On or about November 17, 2003, countless English-language ecommerce sites no longer appeared near the top of the rankings when their owners used the search terms that they considered most important. Four days later, I discovered that by adding a nonsense exclusion term, the links returned by Google shifted dramatically, and the results were very close to what these site owners had come to expect over the last few months.
Google Is Changing Quickly
With the big buzz of Novembers fall within Google comes a newly indexed data-base…
Google’s Shake up – A View From the Beginning
It has been exactly one month since Google introduced its infamous Florida Update. As the Florida Update has brought about the largest and most comprehensive shake-up of Google’s listings ever, it has generated a great deal of interest around the world and genuine panic for the literally millions of webmasters who’s sites have been adversely affected by the change. The following article is a compilation of our writings about the Florida Update since November 17th, the first Monday after the shift.
What Did Google Mean?
Sparks of Controversy. There was a substantial amount of controversy in the WebProWorld forums regarding what Marissa Mayer, the Director of Consumer Web Products at Google, told me at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago last week. She said, “If you dropped in rankings, go back and look at who you linked to and who’s linking to you. If any of these people are using spam techniques, they’re the reason your site no longer appears on Google.”
Buying & Selling Google PageRank – Too Good to be True?
There seems to be a lot of buzz about websites that are willing to shell out big bucks for links on sites with high Google PageRank (PR). And many webmasters and webmistresses are going crazy to cash in on the big windfall.
Google Apologizes.
There’s been a lot of anger and frustration since the Florida Updates. Apparently, Google understands the fact that people’s businesses rely on Google results. Craig Nevill-Manning, Google’s Senior Research Scientist, said, for what it’s worth, “I apologize for the roller coaster. We’re aware that changes in the algorithm affect people’s livelihoods. We don’t make changes lightly.” Well, at least that’s good to know. Read more statements here.
Search Guru Danny Sullivan Talks Google
Are You Addicted to Google? Go ahead, admit it. You’re an addict, too. This morning at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, Danny Sullivan gave a Keynote speech titled “Google Anonymous” — the joke is many people seem to be addicted to Google. Danny is considered one of the most prominent search engine marketing experts in the world. He offered a step-by-step process to help people overcome this “addiction.”
Google Ranking Drop Update
An Interview with Matt Bailey
Continued changes in Google’s algorithm have more webmasters than ever concerned that their site might be penalized when they notice a drop in their rankings. How can you tell if your site is suffering from a penalty or just a change in the algo?
Getting Free Traffic From Google & Yahoo!
Google and Yahoo! are the most used search engines on the Internet with about 35% of all Internet searches run on one or the other. That’s about 70% of all Internet traffic from just two search engines. Actually it’s more than 80% when you consider Google’s affiliation with AOL, Netscape, and others.
Cracking Google’s New Algorithm
Google recently made far-reaching changes to the way it ranks search results, and the search marketing community has been abuzz with tales of woe ever since. Some have speculated that the key to understanding Google’s latest is that they’ve applied some sort of test of “commerciality” to certain phrases, roiling the waters for sites ranked well on those phrases, and leaving non-commercial phrases more or less alone. The idea is that this would cause a stampede of site owners over to the paid AdWords program, or at least making the point that Google isn’t up for providing a free lunch to clever “SEO-ized” sites indefinitely.