The real value to a professional SEO is not that they can get you on top. It's that they can KEEP you on top!
I’m sure
we’re all seeing strange behavior from the big G these days. Or maybe it’s just
me.
We’re used
to seeing things like a general drop in positions for most of our target terms
across the board. If our top tier stuff dropped, we could expect a drop in our
second and third tier stuff as well. This could usually give us a general
indication that our applied promotional techniques were working.
We’ve always
been able to target specific terms and move them faster but generally by
applying the same basic procedures only more of them targeted to a more narrow field.
For those
less deeply submerged in the trenches of placement wars, I’ll put it another
way less jargonish.
If we could
place top 10 for shoes, we could expect to see shoe laces, running shoes, tennis
shoes, cheap shoes, etc. to start climbing the SERPs as well, as long as the
supporting content was there. Then by following the same basic steps only
altering anchor text of beefing up on-site content, we could move any of those
second tier terms up while holding or even moving up a little for the most
broad terms.
But the times they are
a-changin.
For the past
6 weeks or so, with over 65% of our total inventory we’re seeing something
quite different. This naturally indicates some type of shift in the algorithm.
Our first
response to sudden changes in the SERPS is I’m sure we’re all seeing strange behavior
from the big G these days. Or maybe it’s just me.
We’re used
to seeing things like a general drop in positions for most of our target terms
across the board. If our top tier stuff dropped, we could expect a drop in our second
and third tier stuff as well. This could usually give us a general indication that
our applied promotional techniques were working.
always to :
#1. Don’t
panic.
We’ve seen
shifts, movements, glitches and burps hundreds of times over the years and as
long as everything is search engine guideline compliant,(which it is when we’re
working for clients), the placements either return or it really was a shift in
the algo and we adjust
#2. Start setting
up range of control data and test to help us identify specifics BEFORE we start
altering procedures.
This
approach has served me well for a long, long time but the problem with outsourcing
is that many of the clients panic even at minimum downward movements thinking
that something we are doing may be getting the target site penalized. This puts
extreme pressure on us to find answers, (and evidence), fast.
So after 6
weeks of looking closely I’m VERY confident that what is changing has nothing
to do with penalties. If shoes stays at #2, tennis shoes at #3 and cheap shoes
at #2, BUT running shoes drops from #6 to # 11 We ARE NOT DEALING WITH PENALTIES.
Especially not a site wide penalty even though the shift in algorithm that
drops running shoes from #6 to #11 could be seen as a penalty of sorts in the
sense that any drop does not indicate increased relevancy, rather less.
That said, I
think it is important to point out that I get no consideration from Google or
any other engine for that matter. What I report is purely conjecture based on
experience and educated guesses. Only Google really knows what Google is doing
and most days I question even that assumption.
The best
thing in my favor is that the vast majority, (if not all), of conclusions
published online regarding placements or algorithms are pure opinion and
conjecture. Some more educated guesses than others.
But for my
12 year career what has always saved me is that I’ve been right far more often
than I’ve been wrong. That, in my book, is kind of the definition of SEO
success. So, while I apologize for the lapse in posting this month, I’m now
ready to share my conclusions as I have seen enough to start altering
procedures and that means I’m confident enough to pass on my opinion.
For those of
you who know me, you know I don’t post
information frivolously. If I say it in public,
you know I believe it to be true or at least have enough validity that I
feel comfortable discussing it. So, without further adieu-----
Question for the
Week of August 25th, 2008
Bob
Please can you comment on the drop
in rankings we have experienced on XXX.com and XXXXX.com?
Kind Regards
Dave
****** ****** ******
First of all, we need to talk specifics because the changes
I'm seeing are only with certain terms or pages for certain sites. So, when you
say drop in rankings I need to know if they are ALL rankings or just specific
terms.
from looking at your stats you
sent yesterday it looks to me like EXACTLY what we're seeing with about 60% of
all our sites. that is, some placements are sticking and some are dropping BUT
there is no discernible pattern. Some keywords drop 2 or 3 spots while
others drop 5 pages.
What I believe it is, is Google slowly rolling out tweaks to an adjusted
algo that has to do with an entirely new page rank system. This new system has
to do with links having more weight from trusted sources than others and
actually having VERY little to do with what the toolbar says AND the
trustability of the content.
For example, lets say there is a housewife in London who is married to a Barrister
making 100,000 a year and has 3 kids. She spends about 9 hours a week online
and the majority of that at two forums. One is a parenting forum and the
other is a sewing forum. She has used gmail for over two years, uses google to
search and uses youtube a lot and runs a little site about sewing and a blog
about her kids both with a toolbar PR of 2.
let's say another person is an auto mechanic who lives in Dallas Texas and he
spends about 10 hours a week mostly reading news and hanging out at sports
forums. he's been online for about 6 years and watches a lot of porn. Spends
about $50 a month on porn sites. Has a bunch of profiles on adult dating sites
etc.
for the housewife, if she links to something about parenting or sewing the link
gets a trust score of say 25 pts (strictly for examples. I actually have no
idea yet of what score for which link going where from whom) BUT if she links
to a porn site, the link only gets a point score of say 2
If the mechanic links to football site from a forum, that carries a trust score
of 10. If he links to a porn site on a porn chat room, that carries a
trust point of 40 BUT if he links to a barbecue site it carries a n 8
while he links to a sewing site and it carries a 2.
See what I mean?
this is why Techndu is moving into more of research to find the right people
for which link and why I was telling you that it is so important to make it
look to google like we are just webmasters trying to promote our site where we
think it makes sense. Where we eventually hope to be is in the field of
personality management where we would actually manage thousands of online
personalities saying the right thing in the right places about the right sites
according to our profiles and trust rank.
I haven’t spent the time to check yet Dave but from a very brief glance I think
with these two specific sites, they may be suffering from too much content too
similar and not enough specific trusted links to support it.
Now, if I'm right, (and I've been right a LOT more than I've been wrong over
the last 11 years), then the answer to these two specific clients is to
carefully examine the specific ranks that have dropped, look closely at
the content and make sure the page is not focusing on too many terms at once.
Stay focused on a close set of themed terms and make sure that is reflected in
titles, h tags, meta tags and content density. THEN make sure you have the 3 or
4 links that Paul mentioned on skype yesterday just make reasonably sure that
they are trusted and you do that by picking things that come up in the top 200
for a term specific search, (that means the target is not penalized for that
term),and then try to get the links manually NOT AUTOMATED using
varying anchor text so it is obvious we aren't using some kind of submitter
also, I know that seo forums have preached the effectiveness of doorway pages
for specific terms for years but the truth is search engines have gotten much, much
smarter and now you face more problems from too many pages too similar for the
same basic terms. Yesterday I said you were trying to do much with too little
and this is what I was kind of trying to imply in a nice way. When you
have thin pages targeting gas barbecue, gas barbecues, gas bbq,and cheap
apartments tuscon, cheap apartments toledo, cheap apartments denver etc without
having trusted links into each page, it looks like that is causing some
problems.
If I'm wrong, you can see it in the placements that have not dropped. You said
yesterday that only the sites we are working on are dropping. you need to
verify that and make SURE that you are not seeing similar patterns of varying
degrees on other sites as well.
The good thing is that it's easy to test and google is indexing so fast it
doesn't take long to see results. My advice is to focus on just a few pages at
a time and instruct Amish to target local directories and topic specific niche
directories/blogs and forums. as the target pages get a few links to them make
sure those pages link to the similar pages with anchor text links. In other
words, focus on getting local links into the gas bbq page but then provide
links to the other gas barbecue pages from that page and try to start thinking
of themes instead of each page. Try to get 3-10 trusted links into the main
theme page and then link that to related theme pages.
It's a lot of work but it's not that tough to test it out and like I said
you'll see the results pretty quick
Also, I should mention that we are seeing sites pop back in right where they
were as whatever changes get made propagate through to the other data centers
AND the bottom line is, it's not as complicated as I make it sound. If you look
at the placements that have remained and the ones that have dropped and then
compare the number and quality of links for the ones that stuck to the ones
that didn't you quickly see a pattern. It's really the same as it's ever been.
better content -- more links and everything they change something, don't start
making a lot of drastic changes until you KNOW exactly what changed. In the
meantime, better content --- more links
The SEO Guru
So what do you think? Does
it make as much sense to you as it does to me?
Peace Y’all
G
Stop throwing that
ball against the house Damnit! You’re drivin me outta my mind!