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Has Google Completely Lost It's Focus?

by greatestmj
27 replies
  • SEO
    • |
What I thought before?

I thought these people are doing changes to improve the quality of google SERPS so that the readers who search for stuff on google will get better quality sites to read. Matt Cutts or others have tried to share this message time and again that all the Panda or algorithm changes that happen are only to improve the quality of searches.

What I learnt today?

Google got absolutely frustrated and decided to set aside their aim to improve the quality of their SERPS and decided to just go out and target every other website out there that are trying to generate backlinks to improve their website rankings in google. Regardless of their website having good quality/helpful/useful content or not. You got backlinks from any of the methods widely used? You're dead.

What will happen now?

Most of the good quality content that readers are looking for will be gone because SEO is not some secret business. Most people who are webmasters or even own local/global businesses and make websites are aware of SEO(onpage atleast) and many of them also try to build backlinks by commenting on blogs/forums/submitting articles etc. Many of them are not even aware of it that it can hurt them because they just found that these are good ways to share your content, get some links and let google realise the high quality content on their site and rank them.

But google instead of bothering that the site has good content or not will say "HEY! You built backlinks? I am going to Penalise you".

Most good quality content sites created by any of the webmasters will have zero backlinks and zero onpage SEO stuff. Most people who are unaware of SEO might have given up already by now that they never ranked because of no backlinks. I'm VERY certain that even if today you make a site, keep creating high quality content without any backlinks, you will NEVER rank. Never ever rank anywhere close to top. Nobody will find your site.

So what does google want?

God knows. These guys have gone crazy now. They say stick to White Hat Technique. But what is white hat technique? Did google ever share what is the correct way to go about ranking your site? We all know that the BS that just writing good quality content on your site will rank you. No way. If someone makes a new site today, will you ever rank by just writing good stuff on your site and no backlink? Google says the best way to get backlinks is by getting them naturally. Let people link to you themselves. HA!

How many sites out there that even write high quality content will manage to get backlinks "Naturally"? We all know that only good products/something really really useful/helpful is going to get some backlinks naturally OR you write something very controversial. And how many stuff out there which is searched each and everyday is considered THAT useful? What about less useful stuff that you just want to read but you'd almost never link back to it since that is not as important.

One suggestion to Google

Google should think more about maintaining quality SERPS than trying to weed out people who try to get to the top. In the end what counts is if the reader is getting what he wanted by searching something. Weed out sites that are spammy/crappy with content that is not even useful to readers. But don't weed out stuff that people love to read just because they did some backlinking to it.

Low quality links?

Discount them and make sure they don't count towards giving link weight-age. No need to "Penalise them" because that will promote Negative SEO which we already see happening as that will happen MORE and MORE now.
#focusing #google
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    It's going to be ok.
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  • Profile picture of the author K1
    Google's CPC has gone down, although revenue has increased in their last quarterly report. This maybe an attempt to get more people to compete on adwords instead of SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author greatestmj
    It's not okay as of today. People who created high quality content and did no spamming are also penalised. Read this page and see how 99% of the comments are against google update today - googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

    There are several legit people who say that even when they focused on high quality content and not spammy content, they got killed by google.

    You won't have a Site with content "OK" ranking top 3 for "Python hosting" keyword. I think some of these sites are maybe ranking because they have maybe no unnatural backlinks to it? huh. How can google be "Okay" to bring sites to the top that have no backlinks but no content also than sites with high quality content but backlinks?

    Google's duty is to improve the experience of a reader by bringing good quality content up on the list than weeding out people who do backlinking : )

    It's so funny that their update says "Rewarding High Quality Sites" but they have just weeded out all high quality sites out of the top list of google =D


    Originally Posted by K1 View Post

    Google's CPC has gone down, although revenue has increased in their last quarterly report. This maybe an attempt to get more people to compete on adwords instead of SEO.
    If that is Google's aim then this will make more and more people move to other search engines. The best part is, they're probably knowing whats happening today and they might try to utilise this as a chance to grab some market share. What if Bing tomorrow starts advertising like crazy and improve its quality soon, starts lifting up to people's expectations, it will definitely be successful in grabbing some market share out of google if Google keeps showing crappy results in google.
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  • Profile picture of the author K1
    I don't think people will move towards other search engines, G has been associated with search, you no longer search for something you google it... and no one bings it... it would be very tough for any SE to overtake google anytime soon.
    G as a business has to make money and I believe this is an attempt to get more people paying for adwords. I'm sure they converted more people to adwoards with these changes.
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    • Profile picture of the author bminor
      Originally Posted by K1 View Post

      I don't think people will move towards other search engines, G has been associated with search, you no longer search for something you google it... and no one bings it... it would be very tough for any SE to overtake google anytime soon.
      I strongly disagree.

      Up to now Google seemed to have known what their biggest asset was, the Google SE users. The main purpose always was to change their algorithm in the direction of better and more relevant search results. They never took it for granted that users would always search on Google and that it would never be otherwise. They know they had to work hard to maintain their lead over their competitors.

      As to earlier algo changes, even if they always left some marketers complaining from a neutral viewpoint you could agree that they were well intended in favour of their users.

      Should Google now in fact deviate from its original company purpose "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and intentionally confuse and corrupt SEO and rankings to get website owners desparately turning to AdWords it WILL hurt their business. They will not lose a large percentage of their customers within a few months but they will decline longterm.

      It's not a myth that the most successful businesses are those which put their main focus on honestly delivering the best possible service to their customers. If they should find a way to make more money at the expense of their service it will only be a short termed gain.

      If I had any Google stocks I probably would get rid of them now!
      Signature

      Complete Understanding and Successful Application Of A Subject Depends On Knowing The Terminology
      www.internetmarketing-dictionary.com

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  • Profile picture of the author lniskasaari
    Originally Posted by greatestmj View Post

    I'm VERY certain that even if today you make a site, keep creating high quality content without any backlinks, you will NEVER rank. Never ever rank anywhere close to top. Nobody will find your site.
    Well, I´ve made 2 new sites in last 2 days and both of them:

    -Indexed really fast. Other of these sites was indexed in 2 minutes (that`s right - minutes) and both of them ranked high FAST...obviously without backlinks.

    -Have already made me money. Both of these sites made me some adsense money in less than 24 hours of creating.

    -Had less than 900 words so the sites are really thin.

    So, maybe you should just keep on building new sites...

    -Lauri
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  • Profile picture of the author Mister Rex
    Google's focus is to the users of their search engines... not us. So no, they havent lost their focus, and chances are not one average person off the street is going to notice anything different about their search results - only us.

    Google will be fine, because it doesnt exist to provide us rankings, it exists to help people looking fro things find the things they are looking for. Google will eventually get it right, and that is where their focus is. So yes, their focus is on the right thing.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dellco
      This has nothing to with improving their SERPs, this is a Penalization Update.

      You could also call it the Witch Hunt Update of 2012.
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    • Profile picture of the author inter123
      I voted "it has gone nuts" because it is effecting my business plans. It is a faceless corporate organisation that is doing what it needs to do in order increase profits. But that is no different to other big corporations.

      Many years ago, people looked at it as a friendly organisation that was on the side on the masses but it certainly is on the other side now.
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  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    What focus? Yesterday they announced Schmidt and Page are investing in a scheme to mine asteroids for precious metals. Now THAT is focus
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  • Profile picture of the author SeoKnightsInc
    You got backlinks from any of the methods widely used? You're dead.
    No its NOT like this. It happens to only those who handle there link building carelessly. Dont know from where do you got that crap "GOOGLE LOST ITS FOCUS".

    Its best than ever and it will be better. Whats wrong if they penalize sites that builds 1000 links a day ??? Whats wrong if they penalize site with poor user experience ???

    Also make it clear

    THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE NATURAL LINKS IF YOU WRITE WELL YOU WILL GET LINKS
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Hlatky
      Originally Posted by pbbiet View Post

      THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE NATURAL LINKS IF YOU WRITE WELL YOU WILL GET LINKS
      False. I have several sites that I have not done any backlinking on and they dropped in the rankings. Just pure content and now they are nowhere to be seen in Google.

      Someone has to find your content before they can link to it. How can anyone find your content without you posting a link to it (or from Google)?
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      • Profile picture of the author nikolai11
        Check this out:
        http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ey-online.html
        Signature
        Free backlinks and targeted traffic: www.thefreelinktool.com
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      • Profile picture of the author SeoKnightsInc
        Originally Posted by Mike Hlatky View Post

        False. I have several sites that I have not done any backlinking on and they dropped in the rankings. Just pure content and now they are nowhere to be seen in Google.

        Someone has to find your content before they can link to it. How can anyone find your content without you posting a link to it (or from Google)?

        Just a simple example and hope it will be clear

        I have a friend of mine who recently learned to configure wordpress he dont even know what is SEO but he is daily getting more than 500+ visits from just social media like facebook, pintrest and Stumbleupon. I was shocked to see this but he has done this without any link building and when people are finding his site they are linking to it.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steadyon
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          It's going to be ok.

          Not very helpful unfortunately.

          There are a lot of people feeling pain and rather bemused right now and I am sure some will say it is about time...

          But I KNOW many small mom & pops businesses and a number of normal run of the mill medium sized businesses that have suddenly taken big hits.

          Google can do whatever it wants, but when so much power is in the hands of so few, it can't be good for society...
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Steadyon View Post

            Not very helpful unfortunately.

            There are a lot of people feeling pain and rather bemused right now and I am sure some will say it is about time...

            But I KNOW many small mom & pops businesses and a number of normal run of the mill medium sized businesses that have suddenly taken big hits.

            Google can do whatever it wants, but when so much power is in the hands of so few, it can't be good for society...



            That's like saying you'll only accept traffic from people with blonde hair, diversify traffic!

            Google is only a small percentage of web traffic, I'm not talking about search traffic, I'm talking about actual traffic on the web (two different things).

            Diversify traffic or your not even trying to build a business.
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            • Profile picture of the author dp40oz
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              That's like saying you'll only accept traffic from people with blonde hair, diversify traffic!

              Google is only a small percentage of web traffic, I'm not talking about search traffic, I'm talking about actual traffic on the web (two different things).

              Diversify traffic or your not even trying to build a business.
              Although I do diversify my traffic I think thats a bit harsh of a statement. Thats like saying "If you just play the stock market you're not even trying to make a real living". Using Google is exactly like playing the stock market, and its not outlandish for people to make a living solely off of it and its tremendous earning capabilities. It may not be the most solid ground in the world, but its perfectly as viable as anything else. Any field/profession is unpredictable especially these days, Google just happens to be a bit more then most.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by dp40oz View Post

                Although I do diversify my traffic I think thats a bit harsh of a statement. Thats like saying "If you just play the stock market you're not even trying to make a real living". Using Google is exactly like playing the stock market, and its not outlandish for people to make a living solely off of it and its tremendous earning capabilities. It may not be the most solid ground in the world, but its perfectly as viable as anything else. Any field/profession is unpredictable especially these days, Google just happens to be a bit more then most.
                Sometimes I'm a bit harsh & just say it like it is, nothing personal to any one person.

                If a guy isn't a pro in the stock market, odds are he'll fail. By pro. I mean insider trading, lol.

                I see a lot of people on this forum that don't diversify traffic, 100% of their traffic is Google SERPs, that's not a very smart move IMO.

                If I have a site about credit repair, get out there & mingle with the top rated forums for personal finances. If the content on the site is good, you'll get a steady flow of 100% targeted traffic (free). I have one sub-niche forum that sends me between 1,000 - 3,000 highly targeted traffic per day on auto-pilot. My content on the sites is what they are looking for.

                I never spam niche forums (see my sig. here), I build content the best I can, show the niche forum traffic the content, answer questions related to my content, make a sale.

                After the site has been running for a while you can build an FAQ page that will deal with most questions. I still answer niche questions every now & then but for the most part the multiple sites in this same sub-niche are on auto-pilot.

                I do target Google SERPs for traffic, but my sites could easily survive without Google search traffic. The SERPs are free money so I don't turn it down.

                Bottom line IMO, If a people don't diversify traffic they are asking for trouble.
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                • Profile picture of the author dp40oz
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  If I have a site about credit repair, get out there & mingle with the top rated forums for personal finances. If the content on the site is good, you'll get a steady flow of 100% targeted traffic (free). I have one sub-niche forum that sends me between 1,000 - 3,000 highly targeted traffic per day on auto-pilot. My content on the sites is what they are looking for.

                  I never spam niche forums (see my sig. here), I build content the best I can, show the niche forum traffic the content, answer questions related to my content, make a sale.
                  So where are you promoting your website if you are not using a signature. How are these people finding your page? I love this idea and have utilized it on a few of my sites but only saw real traction from one huge forum in 1 niche. I know Ive been bugging you for a WSO but do you have any walkthrough or something about this type of thing. Search traffic is great, but when I am doing work for some clients I'd love to be brining in other forms of free traffic. Facebook traffic can get expensive and Youtube is not all its cracked up to be for most niches.

                  I just think when I've approached this type of forum traffic I haven't gone about correctly. Either way its always better to diversify, I guess some niches may just be harder to do that than others.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Architex
                    I agree in that if you rely on only one avenue to make your $ then you are only one heartbeat away from being out of business. This is true online and true offline. I learned this years ago since I had one major client that accounted for 80% of my business. The President of that company was fired and my company was cut out by the new President in favor of his guys that he was bringing in. I now diversify all of my revenue so this will never happen again. My site was hammered but I only got a small percentage of my business from Google so I really do not care one way or the other. I do feel for the people that have had their businesses turned upside down, since I experienced the same thing even if it was offline.

                    The one aspect where Google is making a mistake is the results are not necessarily better. And if the results get spotty then people will look for the information elsewhere. This is a fact and the whole reason Google became such a dominant force. They returned the most accurate results. If they lose sight of this by cutting of their nose to spite their face it will hurt them. All it will take is another search engine that gives better results. Plain and simple. Before Google,Yahoo reigned and now look at them.
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                    Architex
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by dp40oz View Post

                    So where are you promoting your website if you are not using a signature. How are these people finding your page? I love this idea and have utilized it on a few of my sites but only saw real traction from one huge forum in 1 niche. I know Ive been bugging you for a WSO but do you have any walkthrough or something about this type of thing. Search traffic is great, but when I am doing work for some clients I'd love to be brining in other forms of free traffic. Facebook traffic can get expensive and Youtube is not all its cracked up to be for most niches.

                    I just think when I've approached this type of forum traffic I haven't gone about correctly. Either way its always better to diversify, I guess some niches may just be harder to do that than others.
                    I'm not going to lie, it takes work to generate your own traffic without the SERPs, but If you go about it in a professional way by actually jumping in & helping people with problems related to your niche, they'll help you.

                    The key is building trust, not necessarily only links. I do build links, but I do it in a way that people ask me for my links, just like a potential offline client might ask for a business card.

                    I've submitted a lot of free content to niche forums before I had ever built links, but when the time was right & the traffic had seen the content I started building links. I built the links for direct traffic, it's helped with SEO & those few niche forums follow me in the SERPs a lot of times, my ultimate goal was direct forum traffic.

                    People won't whip out a credit card unless they trust you, building trust isn't free, you have to invest time & show the traffic that you can solve their problem.

                    I know you've asked me about creating WSOs & I appreciate that, I'll do something, might not be a WSO, I don't know yet.

                    If your trying to help a client, my advice is sell them on brand building for direct traffic as a backup traffic source at the very least.

                    This link is a Cliffs Notes of what I do to build up niche forum traffic.

                    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post5252838
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    • Profile picture of the author greatestmj
      Originally Posted by Mister Rex View Post

      Google's focus is to the users of their search engines... not us. So no, they havent lost their focus, and chances are not one average person off the street is going to notice anything different about their search results - only us.

      Google will be fine, because it doesnt exist to provide us rankings, it exists to help people looking fro things find the things they are looking for. Google will eventually get it right, and that is where their focus is. So yes, their focus is on the right thing.
      See, the past panda updates did many things to improve a user's experience but this one is not. It was not aimed at improving anything but just to penalise people who tried to improve rankings. But for me it is absolutely fine for me wanting to rank high if I am providing really good content for readers to read.

      Originally Posted by Dellco View Post

      This has nothing to with improving their SERPs, this is a Penalization Update.

      You could also call it the Witch Hunt Update of 2012.
      I completely second that.


      Originally Posted by pbbiet View Post

      No its NOT like this. It happens to only those who handle there link building carelessly. Dont know from where do you got that crap "GOOGLE LOST ITS FOCUS".

      Its best than ever and it will be better. Whats wrong if they penalize sites that builds 1000 links a day ??? Whats wrong if they penalize site with poor user experience ???

      Also make it clear

      THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE NATURAL LINKS IF YOU WRITE WELL YOU WILL GET LINKS
      No sir this is not true. Past updates did hit sites with low quality content and who tried to build thousands of links daily to get top rankings. This time several people got penalised who did no such thing. This time they even targetted sites that did some onpage SEO stuff like keyword/title/url optimisations for ranking which was completely white hat till a while ago. Google should stick to something. For example, tomorrow google cant say like Exact Match domains are wrong becuase EMD sites not necessarily share bad quality content, I've read several useful stuff on EMD sites. Today google will say EMD is over optimisation to rank and penalise them? Thats flawed logic and a cheating against so many people who spent money on making sites.

      Had google told us these kinds of things previously, we would have adopted by it. What is wrong about Google update this time is instead of reducing weightage for several factors, they actually penalised sites doing things which weren't "WRONG" by any means. I would agree if google penalised people link building thousands a day but thats not the case. Many people who didnt do any link building also got hit because of Onpage SEO. Very very wrong.

      Originally Posted by bminor View Post

      I strongly disagree.

      Up to now Google seemed to have known what their biggest asset was, the Google SE users. The main purpose always was to change their algorithm in the direction of better and more relevant search results. They never took it for granted that users would always search on Google and that it would never be otherwise. They know they had to work hard to maintain their lead over their competitors.

      As to earlier algo changes, even if they always left some marketers complaining from a neutral viewpoint you could agree that they were well intended in favour of their users.

      Should Google now in fact deviate from its original company purpose “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful" and intentionally confuse and corrupt SEO and rankings to get website owners desparately turning to AdWords it WILL hurt their business. They will not lose a large percentage of their customers within a few months but they will decline longterm.

      It's not a myth that the most successful businesses are those which put their main focus on honestly delivering the best possible service to their customers. If they should find a way to make more money at the expense of their service it will only be a short termed gain.

      If I had any Google stocks I probably would get rid of them now!
      I completely agree. Google changed it's focus from improving quality of reader's experience to start a war against Internet Markters, people doing SEO and who knows an aim to profit themselves through Adwords?.
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      • Profile picture of the author SeoKnightsInc
        Originally Posted by greatestmj View Post

        No sir this is not true. Past updates did hit sites with low quality content and who tried to build thousands of links daily to get top rankings. This time several people got penalised who did no such thing. This time they even targetted sites that did some onpage SEO stuff like keyword/title/url optimisations for ranking which was completely white hat till a while ago. Google should stick to something. For example, tomorrow google cant say like Exact Match domains are wrong becuase EMD sites not necessarily share bad quality content, I've read several useful stuff on EMD sites. Today google will say EMD is over optimisation to rank and penalise them? Thats flawed logic and a cheating against so many people who spent money on making sites.
        My main site domain is EMD, uses k/w in title in h1,h2, h3 in URL and all that stuff that a few people say is over optimization and from that site i earn about 2K per month just from adsense. Every article i post ranks either 1st for that k/w or second and same for 5-7 major k/w similar to main k/w i target and all of this without any backlink. Only thing i do is to provide quality content to the users with lot of info and info graphics.
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  • Profile picture of the author eternalwarrior
    They want us to put money in adwords!
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  • Profile picture of the author addlinkweb
    Its just became very strict in link building, many blackhat SEO Experts are now started link farming for competitor websites to put them down
    Google is not doing good. We have to purchase its adwords
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  • Profile picture of the author spaxton1
    Google is so worried about people doing SEO that they will do anything to try to control it; even if it means hurting their search engine. Regardless of what people say; the recent "Penguin Update" is making the serps full of junk.

    People that do SEO in most cases provide value to the serps.

    Here's my 2 cents on Google's Panda Update: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...in-update.html
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