[Allen Lundy]

Today I got an email that made me think and made me review some of my own websites...

Here is the gist of that email...

Internet Marketers BEWARE!

Matt Cutts just announced another algorithm update (to eliminate or reduce what he calls webspam). He says this update will affect about 3% of searches,

but... there has already been a lot of collateral damage.. (one of my sites specifically that was totally white-hat SEO) ... with lots of legitimate businesses that do only white-hat SEO reporting severe drops in rankings.

You should really read Matt Cutt's announcement below:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Another step to reward high-quality sites

For those of you that have been in Internet Marketing for a while, the Name Johathan Leger should sound familiar. He started a thread on this in another forum and you might want to read this as well...

Major Google Update (April 24th)

I generally don't pay attention to or worry about Googles algorithm updates as I am always white-hat in my SEO preparation. Until recently none of their algorithm changes had affected me.

Until now... One of my sites from a PR5 with almost 1400 links shown to a PR2 with only 140 links being identified as valid backlinks. (I spent over 2 years building those damn links one at a time)... Thanks Google.

Beware... with this new algorithm change, things are changing, and as I said, at least one of my sites was drastically affected... and what is even worse...

It appears as if Google has actually started penalizing sites for what they term unnatural backlinking.

Google never did this before, probably because those that use black-hat SEO could have destroyed their competition by putting up hundreds or thousands of unnatural backlinks to their competitors sites so that Google would downgrade them or deindex them for unnatural backlinks. (It isn't hard with some programs to submit 1000+ backlinks a day... totally unnatural).

What they used to do was just devalue the links they believed were unnatural. Even if they weren't, as you know, it's all up to the mighty Google to determine the validity of backlinks.

In my opinion, Google is now penalizing websites for what they consider "unnatural backlinking".

This seems rather dumb of Google unless they are trying to drive marketers back to their cash cow - Google Adwords. I don't use Adwords because for me it's just too expensive and time consuming doing all the tracking and changes and keeping up with the cost of clicks.

So, for me at least, that means I will have to change or realign my focus to Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to get my back links.

I imagine it will be much harder for Google to devalue links that are coming from a PR8 or PR9 website... Ü

Bottom line, free traffic generation with Google just got harder. I'm pretty sure it won't be long before Yahoo! and Bing follow suit. Afterall, they have to keep up with Google or they will fall further behind in the Search Engine category!

To put it bluntly... Internet Marketers Beware!

Have a good day all..

Allen

[Jeffery]

Allen, big thanks for posting this.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Another step to reward high-quality sites

The first two paragraphs of the announcement are specific about White Hat SEO and how we should optimize our sites. The information is general in terms.

We (PIPSters) have a thread that is almost exactly the same, yet we also go into specific details about how to perform the White Hat SEO and more! The thread was published 01/01/2012:
http://www.warriorforum.com/plug-pro...tion-tips.html

Now that it is official I hope more PIPSters will visit the announcement and our own thread to apply the specifics to their sites.

About the backlinks from external websites that webmasters consider relevant and white hat, yet were penealized: de-indexed or de-valued. This applies to both the backlinks and websites. The sites most effected are in fact > in violation of Google policies. The article gives specific examples, so I see no reason why webmasters should be surprised. However, I do see reason why internet marketers would be surprised.

With that said I agree that Internet Marketers should Beware.

About Jonathan's comments. Though I admire his judgement he does often jump the gun when it comes to changes. Also, these changes observed when searching Google usually take days to weeks to become concrete. This is normal with all of Google's changes, so what he says is happening to his research today may very well be completely different in 24 hours. Actually, all of the major SEO companies have published this fact since the very first change in the Google Algo.

This is just about my own sites. I stopped building backlinks to my own sites two years ago (not my client sites). Why? Before that I did in fact build quality and relevant backlinks to my inner-pages. At the time, some of the sites that linked to my sites took the wrong turn and violated Google policies. I observed drops in PR on my inner-pages, but never the home-page. I was forced to request that Google remove the backlinks in an effort to retain or improve the PR. The moral of this is... a website might have been in good standing in the past, but the website may have violated a policy resulting in being penalized and in some cases no longer in good standing with Google.

You yourself said it took you years to build quality backlinks and have suffered..

Until now... One of my sites from a PR5 with almost 1400 links shown to a PR2 with only 140 links being identified as valid backlinks. (I spent over 2 years building those damn links one at a time)... Thanks Google.

I feel for you as this has happened to me in the past, yet it is not your fault if the referring sites violated Google Policy in one form or another. Obviously, the referring site violated Google Policy or that would not have happened. There are a lot of reasons why a site can be penalized. December 2011 I found that a site that always linked to my articles was totally de-indexed from Google, Bing and Yahoo. The reason was the site owner was an Internet Marketer and instructed his webmaster to send traffic to the site behind a proxy. The webmaster advised against it since the site supported Google Adwords.

So I think it is time for Internet Marketers Beware and more importantly leave the webmaster skills to professional webmasters; otherwise watch your business and years of investment take the wrong turn.

Jeffery 100% :-)

[Jeffery]

Allen, this is not about you or PIPS. This is to all of those people who 'Play Google'.

About.. "Is Google To Smart For It's Own Good?"

In my opinion the answer is.. No. This is just me, but I think "Internet Marketing is To Smart For It's Own Good."

Internet Marketers, Webmasters, and most established websites with public as well as private training do in fact teach and recommend tactics to take advantage of all of the search engines - the foremost being Google. There are ethical tactics and unethical tactics.

In my opinion Google is trying to provide relevant and quality search results (websites) to the people who use the search engine, i.e. Google. The webspam examples in the article are exactly what ethical Internet Marketers and ethical Professional Webmasters have been asking Google to penalize for years.

Sites identified as Webspam by Google only degrade the concept "Content Is King". Backlinks from Webspam sites only degrade the concept "Backlinks place sites higher in the SERPs".

Then we have so many sites with training material that advise: backlinks from article directories create traffic and place sites higher in the Google SERPs. Some even recommend BlackHat or unethical training. That is not the Google Way.

Look at it this way. We never know what goes on behind the scene of a penalize site that links to our site... inside the actual server and what is served to the penalized site from another server.

It all comes down to this: "When we want to use Google to our advantage it is best to do it the Google Way". Otherwise, all of our investment can disappear in a click.

The days of targeting Google as a source of income with bad tactics from the past are coming to an end.

For those that say "Thank goodness Google is not the only search engine" I say this "Then stop advising people to target Google as a method to earn income".

Google Wise..in the future and it is happening as we speak..
" A backlink is no longer a backlink of any importance to Google unless it is a Google Wise Backlink".

When we 'Play Google' as defined in the blog post we lose.Maybe not yesterday, maybe not today? Well, the facts are in and many of those sites that 'Played Google' are losers as of..

..April 24, 2012.

Jeffery 100% :-)

[seamate]

Thanks for this post

[Jeff Schuman]

"It appears as if Google has actually started penalizing sites for what they term unnatural backlinking."

Allen,

Thanks for posting this!

This is the real problem in my opinion on the most recent Google update. Unfortunately anyone can hurt your site now on Google by giving you spammy backlinks and waiting for Google to find them and penalize your site.

I have had several sites on page one of Google for years that disappeared a couple of days ago. My Team-Schuman site has been on page one of Google for phrases like "make money online, make mony at home", and so on for over 8 years. GONE!

They are gone and I do not expect them to come back. My blog still ranks for many lesser searched phrases which is kind of a lesson in itself.

The bigger lesson to me is you have to do more paid advertising and work the social media angle with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to diversify your traffic.

I think Google is sacred to death of Facebook and how people are searching these days. I personally think they are going to fill up the organic part of their search engine more with info sites like wiki-pedia and force affiliate marketers and others to do Google Adwords ppc advertising.

If that is the case we all have to decide if we want to pay for traffic or find new free ways to get it on Facebook and other sources.

[Jeff Casmer]

Hello,

I agree with everything said above. I have already seen some minor improvements from yesterday but who knows if or when things will get back to where they were.

Lets give it a few days to see what the "almighty" does. In the meantime I will personally make some adjusments to my home page to "engage" the visitor more, more new unique content, and more social media involvement.

I think Google is very scared of Facebook.....

Take care
Jeff Casmer

[Patrician]

Absolutely scared of Facebook, Jeff.

Gee and I was waiting for Anti-Trust courts to knock them down a few notches off their high horse - (like happened to MS) who knew a bunch of teenagers from Harvard would put them down...

(I can't stand FaceHook either so don't get me wrong)

[Thomas Prendergast]

Google (search engines in general) used to be king(s). I have been on the Internet before there were search engines. We used a software called "Gopher".

Then came Lycos and Yahoo. Then Google came along and crushed everything else.

Google was king. Looking to buy software, or stuff, looking for an answer, looking you went to Google. Go Google it.

Then social groups started occurring. Heck we started that with Veretekk back in the 90s in our own way, like WarriorForum is also a version. MySpace took it to new levels until Facebook came along and like Google crushed everything else.

Now people balance seeking truth, stuff and info almost equally with social networks (FACEBOOK duh, WarriorFroum and our new V2) and searching the engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) etc.

This thing is as I see it, Google is now hurting themselves with manipulating the search engines to push us (the marketers) into using Google Ads.

I have many (MANY) top SERPs. Many have shuffled about with the Google changes. Some have dropped into 5-6 page levels, others have risen, and some have dissipated.

However, because we teach a balanced approach and now have integrated a totally killer Social marketing system into our new V2, many of my results are brutally rising regardless of what Google does because we have never followed (What I consider) the Google red herring mis-direction strategy they employ.

So I say, damn the Google torpedoes, full speed ahead. Google is now only a player in Internet Marketing, but they are no longer the 400lb gorilla.

I have watched the giants come and fall now for nearly 20 years. I say, "It is better to be a million blades of grass, than to be a giant tree in the middle of the forest".

I love the Internet.

[Thomas Prendergast]

Ops I missed a very important additional point.

Today I still search Google. but I also confirm with several of my Social groups mostly with Veretekk, Skype and Facebook. It really improves my results and also helps me do business with my freinds when possible.

So for example I am looking to purchase Adobe After Effects. I alert my freinds my search as well as post in some forums and FB and V2 as well as shop Amazon and Ebay and look in Google.

It is a process but my results are far better as I get the best results with the actual transaction from the sphere of influence. I like doing business with my Friends

[Jeffery]

Remember this? Note the Penguins in the background...



Matt Cutts, referencing the Webspam Algo, posted this pic from inside a Google office on Twitter today...




So, in keeping with Matt's way of Google officially naming major Google Algo changes..

Penguin Update

Jeffery 100% :-)