user base, and the greater the income form ads. The quality of their SERPs is the foundation of the golden goose that lays their golden eggs. They will not kill it for a short term speculative gain.

We forget that indexing billions of pages and then making some kind of hierarchical sense out of it all is actually an impossible task to begin with. I'm shocked they do as well as they do regardless of how unhappy that my particular page is not doing as well as I think it "deserves".

Do you ever see all the ruffled feathers that happen every time Rolling Stone runs their top 100 guitarists issue. Now multiply that times a billion and have tens of thousands of guitarists working full time and spending millions of dollars to convince the judges that they should be on the top 100 list this year.

[chrisJumbo]

Clay, but most people have no idea about all of the inner fun. They look through the results and either refine their search or go to the next page. They could care less that some site has manufactured their ranking and after all the results seem "good enough". Matter of fact, someone might be more likely to click an add if the results are that bad, right?!? Because then the ad looks pretty good.

I didn't use to buy it either, but with their latest iterations wiping so many off the map, you begin to wonder. And to have those people replaced with carp, well, the need for tinfoil begins to look more and more likely.

Google makes their $ from ads. They need to encourage people to click ads. And then people willing to pay for those ads.

Anyway, I've gone off topic. I'm going to go spend some time deconstructing some competitors link profiles.
cd :O)

[Jeffwend]

Do you ever see all the ruffled feathers that happen every time Rolling Stone runs their top 100 guitarists issue. Now multiply that times a billion and have tens of thousands of guitarists working full time and spending millions of dollars to convince the judges that they should be on the top 100 list this year.

Off topic but, here is a joke
Question: How many guitarists does it take to screw in a lightbulb.
Answer: 100. 1 to do it and 99 to say I can do it better.

That probably applies to most SEO's too =)

[claybutler]

I didn't use to buy it either, but with their latest iterations wiping so many off the map, you begin to wonder. And to have those people replaced with carp, well, the need for tinfoil begins to look more and more likely.

In science there is a general saying that goes "the simplest explanation is probably the correct one". The simplest and most logical reason why the results are weird is because their algorythm is not working as well as they thought it would. There is no other evidence to suggest other wise. Think about it. Either make the worlds best search engine and then leverage that massive and loyal audience to make billions - or - make the world's best search engine to make billions and then risk it all to convince webmasters to buy more ads with no guarantee it will work, while simultaneously exposing yourself to possibly the biggest class action suit in the history of the world as well as criminal prosecution of the top management.

The smart money is on the first explanation.

[chrisJumbo]

I'll give in, sort of. Yes it isn't working. No, they don't want a lawsuit. But can they actually change much to make it better? Are the results better today then a year ago? I don't know. Again, trying to not to look at it with sour grapes. But, I think clearly they have put something in place that can allow others to harm your site, quite easily unless you are wikipedia or something.

[LD]

Google seems to be experiencing increasingly violent convulsions, the duration and outcome of which remain to be seen. Its body of code has become so gargantuan and convoluted, with patch piled on countless patches, that each seemingly simple change brings countless unforeseen and undesirable consequences. It's a teetering tower of junk, held together by chewing gum and string, ready to collapse of its own weight, badly in need of a complete rewrite.

IMO, unless and until that happens, attempting to recover from each and every change is akin to trying to control the flight of a ping-pong ball in a room full of oscillating fans running at randomly variable speeds.

IMO - this says it all.