Google's Algo Change: How it's effected me and my clients (I think article marketing is dead)

[skorpion]

So we're all now aware of the changes that google has recently made. All the talk is about how these changes are to move lower quality sites and "content farms" lower in the rankings while moving quality sites higher up.

This all sounds well and good. Quality should always trump quantity, especially when it's junk or copied content of very little value to an actual person.

Well, here's my take on all of these changes based on the effects they've had on my sites, as well as the many clients I do SEO for.

1. Nearly ALL of our articles that have been exclusively published on places like ezinearticles.com have completely disappeared from the google search results.

This, I just don't "get". All of our articles are 100% unique content and really are informative and offer value to someone who is searching on the topic. They are not "spammy" at all and the only links back to our sites are in the author resource box.

2. With the keywords that I used other SEO techniques on...such as backlinks, blog comments and even link wheels...don't seem to be effected. Rankings are still there...within a spot or 2.

3. SEO optimized videos are still holding their positions, some have even moved up a page or 2. Most of these videos were submitted across several different video sharing sites with tubemogul. That could be considered "spammy" I guess...but google doesn't seem to care.

4. And of course, on site content such as blog posts are still holding strong as they should.

What does this mean from my point of view? Well....I'm adjusting my SEO techniques to totally eliminate any type of article marketing for the time being. Both for me and my clients.

All efforts that were previously focused on article marketing will now switch to...blogging. In other words, instead of publishing the articles on EZA we'll be publishing them exclusively on our blogs.

Only a few weeks ago I could publish an article on Ezinearticles.com and it would be on the first page of google the next day. Not anymore.

In the end, I think it just all comes down to one thing:

Genuine Quality

What's your take on all this? Are you feeling the effects of google's change yet?

Is article marketing dead?

Hmmm...

-Peter

[donkey007]

i welcome this change. quality should always be always ahead.

bad news for us......we have to learn seo again

[Boris_yo]

It appears Google deranking not only bad websites but good websites also. As with Ezinearticles.com, we should wait until dust settles.

[Charles Harper]

Originally Posted by Boris_yo

It appears Google deranking not only bad websites but good websites also. As with Ezinearticles.com, we should wait until dust settles.

Boris, I don't think it is going to change much.

No editorial oversight, little to no validation from readers, no trust.

It appears to be that simple.

CT

[mills]

Agreed. I don't think anything is clear right now. Ezine Articles in particular have obviously been called to question over their quality. There's some superb information on there but man, there is a ton of junk on there too - that a human has supposedly approved!

[TZ]

Originally Posted by skorpion

So we're all now aware of the changes that google has recently made. All the talk is about how these changes are to move lower quality sites and "content farms" lower in the rankings while moving quality sites higher up.

This all sounds well and good. Quality should always trump quantity, especially when it's junk or copied content of very little value to an actual person.

Hmmmmmmm.....really???

These screen shots are PURE autoblog traffic reports showing the Google Farmer update. ALL these domains are posting content from other blogs, and phrase rewritten PROPERLY.

[iAmNameLess]

Article marketing isn't dead.... SEO is dead. Duh!


LOL... this is getting ridiculous guys, article marketing isn't dead, SEO isn't dead, .org domains aren't dead, only michael jackson and a few other people are dead. Tupac is definitely not dead, do I need to go on?

EZA getting hit, is not a surprise to me, is it to you? We all knew that content farms were going to get it.. Does it mean everything they have is low quality? No, not at all. I have my own beliefs on the algo change, and ALL of my sites have been shot up drastically.

[TZ]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Article marketing isn't dead.... SEO is dead. Duh!


LOL... this is getting ridiculous guys, article marketing isn't dead, SEO isn't dead, .org domains aren't dead, only michael jackson and a few other people are dead. Tupac is definitely not dead, do I need to go on?

EZA getting hit, is not a surprise to me, is it to you? We all knew that content farms were going to get it.. Does it mean everything they have is low quality? No, not at all. I have my own beliefs on the algo change, and ALL of my sites have been shot up drastically.

Ah ha!! Someone has being paying attention for awhile I see.

ALL of our autoblogs have seen a bump up in traffic since the change and this has something to do with the article directories losing traction (for awhile anyway.

[dezchamps]

I've seen a rise in my blogs as well. I have a mixture of PLR content, and content that I've written myself. All well written though. AND a lot of backlinks in.
Google's dance fever is pretty contagious. We cannot outthink them.

[Alaister]

According to SISTRIX ezine articles is the second biggest loser following wisegeek.com

It is still early days though. We will need to give it a few more days or weeks to really see the ramifications of this algorithm change.

Read more here

Biggest Losers in Google's Algorithm Update | seomistry

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by TZ

Ah ha!! Someone has being paying attention for awhile I see.

ALL of our autoblogs have seen a bump up in traffic since the change and this has something to do with the article directories losing traction (for awhile anyway.

I believe the directories are hit because of the amount of indexed pages verses a proper backlink ratio.

Not everyones autoblogs are experiencing a bump some are getting hit rather hard as well and the only consistency I have noticed is the ones doing well have a lower amount of indexed pages and a higher ratio of backlinks to pages!

[TZ]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Not everyone's autoblogs are experiencing a bump some are getting hit rather hard as well and the only consistency I have noticed is the ones doing well have a lower amount of indexed pages and a higher ratio of backlinks to pages!

Yep. The linking aspect is critical and that is why the use of the WP SEO Smart Links plug, along with a GOOD Related Post plug is integral to all my autoblogs.

[Alaister]

backlinks are still the currency of SEO

[skorpion]

Originally Posted by TZ

Hmmmmmmm.....really???

These screen shots are PURE autoblog traffic reports showing the Google Farmer update. ALL these domains are posting content from other blogs, and phrase rewritten PROPERLY.

Hmm...now that's interesting. Are these your sites?

[TZ]

Originally Posted by skorpion

Hmm...now that's interesting. Are these your sites?

Yes. All of our autoblogs are seeing this trend. We have 72 of them know since we started using sub domains.

Don't think someone is going to let me go inside their Statcounter account and post their traffic ;-)

[mrozlat]

Originally Posted by Alaister

backlinks are still the currency of SEO

amd always will be... in one way or another

[marieluy143]

if you were submitting articles, never use the articles posted on your site to articles submission sites, cause this might trigger your articles to be spammy in a way that Google sees your article to be a clone from the articles you posted on the different article submission sites.

[TZ]

Originally Posted by marieluy143

if you were submitting articles, never use the articles posted on your site to articles submission sites, cause this might trigger your articles to be spammy in a way that Google sees your article to be a clone from the articles you posted on the different article submission sites.

The future of article marketing has always been clear, and this update has made it crystal clear.

High ranked article directories will get to the point where your article will have to be;

- 800 words long
- 100% unique to their directory only
- HIGH quality

And the smart article marketers are ALREADY doing this.

When I create content like this, I choose to post it on my OWN domains.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by marieluy143

if you were submitting articles, never use the articles posted on your site to articles submission sites, cause this might trigger your articles to be spammy in a way that Google sees your article to be a clone from the articles you posted on the different article submission sites.

What I do, is post on my domain, make sure it is indexed, wait a couple weeks and THEN submit to directories and that seems to be working wonderfully for me.

[blue_sky]

how did you come up with that number of 800 words..
did you do some testing like 400 vs 500 vs 800....

Originally Posted by TZ

The future of article marketing has always been clear, and this update has made it crystal clear.

High ranked article directories will get to the point where your article will have to be;

- 800 words long
- 100% unique to their directory only
- HIGH quality

And the smart article marketers are ALREADY doing this.

When I create content like this, I choose to post it on my OWN domains.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by blue_sky

how did you come up with that number of 800 words..
did you do some testing like 400 vs 500 vs 800....

I have used press releases more than I have article marketing I think. And for press releases I have tested 500 words, 600, and my best results came from releases that were 700-800 words.

[TZ]

Originally Posted by blue_sky

how did you come up with that number of 800 words..
did you do some testing like 400 vs 500 vs 800....

I've tested blog lengths and templates for half a decade now, and yes, 700-800 word posts usually out rank a shorter post IF ALL OTHER VARIABLES ARE THE SAME.

However, small micro posts can create a ton of traffic still and today we still have posts that are only one or two sentences getting solid ranking.



There are so many variables in play;

• how tight you stick to the niche
• the competition
• internal links
• external links (in)
• external links (out)
• originality of the text (HUGE importance)

Another reason why I don't do article marketing anymore, is because I want the flexibility to link to 20 other posts on my other domains, and not just ONE link as in the typical article directory.

Another reason is that you can write short little micro posts in such a way that you can create 8 posts in the same time it takes to create one for an article directory.

Article marketing will always be viable, but HOW viable is the question. I'm "selling short" on article marketing. Not slagging those who make their living doing it....I just want ALL my content on MY domains - I don't want to be a slave writing content for someone else's business.

Of course I will always give away free content on the Warrior Forum

[JunkYour925]

Originally Posted by TZ

I've tested blog lengths and templates for half a decade now, and yes, 700-800 word posts usually out rank a shorter post IF ALL OTHER VARIABLES ARE THE SAME.

However, small micro posts can create a ton of traffic still and today we still have posts that are only one or two sentences getting solid ranking.



There are so many variables in play;

• how tight you stick to the niche
• the competition
• internal links
• external links (in)
• external links (out)
• originality of the text (HUGE importance)

Another reason why I don't do article marketing anymore, is because I want the flexibility to link to 20 other posts on my other domains, and not just ONE link as in the typical article directory.

Another reason is that you can write short little micro posts in such a way that you can create 8 posts in the same time it takes to create one for an article directory.

Article marketing will always be viable, but HOW viable is the question. I'm "selling short" on article marketing. Not slagging those who make their living doing it....I just want ALL my content on MY domains - I don't want to be a slave writing content for someone else's business.

Of course I will always give away free content on the Warrior Forum

"Another reason why I don't do article marketing anymore, is because I want the flexibility to link to 20 other posts on my other domains, and not just ONE link as in the typical article directory."

BINGO!

Article Dirs are played compared to the newer alternatives (web20 blogs forums profiles Twitter). I always diversify in WHATEVER I do in life and backlinking SEO is one of them...I will still backlink from ArtDirs as its no skin off my nose to do so with automated tools like ArticleMRobot etc. but its not my only source so I could really care less what the latest antics Google is pulling off on any one source.

Article dirs only give you two outbound links where blog networks give you 3 and sometimes 4 outbound links. I usually spin those to different URLS - one to my $$site then the others to my backlinking pages.

Actually all my Ezinearticles are still ranking with little change after this cleansing.

They did drop off for a bit of time but they bounced back within a day. Takes time for G's computers to re-score SERP entries after a code algo change.

[caseycase]

No way is article marketing dead, however, how some people use it might change.

For me, I have never really relied on my articles to bring me direct traffic. Going more for backlinks and syndication. That has not changed at all. I will still get the backlinks from the articles I post. If they do not rank well on their own, oh well. They probably didn't anyway.

For anyone trying to get significant direct traffic from their articles, this might sting a bit and they may have to look at other ways to get that same kind of traffic from other places on the web.

In reality, I think this helps a lot of us. Now, my sites do not have to compete as hard with articles trying to rank for the same terms.

[kimwriter]

While I agree that many variables are at play. it is worth noting that the biggest winner in all of this was ehow.com. Despite the recent bad press that Demand Media has been getting, the recent algo change gave ehow a big boost while bashing most of the other article directories. It is quite clear what Google had in mind when they effected this change, in fact their blog post is clear and unambiguous "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on." I would like to highlight the last part... original content, research, indepth reports and thoughtful. Ehow cites sources and 100% of their content is original! In my opinion, article marketing isn't dead, however, it now seems better to start your own sites (rather than publish on eza etc) targeting your keywords and creating original, well researched and indepth content. It will help to link to authoritative sites as sources (nofollow) e.g. Wikipedia, national geographic etc etc. This appears to be the best SEO route to take for the time being. Finally, I believe the greatest winners are content creators, webmasters now have no choice but to hire only the best to write their content ... a very expensive affair.

[KatyaSenina]

I always saw content farms as easy opportunities to rank.

Somehow I get the feeling Google is slowly becoming more and more against
internet marketers and not google alone. I already noticed how many of these sites such as Squidoo and Hubpages are against promotional content.

Ah well, I guess this only happens because lots of people 'abuse' these content farms. There is not much we can do about it. Perhaps we're all better off focusing on building authority blogs.

[tyronne78]

I have a question, doesn't google know that a lot of these articles are being spun?

[lometogo]

Originally Posted by skorpion

Of course, on site content such as blog posts are still holding strong as they should.

What does this mean from my point of view? Well....I'm adjusting my SEO techniques to totally eliminate any type of article marketing for the time being. Both for me and my clients.

All efforts that were previously focused on article marketing will now switch to...blogging. In other words, instead of publishing the articles on EZA we'll be publishing them exclusively on our blogs.

In the end, I think it just all comes down to one thing:

Genuine Quality

Is article marketing dead?

-Peter

Peter, I think you're spot on. It's not necessarily the content they're targetting. Instead, it seems they're perhaps going after sites they deem to be repositories of LARGE QUANTITIES of questionable content.

EZA may, or may not, be guilty of this; although I personally believe a lot more crap is on their site today than a couple years back.

I think your tack of taking the quality content you've created and just posting it elsewhere (off EZA, for instance, and on blogs) might be a good staying position until we see the shakeout of this recent algorithm change.

I, for one, applaud anything Google does that gets rid of the flood of crap content on the Web. In some ways, this emerging Web reminds me of the dumbing-down of television....just too little value-rich content, and just too hard to find.

[blue_sky]

Ok - I put in some results of an article from the biggest german news/magazine site (similar to times)

As others already stated Google new Algo aimed at big article/content sites with the exeption of ehow.com (its not clear why ehow gained weight in google while others lost weight!)

SOURCE:
Suchergebnis-Spam: Welche Seiten Googles neuer Algorithmus straft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Netzwelt

wisegeek.com -77%
2. ezinearticles.com -90%
3. suite101.com -94%
4. hubpages.com -87%
5. buzzle.com -85%
6. associatedcontent.com -93%
7. freedownloadscenter.com -90%
8. essortment.com -91%
9. fixya.com -80%
10. americantowns.com -91%

[thebitbotdotcom]

Article marketing is simply going through a cleansing process. It will stick around although I feel that the days of ranking articles easily is gone for good. This will not kill it, only change it...hopefully for the better.

[blue_sky]

it happened before with squidoo lenses - and Google does changes all the time

[jazbo]

Article marketing is not dead

but only a nutter would put their best unique article content on ezinearticles right now, they are down 35%!

[brettb]

I guess the writing could be on the wall for the HubPages of this world. Hop some hubs and you'll see 80% junk. Ezine has some total rubbish on it, which is shameful for a supposedly moderated site.

I myself started to see that HubPages had its day in the sun as far as I am concerned. Articles on my own niche sites are now doing just as well as my Hubs, plus I don't get the hassle of a Hub being suddenly unpublished after 4 months, or other kinds of stupid nitpicking.

[moneymakerz]

Basiacally google had to do something about the content farms on the web which do not offer any value

[guitarjosh]

I am basking in the joy of Google rewarding my quantity over quality. I have nothing but content farms... scraping using a php script that I wrote myself (no wordpress) and oddly enough, all sites took off right after this algo change. I hit my first $200 month this month (as of yesterday) in only my 4th month of adsense. No article marketing/social networking and 0 backlinks. Just very clean code and about as lightweight sites as you can get. 34 websites (so far) and all except 4 are .info domains. Clearly, I am discovering that making money online is a numbers game.

I'm not sure what the heck their new algo is looking at but clearly, I am a benefactor despite the fact that my sites should be exactly the kind that should have been targeted in this change.

[vikramd]

The death of everything is happening.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

I am basking in the joy of Google rewarding my quantity over quality. I have nothing but content farms... scraping using a php script that I wrote myself (no wordpress) and oddly enough, all sites took off right after this algo change. I hit my first $200 month this month (as of yesterday) in only my 4th month of adsense. No article marketing/social networking and 0 backlinks. Just very clean code and about as lightweight sites as you can get. 34 websites (so far) and all except 4 are .info domains. Clearly, I am discovering that making money online is a numbers game.

I'm not sure what the heck their new algo is looking at but clearly, I am a benefactor despite the fact that my sites should be exactly the kind that should have been targeted in this change.

I think the recent algo is pretty simple....a content farm is simply a site which does NOT cover a specific subject but distributes "wild" content covering all kinds of subjects.

Your autoblogs are not hit since i ASSUME they are all about a certain subject, so they dont fit the criteria "content farm".

[guitarjosh]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

I think the recent algo is pretty simple....a content farm is simply a site which does NOT cover a specific subject but distributes "wild" content covering all kinds of subjects.

Your autoblogs are not hit since i ASSUME they are all about a certain subject, so they dont fit the criteria "content farm".

I was unaware! You are exactly right. I create sites all dedicated to the same subject so maybe Google just did me the favor of removing a few of those sites that were showing ahead of mine. Excellent news!

Thanks for the heads up!

[ShaneM686]

interesting difference between autoblogs rising and content farms dropping when something that is moderated like ezine is better than an autoblog... +1 google.. sigh

[TZ]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Your autoblogs are not hit since i ASSUME they are all about a certain subject, so they dont fit the criteria "content farm".

I think you are spot on here. All our autoblogs are targeting tight niches. No massive spill of any old content.

[madmike133]

Well Skorpian, your right Ezine got clobbered:

Domain
Visibility Index Loss
SISTRIX (percentage loss)
wisegeek.com
93.3622
-77%
ezinearticles.com
58.4273
-90%
suite101.com
50.755
-94%
hubpages.com
47.7632
-87%
yourdictionary.com
39.5044
-74%
brothersoft.com
37.6418
-66%
buzzle.com
36.7005
-85%
associatedcontent.com
35.7198
-93%
freedownloadscenter.com
27.2522
-90%
essortment.com
23.4146
-91%
fixya.com
22.9456
-80%
americantowns.com
22.6942
-91%
lovetoknow.com
21.4714
-83%
articlesbase.com
18.7999
-94%
howtodothings.com
17.8122
-84%
mahalo.com
17.2586
-84%
automotive.com
16.9008
-71%
business.com
16.104
-93%
doityourself.com
15.9952
-77%
merchantcircle.com
15.7573
-85%
thefind.com
15.6825
-83%
wrongdiagnosis.com
15.5617
-73%
findarticles.com
15.2418
-90%
faqs.org
15.0573
-91%
tradekey.com
15.0415
-89%
Note that the table above is slightly different than what you’ll find at the Sistrix site itself. I created the chart using a spreadsheet that Sistrix sent to me (more about that below), sorted by the same factor that Sistrix says it used for its own post. I’m checking on this.
Sistrix: Most Keyword Rankings Lost

Upon request, Sistrix will send people a full list of 331 domains that were found to have lost in its analysis. With Sistrix’s permission, here are the top 100 domains that suffered losses, sorted by total number of keyword positions lost. Also show is the percentage loss. For example, AssociatedContent.com was found to have 216,419 top rankings before the change, which dropped to 53,512 rankings after — a loss of 162,917, or 75%.
Domain
Positions Lost
% Loss
associatedcontent.com
162,917
75%
suite101.com
141,469
79%
ezinearticles.com
130,231
71%
hubpages.com
102,820
67%
buzzle.com
62,049
72%
merchantcircle.com
58,666
63%
wisegeek.com
52,084
70%
articlesbase.com
50,909
62%
findarticles.com
44,621
69%
answerbag.com
41,260
61%
examiner.com
39,509
56%
manta.com
36,945
48%
freedownloadscenter.com
34,494
81%
yourdictionary.com
32,981
67%
lovetoknow.com
31,711
64%
trails.com
29,835
78%
thefind.com
29,011
39%
travelpod.com
28,513
68%
brothersoft.com
27,594
40%
docstoc.com
26,650
56%
fixya.com
25,867
42%
howtodothings.com
25,621
77%
mahalo.com
24,135
71%
insiderpages.com
23,346
70%
faqs.org
22,506
67%
prlog.org
22,254
57%
kaboodle.com
21,949
39%
citytowninfo.com
21,615
86%
shopwiki.com
21,528
43%
roadsideamerica.com
21,510
73%
buzzillions.com
21,421
48%
tradekey.com
21,096
56%
essortment.com
20,042
73%
uptake.com
19,655
58%
encyclopedia.com
19,625
51%
helium.com
18,931
66%
wordiq.com
18,877
77%
springerlink.com
18,625
49%
livestrong.com
18,175
38%
business.com
16,743
78%
doityourself.com
16,386
70%
americantowns.com
16,201
62%
prnewswire.com
15,162
70%
cinemablend.com
14,259
72%
epodunk.com
14,190
78%
vodpod.com
13,766
38%
labnol.org
13,541
85%
medicalnewstoday.com
13,426
75%
mytravelguide.com
13,340
69%
highbeam.com
13,324
34%
blogcritics.org
13,312
57%
chacha.com
12,900
48%
retrevo.com
12,601
35%
sharewareconnection.com
12,600
54%
planetware.com
12,387
75%
ptf.com
12,380
41%
digitaltrends.com
12,154
67%
testfreaks.com
11,938
63%
galttech.com
11,804
76%
aceshowbiz.com
11,639
67%
userinstinct.com
11,410
47%
viewpoints.com
11,191
55%
destination360.com
11,167
76%
topshareware.com
11,000
48%
consumeraffairs.com
10,832
80%
onsugar.com
10,699
40%
stateuniversity.com
10,560
70%
allbusiness.com
10,423
63%
blurtit.com
10,331
47%
everything2.com
10,298
76%
kioskea.net
9,781
32%
travelpost.com
9,412
75%
wrongdiagnosis.com
9,293
52%
technorati.com
9,135
67%
whosdatedwho.com
8,986
58%
entrepreneur.com
8,974
75%
slideshare.net
8,909
27%
geek.com
8,632
65%
gizmag.com
8,594
46%
mp3.com
8,577
64%
trendhunter.com
8,539
66%
fotosearch.com
8,473
48%
daniweb.com
8,316
61%
iloveindia.com
8,240
58%
eventful.com
7,948
55%
globalsources.com
7,927
34%
songkick.com
7,908
50%
eggheadcafe.com
7,828
47%
ubergizmo.com
7,807
73%
ez-tracks.com
7,779
62%
popcrunch.com
7,728
63%
ghacks.net
7,695
78%
healthcentral.com
7,660
59%
5min.com
7,652
62%
famouswhy.com
7,619
63%
fanpix.net
7,445
64%
ilike.com
7,401
62%
torrentreactor.net
7,252
29%
bellaonline.com
7,171
69%
hotel-rates.com
7,124
67%

The good news is, my website wasnt affected basically my article site is differant from Ezione and 99% of others. when you sign up, the article you submit is checked and providing its original, its submitted to search engine directories and bookmarked across the web and we tweet everry single article also..

Ezine was good but I think we offer that little more
Free Online Articles, Submit articles, Free Article Directory

Best
Mike

[GeorgR.]

It's so funny seeing many threads with people reporting (sometimes significant) traffic boosts on their autoblogs..while other people seem to be blind and still argue against what is clear right before our eyes Now i am tempted to revive some of my old autoblogs

[sylviad]

Not long ago, I could post articles to EA for a few weeks and immediately see some sales. I've been posting 1-3 articles every day for almost 2 months now and sales are flat. This is a niche where I've always been able to make "some" sales.

Not sure what this means in my case, but from results I just got using Site Auditor, at least 2 of my sites need a major SEO overhaul. According to this program, of 64+ posts on one 2-year-old site, Google has only indexed 1 of my pages. (I got questions!)

Generally speaking, I don't think article marketing is dead, but I do think how we need to change how we do it.

Sylvia

[Diane S]

Originally Posted by guitarjosh

I am basking in the joy of Google rewarding my quantity over quality. I have nothing but content farms... Just very clean code and about as lightweight sites as you can get. 34 websites (so far) and all except 4 are .info domains. Clearly, I am discovering that making money online is a numbers game.

I'm not sure what the heck their new algo is looking at but clearly, I am a benefactor despite the fact that my sites should be exactly the kind that should have been targeted in this change.

The 'secret' of the century is that Google loves dot info sites to be informative and monetized with adsense. Do not sell products from a dot info. But adsense and dot infos? A good match.