New Google Slap Takes Out Article Links, Forum/Profile Backlinks, & Link Wheels?

[JustinBrooke]

I've been seeing/saying this was coming for a long time
that Google knows we are abusing the system. Now an
authority on SEO says they are finding proof that Google
is making moves to make it a reality.

Read about it here...
New PageRank Formula May Change Your SEO Priorities | Search Engine Journal

Basically, it says that in the very near future even as
soon as "right now" Google is greatly devaluing most
marketers bread and butter ways of doing SEO.

Article marketing
Forum & Social Profile links
Link Wheels

In favor of guest blogging, retweeting, & facebook shares

I'm not saying the sky is falling, but it does look like we
might need to start looking for our umbrella's and figure
out how to align with Google's new changes.

In my own tests I have seen that social links and guest
blogging have given me HUGE boosts. So I know for a fact
that this is coming and has been underway for awhile.

What's your plan? Do you believe it's coming or not? Why?

Here's a little proof, from Google themselves...

YouTube - Does Google use data from social...

[rcritchett]

Originally Posted by JustinBrooke

I've been seeing/saying this was coming for a long time
that Google knows we are abusing the system. Now an
authority on SEO says they are finding proof that Google
is making moves to make it a reality.

Read about it here...
New PageRank Formula May Change Your SEO Priorities | Search Engine Journal

Basically, it says that in the very near future even as
soon as "right now" Google is greatly devaluing most
marketers bread and butter ways of doing SEO.

Article marketing
Forum & Social Profile links
Link Wheels

In favor of guest blogging, retweeting, & facebook shares

I'm not saying the sky is falling, but it does look like we
might need to start looking for our umbrella's and figure
out how to align with Google's new changes.

In my own tests I have seen that social links and guest
blogging have given me HUGE boosts. So I know for a fact
that this is coming and has been underway for awhile.

What's your plan? Do you believe it's coming or not? Why?

Here's a little proof, from Google themselves...

YouTube - Does Google use data from social sites in ranking?

I've been hearing about this - I'm ok with it either way. We'll just have to go with it.

I've been thinking about this for a while - Google uses social proof, it's their bottom line, it always has been!

I think that SEO's, or anyone practicing SEO should actually engage in the SEO tactic called "relationship building!" LOL

Thanks for sharing this data. I think within the next year, we'll start to see those changes depending upon the Feedback Google gets.

[Chad Heffelfinger]

Google relying more on Facebook and Twitter to get more accurate link relevance sounds great, but it just opens up the floodgates for people to game the system that way instead. They can change whatever they want, but people will always try and figure it out and adjust accordingly.

It makes sense for them to try and get more accurate with what "real people" think is relevant when it comes to linking and what they talk about. It just may get difficult to figure out who is "real" and who isn't.

[Marx Vergel Melencio]

Originally Posted by JustinBrooke

[SNIP]What's your plan?
Do you believe it's coming or not? Why?[/SNIP]

My Plan: Continue building onsite content offering high value benefits to
my target audience...

Funneling traffic from places where my target market regularly hangs
out...

Sharing updated information, helpful advice and providing useful content
relevant to the needs and problems of my target audience...

Inform, educate and entertain them to establish my relationship with them
and my reputation as a friendly expert source of relevant and useful
content...

And point them to my websites to provide them with supplemental content
offering unique benefits not found in those places where my target
audience frequently hangs out...

Yes, I have believed this right from the start. Google aims to provide high
value services. They can't do this if:

They rank websites without any beneficial, relevant, updated and popular
content higher than those that deserve such top rankings, just because
those sites formulate and implement workaround solutions to slightly
manipulate their ranking algorithms...

[iAmNameLess]

So my cool little twitter program and all my spammed out likes on facebook have me covered.

Yeah, no. Google isn't going to be taking out forum or profile links, link wheels, articles, people are taking this way out of context. The link you posted is total BS! He built 150 links, and his PR didn't update to be higher than 1. Who cares!?

If google were to filter out all these things, then what classifies and article as an article and not a press release or blog? What is the difference?

I think everyone will be safe if they just keep doing things to increase traffic. I honestly don't care about search engine ranking if I'm making sales already and consistently getting more and more traffic.

[yukon]

Anyone that has done seo for the last couple of years has nothing to worry about...

Article from one guy will change seo as we know it (I don't think so).

[JustinBrooke]

Originally Posted by yukon

Article from one guy will change seo as we know it (I don't think so).

I hear your point, and true it is just one guy, but he's
pretty well respected in the industry. Not to mention
people doing SEO are confirming that there sites are
in fact getting boosts from more social stuff and the
old ways are not moving their sites as much.

This is happening whether we like it or not. It's not a
doomsday thing but it is something everyone needs to
start adjusting too.

[JimFromNY]

Originally Posted by JustinBrooke

I hear your point, and true it is just one guy, but he's
pretty well respected in the industry. Not to mention
people doing SEO are confirming that there sites are
in fact getting boosts from more social stuff and the
old ways are not moving their sites as much.

This is happening whether we like it or not. It's not a
doomsday thing but it is something everyone needs to
start adjusting too.

I wouldn't sweat it too much bro- things are always changing.

[SmartSuccess]

Hi Warriors,

Google and the other search engines are always changing their algorithms...

It is therefore always best NOT to have a business that is dependent on the ever changing algorithms of the search engines...

Do you really want to be building thousands of links and finding out that the sites you get links from have lost a lot of PR or ranking due to these changes or the 'anchor text' has the wrong keywords in it?

The best way is to write eBooks that 'pre-sell' the product or service and if done correctly and using the right re-branding option you will have affiliates falling over themselves and begging to promote your product (FREE eBook)!

I wrote a blog post 'SMART Free eBook Success' (see signature) on the subject...

'Magnetic Attention' (or Viral Marketing) at it's best!

This method will never become absolute and is dependend on the search engines...

Dumb the search engines I would say!

Warm regards
Arjen

[indiatext]

Its gonna be a really hard mess to deal with. For me only these were the sources of backlinks...i doonoo wht its gonna be now...

[JasonParker]

I've seen it coming too Justin.

Anything that's basically common practice and traceable (manipulation of search engines), I try to stay away from now.

[Nigel Greaves]

I think it would foolish, to say the least, to think that Google aren't aware of all the link building tricks that some marketers get up to. As soon as they spot these tricks they will almost certainly start to bring in ways to combat them. It's the only way they can maintain their aims of quality and relevance.

[Dave Rodman]

I think the author of the article kinda missed the point. If what that says is true, I don't really think it's a DIRECT issue with profile linking or signatures. I mean, that was kind of already taken care of with the current Pagerank Model e.g. A profile link is kinda useless anyways because it has little pagerank.

What I think the interesting thing is they said they are going to base the weight of links on "user behavior and visitor data". To me, that means using Toolbar data (possibly) to view the important links on a site and the unimportant ones.

They've always had a way of doing this with a broad brush. They had a patent called "BlockRank" which basically gave more weight to certain parts of a page. So for instance, links in the main content on the page had more weight than footer or side-nav links.

Interestingly enough, KURT Melvin talked about this a number of years ago and referred to it as "People Rank". I still remember reading it before I was even a member here.

SEO and SEM Kurt Melvin's Big Page of Search Engine Optimization Strategies.

[Bill_Z]

His evidence is one blog that is one month old. Not to mention, he was expecting a PR of 2 or 3 on this new blog, with a few links from article directories, some forum links, and one link from a PR2 site? This guy is well respected? Sorry, but no.

[Michael Curran Smith]

Keep building great content and adding links and you'll be...just fine.

When one linking strategy is devalued another will emerge. Also, I think it's funny how a few years ago everybody was like reciprocal links are dead!! Ahh yeah, they are STILL NOT DEAD! Google can't and won't change their algo too drastically because it has lots of unintended consequences.

As long as their are marketers, programmers, and software applications Google will be manipulated, to some degree.

Forever and ever, amen.



GM

P.S. A competitor in my marketplace (very competitive market) fell from #1 to #14 from the last algo change a few weeks ago, for their primary keyword.

They made a few tweaks and they are back up to #4. They will reclaim #1 within a week or two, I bet.

Long live SEO, brothers.

[Bill Farnham]

Just as a point of referrence...

In the Article they talk about a new Patent being granted that will change the way Google does things.

New Google’s patent hints at a new PageRank formula
On May 11, 2010 a patent was granted to Google for “Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data”

Inventors: (Inventors listed)

Appl. No.: 10/869,057

Filed: June 17, 2004

Now, the way Patents work is once they have been filed, in this case 6/17/2004, no new information can be added.

So Google had to be in posession of all the data required to Patent the algo prior to the filing.

There is also no requirement that they needed to wait until the Patent was granted to use the information.

So in essence, what you are seeing is very old information being resurrected.

Just food for thought...

~Bill

[TimG]

After going through 6 years of algorithim changes with little to no effects on my business or the businesses of many other marketers I know I don't think this will hurt anyone that continues to do the following:

1 - Build quality content for their websites
2 - Create quality content for submission/publication that other people want on their websites
3 - Build backliinks from quality sites

The social networking aspect just adds a new flavor to the mix which if used proprely will only enhance what is already working.

Respectfully,
Tim

[Michael Curran Smith]

It's like you're reading my mind, Tim. Great post!!

[SFitzpatrick]

Makes sense to me that article marketing, forum profile links etc will help build social awareness and therefore likes, fans, tweets and re-tweets anyway?

[JustinBrooke]

Originally Posted by TimG

After going through 6 years of algorithim changes with little to no effects on my business or the businesses of many other marketers I know I don't think this will hurt anyone that continues to do the following:

1 - Build quality content for their websites
2 - Create quality content for submission/publication that other people want on their websites
3 - Build backliinks from quality sites

The social networking aspect just adds a new flavor to the mix which if used proprely will only enhance what is already working.

Respectfully,
Tim

Couldn't agree more, but I see so many warriors
relying on the mass submission auto tools and
lowest hanging fruit backlinks... so I thought maybe
sharing this article and video might help steer them
in the right direction.

The direction you so eloquently described above
and I believe is the only direction for long term SEO

[inplainview]

I don't see how Google could ignore links coming from forums. Aren't forums supposed to be quintessence of a community?

Even if it devalues these kind of backlinks, then we'll just have to build twice as many.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by JustinBrooke

I hear your point, and true it is just one guy, but he's
pretty well respected in the industry. Not to mention
people doing SEO are confirming that there sites are
in fact getting boosts from more social stuff and the
old ways are not moving their sites as much.

Well respected by whom? His article doesn't even make sense. He says these links improved his rankings, but then says they don't work because his page rank didn't increase to what he (cluelessly) guessed it would be. Now how dumb is that?

This is happening whether we like it or not.

Yeah, an article filled with anecdotal evidence that actually disproves the author's own argument shows something is happening alright, lol. It's like the blind leading the blind. By the way, you might want to remind this well-respected seo expert that toolbar PR isn't accurate.

Meanwhile, I've been using the methods he says don't work on a site since December. That site has gone from $2.00 a day to over $20.00 per day as my rankings and traffic improved. However, the PR of that site didn't increase at all during the last update. Guess I'll stop doing what I've been doing because clearly it isn't working anymore.

NOT!!!!!

[ElectronPlumber]

Matt Cutts talks a good game. Don't forget, Google is the Largest Advertising Agency on the planet, hands down. They have a vested interest in making you think they are relevant and in tune with the latest trends. They aren't going to toss BILLIONS of dollars in revenue down the tube here. You might see a move to 95% old school PR SERPS and 5% Social Media in the next year.

There are much larger problems with Social Media as a ranking factor than most people think. The biggest ones:

Social media accounts are easy to fake - How many people reading this only have one Facebook account? One Twitter account? How many have more than 100 under their control?
Social media traffic is easy to fake - How many people need to Retweet or Share a link to make Google sit up and take notice? in the SERPs? Think that the people that wrote XRumer can't generate the same thing for Twitter in a week of programming?
Social media traffic is private - Most people on Facebook keep their feeds private. Think Facebook is going to let Google index those pages without billions of dollars changing hands?
Social media "authority" is hard to measure and easy to fake - What makes my Facebook account or Twitter retweet hold more weight than anyone elses. Pages have PageRank. What do social media accounts have? Number of followers? Again, super easy to fake. Some sort of clout ranking based on popularity? How much do I need to pay a B-list celebrity to retweet my link to get a better page rank? $500? $1000? Is this any different than buying a PR 6 or 7 backlink for a year?

Now that all being said, there is certainly truth that Google is trying to measure "viralness" of a result/page outside of it's normal factors. A sudden influx of social activity should make an item rise in the SERPs, but probably shouldn't keep it there without sustained activity.

[The Blueprinter]

Thanks for this thread, very informative and useful information

[theseoguys]

That's funny...the same methods I used a year before the May 2010 update, are still working since May 2010. I can understand certain inbound links have been devalued. If so, I haven't seen it. What is really funny, is if all the off site content producing methods, such as article marketing are being devalued, then when is it going to start because there is no evidence it has started yet.

[Zeus66]

I'm so glad I'm moving away from a business model that relies to any real degree on Google traffic. It's so nice not to wake up every morning wondering if Google's whims have destroyed my business or not. Sometimes I'll go a couple hours before I even check. I won't miss the days of waking up in a cold sweat and racing to the computer at the crack of dawn to see if Google was still being nice to me.

[Race2Millions]

After reading this I check some of my site because I do a lot of article submissions for my backlinks and I seen some drops for multiple sites ..

Anyone notice?

[Peter76]

I've read that to and I'm not surprised. I guess google wants to make it harder on people to gain their PR.

[yukon]

And here we go with this months seo "The Sky is Falling" pandemic.

[Race2Millions]

Originally Posted by yukon

And here we go with this months seo "The Sky is Falling" pandemic.

No one said the sky was falling just wanted to know if anyone seen any drops. We all remember the Mayday update people sites where dropping left and right..

[mrozlat]

Originally Posted by yukon

And here we go with this months seo "The Sky is Falling" pandemic.

lol i hear ya

[Bible Boy]

From what I have learned, I do exactly what they say will not work because it always does, but I hope everyone else quits doing this with forums and articles, then I will be the only one getting these backlinks and new number 1 rankings. They act like no follow doesn't do any good, but with only nofollow links and good anchor text I went from nowhere to page 3 for competitive search term. I guess they were wrong. Anyway, yes quit spamming forums and quit writing articles. Quit link building at all. Let me have number one because nothing is going to work but natural links, lol.

[ZNICK]

More proof that direct marketing needs to be done online, offline, and using different medias... the web only being one.

Z

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by JustinBrooke

Basically, it says that in the very near future even as
soon as "right now" Google is greatly devaluing most
marketers bread and butter ways of doing SEO.

Article marketing
Forum & Social Profile links
Link Wheels

I have always concentrated on my own blogs, my own content, and
since twitter, yes indeed. I have always tried to use forums for what
they were intended. My niche forums I use a lot. But they number only
a handful. I have never gotten a forum profile on any forum I was not
going to use.

As far as link wheels go, well, we all have our secret way of doing them.
You would need to define what you mean by "link wheel." I use them
in a manner I like to call, link washing.

Paul

[AngieDixon]

If you haven't read the *comments* on this article in the original post, it's worth doing so. I don't know if this guy is well-respected or not; I've never heard of him. That doesn't mean anything. This article was NOT well-respected at Search Engine Journal and was actually attacked by veteran readers as not only old news, but poorly written and inaccurate. Toward the end of the comments there's an interesting discussion where someone tells him how PageRank works. Seriously.

Just to add another perspective to this discussion.

The truth is, the best marketing mix is a marketing mix. Same with traffic and SEO. Don't rely on one thing, and use what works.

I would add, don't rely on one article by one guy, especially without knowing who he is and what he knows and whether other sources agree with him and whether his information is up to date.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by Dave Rodman

I think the author of the article kinda missed the point. If what that says is true, I don't really think it's a DIRECT issue with profile linking or signatures. I mean, that was kind of already taken care of with the current Pagerank Model e.g. A profile link is kinda useless anyways because it has little pagerank.

What I think the interesting thing is they said they are going to base the weight of links on "user behavior and visitor data". To me, that means using Toolbar data (possibly) to view the important links on a site and the unimportant ones.

They've always had a way of doing this with a broad brush. They had a patent called "BlockRank" which basically gave more weight to certain parts of a page. So for instance, links in the main content on the page had more weight than footer or side-nav links.

Interestingly enough, KURT Melvin talked about this a number of years ago and referred to it as "People Rank". I still remember reading it before I was even a member here.

SEO and SEM Kurt Melvin's Big Page of Search Engine Optimization Strategies.

Thanks Dave...

I actually had to check when I wrote that...The last time I uploaded it was 10/7/2006, so it's been 4 1/2 years ago since that page was last updated.

The ironic thing is, even though it's more than 4 years old, it's still more up-to-date than 99% of the SEO "experts" newest "insights"...

[JSProjects]

If Google starts to heavily value places like Twitter and Facebook it's only a matter of time before these sources are hit hard by marketers. (Harder than they are now.)