Reports of Websites Vanishing From Google Index – Has Yours?
Last week the Webmaster World Forum was abuzz with complaints from many people who noticed a sudden drop in their Google rankings, loss in traffic and revenue.
However, it only took Google’s Matt Cutts 24 hours to clear-up any confusion.
What was initially thought to be a result of a penalty for over-optimization of sites, actually turned out to be the after affects of a Google classifier for parked domains (domains that generally lack any content other than ads) .
As posted by Matt Cutts on his Google+ page:
I saw a recent post where several sites were asking about their search rankings. The short explanation is that it turns out that our classifier for parked domains was reading from a couple files which mistakenly were empty. As a result, we classified some sites as parked when they weren’t.
I apologize for this; it looks like the issue is fixed now, and we’ll look into how to prevent this from happening again.
However, some webmasters remain unconvinced that this sudden drop in rankings happened just because of a bug. One theory is that this was a planned test of the over optimization penalty by Google and the bug in the classifier just happened to happen around the same time.
The reason behind this speculations is that had it just been a bug many of the sites affected should have regained their original rankings by now, however that is not the case. Also the classifier bug problem is not a new one – this same thing happened back in June 2010 and however only a small number of sites were affected.
So, I’m not sure if there is more to this story, Google certainly doesnt seem to think so, but if you’re site has been impacted we would love to hear your experience. Feel free to leave details in the comments box below.
Google’s Penguin Update: The New “Webspam” Algorithm Update Gets a Name
Google has released an official name for their latest webspam algorithm update, calling the latest change the “Penguin” update. See our coverage on the latest Google update.
The Penguin update follows Google’s latest string of “Panda” updates which date back to early 2011.
Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted this playful image of some stuffed toys from their office which seems to confirm the name.
In a more recent update, he also posted a link to a webform, where users can provide feedback on sites they don’t think should be affected by the update.
If you want to provide feedback the link is here.
Google’s New “Webspam” Algorithm Update Goes Live
Google has launched another update to their search algorithm, designed to better target sites engaged in webspam tactics such as keyword stuffing and unusual link patterns. The update is the first major algorithm change since Google announced they were targeting ‘unatural’ links earlier this month.
Here’s a quote from Google’s blog post on the update,
In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.
Google’s blog post provides some examples of well-known webspam techniques, but makes specific note of link schemes using spun content,
Here’s an example of a site with unusual linking patterns that is also affected by this change. Notice that if you try to read the text aloud you’ll discover that the outgoing links are completely unrelated to the actual content, and in fact the page text has been “spun” beyond recognition:
These black/grey hat SEO techniques are nothing new. Google has been busy targeting this type of webspam for over ten years. I’d consider this update as more of a refresh on their spam detection methods, designed to fix loopholes where this type of spam still worked.
But will the update lead to better search results?
Ever since Google announced the update, users across the web have been reporting less than impressive search results. It’s usual to see complaints from webmasters after almost every update, but this time search engine land has put together some comprehensive examples of poor results.
Just have a look at Google’s latest results for the term “Viagra” – one of the biggest spam targets,
Google fails to list the official Viagra site and links to four sites that have been hacked. But it’s not the only example of search results gone wrong; search engine land lists a number of other queries where the results from Bing trump Google.
According to Google, the changes have gone live for all languages and will impact around 3% of queries in English (panda was 12%).
If your website has been impacted, or you’ve noticed some questionable search results pages, leave a comment below.
5 Tools to Make Semantic Search Work for Your Google Ranking
Google recently announced that it would be moving its search engine into a new direction: to become an “answers engine” through semantic search and this change could have quite an impact on how website ranks in the Google SERPs.
What is semantic search?
Basically, Google wants to know the meaning behind your search query. They will use semantic search technology to try and determine what users mean when they type in a certain keyword.
For example, if someone typed in “laptop” do they mean:
- That they want to buy a laptop?
- Have one repaired?
- Upgraded?
- Are they even talking about a computer, but something entirely different?
This is likely to impact the types of keywords you choose to target your SEO efforts on. SEOmoz has shared 5 useful tools to help you get started.
1. Using Google advanced search
Google’s advanced search results provide a quick way to generate some semantic keywords. Just type in a query like “laptop discount codes” and click “Show search tools”. Then click “related searches” and then you’ll see all of the semantic terms for “laptop discount codes”.
2. Semantic keyword research with bookmarking tags
If you want to find out how some searchers think about keywords, examine how tags are used at social bookmarking sites like Delicious. To examine the tags that people use to bookmark content, in a sense, seeing how people are viewing the content and giving you an inside track to their mind, look at how people created “Stacks,” “Links” and “Related Tags.”
You can perform the same process on new social bookmarking sites like Diigo, Pinterest and Licorize.
3. Building a semantic keyword cloud through social monitoring tools
Using social media monitoring tools to track the mentions of your brand is pretty common, but using these same tools for semantic keyword research is just as effective to build a cloud of keywords around a particular sentiment.
4. Optimizing semantic keywords around trends
A great strategy to keep in front of the public and at the top of search engines is to optimize your semantic keywords around a trending topic. This means you have to keep your eyes on high-volume topics.
5. Gathering semantic keywords through social search
When it comes to researching on the social web, the first place to look for keyword ideas is TwitterSearch. The way to use it is to look up a keyword and then look at what people are tweeting about that keyword phrase
What you want to find is how people are using that term. So look at the words surrounding the keyword and then decide how to use it to build your own semantic keywords.
So, there you have it. Now is the time to get a jump on Google and find the right keywords for your SEO strategy before they integrate semantic search into the Google algorithm.
Study: 60% of Websites Missing Vital Contact Information
According to a recent study by SMB DigitalScape & BIA Kelsey almost two-thirds of websites are missing contact details.
This is a worrying figure – how are you supposed to get new customers if they have no way of contacting you?
The study surveyed 1 million SMB websites from the US and here’s what they found:
- 6 out of 10 SMB websites in the U.S. are missing either a local or toll-free telephone number on the home page to contact the business.
- 74.7% of SMB websites lack an email link on their home page for consumers to contact the business.
- 65.7% of SMB websites lack a form-fill option to enable consumers to request information.
And they fair even worse when it comes to social media:
- Only 19.5% of SMB websites have a link to a Facebook page
- Even fewer have links to Twitter and LinkedIn.
- 93.3% of SMB websites are not mobile compatible and will not render successfully on mobile devices or smartphones.
Gone are the days when a potential customer would open up their Yellow Pages to find your phone number, customers now turn to Google and more importantly your website. If they have no way of contacting you, then they will not hesitate to head straight to your competitor.
Charles Laughlin, Senior Vice President and Program Director at BIA/Kelsey, puts it quite bluntly:
Consumers are growing to expect certain levels of SoLoMo (social, local, mobile) functionality.
If SMBs don’t catch up with consumers, national players could gain a critical advantage over local independent providers.
Here’s my tip: every local business website should have a clear phone number and full address. Every online business should have a clear email address and / or a contact form.
If you’re website doesn’t include adequate contact details, then it might be time to get your phone number and email on there at the very least.
Google to Become an Answers Engine in the Long Run
The Google algorithm is reported to be undergoing another major overhaul that will transform Google search into more than just a conventional search engine.
Google is trying to fix its shortcoming in the modern day technology as well as continue its dominance in the search market.
Google’s top search executive Amit Singhal outlined the company’s vision for search that will soon take it beyond just keyword-search result. In other words, a search on Google will not only understand your question but also give you results with extra information relating to your query.
For example : If today you ask Google about “the 10 deepest lakes in the U.S,” it will give you a very good result based on the keywords in the phrase and sites with significant authority on those words and even word groupings. However in the future you can expect Google to not only answer your lake question but also tell you that a lake is a body of water and tell you the depth, surface areas, temperatures and even salinities for each lake.
Over the next few months Google will be incorporating a technology called the semantic Web search (which refers to the process of understanding the actual meaning of words such as differentiating between the car brand ‘Jaguar’ and the animal ‘jaguar) to enhance the quality of its search results by actually trying to understand the meaning of the search query. With Semantic search Google will be able to match associate different words/queries with a database containing hundreds of millions of “entities”—people, places and things.
While it is known that a Google user will soon see more relevant results to his search query, it is still not clear what impact would these changes have on website rankings. Google has not yet given any new advice to webmasters, I suspect they will have to wait until the changes are rolled out.
My guess is that webmasters can expect a significant change in the way Google examines their site before ranking it in search results.
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