Is this End of Niche Sites Era?

by hcl_23
17 replies
For last few days specially 30th Oct, 2010 it seems that most of the niche blogs/websites (5 pages sites) have droped their rankings. Some of my sites ranking on first page of Google are not even in top 100 results.

A lot of people are reporting the same that their niche sites have drpped rankings several places.

Is this an end of niche blogging or just Google dance??

Also it seems that there is an algorithm update too.

Please share your experience/views of the same.
#end #era #niche #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    It's definitely not the end of an era - niche is what people want and Google likes to give people what they want.
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    nothing to see here.

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    • Profile picture of the author Mangozoom
      Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

      It's definitely not the end of an era - niche is what people want and Google likes to give people what they want.
      Why fight Google, they got some big brained dudes working for them who will eventually filter out any little tricks we come up with that create high ranking sites that do not deliver value.

      My own little fleet of sites where all created with 100% unique content, 500 words a page. All done high quality no scraped stuff or fluff ... and not ONE of them has really dropped or risen anymore or less than previously.

      One of my health sites is being changed to a mega 500 page site just because I want to maximise earnings from it, but I am only doig 10 - 20 pages a month so I can maintain a high standard.

      Guess what I am saying is that as well as learning the latest SEO tricks we need to ensure the we put emphasis on value.

      I no other guys do not agree and use clever tricks to pull in traffic, but for me I think this is definetly the most sustainable approach i.e. I want to build sites and almost forget them.

      John
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    I don't think so, all mine are doing fine. Mine are a lot more than just 5 pages though - not sure if that makes a difference.

    Lee

    - Wanted to add that someone on another forum also posted that a bunch of his (or her?) sites dropped over the past few days too. Perhaps Google is trying out an new filter or something?
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    Gone Fishing
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  • Profile picture of the author joshuagan80
    Niche sites are not ending. My site which is 6 month old is in Google 1st page in a very competitive keyword (over 58 million results).
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I seriously doubt that it has anything at all to do with "niche" sites. It could be a new algorithm, a Google "dance" ... anything. Just keep promoting your sites and you'll probably see another change sooner or later. Mine also have more than 5 pages.
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    Goolge has had some datacenter problems which have effected indexing and rankings over the past two weeks, its been reported elsewhere.
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    CONTENT WRITER. Reliable, UK-Based, 6 Years Experience - ANY NICHE
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  • Profile picture of the author klinvie
    I don't think niche sites are ending. As long a we keep it relevant we'll be fine. Google loves good content and you can still give good content with a niche site. Here's a quote on concerning Google's search Technology.This is particular on relevance.

    "we want to give you back “exactly what you want.” When Google was founded, one key innovation was PageRank, a technology that determined the “importance” of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as other data. Today we use more than 200 signals, including PageRank, to order websites, and we update these algorithms on a weekly basis."

    Like the poster said maybe Google changed it's algorithm.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hamza
    Hi,

    IMHO, I think if Google wanted to get rid of tiny 5 pages niche sites they would've done that long time ago, they are not gonna have any issue in devoloping a special algorithme to take down all sites from this type ...

    But they didn't do so, which means that they have no problem with it, but as you may already know, Google is crazy about their user experience and the fact that they took some action about those sites lately is just a message,

    Google is asking us to improve our content and website's quality and to put more effort in what we produce, instead of putting together 5 pages websites,

    Good day,
    Hamza
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      It does look like there have been some changes over the past couple of days but, based on what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be negatively targeting one type of site. Instead, it looks more like there's been yet another additional boost given to big shopping aggregator sites, some article directory and related sites (eHow, About, HubPages, etc) and corporate brand name authority domains along with additional geo targeting.

      Here are some of my observations...

      First, they may be trying to blunt recent criticism that they're giving exact match domains too much "out of the box" authority. Their answer is to boost up sites that have well known authority such as Amazon or About. For the niche site operator, this may mean that a 'EMD' may not be the ticket it once was. However, getting good authority links can really help your site.

      Also, bigger sites will have an advantage still in getting long tail traffic simply because they'll be able to target more terms. While you may find it more difficult to get traffic for a 1 or 2 word term since you've been pushed down to page 2 or 3 by the Amazons and Nextags, you may still get substantial traffic for long tails because you still rank for them.

      Interestingly, I'm not seeing eBay pages in as many searches now. eBay is certainly an authority site. Are they and Google having a feud again, perhaps political in nature due to the California governor's race? It sounds silly but Google has become highly politicized these days.

      Lastly, geo location seems to have been kicked up a notch. I'm not sure about the exact effect of this but it appears to be having some impact in certain shopping related niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author bigalan6622
    Never suspect something is completely over because Google Rankings fluctuate temporarily. It's Google. It happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kael41
    Yep, my macro and micro niche sites are still doing well. It's allll about the content folks, 5 pages of crap is still 5 pages of crap.
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  • Profile picture of the author mark587905
    One of my sites that had dropped out of the top 100 has reappeared at number 1. Niche sites are what drives the net so no theyre not at an end. Keep building backlinks and writing articles and your site will reappear.
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  • Profile picture of the author hcl_23
    Hi All,

    Thanks for your opinions and morale boosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author Clyde
    I own 250+ one-pager sites, and they're doing spectacular!

    No reason to worry, just keep building links.
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    Generate Unlimited Number of Micro Niche Keywords, Multi-threaded EMD Finder PLUS More!




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    • Profile picture of the author garybooth
      My opinion is that 'size doesn't matter', but quality does

      As long as the content on your site offers value to the visitor, which results in them sticking around for a bit, Google will notice and reward you. I think Colin MacDougall was right a couple of years ago when he said forget SEO, and concentrate on VEO (visitor experience optimisation).

      Just my two penneth (2 cents for my American friends).
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