All my sites were "penalized" today. Anyone else?

by 173 replies
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All my sites (I have about 30 of them) dropped in rank today, mostly about 50 or more places according my handy little iPhone app that use to check on my stats.

I had used ALN on some of these in the past, but certainly not all of them. Nothing dark-hat... maybe a little grey... no spammy comments or profile links. Many of these sites were ranking on some very good juice, like guest posts and Web 2.0 properties that I had manually built myself.... stuff like that.

Maybe it's a fluke... Maybe not. My sites have bounced around before, and I usually don't panic too much since I'm used to watching them dance. But, they normally don't all move down that much, and definitely not all at once. These are all pretty mature sites... most of them a couple of years old.

I have a VPS (Virtual Private Server) with Liquid Web, and most of these sites were on a single IP address. All of them were in the same Google Analytics account. Could Google be penalizing me by IP address, or by linking everything via my Google Analytics account?

Interesting, to say the least.

Anyone else seeing this?
#search engine optimization #penalized #sites #today
  • This rolled out a few hours ago: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Another step to reward high-quality sites

    Suzanne
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • If you had used ALN on all of them, then that would explain
    it - since most of the "public" blogs have been deindexed. But
    since that's not just the case, what to do is either wait and
    see if they all improve in rankings or add more unique articles
    and get better quality backlinks.

    Kingsley
  • I got hit. Not sure what to do now.
    • [1] reply
  • i did too...looks like tons of people have..
  • Lots of people losing rankings. All kinds of junk is popping up on the first pages right now.
  • My site has TANKED and I've never used ALN. For instance one page on e-commerce site I've been working on three keywords. In google.

    keyword 1 = #5
    keyword 2 = #11
    keyword 3 = #8

    And now!

    keyword 1 = #28 but on a different page
    keyword 2 = gone
    keyword 3 = gone
  • Do a search for viagra right now. The results are pretty funny. In the top ten is an edu site that has been hacked and forwards to a viagra site. Classic.

    Google sucks.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
  • I will have no traffic tomorrow. Sad.
  • My E-Commerce site has also tanked big time. Multiple #1 Rankings gone to page 11,12,13 and beyond.
  • I'm pretty ticked off. Google is doing what they think is right even if it means that some legitimate websites get killed from their actions. The end result is some really meaningless irrelevant websites are ranking highly for no good reason. Nice move google, way to go.
  • Sorry for so many posts. Pretty clear that google is passing NEGATIVE link juice from sites they consider spammy.

    I've got pages with NO links and virtually NO content out ranking pages with very good, unique content, that has backlinks.
    • [1] reply
    • Seems right now all kinds of chaos will go on as they try to sweep the streets and balance what is left.
  • Same thing happen to me....few sites of mine went down like flies just this morning.
  • Suspending all my link building campaigns till I can decide what to do next.
  • Well, I don't think that lack of quality is my problem. I have always focused on quality and many of my sites have articles that exceed 1000 words in length.

    What's even stranger (in my case) is that I have several sites that were ranking very well on age and great content alone (no keyword stuffing)... with absolutely ZERO back links... and even those sites took nose dives.

    The only thing linking all these sites together were the IP address and the fact that they were all on the same Google Analytics account. If Google is penalizing all my sites because I used ALN on a few, it seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

    It's a real shame.

    Ironically, yesterday was one of my best earning days EVER. I made a little over $127 in Amazon Affiliate commissions and about $32 from Adsense. This may not seem like a lot of money to some people on here, but it wasn't bad for me since I haven't quit my day job yet. I don't think tomorrow's income report is going to look quite that good.

    C'est la vie! LOL!
  • My sites took a nose dive also.
    • [1] reply
    • I've been working on a site for the past 2 months, building web 2.0 pages, uploading youtube videos, submitting articles, blog commenting.

      Peaked at serp 21 about a week ago, hung around 24.

      Today, serp 41... wtf!

      So... what exactly are we supposed to do link building wise?
      • [1] reply
  • The issue I am seeing with Google is that they are penalizing sites based on other sites past links. Okay that may be confusing but I have 50 sites, all of them tanked. Some were very highly linked from thousands of sources naturally. However, they all tanked in the rankings. Site A linked to another relevant site, we call Site B. Site A did have one post go to a blog network (really hurt the sites I used them on). Now Site B has tanked with only natural links. I know linking to your own site may seem unnatural but 1 on topic link shouldn't be a site killer.

    If a site is penalized and links to another site, is it going to hurt that site? For some sites I am using it seems to be the case.

    P.S. None of my sites are thin and lack quality content. Most have 100+ posts on them and are all written personally.
    • [2] replies
    • All websites tanked, lets hope they fix this crazy nonsense, the new sites ranking are **** and low quality.
    • If this is the case, I would assume that this is a large-scale "Google Dance". Probably just Google shifting stuff around while they update their algorithm. If everyone's sites never come back, THEN I'd believe it is some sort of penalty. But the fact that some sites with normal, natural backlinks are also seeing this leads me to believe that it's simply a "Google Dance" and not something to slit your wrists over.
  • Wow, Never put all your eggs in one basket. To Google what goes around comes around.
    • [2] replies
    • Don't think you've read only one of the posts in this thread. OP said nothing about one basket.
    • One site got heavily demoted, it had very few backlinks from various places. Another site, which has age on it's side as well as TONS of various quality backlinks (Bought and Xrumer blast for it 2 years ago) that I created myself as well as other methods seems to be holding it's own and staying partly where it's always been. Too bad it's not a money site.

      Web 2.0 blogs seem to be doing better than the site that tanked. I'm hoping that it'll come back as it's a fairly new site that has only original content and growing daily. I'm not going to stop adding content to it, if worse come to worse I'll just pull the database and use it for a brand spanking new domain.

      Right now I think it's mostly sit and wait time.

      Did I mention that this really sucks.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I've noticed a significant boost in traffic for just about all my sites I'm optimizing. One thing I noticed about your sites Bradley is that your hosting account uses the same ip for all your websites and you use analytics and probably webmaster tools for all your sites also. This alone is making your sites tank once the link is made with ALN by Google. Use something like Article Ranks for article submissions and GetClicky for analytics. In my view they are just as good if not better than GA & with real time stats. If that doesn't work after 45 days, you may want to set up some redirects for your sites and see if you gain any of your juice back. You'd fare much better with seperate c class ips for your sites or if not in the budget, get a hostgator reseller account and ditch analytics for a paid alternative, there are many and some are very good. Best of luck to you. BTW, there's always paid traffic, just a thought.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Such as Google Ads?

      I've heard some cynics say that this is Googles end game.

      My site is not even an affiliate site, it's a bloody school I'm helping out with, no affiliate ads on there.

      I imagine, if you're site is an affiliate site, which 99% on here would be, then their going to make it even tougher to rank.

      Just checked my affiliate sites, and they've all been hit.

      I've never used ALN, just old school methods... now what?

      My youtube pages and hubpages seemed to have moved up though.

      Just checked bing, and ranking on top for my keywords... c'mon Google!
      • [1] reply
    • All my sites tanked except for one. I really hope this is temporary cause I just started making about $15 a day with Adsense for the last couple months. Today so far I only made $2 measly bucks. This is very demotivating.
      • [1] reply
  • Two old sites lost first page ranking. But 4 New MNS improved ranking. No idea bout new update. Everyday we have to change the plan.
  • Several of my affiliate sites also got hit. What is interesting though is I have this one affiliate site that has absolutely NO backlinks but is now on page 1. It has 5 pages only but with all unique content which I wrote myself. I just haven't gotten around to building backlinks to it. And now its on page 1. :confused:
  • One of my sites took a hit. The 1st page/2nd page rankings moved to 8th/10th. But I don't have any message on webmaster tools from google, nor any other sites on the same IP has taken a hit. But yeah, I used only UAW to backlink the site, which explains why. But strangely, I've used just UAW on another site and that is still standing tall on rank 7th.

    Im wondering whats up..
  • I wrote up cliffs about what everybody has been experienced and I've been reading about this all day. Everybody got hit it seems, I think google will make some changes or they are gonna have a lot of people pissed off at them.

    Read more about it April 24th - Google Rolls Out New Update Targetting Webspam | Legit SEO
  • So you did use ALN? In fact you used other blog networks as well...No disrespect, what you call grey, Google might wee all over your sites for.

    I know you're finding it hard to understand but those blog network links are pretty significant. So significant that ALN and BMR have gone now.

    This should be a big clue.

    You also should have read the very helpful post by SuzanneH directly below your OP. This struck me when you mentioned grey hat...

    Blog networks like ALN didn't do this. I know as I tested them on a test site and had an article on dehumidifiers on a piece of barely readble spun nonsense (no disrespect to people who spin but this was a bad example) about guns.

    They also don't seem to mention "grey" hat. They go straight onto....

    That seems pretty straight forward to me. Your grey is what they call blackhat webspam.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I have lost pretty much all my sites. I am moving entirely away from seo and concentrating on other areas to focus my businesses on. The moral of the story give up with seo and buying link packages if you still do that, this is not the way to run your business in the long run.
    • [1] reply
    • This is the first G update that has affected my best site. I monitor daily. I just removed G Analytics from it. I'll see if that has any effect.

      Strangely, I have an old Blogspot site in the same niche that is now appearing for a couple of the keywords.

      Do you think that is just coincidence? :rolleyes:

      I also have an unused domain name in the same niche. I might rewrite some of the content and activate the new site. It will be an interesting experiment.
      • [1] reply
  • I don't think anything is down to using Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools etc. I have both of these set up and some sites have suffered a small drop and others are fine.

    My big sites especially are standing firm.

    I used BMR for a bit but in general most of my sites just have good (IMHO) content on them and little in the way of links that I build.

    BTW is there such a thing as 'white hat' link building that we do ourselves ?

    Thanks
    Lynne
    • [1] reply
    • I think it does.

      If it doesn't, why did so many with webmaster tools get the letter regarding un-natural link building when BMR was hit?

      How did they find this out?

      I'm not having a go at you but they can see exactly what you're doing and seeing as they consider link schemes as black hat webspam (see here), then having analytics may well have something to do with it.
      • [4] replies
  • Interesting that most of the sites that have taken over one of my main keywords are:
    a) old fashioned ( as in FrontPage old fashioned)
    b) all contain Google Adsense. Mine doesn't

    My suspicious mind says this has been done for Google's benefit. Show out of date, boring sites with Adsense. People will click on the ads to escape a useless site.

    Result - more money for Google. Times are obviously tough at Google Towers
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • First place for my main site and keyword is a new arrival.

      Pretty thin site, loaded with adsense..... 4 blocks... I was sure the limit was 3?

      Maybe it's time to buy shares in Bing?
      • [1] reply
    • I'm no software engineer, but that sounds even more difficult to write an algorithm for than one that shows good results.
  • My best sites lost rankings and my site with least content and backlinks moved up.
    Bizarre results using Google. Check out make money online in Google UK. Currently #6 on page 1 is an empty wordpress site with no articles.
    • [1] reply
    • Check it out on google.com #1 isan empty blogspot for MMO!
      • [1] reply
    • Banned
      [DELETED]
      • [1] reply
  • You guys need to work on getting other sources of traffic.

    And so do I! I'm starting a mailing list, and I'm building a membership site to take on the existing sites in my niche.
    • [2] replies
    • I haven't seen any major changes to my sites - I've had a few pages drop rank, but luckily not entire sites.

      Yahoo Answers seems to be cropping up quite alot now. I've seen it take the no.1 spot for some fairly competitive terms.

      Also one page free sites like Webs.com and Blinkweb.com that aren't even keyword optimized are outranking sites with quality content.
    • I just checked again... and the number 1 spot on Goolge, for my main niche, and keyword, has 5 Adsense blocks!

      With 300 words of content.... most of which isn't even related to the keyword.

      Keyword appears 3 times... and not in title, or <h> tags....

      WTF?
  • I have heard this same thing from a number of other internet marketing friends. Two of the best ways to improve your website ranking are to post unique articles and to build more natural, high quality backlinks.
  • Just thought I'd add my 10cents worth, My sites have been hit as well, none of them had google analytics of any description on them. All had 1,000 word + all seo on page optimized, unique content so they certainly weren't spammy sites.

    I have previously used ALN but have a diverse range of other links pointing to my sites.
    I imagine [and am hoping] this is a temporary reindexing by google, because not only are they hitting us affiliate marketers, anybody searching on google at the moment will recieve very poor search results.
    For instance checking one of the keywords I was ranking 3rd position for, the top ten now consists of Amazon holding the top 4 positions, then 4 you tube & daily motion videos [some very spammy], a forum page and a spammy affilate site that has no backlinks. eleventh position is held by a facebook page!
    All my competitors have tanked in the ratings as well, which is one consolation!
  • This has nothing to do with Google analytics or WMT. I use both on all my sites.

    My ONLY site that got hit today is the one that I've been building backlinks for on blog networks and wiki pages using spun content over the last six months. And I haven't even been all that aggressive with it.

    This site tanked for virtually EVERY keyword I've been tracking.

    BTW -- Never used ALN or any of the big networks. Used a couple private blog networks and Backlinks Kingdom. And hired out some wiki backlinks and social media links.
    • [1] reply
    • Ok I give up. Google don't actually use your analytics data, they didn't send out the warning letters and they just do everything for your benefit as a marketer.

      Google said this yesterday..

      I don't get this...

      So you have analytics and the only site that got hit was the one where you used link schemes.

      ...and you don't think Google used your analytics data to see what you're up to?

      Fair enough.
      • [1] reply
  • Don't worry about google rankings, start tracking bing rankings

    With the latest changes google results quality is at a all time low, in a few months, maybe around 6, bing will be no1 search engine

    Some people already reporting more traffic from bing than they ever got from google.

    google is done, their greed for adwords is what caused their end. remember this in 6 months when bing search share will > google search share
  • I have a web design site. dropped from 2nd on first page to 4th page - wthell !!!!
    • [1] reply
    • Like I said. Times are hard at Google Towers.

      I've just added a block of Adsense to my site that was hit and changed it to a blog style. It'll be interesting to see if it makes a difference. For some keywords it is now being outranked by an old and unloved blogspot site of mine in the same niche.
  • I have lots of sites - some tanked today some didnt. None use google analytics. The sites that did tank had BMR/ALN - the sites that didnt tank are new sites that i have used (hope google isnt reading this!) private blog networks primarily . I dont think analytics has anything to do with it - any badly spun articles used in linkbuilding where the anchor text does NOT read correctly is the problem i think.
  • Yet another shake up.

    Just concentrate on adding quality content on a regular basis and not using any "one click" solutions to top 10 Google rankings and you should be fine.

    At least this has always worked for me.

    Chris
    • [1] reply
    • I don't think quality content has anything to do with this one, it's all to do with your backlinks

      MartyJames I think has hit the nail on the head;

      "any badly spun articles used in linkbuilding where the anchor text does NOT read correctly is the problem i think"
  • This is just temporary i believe.

    "In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam."

    Let it settle down


    Regards,
    Ashish Thakkar
    • [1] reply

    • Cutts has already confirmed that it has been rolled out already.
  • Expect it if your using black hat method before the update of Google.
  • Banned
    I hope my sites don't fall into this ****!
    The did has been done... the next question you should be asking is: How do I amend it? Although It will cost you some cash but it can be fixed.
  • The only cure for this is to wait and see what happens.
  • One of the worst changes happened today lol
  • Google won't last. They think they are god, I don't think so. If I'm going down then I'm taking them with me!
  • I haven't noticed any changes yet - hopefully that is a good sign. It appears that perhaps sites that use blogger may have been hit.
  • Same here, I live in the netherlands and 14 of my 19 has dropped in rank. And the strange thing is: newer websites took my place!
  • A glimmer of hope as those are temporary results from a bigger serp shuffle, atm google search results are bad beyond imagination, there is no way this are finished algo change implementation.

    If the results stays like this than is bye bye google, welcome bing and the future facebook search.
  • If Google is really penalizing sites for getting "bad links" then what's to stop people from going to fiverr and buying up "bad links" for all of their competitors? Chaos.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Google isn't directly penalising sites whose backlinking portfolios are made up of these links. They're trying to penalise the kinds of sites that house the spun or otherwise gibberish content bearing these links, and the consequential degradation of outgoing link value is what causes the rankings of reliant sites to drop.

      So people doing what you mention - spamming rubbish backlinks pointing to competitors' sites - wouldn't really be damaging their competition, they'd just be wasting their money on what'd essentially amount to a pointless, ineffective smear campaign.

      To damage one's competition, one would have to spam on their site or report them for some clear violation of policy that Google can reasonably trace and pin on them as their own doing.
    • This was my thought exactly. If you can now "link bomb" the competition with bad links, there will be no end to the chaos one can cause. Penalties for bad links makes no sense at all. It makes more sense that the bad links simply wouldn't count for anything.

      But, there is obviously some connection between all of my sites that Google deems as noteworthy. As I said before, a few of my sites were ranking well on the content and the age of the site. This wasn't junk content, mind you... this was very useful content, with every article on the site being 1000+ words in length. So, these sites shouldn't have been caught in Google latest dragnet, but they were.
      • [1] reply
  • @ Richard

    What I call "Grey Hat" could be different from how others define it. Any attempt to manipulate the SERPs to favor your site for certain keywords or phrases is what I call "Grey Hat."

    Which means, lots of people do this.

    In fact anyone who has submitted an article with a link, in the form of anchor text (instead of the URL), back to their site... is trying to manipulate the search engine results... and is, therefore, not "white hat."
  • one of the my best site lost his all ranking. 20 keywords are showing on page 1 and 2 before change algo. but this i lost all the position.
    • [1] reply
    • Although I started this thread, I'm not really freaking out or anything. Like I said, niche sites aren't my only form of income.

      Just before this all happened, I was thinking to myself how difficult it was to properly maintain so many sites (adding regular content, replying to comments, etc). I was considering just selling (or simply dropping) most of these site to focus on a select few.

      I refuse to "react" to Google's nonsense. I would advise everyone else to do the same. Maybe it's all the crime dramas I used to watch, but it seems like doing anything rash at this point would be interpreted as an admission of guilt. I'm just going to let the dust settle, maybe add a little bit of fresh content and see where the chips fall.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hmm...looks like they may have taken care of the "make money online" issue...don't see the no content blogspot blog at the top anymore...
  • just because Google being penalized (over-optimization) last Tuesday.
    • [2] replies
    • Yeh thats weird. They have fixed that "make money online" term. WTF how about they come and manually fix my **** up too. Bunch of UAAUIUASOHAUHASIUHASHUHAISHIU ASSHOLES
    • We are currently working on over 700 keywords. Only 5 went little down and the rest saw major improvement.
      We only do manual SEO work. Traditional old school SEO. To be honest, it is expensive, but for the long run it pays off.
      I have resisted for long time using software and after this update, I know I was right.
      I am not trying to rub in, or to brag about out success, I just think that people on this forum should start pay attention to "real" SEO and not rely on software. Stop buying these products and promises about 1000 high PR links. All it is is one BS.
      If you focus on Google's guidelines SEO, these updates won't hurt you, or your clients.
      The people that sell you packages for SEO, have no clue about SEO, they are after your dream/money.
      • [2] replies
  • Anyone relying on Google for their income is pretty much insane...

    I've been there, but damn, you have to wake up from that dream!
  • FUNNY STORY: all my sites with real content got penalized... and the sites with amazon auto shops gained ranking! so much for quality content! :p
    • [3] replies
    • Exactly. This is most likely just a wide-spread Google Dance. One of my rankings moved down and one stayed put in spot #1. Both had very similar links.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • This is EXACTLY what happened to my sites!

      Long story short, just keep waiting for a few days. Hopefully something better will come out :rolleyes:
    • This has pretty much been my experience. My sites that were hit hardest are my most "real" sites with loads of unique original content (written by me on subjects I am knowledgeable about.)

      On the other hand my "thinner" sites that exist only to promote affiliate programs are mostly doing fine...
  • For the first time a lot of my sites have been hit. But there is so much screwing going on with Google since yesterday, I'm going to wait and see how it all shakes out.
  • Didn't get hit hard, but few of my sites went from position 1 to 4 or 5. And top positions are now taken by big authority sites.
    I never used blog networks. My backlinks were all form different sources: blog comments, socail bookmarking, profile links, forum links, article links and others

    Is it the end to small niche sites?
    I certainly hope not
  • I think it's way to early for any of us to panic because things tend so shuffle right after an algo shift, BUT this does show why non of us should be at the mercy of G.

    It does make sense because they can take out your business with the flip of a switch.

    -Omar
  • Oh and #10 is great too..."Tumblr Staff"....really? What the heck does that have to do with heartburn?!?!
  • what would be the difference if you manually create 10 profile links or if you use a tool to create 10 profile links. Im not being sarcastic, im just really wondering how it knows? I mean if you do it manually you still using the same IP address for all that you create manually.
  • I think the talk about "same IP" and "Google Analytics" is pure speculation.

    I do not see one single logical reason why google would slap sites based on because they have the same IP (which is common on shared hosting)..even more because they'd be using GA.

    Before you make such abstruse statements i'd like to see proof.
    • [1] reply
    • I suppose I would need to know your definition of "proof" vs. "speculation"

      Here are the facts: All of my sites were penalized. About 20% of these sites had no backlinks and ranked well on keyword research, great content and the age of the domain. Most of my articles were optimized at less than 1% keyword density (and did quite well with that). All of them were on the same IP. All of them were in the same Google Analytics account.

      Speculation? Yes, maybe.

      But, honestly, I don't care to debate with you.

      It's a moot point. What's done is done. Google can piss off. The few other niche sites that I had in the works are going to be launched on a different host (different IP) and I'll be using a different stat counter (not GA), too.

      If my old sites recover, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. I'll make my online money some other way... because what I lack in luck, I make up for with perseverance. There are literally countless ways to make a living on the Internet today... I'll just pick a different way (preferably one that doesn't rely on a search engine) and start over.
  • Yes, the ranking has been dropped, many of my friends has been complaining about it. They believe that it has to do with the Google algorithm update.
  • A lot of things are happening in the last week from Google. Hope this is for good but not all good things happened. Here are the question you should ask
    Google: Ask Yourself These 23 Questions if Panda Impacted Your Website - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)
  • Hi

    I wonder what to do now with the sites that have dropped in rank?
    I guess wait it out for a few days, but if nothing changes, what to do next?
    How should I (and many others with the same problem) get those hitted sites back up in the rankings? Buying linkpackages? Do seo manually?

    I have really no idea at this moment, anyone knows?

    By the way: I have the programm senuke-x, but i'm a bit affraid to use it right now. ;-)

    Thanks
    Sander
  • I'm also seeing some major negative movement, even on a 4-year-old site with over 50 pages of rich content, on a site with an average visit of around 3 minutes, and bounce rates in the 50 percent range.

    The unnatural link threat cannot remain the dominating factor in how they rank sites. If so, someone will just go link-bomb CNN with about 500,000 links from bad neighborhoods. Then Sue's News will be number one.

    And considering that they cannot personally evaluate the worth and power of millions of sites, to a large extent links must remain a major player in the evaluation process.

    My advice to the people running in circles on here? Go fish, go to the beach, or whatever it is you do for recreation and relaxation when you're not on here. It's a nice time of the year for that (at least here in the southern US).

    If you insist on continuing working, focus on building out quality content instead of building out your promotional campaigns.

    In a few days/weeks, a new direction will be more clear.
  • It seems Google pointed out your "Grey SEO methods" -
    To overcome, better go for more links and avoid "over anchor text optimisig"
  • u r lunch the new site then u work more and more work on the site so google is after some time is google index is all page some time putting on sand box when google is site ia penalized
  • What I've been seeing is that the real "Authority" sites are given top rankings. I actually don't think this whole update has much to do with backlinks at all. With Panda, Google aimed at quality. With this recent update, it appears that it's aiming at "quality on steroids", meaning that sites like Amazon and Wikipedia and IMDB ("household name" type sites) are getting the preference from Google. In smaller markets, aged, well-developed sites are at the top. I suspect this is still the outcome of Google aiming at "relevance" and "quality".
    • [1] reply
    • I think you are absolutely right Angela. I have been looking through websites that now occupy first page for most niches that got wiped out and the first page is dominated by "Authority" sites like WebMD, Wikipedia, Amazon and Authority forums that has a thread discussion on the niche.

      This tells me that soon it will be very hard for the average Joe doing internet marketing to get organic traffic from Google. How the hell do you compete with Authority sites that has been in existence for more than a decade! peak times!!!
      • [1] reply
  • In my opinion if you top your backlinks campaign you are telling google .. I'm scare and I was using some technics to improve my search engine result and if you continue this will look more natural ..
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • I am still enjoying almost same rankings. Actually i do not believe in shortcuts and do quality and unique work and never try to over optimize my site and follow the webmaster tools.
  • So I honestly don't get these updates too much. Maybe because there are so many articles about them. One says to not backlink with non-relevant backlinks to your site I.E: Something out of your niche. Then I read articles saying to go for high pr gov/edu links. If you get links from them, are you not gonna get penalised for rubbish backlinking? I honestly don't know how to go about link building now, and got a few sites/videos I wanna play with but am worried. Any thoughts?

    It looks like Angela thinks it's more of the quality of the site, but I wonder if that's from the niche? Head is spinning from all this.

    Matt D.
    • [1] reply
    • I have a lot of sites. Over 150
      I have about 30 hit by Penguin. about 10 that have risen, and the rest no change.
      I waited a week, and then I've taken a few days to see what the 30 Penguin slapped sites have in common.
      Here's my conclusion
      Nothing

      Some are all original content, some were just second tier spun articles
      Different ways of backlinking. Some legitimate backlinks, some outsourced stuff
      Some wordpress blogs, others html sites

      I took a great deal of time look at backlinking profiles. Some were overoptimized for money keywords, but most weren't
      2 of my slapped sites have very little backlinking and great content (about 40 pages)
      3 were EMD's, the rest not

      My final conclusion
      I'm not sure, but I don't think the rankings have settled yet.
      I've read a lot of ideas and suggestions, but nothing I've read yet would pertain to every one of my sites that have been hit.

      Patience is really hard when it affects your bottom line, but I'm not doing anything major until I find someone who got hit hard and then did a few things and got their rankings back.
      I've heard a lot of speculation, but no actual proven tactics yet

      Just my 2 cents
      Rob
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  • Just like I thought, Google is favoring "Authority Sites". They think of these sites as "brands" and this is what they have to say about it:
    Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said this. If you think Google isn't continuing that same path now, test three or four dozen "money keywords" and see what type of sites are at the top. It will almost invariably be Authority Sites. I suspect Google didn't just "fall into" the current changes. I suspect this was a long-term planned path.
  • Is that a joke? How it could be, I almost have more than 70 sites on my server, all are linked to my Analytics, I dont know what will happen to me.
  • around 10% of total website are affected by this update.
  • I've always targeted high volume keywords for my sites, and I've dropped seriouslly for these.

    I think I'm going to go after the low hanging keywords I'm ranking in the top 100 for, that I never even targeted.

    If I start to target these long tail keywords, I'll start to rank for them, and, dilute my anchor text profile... deffintly over optimized my main keywords.... back when I was a newbe, I went a bit fiverr backlink trigger happy.

    This, as well as cpc... that's my plan anyway.
    • [1] reply
    • This is my plan too, I went after difficult terms in the mobile and entertainment niches that got millions of exact searches. I think it's obvious the harder niche you are in the more likely you will be affected as you need to push the sites aggressively.

      Keywords that have 2/10 million "competing pages" are a piece of cake for me, in fact I'm going to go alot lower now and rank the high cpc keywords with low competition and a decent amount of traffic..

      It's a pain really, I enjoyed building some of my sites that were affected and never really went after high cpc because most of the topics just didn't interest me, I don't care now...
  • Hello!

    The solution should be, put more interesting topics and upgrade your sites. If you put interesting topics that you think everyone might be interested on, and if you upgrade your homepage more, your site would easily recover it's old position. You should do lots of site upgrades than wonder why they all drop rank.

    Best of Luck.
    • [1] reply
    • I agree. It's weird; it seems like regardless of what Google tells the public about the changes, so many seem to think these changes are ALL about what kind of backlinks the sites have and how they got them. I'm not seeing this at all. My Doctor's website, the one I was able to get from the bottom of Page 6 to Position One, Page One overnight is still in that Number One spot, three years later. I haven't touched it since I got it ranked three full years ago. It remained through Panda and Penguin. Another project of mine (that was mentioned on this thread) moved down a few spots from its number two spot but is still on Page One out of more than 400 million results. My doctor's website has relevant, GREAT information on a whole series of pages. It's an "Authority Site" for this area. My site has age and backlinks but I am not very techie so it's not going to be seen as an "Authority". These two things have exactly the same kind of backlinks. Exactly the same. And one stayed in Position One, Page One and the other moved. I think Google has a point here in that it is looking at quality more closely now than it ever has. Apparently, many seem to think it's all about backlinks. :confused::confused:
      • [1] reply
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  • A question to Angela V Edwards: Was this Doctor website backlinked with forum profiles (i.e. Angela and Paul links)?
    • [1] reply
  • Angela,

    are you saying you believe it is still safe to use your profile backlinks directly to money sites because that does not seem to be the consensus after Penguin and Panda ?
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, I think it's perfectly safe. Like I said, my doctor's website hasn't EVER moved and mine is still on Page One out of more than 400 MILLION other websites, even after Panda and Penguin. I don't understand why so many website owners believe that these changes are all about backlinks and backlink techniques. I suspect they actually ARE more about website quality than backlinks, like Google has been saying. The reason why some of the backlink techniques...things like Blog Networks and such...have been frowned upon recently by Google is most likely because the webmasters who use those types of techniques do not have the "Authority/Brand" type websites. Think about it. Do you see companies like Wal Mart, Goodyear Tire, Dell Computers, or McDonald's using things like Build My Rank?? Of course not. (I did have the owner of a major SEO company tell me that my backlinks are the same type they use for their own SEO clients.) "Small potatoes" webmasters are the ones that use those kinds of backlinks; these are the types of sites that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt inferred were "The Cesspool". However, I still think these changes are less about backlinks and more about "branding", "Authority", and "quality".
      • [1] reply
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    • [1] reply
    • I don't think my own website was penalized. It moved a couple spots and bigger name "Authority Sites" took top ranking. But I don't believe I was "penalized". Maybe you were talking to the OP.
  • something went wrong that's why your site get penalized
  • i had a couple of websites where i used your and Pauls links plus AMR and i received an unnatural links penalty, i do not know if it was only AMr or also the profile links. I think i will test a new website and see what happens.
    • [1] reply
    • Angela- any thoughts on above ?

      Have you also heard from any other of your backlink clients, to see if they have lost google rankings ?
      • [1] reply
  • Can someone point out a site that is on the first page based primarily on Anglela and Paul type of forum backlinks?
    • [2] replies
    • I'm on Page One out of more than 400 million for Angela and my doctor (Montesano Physical Therapy | Home) is Number One for Grays Harbor Physical Therapy. Grays Harbor is our county and it's small. He beat out the Physical Therapist that is actually named Grays Harbor Physical Therapy. I've been saying that through this whole thread and yes, I used my links for these things.
    • alpha As a relative old timer I can tell you Angela two years back used to rank for this serp. It was the number one serp people looked at for backlinks.

      https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sa=X&e...w=1280&bih=600

      Those kinds of links have been incapable of ranking anymore in that serp for at least a year and a half and the site is nowhere to be found. Those are the facts.
  • Are you saying profile backlinks still Effective? Are you still running the service?
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, they are still effective and yes, I'm still running the service.
      • [1] reply
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  • 204

    All my sites were "penalized" today. Anyone else?

    All my sites (I have about 30 of them) dropped in rank today, mostly about 50 or more places according my handy little iPhone app that use to check on my stats. I had used ALN on some of these in the past, but certainly not all of them. Nothing dark-hat... maybe a little grey... no spammy comments or profile links. Many of these sites were ranking on some very good juice, like guest posts and Web 2.0 properties that I had manually built myself.... stuff like that.