The TRUTH about the ALGO change, and the DEATH of SEO?

[iAmNameLess]

Okay, lets see how many people don't even read this and call me an idiot for saying SEO is dead, or they will just blindly agree.

First of all, SEO is NOT dead. Article marketing is NOT dead. .org domains, are not dead, blog commenting, web 2.0 properties, social media marketing, is not dead.

Why was EZA hit hard? Why was your autoblog, or your worthless incoherent site hit hard for the algo update? Because lack of quality. So, am I saying that ezinearticles had low quality content? Yes, I am.

In the eyes of Google, I believe this update places even MORE power on backlinks. I don't believe they place more power on backlinks to JUST your home page. I believe EZA was hit hard because of the amount of articles on the site, some quality some not, but weren't promoted and weren't seen as relevant in the eyes of the big G because of lack of backlinks.

So how do you avoid this? I think the answer is simple.... build links to all pages on your site. I believe EZA was hit hard because a small percentage of the articles were actually linked to by the author and people that found them important. I think that the amount of indexed pages you have, needs to have a proper ratio of backlinks.

What do you guys think? Do you think that it is just the fact that these places are content farms, or the fact that they are content farms that aren't getting proper distribution of links throughout the site, internal structure and external?

[mailey]

How did the backlinked Ezine Article fare in the algorithium change, did their positions diminish in the SERPs?

[arttse]

I came across these links today. Very interesting research.

Google's Big Search Change Hammers Associated Content, Mahalo, Demand Media*

http://searchengineland.com/who-lost...m-change-66173

http://www.sistrix.com/blog/985-goog...r-quality.html

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by mailey

How did the backlinked Ezine Article fare in the algorithium change, did their positions diminish in the SERPs?

Yes, their traffic is basically cut in half. 100K keywords they are no longer ranking for.

[BenJackson]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

So how do you avoid this? I think the answer is simple.... build links to all pages on your site. I believe EZA was hit hard because a small percentage of the articles were actually linked to by the author and people that found them important. I think that the amount of indexed pages you have, needs to have a proper ratio of backlinks.

I agree with what you're saying, but I can't get completely behind the logic. I think building links to all of your pages has always been a good idea - there's nothing inherently powerful about your home page VS. another page on your site. Why wouldn't you want to rank multiple pages for multiple keywords?

Page to Backlink ratio? That's an interesting idea. Backlinks could be of more importance now, but I wouldn't be quite so fast to label this is our conclusion. Don't you think that a lot of this is about unique content as well? After all, content farms are just scraping content from the web and posting it and they're whats being targeted.

It looks to me like the best strategy is the same as ever: Build links, provide great content.

What a big change

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by BenJackson

I agree with what you're saying, but I can't get completely behind the logic. I think building links to all of your pages has always been a good idea - there's nothing inherently powerful about your home page VS. another page on your site. Why wouldn't you want to rank multiple pages for multiple keywords?

Page to Backlink ratio? That's an interesting idea. Backlinks could be of more importance now, but I wouldn't be quite so fast to label this is our conclusion. Don't you think that a lot of this is about unique content as well? After all, content farms are just scraping content from the web and posting it and they're whats being targeted.

It looks to me like the best strategy is the same as ever: Build links, provide great content.

What a big change

No, I don't believe this is about unique content at all. I think that plays a very very minor role. In regards to content, I believe it is more about what google views as relevant content, not quality content.

There are many articles on EZA that are 100% unique, posted there, and only there, but probably aren't ranking anymore. I don't believe that has anything to do with the quality, I think it has everything to do with the backlinks and popularity of those articles.

The autoblogs that I have seen have great results, are those that have a great backlink to page ratio and have a great internal linking structure. There is a difference between quality, and relevant content. I believe google is going after what they view as irrelevant content due to lack of backlinks.

[Aki Fagno]

Originally Posted by BenJackson

I agree with what you're saying, but I can't get completely behind the logic. I think building links to all of your pages has always been a good idea - there's nothing inherently powerful about your home page VS. another page on your site. Why wouldn't you want to rank multiple pages for multiple keywords?

Page to Backlink ratio? That's an interesting idea. Backlinks could be of more importance now, but I wouldn't be quite so fast to label this is our conclusion. Don't you think that a lot of this is about unique content as well? After all, content farms are just scraping content from the web and posting it and they're whats being targeted.

It looks to me like the best strategy is the same as ever: Build links, provide great content.

What a big change

Thumbs up! I totally agree.

[charu.seo]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

No, I don't believe this is about unique content at all. I think that plays a very very minor role. In regards to content, I believe it is more about what google views as relevant content, not quality content.

There are many articles on EZA that are 100% unique, posted there, and only there, but probably aren't ranking anymore. I don't believe that has anything to do with the quality, I think it has everything to do with the backlinks and popularity of those articles.

The autoblogs that I have seen have great results, are those that have a great backlink to page ratio and have a great internal linking structure. There is a difference between quality, and relevant content. I believe google is going after what they view as irrelevant content due to lack of backlinks.

I totally agree with you...

[gearmonkey]

I believe building backlinks on pages is good, but not buying it's the only savior to SEO. I have a 100% unique (quality article) page on my wordpress blog that I've been building like crazy. (The home page is PR4, and the website is an authority.)

The page was on page 1 with 13,051 backlinks before the update. After the update, it's not even top 100.

It's still on page 1 in Bing, Yahoo and Google.ca.

[Kurt]

There is a concept in SEO known as the "deep linking ratio", which is the percentage of links to a home page vs. the percentage of links to interrior pages.

For a small site of 10 pages or so, it's probably "optimal" to have about 60-70% of the links to the homepage.

For bigger sites, the percentage of links to the homepage should become lower. If a site has a lot of pages, then 20-40% of the links to the homepage is probably about right.

However, something has changed with EZA and others above and beyond any deep linking ratio, as it's very doubtful the deep linking ratio to the sites in question changed virtually over-night.

[Mega B]

Can i ask a question why did Google do the recent change was it to weed out the weaker sites or something else.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I believe building backlinks on pages is good, but not buying it's the only savior to SEO. I have a 100% unique (quality article) page on my wordpress blog that I've been building like crazy. (The home page is PR4, and the website is an authority.)

The page was on page 1 with 13,051 backlinks before the update. After the update, it's not even top 100.

It's still on page 1 in Bing, Yahoo and Google.ca.

Okay... now how many backlinks did you have throughout the site? NOT on the homepage. How many came from article directories?

Originally Posted by Kurt

There is a concept in SEO known as the "deep linking ratio", which is the percentage of links to a home page vs. the percentage of links to interrior pages.

For a small site of 10 pages or so, it's probably "optimal" to have about 60-70% of the links to the homepage.

For bigger sites, the percentage of links to the homepage should become lower. If a site has a lot of pages, then 20-40% of the links to the homepage is probably about right.

However, something has changed with EZA and others above and beyond any deep linking ratio, as it's very doubtful the deep linking ratio to the sites in question changed virtually over-night.

Why do you think it isn't a deep linking ratio? What else do you think it would be? Don't you think it makes sense that the huge amount of pages EZA has and the lack of backlinks spread throughout those pages, you don't think that is it? ALL my sites have increased in rank, by a LOT, and I believe it has to do with backlinks being distributed throughout my sites. The keywords EZA is still ranking for, I believe are linked back to pretty well. I believe google put a stop on the homepage PR trickling down to other pages.

Originally Posted by Mega B

Can i ask a question why did Google do the recent change was it to weed out the weaker sites or something else.

I think it was to prevent content farming link magnets. I think a major change was made to effect PR and it carrying over on other pages on the site. I think EZA was ranking very well even for keywords with no links, simply because of the authority of the home page. I think this change effects sites like that.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Why do you think it isn't a deep linking ratio? What else do you think it would be? Don't you think it makes sense that the huge amount of pages EZA has and the lack of backlinks spread throughout those pages, you don't think that is it? ALL my sites have increased in rank, by a LOT, and I believe it has to do with backlinks being distributed throughout my sites. The keywords EZA is still ranking for, I believe are linked back to pretty well. I believe google put a stop on the homepage PR trickling down to other pages.


.

I answered this question in the very same post about deep linking ratio. I said I don't believe it is deep linking ratio because that it likely didn't change over-night. Plus, there's a number of article marketers that link to their articles.

Why don't you use some of the deep-linking resources to do some research to back up your premise? Google "deep linking tools", etc.

As far as what I think it is, I don't know, but I've posted a number of possibilities recently on other threads.

[WealthWithin]

Guys,

There's more to it than just links and content in this update.

Think about this. Pretty much every article site was hit heavily, except eHow.
Who links to eHow articles? No one. But they did something differently to come out of this update strongly. What is that?

There's a new piece in the SEO puzzle now than just links and content.

[thebitbotdotcom]

I have bee syndicating my blog posts and my site actually gained share since the last update. I don't do anything special. I just update my blog daily, and syndicate some of the posts after they have aged a bit. My site even has a content farm on it which I just restarted. Not seeing any problems so far.

[Gadi]

I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't make every effort to provide quality as much as relevance as this is what they state at almost every opportunity that these is their main objectives (recently of course they have opened stated that they regard relevance not only to be keyword related but location, social circles and fresh content are also major factors).

In any case, it seems quite simple for Google to measure what is good content and what isn't by checking bounce rates, time on site and return visitors. If the site and its content are poor then people will leave quickly and not come back. E-commerce sites with Google checkout enabled can also "prove" good content by getting orders and reviews. What can possibly be a better vote of confidence than a paying customer being happy?

[jazbo]

Check out what Aaron Wall says about eHow, that will tell you why they did not drop.

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

Guys,

There's more to it than just links and content in this update.

Think about this. Pretty much every article site was hit heavily, except eHow.
Who links to eHow articles? No one. But they did something differently to come out of this update strongly. What is that?

There's a new piece in the SEO puzzle now than just links and content.

[moneymakerz]

it will only make spammers more difficult to rank.......which is a good news

[Mike Anthony]

We can't possibly know the truth until we know the facts. Since there are bound to be a lot more threads like this I took the liberty of starting a thread with just real news and data on this subject.

JUST THE FACTS thread - Google's algorithm change

But for my money I think you are dead wrong. Ezinearticles get backlinkk by the boatloads from marketers. i seriously doubt thats a factor and that wouldn't be a new algo anyway

[SEOSrilanka]

Google often update their algorithm and make things harder for spammers. I think the new Algorithm update is a real advantage to genuine webmasters. And i am sure affiliate earnings has been really dead for people targeting Ezine article to earn money. Site like Mahalo has lost their rankings.

I think SEO for spammers is going to die and for lazy SEO guys.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

But for my money I think you are dead wrong. Ezinearticles get backlinkk by the boatloads from marketers. i seriously doubt thats a factor and that wouldn't be a new algo anyway

Yeah, I might be dead wrong. But Mike, since they are still ranking for 50,000 keywords, when they used to rank for 150,000. EZA didn't get hit across the board, they are still ranking for numerous keywords and I believe the pages that are ranking, are linked well from their authors and other users.

Out of 150,000 ranked keywords, how many do you think actually had links going to the article? My guess would be 1/3 of them. Which would equal out to the 50,000 they ARE ranking for.

I might be wrong, and I'm open to other theories, but the sites I have seen doing well have great internal linking, and deep linking. I really don't think this algo change has ANYTHING to do with UNIQUE content... just relevant... and relevant content has links pointing to it!

[Chris Munch]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Okay, lets see how many people don't even read this and call me an idiot for saying SEO is dead, or they will just blindly agree.

First of all, SEO is NOT dead. Article marketing is NOT dead. .org domains, are not dead, blog commenting, web 2.0 properties, social media marketing, is not dead.

Why was EZA hit hard? Why was your autoblog, or your worthless incoherent site hit hard for the algo update? Because lack of quality. So, am I saying that ezinearticles had low quality content? Yes, I am.

In the eyes of Google, I believe this update places even MORE power on backlinks. I don't believe they place more power on backlinks to JUST your home page. I believe EZA was hit hard because of the amount of articles on the site, some quality some not, but weren't promoted and weren't seen as relevant in the eyes of the big G because of lack of backlinks.

So how do you avoid this? I think the answer is simple.... build links to all pages on your site. I believe EZA was hit hard because a small percentage of the articles were actually linked to by the author and people that found them important. I think that the amount of indexed pages you have, needs to have a proper ratio of backlinks.

What do you guys think? Do you think that it is just the fact that these places are content farms, or the fact that they are content farms that aren't getting proper distribution of links throughout the site, internal structure and external?

Glad someone here can see what is actually going on. This is a large part of the update - backlinks to individual pages.

Building links to all pages might not be the best strategy though as low quality backlinks in mass can cause problems, or just be discounted due to lack of natural variation and poor sources of backlinks.

What Google wants to see is high quality pages on your site that attract natural backlinks. So by all means have lots of pages, but make sure that people are linking to them because the content is so good.

Sites built in this way have done really well.

[mejohn]

The long and the short of is that High Quality Content is still more king than ever. Backlinks, just like before, are the queen in the SEO game of chess.

[claycath]

So I'm wondering...should we even bother using Hub pages to build links anymore?

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by claycath

So I'm wondering...should we even bother using Hub pages to build links anymore?

Absolutely, but you need to build links to the articles to make it effective!

[gearmonkey]

I'm thinking of trying yahoo answers since Google increased their serps after this update. If they trust Yahoo Answers, then they should consider the links being resourced. I have plenty of high-quality content that can answer lots of questions on yahoo answers.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by gearmonkey

I'm thinking of trying yahoo answers since Google increased their serps after this update. If they trust Yahoo Answers, then they should consider the links being resourced. I have plenty of high-quality content that can answer lots of questions on yahoo answers.

You will have to hit a certain level before being allowed to post a link. Yahoo answers is a great way to increase traffic though.