Google To Crack Down on Low-Quality, Exact-Match Domains

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  • SEO
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If you thought that just having an exact-match domain name was enough to secure a top 10 ranking, think again. Matt Cutts announced via Twitter of an upcoming Google algo change. Read more about how big of an impact this is expected to have by clicking here.
#crack #domains #exactmatch #google #lowquality
  • Profile picture of the author Long Beach Nathan
    I thought this might be coming. I had a feeling Google saw those as spammy, and I'm so glad I don't operate any EMDs!
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    Amen man...It was only a matter of time. The EMD zealots must be losing their minds.
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    • Profile picture of the author SantiSantana
      Damn... I was just about to buy 2 EMD for my two new websites. Thing is, they exactly match the sites' intent. Now I'm having second thoughts...
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by SantiSantana View Post

        Damn... I was just about to buy 2 EMD for my two new websites. Thing is, they exactly match the sites' intent. Now I'm having second thoughts...
        You should have been having second thoughts a year ago when Google started making noise about them. I've tried telling people this day as coming but the EMD zealots just kept shouting me down.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

          You should have been having second thoughts a year ago when Google started making noise about them. I've tried telling people this day as coming but the EMD zealots just kept shouting me down.
          Yeah me too. People were just giving crazy non-realistic searches to prove
          otherwise.

          However, people seem to miss the "low quality" part, and just focus on
          the EMD.

          Maybe this will stop the insanity of allowing everybody in who
          can buy an EMD, install WP, then think they are a webmaster.

          Paul
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          • Well said paulgl.

            Some people here just don't see the phrase low quality in "low quality EMD" sites and are constantly spamming others thread with their nonsense posts, promoting their BS in signature.

            Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

            Yeah me too. People were just giving crazy non-realistic searches to prove
            otherwise.

            However, people seem to miss the "low quality" part, and just focus on
            the EMD.

            Maybe this will stop the insanity of allowing everybody in who
            can buy an EMD, install WP, then think they are a webmaster.

            Paul
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by ecommercevisibility View Post

              Well said paulgl.

              Some people here just don't see the phrase low quality in "low quality EMD" sites and are constantly spamming others thread with their nonsense posts, promoting their BS in signature.
              Thanks for the shout-out. I have to assume from your name that your ecommerce is no longer so visible based on your constant attacks and bitterness.
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      • Profile picture of the author contentwriting360
        Banned
        Fellow, you should not be having second thoughts if you'll be posting quality and relevant content to your EMD site. As mentioned by Mr. Cutts, they're only penalizing EMD sites with poor quality content and not just simply by having an EMD site.

        Originally Posted by SantiSantana View Post

        Damn... I was just about to buy 2 EMD for my two new websites. Thing is, they exactly match the sites' intent. Now I'm having second thoughts...
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        • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
          Originally Posted by contentwriting360 View Post

          Fellow, you should not be having second thoughts if you'll be posting quality and relevant content to your EMD site. As mentioned by Mr. Cutts, they're only penalizing EMD sites with poor quality content and not just simply by having an EMD site.
          You don't think plenty of "quality" EMD sites are going to get hit? I doubt Google is going to spend much time determining between the two.
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      • Profile picture of the author alrealestate
        But they are looking for content, if you have an EMD then fill it with the right content
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        • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
          Originally Posted by alrealestate View Post

          But they are looking for content, if you have an EMD then fill it with the right content
          The problem is this:

          "Most" (bolded for those who decide to call me out later) people who get involved with EMDs have ZERO idea of what "quality" is. They think the the $6 500-word article they bought is "quality" because it cost them $0.012 per word instead of $0.01 per word.
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    • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      Amen man...It was only a matter of time. The EMD zealots must be losing their minds.
      I know of some who operate literally hundreds of EMD's. I've always thought it was a HORRIBLE idea. Too expensive, and you're setting yourself up for something like this.
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    • Profile picture of the author ibmethatswhoib
      G-Tool.....Believe everything Cutts drools out, a lot more than just EMD's got hit genius. Get off the Koolaid and you're newb leeching WSO's.

      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      Amen man...It was only a matter of time. The EMD zealots must be losing their minds.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay D
    I literally just saw this and was about to post it here. Guess you beat me to it!
    Anyway as long your EMD isn't just a one page site with crappy content - you should be okay.

    I have a few EMD's - lets see what happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by Jayneel D View Post

      Anyway as long your EMD isn't just a one page site with crappy content - you should be okay.
      No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
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      • Profile picture of the author THK
        Originally Posted by SantiSantana View Post

        Damn... I was just about to buy 2 EMD for my two new websites. Thing is, they exactly match the sites' intent. Now I'm having second thoughts...
        If you want to launch a site, you should do it anyway. Don't let G or any other company influence your decision.

        If you don't get traffic from G, can't you get that traffic from other sources like Facebook or other social media?

        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

        No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
        They might spare some big ones like Shopping, Car etc. Just a thought.

        Tanvir
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        • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
          Originally Posted by THK View Post

          They might spare some big ones like Shopping, Car etc. Just a thought.

          Tanvir
          That's exactly my point. You will see some of the more legit ones spared. The vast majority, though, will be toast.
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          • Profile picture of the author Complex
            [DELETED]
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            • Profile picture of the author jodiesmitham
              Originally Posted by Complex View Post

              Lol, what do you think... the more "prophetic" you sound, the more people will click on your sig and buy your Amazon guide? Statements of prophecy are NOT FACTUAL statements. For some reason it seems like you think they are. Sadly, I bet a lot of newbs will think you know something they don't and will click on your sig link.

              Forum marketing is so simple, ain't it
              I've disagreed with Wolfmii in other threads (), but in his defence he has been warning people of the dangers of EMD for months and months and has advised people to steer clear of them.

              I didn't take this advice and a few of my EMD sites have dropped in rankings. One has completely disappeared. I think those of us with dropped rankings could try a few ideas out:

              - see what happens over the next week or two. Some sites 'hit' by Panda and Penguin miraculously reappeared days/weeks later.

              - create new domains and write new content with your keywords in mind. Later down the line if your sites hit by this new release don't recover, you could use some of the content on your new sites (of course not using the 'exact' same content).

              - start completely afresh with new keywords and domains. I've noticed that some of my sites hit were quite competitive so it may be worthwhile to try other topics.

              Those who were relying on these sites for income, get your skates on and start creating good quality sites. In two to three months you may be able to start earning again.
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          • Profile picture of the author Iamcap
            Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

            That's exactly my point. You will see some of the more legit ones spared. The vast majority, though, will be toast.
            What kind of a statement is this? You are spreading nothing but an unbackable rumour.... Oh right you have a WSO that tells newbies how to avoid this problem... Right...
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by Iamcap View Post

              Oh right you have a WSO that tells newbies how to avoid this problem... Right...
              LOL. While you're busy trashing me, my client's (and my own) sites continue to rank and make money. Bash away. Doesn't hurt me a bit.
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      • Profile picture of the author zaco
        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

        No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
        EMD is like any other domain now, I have an EMD and it actually gained more rankings after this change, its about your site structure and the information you provide, I believe they did a manual analysis for all the EMDs that are ranking for hot keywords too
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        • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
          Originally Posted by zaco View Post

          I believe they did a manual analysis for all the EMDs that are ranking for hot keywords too
          Not a chance. They simply don't have the manpower to manually review so many sites.
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          • Profile picture of the author zaco
            Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

            Not a chance. They simply don't have the manpower to manually review so many sites.
            Not all of the sites but for the high traffic keywords, Google will do anything to keep their results as clean as possible, they actually do manual site analysis for alot of sites that are ranking at the top positions but again this algo is good since it will take alot of garbage EMDs from the search results

            If you have a site that is ranking for a really good keyword, check the visitors ip addresses and you will notice at some point you will get visits and the ip address belongs to Google, watch what pages they do visit and from their behavior you can tell they are reviewing the site
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      • Profile picture of the author dcary13
        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

        No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
        Thats not true in the general intension. I have some EMDs, my authorities EMD did not suffer.

        This is not against EMD at all, that would make no sense. There are tons of legit, high content and authority EMDs out there, they are all fine - why not? Its against EMD which are overoptimized, no athority and no brand.

        EMD are still cool to get the extra bonus but of them and i am sure they always will, but much harder now to use. You have to setup the content and keyword density pretty careful.
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        • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
          Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post

          Thats not true in the general intension. I have some EMDs, my authorities EMD did not suffer.

          This is not against EMD at all, that would make no sense. There are tons of legit, high content and authority EMDs out there, they are all fine - why not? Its against EMD which are overoptimized, no athority and no brand.

          EMD are still cool to get the extra bonus but of them and i am sure they always will, but much harder now to use. You have to setup the content and keyword density pretty careful.
          At the risk of "pimping" again (as some have accused me of), I'll respond.

          Saying it is not against EMD at all is incorrect. It's exactly what this update is. And I'll repeat what I said before (with emphasis):

          VIRTUALLY all EMDs will be toast.

          Yes, many EMDs will escape the wrath. However, when you compare the number that escape to the total number of EMDs in production, I suspect that ratio to be north of 80%-90%. That qualifies as "VIRTUALLY ALL" in my book.
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          • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
            Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

            At the risk of "pimping" again (as some have accused me of), I'll respond.

            Saying it is not against EMD at all is incorrect. It's exactly what this update is. And I'll repeat what I said before (with emphasis):

            VIRTUALLY all EMDs will be toast.

            Yes, many EMDs will escape the wrath. However, when you compare the number that escape to the total number of EMDs in production, I suspect that ratio to be north of 80%-90%. That qualifies as "VIRTUALLY ALL" in my book.
            So, what kind of EMD site do you see escaping the wrath?
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by jimnastics View Post

              So, what kind of EMD site do you see escaping the wrath?
              jimnastics...

              That's a good question that I don't necessarily know the answer to. I would suspect that the size of the site (possibly) or maybe age of domain could play a role. I even wonder if niche has something to do with it.
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          • Profile picture of the author dcary13
            Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

            At the risk of "pimping" again (as some have accused me of), I'll respond.

            Saying it is not against EMD at all is incorrect. It's exactly what this update is. And I'll repeat what I said before (with emphasis):

            VIRTUALLY all EMDs will be toast.

            Yes, many EMDs will escape the wrath. However, when you compare the number that escape to the total number of EMDs in production, I suspect that ratio to be north of 80%-90%. That qualifies as "VIRTUALLY ALL" in my book.
            I hear you, but your argumentation has a "chicken or egg" problem.

            why are virtually so many EMD effect? Because that EMD are VIRTUALLY all setup by cheap or shady IMs.

            To use an EMD was, as you you already noted, a great hype - thats why so many EMD are used by IMs and SEO and thats why are so much overoptimzed or hit by "tricky" SEO.

            This is not a move against EMDs - its a move against the EMD creators.

            Its like you are in stadion where the group in the blue shirts are singing and the one in the green not.

            You think the singing is related to the shirts? There is a reason why the group is singing and there is a reason they use that shirt - but the shirt itself does nothing.

            See: If i setup now a domain which call ExactMatchDomain.com.

            But i let rank it for free cookies and never use the phrase "exact match domain" - what then i have? A EMD or not? And at which point i get an EMD?

            When i one time use the phrase in the content? In the title too? 2-3 anchors?

            EMD is a far not that defined term as it seems.

            And that is, where you can game google. Thats the part where i wrote about that this update has 2 faces.

            No offence - but i think i got a point, or?

            And i know your intention - you are not really wrong - but think on - there is alot more to come.

            Following your orignal intention everything which is a combination of real words is now shit because EMD. At last they will become an EMD when the content goes for it. That will not happen.
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post


              - there is alot more to come.
              We can definitely agree on this....
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              • Profile picture of the author dcary13
                Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                We can definitely agree on this....
                We can even go on and say - try to have a authority site or brand and forgive the microsites except you go the real spam road and know what you are doing.

                The "grey" road between that is, what google is slowly closing.

                Alot things are count different now - the gap between the standard domain and a brand/authority becomes bigger with every update google gives.

                You will not get penealized for things as authority site as you are for a new/low domain.

                The right road is now the goal.

                Before 2012 the goal was to setup a domain with all you can throw in.

                Now, the the trick is to add things related to the "authority value" of the site.
                Not optimizing all you can do at once. Not adding to much anchors and so on.

                We have to find out the right degree of "SEO optimation" depending "value" of the site and on that depending penealty borders which are given now by Panda and other ranking calculation like this update.

                Panda changed the game in the way it defined a border where the "bad things" of a website adds up now alot heavier. Panda was a changer in terms malus values are not generally "added" anymore which gives a somewhat slow line growing to a penealty. With Panda the single malus values are fast escalated now by the numbers of single malus values to the penealty border.

                Sites like SEOmoz and such wich try to analyze a site depending on their stats will become more important, i think.
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            • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
              Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post

              I hear you, but your argumentation has a "chicken or egg" problem.

              why are virtually so many EMD effect? Because that EMD are VIRTUALLY all setup by cheap or shady IMs.

              To use an EMD was, as you you already noted, a great hype - thats why so many EMD are used by IMs and SEO and thats why are so much overoptimzed or hit by "tricky" SEO.

              This is not a move against EMDs - its a move against the EMD creators.

              Its like you are in stadion where the group in the blue shirts are singing and the one in the green not.

              You think the singing is related to the shirts? There is a reason why the group is singing and there is a reason they use that shirt - but the shirt itself does nothing.

              See: If i setup now a domain which call ExactMatchDomain.com.

              But i let rank it for free cookies and never use the phrase "exact match domain" - what then i have? A EMD or not? And at which point i get an EMD?

              When i one time use the phrase in the content? In the title too? 2-3 anchors?

              EMD is a far not that defined term as it seems.

              And that is, where you can game google. Thats the part where i wrote about that this update has 2 faces.

              No offence - but i think i got a point, or?

              And i know your intention - you are not really wrong - but think on - there is alot more to come.

              Following your orignal intention everything which is a combination of real words is now shit because EMD. At last they will become an EMD when the content goes for it. That will not happen.
              You make sense to me mate, I agree with most of what you've said.
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  • Profile picture of the author imwebmasters
    True, there is no reason for Google to target anything else but those 3 to 10-page made-for-adsense low quality EMDs that people have been building for years. Also, if you have built up your EMD to some sort of authority then you should feel safe. But, people ranking their EMD just because it's an EMD and not backed up by anything else will suffer (which is the case for a lot of sites).
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  • Profile picture of the author rendell
    Omg, it's immediate. From 1st page to ....

    EMD is officially dead.
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    Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

    They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    No wonder why a lot of people recently complaining about losing their ranks.. This is not a surprise anyway..
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    Moderator's Note: You're only allowed to put your own products or sites in your signature.

    Signature edited.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaximodo
    err~~ what is the meaning of EMD?
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    • Profile picture of the author JamesColin
      Banned
      EMD = Exact Match Domain
      if targeting "funny blue widgets" take domain name funnybluewidgets.com
      It will still work fine if the site is compelling, or it would be a google's mistake to penalize them.
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  • Profile picture of the author rendell
    Yes, anything EMD is hit.
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    Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

    They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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    • Profile picture of the author jxam69
      Originally Posted by rendell View Post

      Yes, anything EMD is hit.
      False.

      I have one EMD and it has improved in Google SERPs since the announcement.
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      This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

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  • has this algo change happened already or happening in near future?
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    • Profile picture of the author rendell
      Originally Posted by PowerofAttorneyForm View Post

      has this algo change happened already or happening in near future?
      It happened the last few hours.
      Signature

      .
      Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

      They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

        No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
        Highly doubt it, unless you have some kind of secret insight that is beyond the paranoia that is common with these announcements. If ALL EMD's are effected, then keyword domains are effected, keywords in the URLs will be effected, and that is simply not good for the search engine. It's not going to happen like that.

        Originally Posted by rendell View Post

        It happened the last few hours.
        Doesn't seem like it... I have quite a few EMD's that are still ranking great. I have one that is "under construction" no other word on the site and its ranking. I have another one that is sample text, and thats it, and its ranking, lol.
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        • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
          Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

          Highly doubt it, unless you have some kind of secret insight that is beyond the paranoia that is common with these announcements. If ALL EMD's are effected, then keyword domains are effected, keywords in the URLs will be effected, and that is simply not good for the search engine. It's not going to happen like that.
          Just keep watching....I'll leave it at that.
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          • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
            Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

            Just keep watching....I'll leave it at that.
            That's what people said during panda and penguin, and I'm still watching... Think about it logically, you can't effect ALL EMD's without effecting the importance of keywords in domains, and URL's for non EMD.

            Criminaldefenseattorney.com
            Vs.
            USattorney.com
            vs.
            freemovies.com

            Punishing ALL EMD's would essentially mean ALL keywords in domains (possible in URL's as well) would end up being irrelevant. It would lower the quality of Google search results.

            Saying ALL EMD's are going to be punished, is not only pure speculation with no proof to back up your assumptions, but it is not logical. It doesn't benefit Google by doing that. Your hunch, or belief is just not going to be possible if Google wants to provide quality results, as a VERY large chuck of the SERPs would be effected.

            If it were to go down like you say.... and someone were to search criminal defense attorney... not only would the EMD be effected, but the USattorney.com website would be effected because of the gain it gets from having one keyword in it. freemovies, which obviously would seem like an irrelevant site, is given a chance to game the search engines.

            Not possible.
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post


              Saying ALL EMD's are going to be punished, is not only pure speculation with no proof to back up your assumptions, but it is not logical. It doesn't benefit Google by doing that. Your hunch, or belief is just not going to be possible if Google wants to provide quality results, as a VERY large chuck of the SERPs would be effected.
              Re-read my post.....
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              • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                Re-read my post.....
                I did... and it still says the same as it did the first time I saw it...

                Instead of responding with worthless one liners, why don't you provide value that would contribute to the forum with reasoning of why you believe in what you do?
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                • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                  Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

                  I did... and it still says the same as it did the first time I saw it...

                  Instead of responding with worthless one liners, why don't you provide value that would contribute to the forum with reasoning of why you believe in what you do?
                  Dude...You even quoted me...go read it AGAIN....

                  HINT: Post #19
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                  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                    Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                    Dude...You even quoted me...go read it AGAIN....
                    All I'm seeing is the increasing possibility that you're just trolling EMD topics to promote your WSO conveniently linked in your siggy. Please prove me wrong and provide a REAL response. I know what you said... it just is unfounded.
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                    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

                      All I'm seeing is the increasing possibility that you're just trolling EMD topics to promote your WSO conveniently linked in your siggy. Please prove me wrong and provide a REAL response. I know what you said... it just is unfounded.
                      You QUOTED ME and then made a comment mis-characterizing what I said (even with my quote in your post). Please, if you are going to call me out, at least be accurate.
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                  • Profile picture of the author fin
                    Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                    Dude...You even quoted me...go read it AGAIN....

                    HINT: Post #19
                    Are you playing on the word 'virtually?'
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                    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                      Originally Posted by fin View Post

                      Are you playing on the word 'virtually?'
                      Yes I am. If I didn't mean "virtually", I wouldn't have said "virtually". NameLess apparently isn't getting it.
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                      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                        Yes I am. If I didn't mean "virtually", I wouldn't have said "virtually". NameLess apparently isn't getting it.
                        I understand what you were saying, you were just very incorrect. Apparently you aren't "getting it".
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                        • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                          Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

                          That's what people said during panda and penguin, and I'm still watching... Think about it logically, you can't effect ALL EMD's without effecting the importance of keywords in domains, and URL's for non EMD.

                          Criminaldefenseattorney.com
                          Vs.
                          USattorney.com
                          vs.
                          freemovies.com

                          Punishing ALL EMD's would essentially mean ALL keywords in domains (possible in URL's as well) would end up being irrelevant. It would lower the quality of Google search results.

                          Saying ALL EMD's are going to be punished, is not only pure speculation with no proof to back up your assumptions, but it is not logical. It doesn't benefit Google by doing that. Your hunch, or belief is just not going to be possible if Google wants to provide quality results, as a VERY large chuck of the SERPs would be effected.

                          If it were to go down like you say.... and someone were to search criminal defense attorney... not only would the EMD be effected, but the USattorney.com website would be effected because of the gain it gets from having one keyword in it. freemovies, which obviously would seem like an irrelevant site, is given a chance to game the search engines.

                          Not possible.
                          Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                          You QUOTED ME and then made a comment mis-characterizing what I said (even with my quote in your post). Please, if you are going to call me out, at least be accurate.
                          Can you tell me what isn't accurate about what I said? I already stated what isn't accurate in what you posted.
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                          • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                            Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

                            Can you tell me what isn't accurate about what I said? I already stated what isn't accurate in what you posted.
                            I'm not debating what you said and whether it's accurate or not. I'm correcting you as you seem to think I believe ALL EMDs will be affected. No more, no less.
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                      • Profile picture of the author fin
                        Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                        Yes I am. If I didn't mean "virtually", I wouldn't have said "virtually". NameLess apparently isn't getting it.
                        I'm not sure what % that means, but I do agree there will be a few unhappy people.
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                        • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                          Originally Posted by fin View Post

                          I'm not sure what % that means, but I do agree there will be a few unhappy people.
                          It means almost all, in how he used it. Which is why I was unsure of why he wanted me to continue rereading the same thing over and over again which was incorrect.

                          This is how it started.

                          Originally Posted by Jayneel D View Post

                          Anyway as long your EMD isn't just a one page site with crappy content - you should be okay.
                          Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                          No, not really. You will see that virtually all EMDs will suffer. The thrust of the algo change is clearly EMD, not quality.
                          Jayneel made a comment about as long as it isn't crappy content or thin, you should be okay. Wolf, responded saying no, not really, and that almost all EMD's will suffer. In my previous post I explained why that is not possible. The algorithm is based on very very complex code and engines and other algorithms. I explained why if almost all EMD's were effected, then any keyword domain will be effected as well, which will effect the high quality websites as well as the low quality websites.

                          His statement is incorrect. It's nothing personal. I have nothing against wilfmmiii... but his statement was incorrect and I explained why. That's all there is to it.

                          Instead of throwing insults, lets have an intellectual discussion that is based on substance instead of hunches..
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                  • Profile picture of the author HeatherH
                    Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                    Dude...You even quoted me...go read it AGAIN....

                    HINT: Post #19
                    Yikes... Staying out of this one I think!
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            • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
              Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post


              Punishing ALL EMD's would essentially mean

              .....................................

              Saying ALL EMD's are going to be punished, is not only pure speculation with no proof to back up your assumptions, but it is not logical.
              Twice YOU mentioned ALL. Like I said, what you are arguing and what I said are two different animals. I'm simply correcting you.

              And I don't recall insulting you anywhere in the thread either. If I did, please point that out.
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              • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
                Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                Twice YOU mentioned ALL. Like I said, what you are arguing and what I said are two different animals.
                OMG... you just can't have a real discussion can you?

                Your statement was incorrect. I explained WHY it was incorrect. It doesn't matter if you said all, most, majority, or virtually all, it is STILL incorrect, and I explained that. Perhaps YOU should reread my posts.
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                • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                  Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

                  OMG... you just can't have a real discussion can you?

                  Your statement was incorrect. I explained WHY it was incorrect. It doesn't matter if you said all, most, majority, or virtually all, it is STILL incorrect, and I explained that. Perhaps YOU should reread my posts.
                  I absolutely can have a real discussion, provided you quote me accurately and argue the points I made and not made up ones. You seem to be the one that's getting upset. I'm just sitting here watching Tosh.0 and having a debate with you.

                  My statement is not incorrect. You are seeing evidence all over the web already. When all is said and done, there will be very few EMDs left standing when compared to the whole.
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                  • No it seems you don't. You are just promoting your sig...

                    For your kind information my one page EMD site is now #1.

                    Can you please stop spamming the forum and posting your signature links in each reply?

                    Thanks
                    Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                    I absolutely can have a real discussion, provided you quote me accurately and argue the points I made and not made up ones. You seem to be the one that's getting upset. I'm just sitting here watching Tosh.0 and having a debate with you.

                    My statement is not incorrect. You are seeing evidence all over the web already. When all is said and done, there will be very few EMDs left standing when compared to the whole.
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                    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                      Originally Posted by ecommercevisibility View Post

                      .

                      Can you please stop spamming the forum and posting your signature links in each reply?

                      Thanks
                      Nah, that's OK. I like my sig.
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                    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                      Originally Posted by ecommercevisibility View Post


                      For your kind information my one page EMD site is now #1.
                      Come see me in a week or two....
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                  • Profile picture of the author bluecoyotemedia
                    Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                    I absolutely can have a real discussion, provided you quote me accurately and argue the points I made and not made up ones. You seem to be the one that's getting upset. I'm just sitting here watching Tosh.0 and having a debate with you.

                    My statement is not incorrect. You are seeing evidence all over the web already. When all is said and done, there will be very few EMDs left standing when compared to the whole.


                    wolfman


                    have to agree with i am nameless

                    it seems your just hawking your sig.
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                    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                      Originally Posted by bluecoyotemedia View Post

                      wolfman


                      have to agree with i am nameless

                      it seems your just hawking your sig.
                      You are entitled to your opinion. Anything else to contribute to the discussion at hand? Because everything I've said is relevant and accurate.

                      EDIT: You do realize there are several other members in this thread with sigs too, right?? (Approximately 20 or so, including NameLess). :rolleyes:
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  • Had to of just happened because I had a site that was completely knocked out in the last hour. It was not linked and was ranking earlier today pretty well.
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  • Profile picture of the author fin
    He did say low-quality. No worries for warriors.
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  • Profile picture of the author Niko A Berezkin
    EMD's will still hold value. I'd rather have a quality EMD than a quality non-EMD.... good news is that many niches will start to open up again... some of the site ranking top 10 on just EMD merrit are total junk. I for one am happy about this development.
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    NameLess....

    All I can say is:




    You obviously didn't understand what I was saying because you insisted that I said ALL exact-match domains would be punished. My point is that I never said that. You clearly missed the nuance of my statement.

    I stand by my comment. Virtually all EMDs will be hit. That means a very, very, very large percentage of them. Some will survive but there will be very few. Is that clear enough for you?

    Oh, and thanks for the reference to my sig. It gets more eyeballs to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author birdie28a
    I just checked a couple of my EMD and the two I looked at have vanished? Even the competitors sites are gone. However I still see others that have not moved yet, will have to keep watching.
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  • Profile picture of the author iazarr
    Banned
    If you have enough of quality content and you building quality backlinks there is no update that can destroy you. This going to punish only Low Quality Sites with EMD Domains probably.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bambu
    A few of my non-EMD websites were hit. These websites had dozens of pages of quality content written by a well educated American college graduate. Their backlink profiles had plenty of contextual raw URL anchored backlinks. The websites also generated plenty of organic shares and likes.

    In each case, the whole website was effected - the mainpage and inner pages, which ranked for numerous keywords. The keywords were included in the URL for the inner pages.

    I am still hoping that the websites will resurface once the algo update is complete, but I am not holding my breath.

    I need to figure out what triggered this penalty and either address it on the current websites or build new ones.

    A couple of these websites were using a popular CTR style theme, but with non-aggressive ad placements. I wonder if Google might be targeting these themes?

    I am also left wondering if this update will be a periodic filter like penguin and panda, or a part of the algo. If it is part of the algo we will be able to figure it out much quicker.
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  • Profile picture of the author MaggieDavid
    Oh Dear, this is going to be interesting. I wonder whats next.
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  • Profile picture of the author Martin Lee Jr
    I just read the article, and I agree with an earlier post. My takeaway - as long as the emd is not the driver of your website (one page websites, which penguin pretty much obliterated anyway) than you should be fine.

    But we'll see - I could be wrong
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    I've preached time after time..

    The days of gaming Google are numbered.

    Google phds > blackhats
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    • Profile picture of the author rendell
      Originally Posted by Sarevok View Post

      I've preached time after time..

      The days of gaming Google are numbered.

      Google phds > blackhats
      LOL, this is so funny but true
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      .
      Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

      They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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      • Profile picture of the author helterskelter
        Oh, hello, page SEVENTEEN. You aren't nearly as pretty as page 1 was just last night....

        Looks like one of my sites was likely affected. However, I left it sitting with about 10 pages for a year or so and just added two new pages last week, so maybe it actually has something to do with that.
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  • Profile picture of the author fin
    @Nameless,

    You won't win. Just make your excuses and leave like I did, lol.
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    • Profile picture of the author shifat
      Its time to see something good don from Google as i have seen few EMD site on some niche are ranking on top with low quality contents when sites with much better quality content & professional looking site ranking lower.
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  • Profile picture of the author dalegolden
    It was a matter of time. There are a lot more things to come which will may disappear the things related to SEO.
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  • Anyone have a pr3 site or better pr hit?
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    • Profile picture of the author pjdengler
      Originally Posted by PowerofAttorneyForm View Post

      Anyone have a pr3 site or better pr hit?
      I had a PR4 and a PR3 hit. The PR4 was not an exact match and it had 80 pages of American college student written content. The PR3 was not exact either and had 100 pages of American college student written content.

      Yet, all of the old EMDs that I have abandoned over a year ago with Indian written content stayed the same or increased rank...
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam X
    From the looks of things, the algo looks to crack down on only LOW QUALITY EMDs. If it was indeed to effect all EMDs, it would wipe out a vast majority of websites in search results, and that wouldn't make sense. And despite panda and penguin, I still do see these really low quality spammy sites in search results. So, all in all, I wouldn't be worried.
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    • Profile picture of the author rendell
      Originally Posted by Adam X View Post

      From the looks of things, the algo looks to crack down on only LOW QUALITY EMDs. If it was indeed to effect all EMDs, it would wipe out a vast majority of websites in search results, and that wouldn't make sense. And despite panda and penguin, I still do see these really low quality spammy sites in search results. So, all in all, I wouldn't be worried.
      Yes, less spammy sites ... all I see is:

      wiki, ebay, amazon, ehow, walmat, bestbuy, youtube, prweb ... very authority sites
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      .
      Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

      They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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  • Profile picture of the author IntoughShape
    really? thats actually kind of a relief, good on their part to keep things clean.
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Ashari
    Glad to hear something like this.

    It basically comes down to 'does your site provide value?'

    Posting a 5 page site with keyword stuffed articles is not valuable. Doesn't matter if those articles were well written, they are rarely of value.
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    • Profile picture of the author geraldspins
      Wow.. this is going to be a major disappointment to many.. myself included. Guess it was just a matter of time before something like this happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author mariense
    I had a few of my EMDs hit, only two escaped, but dropped a couple of spots.

    After analyzing mine and others, I think it is not related so much to the quality of the sites' content, but has a lot to do with external factors and signals of being real businesses.
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    • Profile picture of the author rendell
      Originally Posted by mariense View Post

      I had a few of my EMDs hit, only two escaped, but dropped a couple of spots.

      After analyzing mine and others, I think it is not related so much to the quality of the sites' content, but has a lot to do with external factors and signals of being real businesses.
      Interesting finding, so it may be EMD of business or commercial sites likely to stick ... but blog related sites get wipe off.
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      .
      Ever notice that people who spend money on WSO, memberships and courses, are always complaining about being broke and not making any money ?

      They should have bought ASSETS instead.

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  • Profile picture of the author goguy
    No matter what they do, I still think EMD will still have their place.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    I have two one page EMDs that moved from position 2 to position 10 on the first page. I assume the next move would be to build them out to about 8-10 pages each with related content. That, and some additional link building should push them back to number one.
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  • Profile picture of the author elperuanito
    My emd's got hit. First batch of sites so guess based on newbie mistakes? However some have good unique content related to the niche. What is solid content anyway if 5 page sites with good info get hit?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ant B
    My niche has 3 EMD in the top 20 and my rank has actually improved since is announcement even though I am EMD. It is definitely quality based and not just EMD and your done. Panic over, for me at least.
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by Ant B View Post

      My niche has 3 EMD in the top 20 and my rank has actually improved since is announcement even though I am EMD. It is definitely quality based and not just EMD and your done. Panic over, for me at least.
      That could be true. However, I wouldn't put any stock in how things look right now. These changes typically roll out / update over days, not hours. What you see on Monday or Tuesday of next week is more likely the end result.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgeFloros
    Originally Posted by Steve Longoria View Post


    If you thought that just having an exact-match domain name was enough to secure a top 10 ranking, think again. Matt Cutts announced via Twitter of an upcoming Google algo change. Read more about how big of an impact this is expected to have by clicking here.
    Could be referring to low quality content but that's not new, is it? But a low quality EMD could refer to a... hyphened EMD as well.

    So far, I can see plenty of EMDs holding their ranks and that's in various niches I monitor. However, several hyphened EMDs have been severely hit.

    Too soon to tell. Let's wait a bit more to see what happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author onkar
    Not aware how will google define "low quality" ?
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  • Profile picture of the author jeja7676
    EMD means exact.
    On the other hand and I see sites that have suffix and/or prefix being penalized too.
    So, this is not exactly about exact keywords.

    It was Google who set this as a rule for success on the first place. You can't sell 'keyword' products and be called something else. That would be spam by definition.

    I am disappointed by so many Google worshipers around here. You are not webmasters. You just blindly approve all that Google does. Google should be search engine. But lately they did so little to improve search results. They are becoming just a plain money making website for selling various products.

    And one more thing. They don't check if the site is poor or not. I've seen some authority sites going down as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by jeja7676 View Post

      EMD means exact.
      On the other hand and I see sites that have suffix and/or prefix being penalized too.
      So, this is not exactly about exact keywords.
      You are right. It does mean exact. But Matt Cutts has mispoken in the past. He very well could have meant keyword rich domains.

      Remember when he told everyone there was an over optimization penalty on the way? Everyone started scrambling to dial back their onpage SEO. SEOmoz even did a Whiteboard Friday about it.

      Turned out it was Penguin, which was geared at backlinks, and not what sites were doing onpage much at all.

      Originally Posted by jeja7676 View Post

      It was Google who set this as a rule for success on the first place. You can't sell 'keyword' products and be called something else. That would be spam by definition.
      Not sure what you mean by that. They do not sell any 'keyword' products.

      Originally Posted by jeja7676 View Post

      I am disappointed by so many Google worshipers around here. You are not webmasters. You just blindly approve all that Google does. Google should be search engine. But lately they did so little to improve search results. They are becoming just a plain money making website for selling various products.

      And one more thing. They don't check if the site is poor or not. I've seen some authority sites going down as well.
      I am far from a Google worshiper, but this is something that should have been done a long time ago. Two sites, equal quality, equal work, equal SEO, but one happened to buy the EMD first. Why should it get to rank ahead of the other for something so silly?

      EMD's gave an unfair competitive advantage to only a few people in a market.
      I think removing the boost on EMD's simply levels the playing field, and I see nothing wrong with that.

      And yes, I own plenty of EMD's and partial match domains.
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  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    This is all a continuing shift to authority sites...it will only get worse.

    Don't sweat it...build lists, relationships, fan pages and keep rolling
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom View Post

      This is all a continuing shift to authority sites...it will only get worse.
      If you read some of the threads, you'd swear it's ll my fault. :confused:

      Google has been telling us (literally telling us) that this day was coming. It was right out there. Instead of giving Google what they wanted, folks fought them and did whatever they wanted to do to game the system. It has come back to bite them.
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    Another thing to try...

    Kill your EMD off and take the content and move it to a new domain. It can't hurt.
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    • Profile picture of the author jodiesmitham
      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      Another thing to try...

      Kill your EMD off and take the content and move it to a new domain. It can't hurt.
      Would it be worth waiting or doing it straight away? I'm just thinking of any duplicate content repercussions as Google will see a new site with the same content as another cached site, even if you have killed it...
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by jodiesmitham View Post

        Would it be worth waiting or doing it straight away? I'm just thinking of any duplicate content repercussions as Google will see a new site with the same content as another cached site, even if you have killed it...
        Yeah, I would request URL removals and wait until they are all gone for exactly the reason you mentioned.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by jodiesmitham View Post

        Would it be worth waiting or doing it straight away? I'm just thinking of any duplicate content repercussions as Google will see a new site with the same content as another cached site, even if you have killed it...
        The safest way is to make sure it is no longer indexed first. Kill it in GWT. Maybe add noindex tags as well. Then you have to just wait until it is all out of the index.

        Could take awhile.

        I would probably create new original content in the meantime to get a site up faster. Down the road as the old site is dropped from the index you can pull the content into the new site.
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        • Profile picture of the author retsek
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          The safest way is to make sure it is no longer indexed first. Kill it in GWT.
          No you have to kill it with fire ..else they will come back.
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  • Profile picture of the author jodiesmitham
    Thanks guys, sounds like a plan. Of course, my few 'hit' sites may reappear, but I'm still going to create some new authority sites as I'm done with EMDs!
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  • Profile picture of the author Howi
    Ok so lets put it from the user point of view. When you do a search for blueshoes, and you get on first position a site that is called blueshoes(dot)com then you tend to think that site has blue shoes and you go there and voayla... they have what you are looking for. Why this should be considered spammy?? I`m not against emd`s only because they are spammy They should figure another way to determine if that site is spammy or not.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Howi View Post

      Ok so lets put it from the user point of view. When you do a search for blueshoes, and you get on first position a site that is called blueshoes(dot)com then you tend to think that site has blue shoes and you go there and voayla... they have what you are looking for. Why this should be considered spammy?? I`m not against emd`s only because they are spammy They should figure another way to determine if that site is spammy or not.
      In all honesty, I do not think most users look at the URL before clicking on something. They look at the title and the description.

      Nobody is stopping you from ranking a site #1 and providing a valuable website that solves a users query.

      They are just taking away the silly bonus they gave to EMD's in the past.
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        In all honesty, I do not think most users look at the URL before clicking on something. They look at the title and the description.

        Agree wholeheartedly. I don't know here this myth began or why it's perpetuated. People see the BIG BLUE LINK with the keywords in it (ie. title). They aren't paying attention to the tiny green text.
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  • Profile picture of the author bsbear
    I always wondered why "buyweightlossproductsandloseweightfasttoday.c om" wasn't a big money maker. -.-
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by bsbear View Post

      I always wondered why "buyweightlossproductsandloseweightfasttoday.c om" wasn't a big money maker. -.-
      The sad part is that there are actually members of this forum who really do wonder why.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    For those of you that got hit, did you use dashes in the domain name?

    keyword-keyword.com

    I've always thought the dashes in a domain just screams out that you are trying to take advantage of the keyword rich domain name boost. It would only make sense for them to target those. I'm going to bet the percentage of sites with dashes that got hit is going to be higher than the non-dash domains. Just speculation though.

    Anyone use dashes and not get hit?
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    • Profile picture of the author trytolearnmore
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      For those of you that got hit, did you use dashes in the domain name?

      keyword-keyword.com

      I've always thought the dashes in a domain just screams out that you are trying to take advantage of the keyword rich domain name boost. It would only make sense for them to target those. I'm going to bet the percentage of sites with dashes that got hit is going to be higher than the non-dash domains. Just speculation though.

      Anyone use dashes and not get hit?

      My website which wasn't an EMD and had... i would say decent content (I did my best) disappeared from the first page. My main competitor has a "exact-match-domain.com" and remained on the first position (he has an Adsense-made website).
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      • Profile picture of the author internalsoul
        Originally Posted by trytolearnmore View Post

        My website which wasn't an EMD and had... i would say decent content (I did my best) disappeared from the first page. My main competitor has a "exact-match-domain.com" and remained on the first position (he has an Adsense-made website).
        If you will do a research on several niches then you will notice that after this recent update the results are pretty sick on google and what they are claiming. Poor content and emd's are not the only which got hit hard but also some quality authority sites too with good content. So, you are not the only one whose non emd site got hit bu this update.
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    • Profile picture of the author tinknocker
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      For those of you that got hit, did you use dashes in the domain name?

      keyword-keyword.com

      I've always thought the dashes in a domain just screams out that you are trying to take advantage of the keyword rich domain name boost. It would only make sense for them to target those. I'm going to bet the percentage of sites with dashes that got hit is going to be higher than the non-dash domains. Just speculation though.

      Anyone use dashes and not get hit?




      This is a bit of an interesting thought but I would like to put a slight twist on this. I have 5 sites (.net & .org) get hit and none have dashes and they have unique original written content by me. I work full time and I try to write on nights & weekends so populating my sites has been a bit slow which is why they are thin (less than 50 pages).

      Anyhow, I just did a search with my keywords and what I'm seeing at least for now is EMD's are still ranking but .com's mainly and aged domains remain at least with my competition but I didn't see sites with dashes/hyphens either. A good amount of the newer 1-2 yrs old .org's & .net's have been taken out (this may & probably will change over the next few days to week).

      One of my sites was #2 last week.... #3 yesterday and #302 today so I'm gonna wait and see what happens. I'm not changing anything I'm doing because I'm building these for the long haul and I haven't done any bogus backlinking so it's probably a lack of content not so much quality of content.
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    • Profile picture of the author GeorgeFloros
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      For those of you that got hit, did you use dashes in the domain name?

      keyword-keyword.com

      I've always thought the dashes in a domain just screams out that you are trying to take advantage of the keyword rich domain name boost. It would only make sense for them to target those. I'm going to bet the percentage of sites with dashes that got hit is going to be higher than the non-dash domains. Just speculation though.
      Exactly what I thought. I wrote the same thing a few posts back.

      So far it seems that quality websites under keyword rich, hyphened domains got hit as well. Which is not that good but there are always unwanted casualties in a war, right?

      On the other hand, it could simply mean that these websites were in need of more links to begin with and they were only ranking that well due to the EMD. In which case, it makes sense to assume that rankings will come back if more quality links are built and fresh content is posted.

      Google seems to appreciate branding and you definitely cannot brand keyword-keyword.com domains. When I first began internet marketing, I built several websites using EMDs. I no longer maintain them because I realized authority websites was the way to go. I build nothing but authority sites these days and I will never look back.

      However, I kept all of my first sites because I thought they may serve well as case studies in the future.

      They were all still ranking (relatively) well till this update rolled out.

      In a nutshell here's what happened to my OLD portfolio:

      All my HYPHENED domains were hit. Severely. One even got de-indexed. And they deserved the "penalty" because they weren't actually useful to their audience.
      • Hyphened EMD #1 - 100+ positions penalty (Deserved it? YES)
      • Hyphened EMD #2 - De-indexed (Deserved it? YES)
      • Hyphened EMD #3 - 20+ positions penalty (Deserved it? NO)
      • EMD #1 - Unaffected so far
      • EMD #2 - Unaffected so far
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  • Profile picture of the author Ant B
    Mike,

    There is a domain in my niche that is a competitor of mine that uses dashes. One-two-three.com is the format. In fairness it is a good site, good content and is still ranking high first page no problem. In all honesty even though I would love to see it kicked to make it less competition for me I don't see it going anywhere.
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    • Profile picture of the author leighs31
      I think we can expect it guys. Pick your chins up off the floor, learn and move on. Behave or you get a smack on the bum - but not from your mum - but from the Big G
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  • Profile picture of the author Geekgirl01
    There is a competitor on my other website keyword-keyword-keyword.net still sitting in its #1 in google!
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  • Profile picture of the author brswonga
    Im amazed at the amount of people who actually believe anything that matt cutts says. And also, the amount of people who are saying its about time. With every single update, the search results get worse.

    Take the classic keyword: make money online

    #1 - 1 month old affiliate youtube video
    #3 - A press release

    good search quality? I dont think so..

    I myself, have been hit on only one of my sites (for now anyway). The site does not have an EMD, has over 500 pages of handwritten content that is actualy helpful to its visitors (as the site is about my profession) and has a large following of returning visitors.

    The site is pr 5, 7 years old and has natural backlinks. Only SEO done is onpage.

    Does this deserve to be penalised? No
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by brswonga View Post

      Im amazed at the amount of people who actually believe anything that matt cutts says. And also, the amount of people who are saying its about time. With every single update, the search results get worse.

      Take the classic keyword: make money online

      #1 - 1 month old affiliate youtube video
      #3 - A press release

      good search quality? I dont think so..
      That one is a bit interesting. I'm seeing the press release listing at #8.

      I find the video results really interesting. There is that new video ranking #1, but then if you dig further and take a look at just the video results, everything except the video ranking #10 is very recent. Most are only a few weeks old.

      It continues on that way in the second page.

      You do not see that very often in a SERP. Certainly people were making videos about making money online long before 2012.

      There is probably something to be learned here.

      As for some of the results being a bit poor quality... isn't almost everything in that niche pretty low quality generally? The rankings could almost be a result of "this is the least sucky of the sucky" kind of thing.

      And before you attack me, I'm not trying to defend the search result. Just discussing it.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        That one is a bit interesting. I'm seeing the press release listing at #8.

        I find the video results really interesting. There is that new video ranking #1, but then if you dig further and take a look at just the video results, everything except the video ranking #10 is very recent. Most are only a few weeks old.

        It continues on that way in the second page.

        You do not see that very often in a SERP. Certainly people were making videos about making money online long before 2012.

        There is probably something to be learned here.

        As for some of the results being a bit poor quality... isn't almost everything in that niche pretty low quality generally? The rankings could almost be a result of "this is the least sucky of the sucky" kind of thing.

        And before you attack me, I'm not trying to defend the search result. Just discussing it.
        Seems to me that Google is favouring their own Youtube all the way, so far for fair results. Can't blame them though, they own it and they decide what they show but put them in the sidebar or something.

        For the sake of it you should look at the description below the video, if that isn't keyword stuffing then shoot me.

        The back link profile from the PRweb release is pretty interesting btw, you should look at it.

        About 20 differnet anchor txt's that are done about 200 times each, and then after that a list of 20 keywords that are only used ONCE. How natural does that look lol.

        So if we go all crazy on 20 keywords, then we don't have to care about the rest, you would think Google is smarter then that.

        Also check this btw: view-source:http://www.thomasward.info/

        That is where most of the links come from to that PRweb release

        KW STUFFING + TRUE BLACKHAT = RANKING ALLL THE WAY!
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    • Nothing is amazing about it. After all he is a Google employee and he has to say something. Have you checked the video? It definitely has quality but seems a scam..

      BTW after last update a blogger blog was ranking #1 with zero content for make money online.

      Originally Posted by brswonga View Post

      Im amazed at the amount of people who actually believe anything that matt cutts says. And also, the amount of people who are saying its about time. With every single update, the search results get worse.

      Take the classic keyword: make money online

      #1 - 1 month old affiliate youtube video
      #3 - A press release

      good search quality? I dont think so..

      I myself, have been hit on only one of my sites (for now anyway). The site does not have an EMD, has over 500 pages of handwritten content that is actualy helpful to its visitors (as the site is about my profession) and has a large following of returning visitors.

      The site is pr 5, 7 years old and has natural backlinks. Only SEO done is onpage.

      Does this deserve to be penalised? No
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  • Profile picture of the author boosters
    That will be the end of all EMD market brokers.....
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    • Profile picture of the author Rndmals
      Originally Posted by boosters View Post

      That will be the end of all EMD market brokers.....
      That was one of my first thoughts as well.

      If this stands as it is, the domain hoarders just got completely and irrevocably f***ed.
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    Calm down folks. Breathe. If Wednesday or Thursday of next week roll around and things are still the same, you can start thinking about panicking. Wait until the dust settles.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      Calm down folks. Breathe. If Wednesday or Thursday of next week roll around and things are still the same, you can start thinking about panicking. Wait until the dust settles.
      heh ..by wednesday or thursday, there could very well be something else. With 500+ updates per year, Google is in a state of what peeps are now calling 'Everflux'.

      Folks who are trying to beat, game or trick the algo will have a tough time keeping up. Hopefully (or not) they realize now, that's it time dump the fake crap if they want free traffic from Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author TuNguyen
      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      Calm down folks. Breathe. If Wednesday or Thursday of next week roll around and things are still the same, you can start thinking about panicking. Wait until the dust settles.
      What wolfmmiii said.

      Also I'd like to add, that in times of change; there are many many great opportunities.

      Just think of it this way: Out with the trash; in with a new opportunity!

      Some of my sites have been hit too, it happens. Just wait for the dust to settle and look for opportunities in change.
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  • Profile picture of the author galmiar
    Hi all, sorry to hear that some of you are suffering from this latest hit, i can totally sympathize, I'm devastated at the mo

    I would just like to know what 'Low quality exact match means.'?

    Only my sites did have exact match domains but they were updated daily, the longest every 3-4 days, with personally written unique relevant content, no less than 500 words. No spelling mistakes and good punctuation. How can Google consider that a low quality site?!!!

    Very confused and feel injustice as i can see that many crappy exact match domains are still ranking.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Saying that the search results are worse after every update is just silly. Maybe in your niche and your little world they look worse to you. However, none of us have the computing power to gather enough data to say that across the board the search results have gotten worse. Nor can any of say with absolute certainty that they have gotten better.

    So let's skip the whining about search results getting worse and the gloating about them getting better. Unless you have thousands of servers in your basement spidering the web to give you enough data to say one way or the other, you are just making an assumption based on your tiny little insignificant space on the internet.

    Yes, there are some weird search results. Maybe sites ranking that you feel do not deserve to be ranking. There have been bad search result examples like that for years though. That is nothing new. Google is trying to decrease those results, but, like I said, none of us has access to enough data to really grade how they are doing.

    Stick to the facts. Leave your feelings out of it.
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post


      Stick to the facts. Leave your feelings out of it.
      That's the problem when this stuff goes down. People get overwhelmed and become angry. Then, they stop thinking rationally.
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  • Profile picture of the author AvanzaSeo
    This will change the optimization techniques
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  • Profile picture of the author Sillysoft
    Well after doing some quick research to see if this affects any of my site I found out people have cloned my sites. This is the last time I try to help people anymore.
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  • Profile picture of the author daddykool
    EMD = 15 years prior to Google existing!

    Google - EMD = Nothing much if you not a spammer!

    But lets start another rumour that will devalue the Inter'web Lol!
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  • Profile picture of the author elperuanito
    I have a few new sites with decent content that were on page 1 but tanked. They are emd sites but not something ridiculous. Think 'money tips' rather than 'tipsonhowtomakeyourownrobotwhilesavingmoney.com' - if that makes sense. Is it worth continuing with these sites? I picked the domains with the idea of expanding them all into authorities in the niche - I know a lot about each and so I know I can add value. Or would it be better to start over and pick a brand name?

    Also - one site that is very high quality (basically my masters thesis with edits and broken into sections, edited), emd but with not much potential for authority (very very niche topic) tanked. While it wasn't monetized it's annoying as it was my 'pet project'. Would it be better to pick a wider niche that this fits into and then do an authority site? Just seems annoying as I know this content is high quality, well researched, of academic publishing standard (something similar I did was published) and it still tanked! I guess mini sites are not worth it regardless of quality? Size and quality the only way forward?
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  • Profile picture of the author danilion55
    :/ why google is changing algo's. there is no need of this. Feeling sorry for people who gets effected by this update
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    • Profile picture of the author THK
      Originally Posted by danilion55 View Post

      :/ why google is changing algo's. there is no need of this. Feeling sorry for people who gets effected by this update
      Don't feel too bad. Google is not a marketing forum, they don't change things around for our benefit.

      They do everything for user experience. Or so is the party line.

      Tanvir
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  • Profile picture of the author anwar001
    No need to start panicking just yet. Wait for a few days or even weeks to see how far your sites are affected. Some sites may even do a dance - meaning they go down and might come back up a little later.
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  • Profile picture of the author DeenaForiya
    google penalized only low quality site if your site has exact domian name as well as good backlink and fresh content why google penalize you.......
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  • Profile picture of the author djlest
    What makes me laugh at this hypocritical move from google is

    Mattcutts.com - His EMD still ranks perfectly fine for his site - lol

    now lets take a look at this apparently low quality site that got hit really hard for their pregnancy EMD, ranking number one before the update.

    Your Pregnancy Week By Week | Pregnancy.co.uk

    oh yes, very low quality indeed! perhaps they should have called the site Hellfor9months.com Perhaps that would rank better for the KW pregnancy.

    So Matt Cutts website is NOT really about Matt Cutts at all and more about the pathetic attempts google makes to be a better search engine.

    So why does he still rank for Matt Cutts?
    Obviously his EMD site gets preferential treatment
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  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    I see way too much gloating from complete losers in this one. The next update, Google might just come for you too.
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  • Profile picture of the author bluearrow
    I wonder if the TLD matters too. Also I don't see Google doing a great job at cleaning "Low quality EMD". I was checking several low competition keyword phrases and result is interesting. for example,

    "cheap instant cameras" - #1 is an EMD .com , a blog which has 0 content !
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    Low quality EMD still in number one: "D Drol"
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  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    Here's a little food for thought (not saying this is how things work - but from a perspective of someone currently working on a quality classification project with lots of scraped data):

    They can train a learning machine using human input data (they have to fill in reports when grading sites right?). Take EMD ONLY data and a large set of attributes, plug into a learning machine and tweak things until things start to work. Now run all EMDs through this filter and see what happens.

    OR they could treat each SERP differently and run all top 10 or 20 sites through a filter, compare a bunch of parameters from "good" sites to the EMDs and decide if your EMD is worthy of ranking there or not.

    Or literally hundreds of other things... I bet by just looking at word count, internal URL structure and size of site they can eliminate 90% or more of shitty sites for any red flag (such as EMD) with very few false-positives. Throw in readability testing (doable), LSI, titles, meta data, outbound links (regular), internal links, affiliate links, other ad count, image/video data and other stuff and you have so much to work with... that's the reason some of the seemingly borderline cases (of nuked sites) are so difficult to "diagnose".

    It just doesn't work the way most of you think it does. Stop saying stuff like his sites are so small (rofl), my content is better, I have 20 pages OMGWTF...
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      Or literally hundreds of other things... I bet by just looking at word count, internal URL structure and size of site they can eliminate 90% or more of shitty sites for any red flag (such as EMD) with very few false-positives. Throw in readability testing (doable), LSI, titles, meta data, outbound links (regular), internal links, affiliate links, other ad count, image/video data and other stuff and you have so much to work with... that's the reason some of the seemingly borderline cases (of nuked sites) are so difficult to "diagnose".

      It just doesn't work the way most of you think it does. Stop saying stuff like his sites are so small (rofl), my content is better, I have 20 pages OMGWTF...
      Every node needs to have some weight indeed and sometimes a lot of nodes with each a tiny little weight can add up pretty much to a large weight, and thus a site that you wouldn't expect it from also gets hit.

      I have a client with adsense sites that have 100+ pages, he doesn't use a single image on any of those pages so the bot crawls in fact 100+ times the exact same html code, only the text of the articles is different. He got hit, not that very surprising.

      Others criss-cross link from one site to the other in combination with heavy masking/cloaking/redirect scripts for affiliate links, such sites are also hit in this EMD update although it has nothing to do with EMD, yeah well you pointed it out yourself B, so no need to explain you but good for others to know, not that people will listen but well.

      It's not that hard to make a site unique, throw in an image and video here and there, different positions, not on every page, make a bullet point list, throw in some tables perhaps. Just make it unique and you probably trick the filter on that part.

      About hyped EMD's like my-best-site.com, yeah mine also got hit and it was with the - - - in it, 3 times lol. Guess that's the first thing they looked at and gave it extra negative points.
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post


      It just doesn't work the way most of you think it does. Stop saying stuff like his sites are so small (rofl), my content is better, I have 20 pages OMGWTF...
      Probably the best post of the thread bnetwork.

      Many people "think" they know how it works when, in fact, they've never given any thought to it. I hear people saying "they can't kill EMDs completely because they would kill exact-match URLS, big brands, etc".

      The "learning machine" concept is probably as close to what they are doing as you can get.
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  • Profile picture of the author Make Money Ninja
    I am just hazarding a guess at what happened, my guess is as good as yours..

    However... i have many exact match domains.. Many are 3 keyword domains, very few are 4 or more. Many have dashes in. Most are .com. Some are other extensions.

    None of mine got hit.

    Why?

    I build lots of links to my site, from diverse anchors, from diverse platforms. My sites rank for competitive terms.

    Because none of my sites got hit, i am hazarding a guess that the ones that got hit were:

    - Sites with really long exact match domains.
    - Sites relying on the value of the exact match name without having backlinks.
    - Sites with poor panda metrics.

    If you have sites that are penalized that were ranking, if you want me to analyse them privately i am happy to do so.

    All my sites escaped this update. So right now that is my best guess. 2 cents.
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    • Profile picture of the author dcary13
      Originally Posted by Make Money Ninja View Post

      I am just hazarding a guess at what happened, my guess is as good as yours..

      ...
      - Sites with poor panda metrics.
      Thats a good point - i have some sites which use same niche with the same script but different keys and setup, all EMDs. 2 got hit by Panda a bit and i did not had the time to work over them. The other others not. That 2 got hit hard by this update, the other nearly not.

      That gives me the impression this EMD thing is a harsh quality signal which adds on the other quality signal. Which should make it somewhat easy to fix it by dropping the keyword desity, setting up not so direct matching metas and such.
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      • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
        Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post

        Thats a good point - i have some sites which use same niche with the same script but different keys and setup, all EMDs. 2 got hit by Panda a bit and i did not had the time to work over them. The other others not. That 2 got hit hard by this update, the other nearly not.

        That gives me the impression this EMD thing is a harsh quality signal which adds on the other quality signal. Which should make it somewhat easy to fix it by dropping the keyword desity, setting up not so direct matching metas and such.
        More inclined to think keyword density more than anything. If you have an EMD site and are genuinely trying to create a decent brand / name / community around the EMD phrase, then naturally you'll be using the brand name in meta. In content though, it's very unnatural to keep using your brand name over and over.

        People need to remember that it's not just IMers who create websites. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of legit EMD sites out there, when some Joe Public has thought "that would be a great name for my website". I don't believe for one minute that Google are happy to consider those people casualties of war. If you want to use an EMD, do it well and do it clever, and EMD will still add a little bonus for you.
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        • Profile picture of the author dcary13
          Originally Posted by jimnastics View Post

          More inclined to think keyword density more than anything. If you have an EMD site and are genuinely trying to create a decent brand / name / community around the EMD phrase, then naturally you'll be using the brand name in meta. In content though, it's very unnatural to keep using your brand name over and over.

          People need to remember that it's not just IMers who create websites. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of legit EMD sites out their, when some Joe Public has thought "that would be a great name for my website". I don't believe for one minute that Google are happy to consider those people casualties of war. If you want to use an EMD, do it well and do it clever, and EMD will still add a little bonus for you.
          Yes, i mentioned that before.

          Thats the ugly part of this update - it force you to "cheat". If you now setup an EMD you will do it not freely - you have to select your content and keys.

          Thats clearly against the "we want no SEO" intention from google.

          I am sure google knows that this update has 2 faces. They are not stupid, even many people here claims it different.

          So, this was an update not mainly for the rankings - it was an update against the BH and spammers.
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          • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
            Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post

            If you now setup an EMD .....
            If you now setup and EMD given what's going on, you are an idiot.

            If you already know (and Google has made it clear) that Google is after EMDs, why you would set one up is beyond me.

            Even if your intent is to build a solid quality site on it, you'd still be an idiot because you can do the same thing on a non-EMD and further remove yourself from Google's line of fire, which, as we've all seen, can be inaccurate.

            Why build an EMD and make yourself MORE susceptible to algorithm mistakes when you can go non-EMD and have just as much success?
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            • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
              Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

              If you now setup and EMD given what's going on, you are an idiot.

              If you already know (and Google has made it clear) that Google is after EMDs, why you would set one up is beyond me.

              Even if your intent is to build a solid quality site on it, you'd still be an idiot because you can do the same thing on a non-EMD and further remove yourself from Google's line of fire, which, as we've all seen, can be inaccurate.

              Why build an EMD and make yourself MORE susceptible to algorithm mistakes when you can go non-EMD and have just as much success?
              Because quality EMD websites still almost certainly will get a bonus from having the EMD. You may disagree, but hey, that's what forums are here for right?
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              • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                Originally Posted by jimnastics View Post

                Because quality EMD websites still almost certainly will get a bonus from having the EMD. You may disagree, but hey, that's what forums are here for right?
                Yes. That's what forums are for. And I will disagree.

                Google has just massacred thousands (maybe millions) of EMDs. Why someone would venture into that arena, especially with so much lack of understanding of why they did it (and what "quality" actually means), would be beyond my understanding.

                I'm not even sure there is a boost any longer.
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                • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
                  Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                  Yes. That's what forums are for. And I will disagree.

                  Google has just massacred thousands (maybe millions) of EMDs. Why someone would venture into that arena, especially with so much lack of understanding of why they did it (and what "quality" actually means), would be beyond my understanding.

                  I'm not even sure there is a boost any longer.
                  Say I set up a website called www.jimnasticsrules.com, do you think Google would slap me for the phraase "jimnastics rules"?
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                  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                    Originally Posted by jimnastics View Post

                    Say I set up a website called www.jimnasticsrules.com, do you think Google would slap me for the phraase "jimnastics rules"?
                    I don't know and that's the problem. Just to distance yourself completely, why not setup jimnastics.com (brandable) and create a few subpages about "jimnasics rules" and other related content?

                    By doing so, you remove yourself from the EMD discussion all together and now have the basis for a brandable business / domain.
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                    • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
                      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

                      I don't know and that's the problem. Just to distance yourself completely, why not setup jimnastics.com (brandable) and create a few subpages about "jimnasics rules" and other related content?

                      By doing so, you remove yourself from the EMD discussion all together and now have the basis for a brandable business / domain.
                      But come on, where do you draw the line? I could set up www.jimnasticsrules.com and try and rank for "jimnastics rules so much", which is using the same theory as your example. Why shouldn't my brand be "jimnastics rules"?
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                      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
                        Originally Posted by jimnastics View Post

                        But come on, where do you draw the line? I could set up www.jimnasticsrules.com and try and rank for "jimnastics rules so much", which is using the same theory as your example. Why shouldn't my brand be "jimnastics rules"?
                        And this is why the comment someone made earlier resonated with me:

                        "Stop swimming upstream"


                        Look, if there is any question, just don't do it. It's really not complicated.

                        Google has attacked EMDs (for whatever reason). Why even get involved? It's a no-brainer to me.
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by djlest View Post

            What makes me laugh at this hypocritical move from google is

            Mattcutts.com - His EMD still ranks perfectly fine for his site - lol

            now lets take a look at this apparently low quality site that got hit really hard for their pregnancy EMD, ranking number one before the update.

            Your Pregnancy Week By Week | Pregnancy.co.uk

            oh yes, very low quality indeed! perhaps they should have called the site Hellfor9months.com Perhaps that would rank better for the KW pregnancy.

            So Matt Cutts website is NOT really about Matt Cutts at all and more about the pathetic attempts google makes to be a better search engine.

            So why does he still rank for Matt Cutts?
            Obviously his EMD site gets preferential treatment

            Your example is ridiculous. Why does he rank for Matt Cutts? Because nobody else is trying to rank for Matt Cutts. And do you know how many links that site attracts from other high PR sites with the words "Matt Cutts" in them? It's not that hard to figure out why it is ranking.

            Your example is also foolish because if you Google "pregnancy", pregnancy.com is ranking #2 and pregnancy.org is ranking #6. In Google.co.uk, pregnancy.co.uk is ranking #5, just where it should be.


            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            Seems to me that Google is favouring their own Youtube all the way, so far for fair results. Can't blame them though, they own it and they decide what they show but put them in the sidebar or something.

            For the sake of it you should look at the description below the video, if that isn't keyword stuffing then shoot me.
            Unlike many others, I do not have a huge issue with them favoring YouTube. Before Google owned it, it was a great site and hasn't changed much since then. I think the interesting part though is all the videos ranking are so recent. There isn't a better video from 2010 on how to make money online? Or 2008? Or 2007? What about January of 2012? It's just odd to me that everything is so recent.


            Originally Posted by dcary13 View Post

            So, this was an update not mainly for the rankings - it was an update against the BH and spammers.
            I think almost all of Google's updates target BH and spammers. That is nothing new.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              Unlike many others, I do not have a huge issue with them favoring YouTube. Before Google owned it, it was a great site and hasn't changed much since then. I think the interesting part though is all the videos ranking are so recent. There isn't a better video from 2010 on how to make money online? Or 2008? Or 2007? What about January of 2012? It's just odd to me that everything is so recent.
              Personally I could care less of course but fair is a different thing. Its kind of abusing their monopoly.

              You did notice that the company behind the YouTube video is the same as the one that ranks at #3 with the PRweb release right?

              And they are one HUGE spammer, private network sites though but still, go check it out, that PRweb PAGE has an authority of 89.

              The video has 2000+ Comments btw, that is MASSIVE, I wonder how many are fake!
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            • Profile picture of the author afsafs
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              Your example is ridiculous. Why does he rank for Matt Cutts? Because nobody else is trying to rank for Matt Cutts. And do you know how many links that site attracts from other high PR sites with the words "Matt Cutts" in them? It's not that hard to figure out why it is ranking.
              wow, lot of sites, even top online newspapers have news about matt cutts, you can check. But it really a emd and must be banned, because it not follow google webmaster guidelines - lack of information, unclear information, low amount of updates, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
    This is fantastic news for all EMD owners who produce GOOD QUALITY CONTENT. I have a quality EMD site ranking #1 for approx 10,000 searches p/m. Other EMD rivals in the top 10 have all disappeared I am very happy with this update!
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  • Profile picture of the author cagliostro
    I think the lesson in 2012 was to not rely to Google for traffic or your income (adsense).
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    • Profile picture of the author dcary13
      Originally Posted by cagliostro View Post

      I think the lesson in 2012 was to not rely to Google for traffic or your income (adsense).
      Thats a sentence like you are a hetero and your GF left you and then you say "I think my lesson is not to rely so much on girls and the sex and the feelings".

      If there would be really usable alternatives for google you would not come in the situation to think about alternatives.

      What everyone here forgets is - not YOU are going to google - google is going to you and examines you and ranks you. Like every other SE too.

      You don't rely on google - not more as on every other SE.

      The point you think you rely on google is just that they give you so more free traffic that you did not see the other sources.

      We rely on google because there is nothing else to rely on.

      IF there would be some we automatically would rely on them too.

      Its not really a game of choices.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    I think there will be a flood of EMDs on the domain after market after this update. The jig is up for EMDs. If you have a few that have quality content on them, then it's worth trying to recover. But for people trying to start out, forget EMDs now.
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    • Profile picture of the author jimnastics
      Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

      I think there will be a flood of EMDs on the domain after market after this update. The jig is up for EMDs. If you have a few that have quality content on them, then it's worth trying to recover. But for people trying to start out, forget EMDs now.
      I for one can not wait for that to happen... there are going to be some fantastic bargains.
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  • Profile picture of the author afsafs
    just google looks like living at another world where small business/webmasters is not matter anything for them right now.

    Usage of emd domains is absolutely normal, even offline practice of many companies like daily news, apple, blackberry - you can find lot of examples.

    Even many years before it was a normal practice to open keyword.com sites in msie, was typins domains (i know, it just as example here). So it was natural behavior of web surfers.

    More than it, currently absolutely all domains is EMD or PMD. Even wikipedia - Wiki (name), pedia (encyclopedia partial match). Only few domains like xcx43 not in this list because it usually used for other network purposes (usually).

    Trouble here is not into EMD/PMD, but into how google determine what it low quality. And what it mean really. But that information is hidden from anybody, so even bugs in their algorithms can lead to this effect, but you will never know.

    So how you see most important information about 'what google consider low quality' is hidden from us like usually and only it really matters.

    So all this zoo/emd updates really not about content quality, it just about lowering competition in organic search results. Here is roots of this problem - because we don't know anything for real - what is bad or good - may be even two keywords repeation on emd site is enough to tank it. But google will never give you know it, it big and huge secret to support their monopoly. It why them never give you any REAL CLEAR instructions, it just a form of dictatorship.

    Just think, you now cannot do lot of things on your website, like put sitewide link to your other site, use contextual links on new site or to new site, put ads where you want it, etc. Why? Because google not allow you it. But purpose of this company is providing WEB SEARCH results, why them ban/penalize sites based on this factors??? (it not a content quality factors!) Huge question, but easy answer - it pure dictatorship.

    That guy who in this topic clearly against emd - promoting own services like 'authority sites' and trying to get more his signature views. Argumentation like do you seen quality emd sites?

    Yes, I see a lot of quality emd domains with quality content which was tanked after this update. Also it easy to see how many emd domains was purchased at domain auctions for insane money. Do you think owners of that sites created just a low quality junk site on such expensive domain???
    Also I more than sure you own some at least PMD sites.

    But another question is - peoples want to do something about it or we just will accept this updates like usually do? May be need to create website for peoples who suffering from this updates, small business owners which brand site was tanked by this update and go legal group action???
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  • Profile picture of the author afsafs
    or another good idea for all peoples/small business who lost own emd/pmd website to write letter to anti-monopoly department in your country about this matter.

    Tell inside this email what google totally unclear and used only to remove competitors from their search results and not providing any clear instructions what can do and cannot do (g guidelines is common, not specific in lot of topics). Also attach their stocks history, your sites, trademark/company registration certificate (if it company emd).

    That mass actions at least will increase interest of anti-monopoly departments to this company and it can cost google some big $$$
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by afsafs View Post

      or another good idea for all peoples/small business who lost own emd/pmd website to write letter to anti-monopoly department in your country about this matter.

      Tell inside this email what google totally unclear and used only to remove competitors from their search results and not providing any clear instructions what can do and cannot do (g guidelines is common, not specific in lot of topics). Also attach their stocks history, your sites, trademark/company registration certificate (if it company emd).

      That mass actions at least will increase interest of anti-monopoly departments to this company and it can cost google some big $$$
      That is completely stupid. Google is not preventing EMD's from ranking. Tons are still ranking. They just leveled the playing field and removed the unnatural boost that they used to give to EMD's.

      You can still rank an EMD. Nobody is stopping you from doing it. You just will have to legitimately beat out your competition now. That's all.
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      • Profile picture of the author afsafs
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        That is completely stupid. Google is not preventing EMD's from ranking. Tons are still ranking. They just leveled the playing field and removed the unnatural boost that they used to give to EMD's.

        You can still rank an EMD. Nobody is stopping you from doing it. You just will have to legitimately beat out your competition now. That's all.
        Ok, in this case can you tell me what is low quality emd in google eyes?

        How I understand google now penalizing for emd/pmd (it not just loss of few positions because of emd ranking ability create by google before). It looks like -100...-1000 what is clear penalty.

        But 'low quality' is again very very grey area where everybody lost. So much hidden inside this two words.
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        • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
          Originally Posted by afsafs View Post

          Ok, in this case can you tell me what is low quality emd in google eyes?

          How I understand google now penalizing for emd/pmd (it not just loss of few positions because of emd ranking ability create by google before). It looks like -100...-1000 what is clear penalty.

          But 'low quality' is again very very grey area where everybody lost. So much hidden inside this two words.
          You can look for yourself... just do a search, any EMD sites you see still standing has some kind of merit for being there. If yours were hit, now you know what Google thinks of as low quality. After spending a few hours this morning I can't find any results yet that have me scratching my head, it does make sense. This doesn't mean it was perfect because my searched hardly cover the entire web nor every website.
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          • Profile picture of the author afsafs
            Originally Posted by Nelapsi View Post

            You can look for yourself... just do a search, any EMD sites you see still standing has some kind of merit for being there. If yours were hit, now you know what Google thinks of as low quality. After spending a few hours this morning I can't find any results yet that have me scratching my head, it does make sense. This doesn't mean it was perfect because my searched hardly cover the entire web nor every website.
            i personally see different results, some my emds was tanked while some is not. But really here is no any big difference on this sites (about quality/content/posts), only may be in keywords density (but not more than 2% everywhere).

            But lot of quality emd/pmd sites was been tanked at this update. I have this problem, lot of my friends have, lot of topics everywhere, etc.

            Two my top sites (not emd) was tanked in google, but this is enough popular sites (and with lot of users interaction, new content almost daily) and it can live even without google traffic.

            I just mean what 'low quality' is what google telling us just to protect his ass.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by afsafs View Post

          Ok, in this case can you tell me what is low quality emd in google eyes?
          Same thing basically that is low quality non-EMD. Nothing new hear. They just are not getting the same boost they got before which helped them overcome and rank despite their low quality.

          Originally Posted by afsafs View Post

          How I understand google now penalizing for emd/pmd (it not just loss of few positions because of emd ranking ability create by google before). It looks like -100...-1000 what is clear penalty.

          But 'low quality' is again very very grey area where everybody lost. So much hidden inside this two words.

          If Google is penalizing EMD's, then why is pregnancy.com and pregnancy.org ranking #2 and #5?

          golftips.com is #9.
          homebrewing.org is #1.
          porn.com is #3.
          taint.rtgc.org is #5 and taint.org is #10.
          camel.com is #2.
          seo.com is #11.
          golf.com is #1.
          football.com is #8.

          I wonder how all these places are ranking if Google is penalizing EMD's across the board.


          Also, don't forget, the update may not be complete yet. These things often take several days to roll out to all their data centers.
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          • Profile picture of the author afsafs
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            Same thing basically that is low quality non-EMD. Nothing new hear. They just are not getting the same boost they got before which helped them overcome and rank despite their low quality.
            but it was a low quality emd update, isn't it? It was not new penguin, but special action against emd/pmd sites.

            I see what many sites get -100...-1000 penalty, few of them may be less - but we still don't know it exactly. Also what the factors used by google to PENALIZE site or just REMOVE power of emd as ranking factor (sure it penalty in many cases)

            I already give you example with ddrol, just found another fantastic example.

            One from popular adult forums is go****yourself, it very old established webmaster community.
            Try to search it using go****yourself in the google, you not will find it.

            However if you will see next, you will find go****yourselfgoogle emd site. Broken internal pages, unrelated content, but search it in google - it top 1.

            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            If Google is penalizing EMD's, then why is pregnancy.com and pregnancy.org ranking #2 and #5?

            golftips.com is #9.
            homebrewing.org is #1.
            porn.com is #3.
            taint.rtgc.org is #5 and taint.org is #10.
            camel.com is #2.
            seo.com is #11.
            golf.com is #1.
            football.com is #8.

            I wonder how all these places are ranking if Google is penalizing EMD's across the board.


            Also, don't forget, the update may not be complete yet. These things often take several days to roll out to all their data centers.
            You talking about few sites only and all this sites is very old, I see different results for huge amount of other sites (including my sites). Yes, looks like update still not completed yet.
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            • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
              Originally Posted by afsafs View Post

              One from popular adult forums is go****yourself, it very old established webmaster community.
              Try to search it using go****yourself in the google, you not will find it.

              However if you will see next, you will find go****yourselfgoogle emd site. Broken internal pages, unrelated content, but search it in google - it top 1.

              Ok, but now you are talking about an entirely different discussion. For a search like that, if someone types in "go **** yourself", are they really hoping to find an adult webmaster forum? Or are they looking for something else entirely?

              One could certainly argue that not including gfy.com in the search results is actually giving the user what they want.

              I am not arguing one way or the other. I am just not certain that is the best example.
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              • Profile picture of the author afsafs
                Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                Ok, but now you are talking about an entirely different discussion. For a search like that, if someone types in "go **** yourself", are they really hoping to find an adult webmaster forum? Or are they looking for something else entirely?

                One could certainly argue that not including gfy.com in the search results is actually giving the user what they want.

                I am not arguing one way or the other. I am just not certain that is the best example.
                it like brand name for that forum. But i agree with you, it not a good example.
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  • Profile picture of the author gpwilson
    I know that info dude. But i do not think that we should not worry too much for that change. All he said about low quality and low quantity.
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    • Profile picture of the author afsafs
      Originally Posted by gpwilson View Post

      I know that info dude. But i do not think that we should not worry too much for that change. All he said about low quality and low quantity.
      low quantity myth, 0.6% of searches. It including adult searches (-50-60% or may be more). now imagine how many billions of keywords (searches goes with keywords).
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  • Profile picture of the author afsafs
    i give you some example: search google for : ddrol

    see first site (top1 - emd) which even have sample page from default wordpress installation and of course no any normal content, except may be 10 words. How you see it in the top1 position. Good example of 'high quality emd site in google eyes'??? panda, penguin, emd update not affected it.

    it show only one thing, their algorithm to recognize what it high or low quality not work in normal way.
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  • Profile picture of the author dcary13
    BTW, here is something which should be interesting.

    There was a german SEO contest some days ago:

    Its about "HochgeschwindigkeitsSEO" (it means HighSpeedSeo).

    Guess who is on the first places?

    See for yourself - and look at the pages itself.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=hoch...ient=firefox-a

    Low Keyword density? 500 words? Holy crap, no.

    You will not notice it when you can't read german but the text is good written & unique.

    Now, tell me something about EMDs are dead, that you need aged domains and such.

    The .org domain was even kicked up in the SERPS, last time i checked a week ago it was around #5.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aussie-Jim
    I thought the penalties for domains based on keywords was a Google penalty that is 'coming soon' no?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Snyder
    From what I've seen, Google isn't "penalizing" sites. They simply removed the value of having an EMD as a ranking factor.

    Now, EMD's are evaluated the same way as everyone else - link quality, content, on-page seo/structure, and arguably social signals - without the advantage of an EMD.

    So if you have great content, quality links, good on-page seo, and a social presence you will be fine. But if your ranking was dependent on an EMD...you better start making some changes.

    This algo change is no different than any past update and probably any future update. Like with Penguin, if you were dependent on blog network links for your rankings, you got screwed. But if you had a strong, diverse link profile you were unaffected.

    To protect yourself from algo changes is as easy as having a diverse link profile, good relevant content, social activity, and for local businesses get listed in as many directories as possible. Being completely dependent on any 1 thing for success is never a good idea.

    It truly is that simple.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by Jeff Snyder View Post

      From what I've seen, Google isn't "penalizing" sites. They simply removed the value of having an EMD as a ranking factor.

      Now, EMD's are evaluated the same way as everyone else - link quality, content, on-page seo/structure, and arguably social signals - without the advantage of an EMD.

      So if you have great content, quality links, good on-page seo, and a social presence you will be fine. But if your ranking was dependent on an EMD...you better start making some changes.

      This algo change is no different than any past update and probably any future update. Like with Penguin, if you were dependent on blog network links for your rankings, you got screwed. But if you had a strong, diverse link profile you were unaffected.

      To protect yourself from algo changes is as easy as having a diverse link profile, good relevant content, social activity, and for local businesses get listed in as many directories as possible. Being completely dependent on any 1 thing for success is never a good idea.

      It truly is that simple.
      What sort of social signals are you referring to. Google +1? FB page?

      What about if your site is in the type of niche which doesn't create a buzz on social sites, do Big G devalue those sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author dcary13
    No, its a penealty - or better a negative ranking malus.

    If you EMD did not falls under the negative SEO signals it still goes strong.
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  • Profile picture of the author tiara
    Just want to share an odd behavior with this EMD algo update :

    An EMD rank might drop severely for the keywords targeted in the domain name, but its rank for other keywords may not be affected or even improves.

    For example, given 2 domains - advantagesofemd.com and benefitsofemd.com, advantagesofemd.com may rank higher for "benefits of emd" keywords, while benefitsofemd.com may rank higher for "advantages of emd" keywords. But both keywords basically means the same thing.

    I (shamefully) owns 5 EMDs and 4 of them got hit badly. However, I observed that other sites that took my ranking are EMDs as well (in the same category), but not for the same keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
      Originally Posted by tiara View Post

      Just want to share an odd behavior with this EMD algo update :

      An EMD rank might drop severely for the keywords targeted in the domain name, but its rank for other keywords may not be affected or even improves.

      For example, given 2 domains - advantagesofemd.com and benefitsofemd.com, advantagesofemd.com may rank higher for "benefits of emd" keywords, while benefitsofemd.com may rank higher for "advantages of emd" keywords. But both keywords basically means the same thing.

      I (shamefully) owns 5 EMDs and 4 of them got hit badly. However, I observed that other sites that took my ranking are EMDs as well (in the same category), but not for the same keywords.
      I agree with you Tiara. Same happened to my EMD site. Even though it has solid content it got hit badly on all terms related to that search term disproving the theory that they have just removed the advantage of having the keyword in domain. Why else would I rank on other keywords and just not on keywords included in the domain name.
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  • Profile picture of the author krestup
    Majority of my website where hit by this update.. I am looking for a way on how i can recover. I will appreciate if someone can help me out...
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  • Profile picture of the author dakar
    I've noticed that alot of EMD sites are still ranking pretty high. At least in my niches they are. I specifically know of a competitor that has a few EMD sites, with a max of 10 pages and is still ranking first page. They never update their pages, and are linking out to an affiliate site (in each page).

    My question: Would i be able to report him to Google? Is it even worth it? Does google react to complaints from others?
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  • Profile picture of the author MyPsychicReader
    Hi all,

    I have 3 questions:

    1) I have two domains - 1 is defintely an EMD (not the one in my signature), but I've had it since 2005 and I have tons of content that I update regularly on it (articles, video, etc.). I've gotten really good local rankings consistently for it, so I haven't been worried until I read this post - does anyone happen to know if those factors will be taken into account with the algorithm change?

    2) Here's my 2nd question - it's about my 2nd domain, which is in my signature (cringe - please don't throw tomatoes - I'm not trolling, I swear!)...I honestly don't know if it counts as an EMD...That site has only been live since Sept. 21st - would it be wise to purchase a completely different domain name? I know that's a lot of trouble, but if I'm going to be "dinged" for it, then it might be worth it to change it early on, before I start to get rankings, if it's actually an EMD...

    3) Is there anything (other than changing the domain name) that can be done to counteract the penalty? Would doubling up on good content help?

    Thank you for any info!
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  • Profile picture of the author JawadAshraf
    EMD's are not going anywhere, was working, are working and will be working forever. I can BET and PROVE that. I can see, right now there are two high competitive niche keywords with EMD's are on the 1st page of Google. And to my surprise when I checked few days later, they were ranking even more higher and still they are.

    Google want you to be confuse as much as possible, simple and clear. Oh and they are successful doing this as well.

    Cheers!
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  • Profile picture of the author Periwinkle
    Banned
    This going to punish only Low Quality Sites with EMD Domains probably.
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  • Profile picture of the author Warock
    Banned
    Wow. Matt said that, I can't believe it many EMD domain doom day.
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