A couple of thoughts on Penguin

Ive been monitoring this forum, the Google Webmaster Blog and of course my own rankings, as well as performing various searches within Google itself to try and come up with some sort of idea on whats going on.

Here are a few thought off the top of my head.

1. Exact match domains are NOT DEAD.

I still have one site that uses an EMD that wasnt affected. Actually, it did drop from 1st spot back to 8th, but that was nothing in comparison to one of my other sites.

2. EMD's certainly arent what they used to be.

It only takes a few searches within Google to see that EMD's arent being favoured as they have in the past. Im seeing more and more EMD's listed page 3, page 5 and so on. Infact Im seeing some EMD's not even listed at all, even when performing a "phrase search"

3. Google is now giving additional weight to "inner pages"

Again, this is obvious. Perform a search within Google.com and type in "market samurai review" (without the quotes) and note how many "inner pages" and "category pages" are ranked well. Many of the domains dont even contain the target keywords. You'll note that marketsamuraireview.org and marketsamurai123.com are still listed, which revisits my point made above (EMD's or very close variations are not dead)

4. Some of Googles search results are HORRIBLE.

I dont think I need to list any examples here. We're seeing them all over the place. I, like many others, are in a bit of disbelief just how bad the results are.

5. Googles attempt to rid the web of webspam, in my opinion has almost done the opposite.

In my experience, many of my sites, are now being "outranked" by single page blogspot affiliate sites, scraper sites, and other sites that have simply copied my content. Even though my articles clearly have rel="author" tags on them, theyre dated and all contain my name. Ive also noticed that "black cat world" seems to be ranking relatively well after the update. Go figure.

6. Many highly ranked pages listed have been abandoned.

I dont know about you guys, but Im seeing countless weebly, tripod and other useless blogs that havent been updated since 1999. I thought for sure, that there would be some form of rollback or improvement, but its obvious thats not going to happen. Im not sure how this improves the "user experience" in any way.

7. Whinging about these changes wont fix anything.

Im probably contradicting myself here, because like everyone else, that DIDNT implement black cat techniques and STILL got hit, Im pretty dissapointed. Im at a loss at to what to do from here. So far its just been "business as usual" (writing content, answering emails and checking stats etc) For what its worth, you might want to submit this form to Google and have them look at your site. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...THZkaTBQbkE6MQ

Of course, dont submit the feedback form if youve been blasting useless links all over the place back to your site!

8. What to do from here.

The best thing to do right now is probably NOTHING. Even though we havent heard from Google regarding this update, I would (at a guess) be hopeful that theyre still tweaking stuff. God help them if they arent, because their results are very poor in places. I wouldnt recommend changing anything because...If things worsen

a) You wont know if its because you changed something OR
b) The algorithm has been changed again

Having said that, its obvious, for those that have never been hit before, this is a big wake up call. Its said OFTEN on this forum. Never just rely on Google for traffic. Theres a LOT of traffic elsewhere (pinterest, facebook, twitter, etc) I know its hard not to be attracted to Google, as thats where a great deal of our customers come from, but this change demonstrates the volatility of this approach.

9. Change your onsite approach.

Most defintely, one of the best strategies (IMO) is to do away with multi level keyword implementation (I just made that up btw ) By this I mean - dont do this...

www.blue-widgets.com/blue-widgets/blue-widgets.html

Then on TOP of that, within your page "blue-widgets.html"

Put your title tag as "blue widgets" then set your header tags to "blue widgets", stuff your page with "blue widgets" and set all of your header tags with "blue widgets" ....oh and your images, dont call them all "blue-widgets1.gif", "blue-widgets2.gif" and so on.

Youd be MUCH BETTER OFF in this environment to just publish natural content.

eg www.johnswebsite/stuff/blue-widgets.html

See what Ive done there?

10. DIVERSIFY, your backlinking profile.

I dont know if link building services are dead or not. I dont use them anyway, but for gods sake, if you have a site www.blue-widgets.com then make sure you ...

1. DONT just backlink to your home page using "blue widgets" - use a combination of your target keywords.
2. DO backlink across your entire site. The category pages, and other inner pages. This spread will make your backlinking look more natural.
3. This is just a *thought* and nothing proven, but I would also consider backlinking to your site using your URL. Look at any natural link within a forum or blog post, and in most cases people just dump the URL in there.

11. Quit trying to take shortcuts.

This BS proves that trying to take shortcuts NEVER works in the long run.

Anyway, a few things to think about. These are only my thoughts. Others will probably add their own thoughts/experiences. But from what Ive seen, and from the one site that I had that got hit the most, these points are probably worthwhile noting.

EDIT *

12. LSI

Latent semantic indexing is probably more important now than its ever been. Try implementing LSI not only within your content but also within your domains as well. Heres how I find RMD's (related match domains)

(click below)

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post6137027