JL Forums

Hey everybody,

Google has pushed out a major update. They say it only affects 3% of queries, but that's not the case from what I'm seeing -- it's affecting a lot more.

Here's the official announcement from Google for what they did:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

In theory what they're saying they're targeting is a good thing (backlink spam), but I'm reading from all over the place that webmasters who were 100% white hat are getting slammed, too.  No spam, no poor quality spinning or backlinking like Google's example on the above page shows.

I'm also seeing some really low quality results in Google. Here are some examples:

1. "Make Money Online"

Search Google for "make money online" and check out this site that's currently ranking on page one:

makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com

It's blank. 110,000 exact-match global searches a month for that phrase, and Google's showing a blank blog on page one. Wow.

2. "New Shoes"

This page is ranking high on Google for "new shoes" (it's bouncing between #1 and #3):

http://www.interpretive.com/rd5/index.php?pg=ns

Seriously Google?

3. "Bicycle Wheels"

Search G for "bicycle wheels" and you'll see:

#1 - ecommerce site
#2 - wikipedia entry for "bicycle wheel"
#3 - ecommerce site
#4 - ecommerce site
#5 - A book at Amazon ("The Bicycle Wheel")
#6 - ecommerce site
#7 - ecommerce site for bicycle parts in general (the ranking page has nothing to do wih the wheels though)
#8 - ecommerce page selling bicycle wheel stands -- not bicycle wheels
#9 - ecommerce site
#10 - page out of 1995 (literally) that has articles about bicycle wheels

Very poor results indeed.

Link Directories Still Working

For other queries that I follow, I'm seeing things holding steady with sites that use low quality directories to rank their sites. So apparently this update didn't affect sites using links pages to rank.

Google Turned Up The "Related Terms" Dial

It also seems that Google went a little crazy with their latent semantic indexing (LSI) dial. They're showing lots of results that simply do not belong on page one because they're not directly related to the query.

Overall Affect: Old Sites With Less SEO Ranking Better

Lots of old sites are being resurrected into the search results, apparently because they have been less optimized. Google has been saying for a while that they would be going after over-optimized sites. That's fine, but it's sadly pushing a lot of really poor quality stuff into the search results, at least for the queries I'm following. Stuff that simply should not be in very highly competitive results is ranking well.

I mean, seriously, THIS page is ranking on page one for "bicycle wheels"?

And it's not universal, either. Some sites with massive spam links are still doing great. Lots of theories floating around about this one.

Perhaps this will shake out over the next day or two. We'll see. Updates this large take a while to get fully integrated.

Anybody seeing anything good happen here?

Let's talk about it.

Jon

I'm sorry to hear that Susan.

Don't freak out just yet, though. These things can take a couple of days to settle. I'm not promising anything, because it does look grim right now for a lot of people who were doing things "the right way", but hang in there.

Hey Jonathan,

I happened to notice this blog: makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com a few weeks back on the first page of Google and the first thing I thought was !!!. That is insane. It will be interesting to see how all this unfolds in the near future.

Guess I will have to return and see what others are finding as well. Thanks for the update.

Have a super evening.

Its as if the results pages turned back a year...That Blogspot was ranking number one for over a year...and then Google gave him the axe. He was sharing too much great information on the secret to blogging...You know, anchor text, Pr, syndication...he was making excellent money with Adsense, then Google Shut him up...Interesting...I actually seen his page up a few weeks ago..on the first page results as well. The thing he has above all, Is High PR links coming to his site...from a lot of well known bloggers...SO good news is...Google still weighs high on backlinks..cause its apparent...That overweighs content...cause he aint got any...Man..Every day..we're on the edge...When is this going to stop!!!!!!

Some of my sites was some other no.

What I can see they penalize repetition of same anchor, not enought variation in the anchor. (spammy anchor) in a non and related website.

That's what I'm hearing a lot about (and seeing). Sites with high power links are still ranking even if they are otherwise "overoptimized".

Sent from my LG-MS910 using Tapatalk 2

Today my site shot up to page one for a very difficult term: "Sports picks"

Just to try and get some details: what kind of backlinking have you done for that site?

Thanks!

Poor Sheldon "Round" Brown... He's gonna catch a lot of flack for his passion about bicycle wheels and his amazingly crappy website. Of course, he does have 1,265 FB 'Likes' and that is only gonna climb as others start to pass his page around as an example. This is 'Eddie The Eagle' all over again, if you'll pardon the winter Olympics reference...

I wonder if anybody will pay any attention to the bottom of the page...

"If you would like to make a link or bookmark to this page, the URL is:
http: //sheldonbrown.com/wheels
Last Updated: 04/25/2012 05:33:25 by Harriet Fell"

Harriet Fell is a webmaster who should be outta work...!