Stop acting surprised when your low quality website drops in rank!

[Jonathan Beaton]

I see this too often:

What happened to my rankings?
"I created low quality content and got a bunch of worthless links pointing to it. My site ranked page one for while but now it's on page 86, what happened?"

I am not saying that those tactic don't work, there are worthless sites ranking number one in Google as we speak. Just don't be surprised when yours doesn't anymore.

Ask yourself, did my site deserve to rank? Did it provide high quality content that searchers in Google would find useful? If the answer is no, then all that happened is the algorithm did its job.

Have you ever seen a post like this?
"I created unique and high quality content within a niche I am very familiar with. I built relationships with others within the niche and received many high quality back-links. I focused on my visitors needs and made myself extremely accessible but now my sites rankings have fallen completely off the map."

The answer is no.
I am all about trying to game the system, just don't be surprised when Google gets it right.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

Have you ever seen a post like this?
"I created unique and high quality content within a niche I am very familiar with. I built relationships with others within the niche and received many high quality back-links. I focused on my visitors needs and made myself extremely accessible but now my site is banned from the index."

The answer is no.

Being deindexed is not the same as being "penalized".

In regards to quality sites meeting the penalty, read the thread about two below yours about the Feb 24th update.

[gearmonkey]

Funny thread because my 100% unique blog with high quality content is currently sitting on page 4 while my crappy auto blog is flourishing on page 2.

Yup, since google slap, my bread and butter blog that I have carefully pampered with high quality content 6 days a week for the past 3.5 years is getting outranked by some scrape blogs.

This thread is useless.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Being deindexed is not the same as being "penalized".

Obviously there is a difference and so that people don't completely miss the point, I should have been more consistent there.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

Funny thread because my 100% unique blog with high quality content is currently sitting on page 4 while my crappy auto blog is flourishing on page 2.

Yup, since google slap, my bread and butter blog that I have carefully pampered with high quality content 6 days a week for the past 3.5 years is getting outranked by some scrape blogs.

This thread is useless.

No, it just does not apply to you. There are exceptions and there are rules. Your case is the exception, thanks for your feedback though!

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

No, it just does not apply to you. There are exceptions and there are rules. Your case is the exception, thanks for your feedback though!

Or, you're being made to look foolish while using a blanket statement on an ever-changing subject.


I think I'll go with the latter.


And serious lols @ your edit. Someone's site being penalized and deindexed are two VERY different subjects. Not my fault you confused the two.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Or, you're being made to look foolish while using a blanket statement on an ever-changing subject.


I think I'll go with the latter.

It's not a blanket statement.

The algorithms job is to rank useful/relevant content. That has and will always be true.

So if you build a website that is not useful, you should not be surprised if one day your rankings drop.

-lol and not to get into a pissing match, but I did not confuse a rank drop with a deindex.(just felt for this example, they were one in the same) But to your point, they are different and I should have been more clear.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

It's not a blanket statement.

The algorithms job is to rank useful/relevant content. That has and will always be true.

So if you build a website that is not useful, you should not be surprised if one day your rankings drop.

Pretty simple.

Your speaking in literal terms as if the algo is never wrong. Proof is in the pudding to the contrary, as referenced in my post above.

You're also starting to argue on two fronts - what's mentioned in the OP and your reply to gearmonkey. His example nullifies your entire OP as to what you "never see".

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Your speaking in literal terms as if the algo is never wrong. Proof is in the pudding to the contrary, as referenced in my post above.

You're also starting to argue on two fronts - what's mentioned in the OP and your reply to gearmonkey. His example nullifies your entire OP as to what you "never see".

I said in the OP that low quality sites rank often. The point was not to be surprised if you have one and its ranking fall hard.

I also didn't say that high quality sites are never outranked by low quality sites. I said you will never see a high quality site just plummet in rank. (assuming there is not more than meets the eye)

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

I also didn't say that high quality sites are never outranked by low quality sites. I said you will never see a high quality site just plummet in rank. (assuming there is not more than meets the eye)

Are you new to SEO? Reason I ask is because there have been many top 500 websites that have been raped by G. EZA is one website currently dealing with it, with tons of widespread reports of people's EZA articles dropping in ranks pretty heavily.

[gearmonkey]

My scrape autoblog is on pace for the highest traffic it's ever seen. I haven't built any backlinks, other than asking the original content owners to place a badge on their webstie in exchange for their content to be syndicated on my autoblog.

My autoblog scrapes from about 25+ niche websites with permission from the content owners.

[perfect]

Anyway, the important point has been picked here. Is useful thanks.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Are you new to SEO? Reason I ask is because there have been many top 500 websites that have been raped by G. EZA is one website currently dealing with it, with tons of widespread reports of people's EZA articles dropping in ranks pretty heavily.

OK, I said unless there is more than meets the eye.

EZA is getting slapped around because it is full of worthless crap.

As I am sure with any example, there is a reason for the decline in rankings.

My main and really only point was:
If you have a worthless site, don't be surprised if the SERPS treat it that way.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

My scrape autoblog is on pace for the highest traffic it's ever seen. I haven't built any backlinks, other than asking the original content owners to place a badge on their webstie in exchange for their content to be syndicated on my autoblog.

My autoblog scrapes from about 25+ niche websites with permission from the content owners.

Thanks great, if you read the OP, I said worthless websites rank often.
I have worthless websites that rank as well.
BUT, if they stopped ranking, I wouldn't wonder why.

[jonnyhardbaked]

The bottom point is this: If you don't want Google to drop your rankings, better to build more good quality backlinks. That's it.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

OK, I said unless there is more than meets the eye.

EZA is getting slapped around because it is full of worthless crap.

As I am sure with any example, there is a reason for the decline in rankings.

My main and really only point was:
If you have a worthless site, not be surprised if the SERPS treat it that way.

EZA is full of worthless crap?

Alright, it's clear you haven't any idea wtf you're talking about.

Imagine that, a site full of "worthless crap" being a premium Adsense publisher with their own personal Adsense account manager that designs the units to blend with the site! Surely when G did the manual review they just said F it, right?

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by jonnyhardbaked

The bottom point is this: If you don't want Google to drop your rankings, better to build more good quality backlinks. That's it.

Not really.

My test domains that I spammed to hell and back with profile links is doing better than ever today. By a wide margin. I didn't even tier the links, just straight to the $ site.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

EZA is full of worthless crap?

Alright, it's clear you haven't any idea wtf you're talking about.

Imagine that, a site full of "worthless crap" being a premium Adsense publisher with their own personal Adsense account manager that designs the units to blend with the site! Surely when G did the manual review they just said F it, right?

LOL! And that means it must be full of useful content? Or that it makes Google a ton of money?

99% of the content in EZA is copied, spun or of little to no value. There really is no argument there.

[paulgl]

Come on Mr. Grant, lighten up. You learn. You adapt.
You of all people know you have to keep up and improvise.

In fact, I'd think that even before the dust settles, people like you
will be getting to work behind the scenes...like you've always
done. And the sun will rise again.

Paul

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Not really.

My test domains that I spammed to hell and back with profile links is doing better than ever today. By a wide margin. I didn't even tier the links, just straight to the $ site.

Right, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

If that site all of a sudden stopped ranking, you wouldn't wonder why.

[spectrecom]

Absolutely.

Every now and again a website pops up out of the blue and gains the number one position.

It's frustrating to lose hits for a few days, but I don't fret over it anymore. I know that within a few days they'll be off the top spot, due to the fact that they acheived this position by using techniques that offer no stability at all.

Google isn't silly and if you have a good backlink profile, you'll ride the wave and end up on top again.

SEO isn't rocket science.

Do the basic things well and you WILL suceed.

Create good quality, original and shareable content, make the right friends online, always bear in mind link diversity and link velocity, use social networks wisely and focus on anchor text, PR & do-follow.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

LOL! And that means it must be full of useful content? Or that it makes Google a ton of money?

99% of the content in EZA is copied, spun or of little to no value. There really is no argument there.

Point is, if EZA was as worthless as you tout, then it wouldn't have been able to make it to the over $3MM/year in Adsense. Plain and simple. If you think G allows websites in the Adsense program just because of the money, you're sadly mistaking.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Come on Mr. Grant, lighten up. You learn. You adapt.
You of all people know you have to keep up and improvise.

In fact, I'd think that even before the dust settles, people like you
will be getting to work behind the scenes...like you've always
done. And the sun will rise again.

Paul

What do you mean? I'm not having any issues yet. My rankings have actually improved.

I'm merely telling him his OP is of utter bull**** made of a claim using common sense, not experience. G's algo does not use nor have common sense.

[Defunct]

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

Funny thread because my 100% unique blog with high quality content is currently sitting on page 4 while my crappy auto blog is flourishing on page 2.

Yup, since google slap, my bread and butter blog that I have carefully pampered with high quality content 6 days a week for the past 3.5 years is getting outranked by some scrape blogs.

This thread is useless.

Sorry but what does page 4 and 2 mean?

Any real site with lots of content will be all over the place from page 1 to 100, talking about singular keywords is useless.

And quality content is subjective, if it's such great quality surely people read and link to it?

Or since you spent so much time writing great quality, I assume you promote it?

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Point is, if EZA was as worthless as you tout, then it wouldn't have been able to make it to the over $3MM/year in Adsense. Plain and simple. If you think G allows websites in the Adsense program just because of the money, you're sadly mistaking.

No, I believe that conspiracy is much over-hyped (but not completely false)

I never said a successful business model and low quality content were mutually exclusive.

Yes, EZA makes money(lots of it) but that does not mean they have quality content. They have better content than most article directories because they are slightly more stringent in their acceptance process. However, most of it is still crap.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

No, I believe that conspiracy is much over-hyped (but not completely false)

I never said a successful business model and low quality content were mutually exclusive.

Yes, EZA makes money(lots of it) but that does not mean they have quality content. They have better content than most article directories because they are slightly more stringent in their acceptance process. However, most of it is still crap.

Again, if it was crap it'd provide no value to the advertisers, thus no value to G. This would leave no reason for G to allow EZA in the publishing program because it'd often be refunding advertisers.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Defunct

Sorry but what does page 4 and 2 mean?

Any real site with lots of content will be all over the place from page 1 to 100, talking about singular keywords is useless.

And quality content is subjective, if it's such great quality surely people read and link to it?

Or since you spent so much time writing great quality, I assume you promote it?

I took it as him talking about his main keywords, just an assumption, though.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Again, if it was crap it'd provide no value to the advertisers, thus no value to G. This would leave no reason for G to allow EZA in the publishing program because it'd often be refunding advertisers.

That makes zero sense.

User searching on Google to solve a problem ---> clicks on EZA result ----> finds worthless article ----> Clicks on targeted adsense ad and continues search

If I am a advertiser, I will take that traffic any day.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

That makes zero sense.

User searching on Google to solve a problem ---> clicks on EZA result ----> finds worthless article ----> Clicks on targeted adsense ad and continues search

If I am a advertiser, I will take that traffic any day.

That's not how G works. Again, you're not speaking from experience, and that's more than obvious.

Will using that technique work? Absolutely, but it won't scale to a meaningful level on any individual site. EZA banks about $10k/day from Adsense. You start hitting manual reviews around the $75/day, $250, and about the $315/day mark. At the $315/day mark is about when you get a person from G specifically catering to your website and optimizing your units.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

That's not how G works. Again, you're not speaking from experience, and that's more than obvious.

Will using that technique work? Absolutely, but it won't scale to a meaningful level on any individual site. EZA banks about $10k/day from Adsense. You start hitting manual reviews around the $75/day, $250, and about the $315/day mark. At the $315/day mark is about when you get a person from G specifically catering to your website and optimizing your units.

How do you know that? I don't mind having a disagreement but it's worthless if you continue to put yourself on such a pedestal.

I still can't believe you are making the argument that EZA is full of quality content. Just because Google "approves" of it does not make it useful.

Google also "approves" of eHow and about, which suck just as much.You won't find many in the community that disagree with that.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

How do you know that? I don't mind having a disagreement but it's worthless if you continue to put yourself on such a pedestal.

I still can't believe you are making the argument that EZA is full of quality content. Just because Google "approves" of it does not make it useful.

Google also "approves" of eHow and about, which suck just as much.You won't find many in the community that disagree with that.

I know it from experience. I make over $9k/mo from Adsense alone, about to break that $10k plateau I've been stuck at for months. It's a pretty clear consensus of when G does most of their manual reviews. I don't see it as me putting myself on a pedestal, just you speaking without experience.

Quality content is subjective. I say the majority of content on EZA is of decent quality providing the average surfer valuable information. You may laugh, but I've used eHow and About several times and it's proved fruitful.

[Jonathan Beaton]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

I know it from experience. I make over $9k/mo from Adsense alone, about to break that $10k plateau I've been stuck at for months. It's a pretty clear consensus of when G does most of their manual reviews. I don't see it as me putting myself on a pedestal, just you speaking without experience.

Quality content is subjective. I say the majority of content on EZA is of decent quality providing the average surfer valuable information. You may laugh, but I've used eHow and About several times and it's proved fruitful.

Right and nothing I have said demonstrates that I lack experience because of one simple fact - I don't. I will admit, I am not big into Adsense but I have a laundry list of clients, past employers and agencies that will vouch for my abilities/knowledge. More importantly, a long history of getting sites ranked and staying ranked.

I think our main point of contention here is a result of us interpreting the argument differently. Quality content is subjective but I still say 99% of EZA is crap. It may not be spam but it is still crap.

What is the number one thing anyone getting into IM is told to do? Write an article and submit it to EZA.

[Mike Grant]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Beaton

I think our main point of contention here is a result of us interpreting the argument differently.

Fair enough, though I think it evolved a bit from where I had started, my main contention was with what I quoted in my first reply regarding the title of this thread and your point on quality in the OP.