@scaramanga ...well all my competitors are EMD's/PMD's they were not penalised and I got kicked on butt.
I did excessive Tiered campaign in last few weeks ....all my web 2.0's (25+) have min PA/DA 45/90, these numbers were acquired over last 4-5 weeks ... I would continue with EMD but tiered campaign I ain't sure...
Amazing, i ranked one warrior forum thread for the last years on page 1-2 of google for the words 'social bookmark', 'social bookmarking service' and few others. This is what i call heavy competition. It was ranked using only gsa ser. Now it dropped 13-14 pages (its ranking on page 15) but i cannot be sure what happened because i was building and still am building links for the past 2 weeks so can be just dance.
Most likely automatization got devaluated again sadface.
Lots of my affiliate sites got hit.... some aged domains, some new, some have 301s, some hugely spammed, some have 301s and huge spam - none of them had exactly the same link-building - no biggy as I have lots of domains I can transfer them over to. Other sites on other domains, from test sites to my SEO site didn't get hit (odd as I would expect these to get hit....I absolutely kill my SEO site, in fact it's one of my main test sites LOL). No client sites got hit, so it's not tiered link-building in my opinion, I think this would be too difficult/time-consuming for G to do this.
One thing I did do a month or two ago was run some Adwords ads on some new sites to see what to expect from some keywords in relation to CTR etc, and they instantly took a bump in the rankings....these are the same sites that have tanked, so it's almost like they've been included in the update. One site had no linkbuilding and ran £150 on Adwords. I hadn't quite finished the site so it was only ranking from on-page SEO (definitely not over-optimised), this is why I can't figure out exactly what the update is about yet.
I had one EMD that tanked but is now climbing back up since Saturday. Only one of my SAPE through 301 site got hit but not PBN'd sites.
It's an odd one, lots of investigating this week is needed but as usual with all of Google's fuckups, check out this......http://prntscr.com/4xxfh9 my sitemap is ranking for my main keyword on an EMD. Give it two weeks (as usual) and thing should calm down; no kneejerk reactions!
Scaramanga . Yes. I totally agree. I see no point in using EMDs in the future as I don't want to have relearn SEO with them. All my branded domains were unscathed or moved up. I ll just be redirecting my EMDs to branded domains so I can salvage my link building.
I have few long-tail EMDs that didn't move for the EMD kw, but decreased on other kws.
On the whole I see it being luck if you got hit or not (having read other forums as well), no specific conclusions can be made what this update was about.
@donchino Yes, I have to agree with the luck factor in this update, however, from what I have seen many of the sites which had links built with GSA SER were hit. Even the ones with high quality contextuals, with many filters, which is what I do. I have a website which I have been building links for months, and after 6 months I have 300 in total with GSA SER yet it's been hit hard from page 1 to page 7+.
However, I don't plan to change much in my game, I guess from now on we can just get back to work and do the same over and over, because the next penguin will be in a year probably.
Actually google announced this penguin update will be refreshed more often from now on.
It's still hard to believe a few hundred contextuals trigger a penalty.. if it was so, how hard would it be to scrape 7 pages of URLs for your kw, add them to Ser, and shoot everything without filters... In theory, you'd be #1 in no time, in practice prob not
What truly amazes me about every algo update that Google makes is the shock that people exhibit when they get hit. EVERY new method that takes advantage of the Google index is PUBLICLY discussed across EVERY internet forum....it's not really rocket science to workout where Google will strike next....just follow the latest method!.
From what I've seen with my affiliate sites the majority that took a hit were older sites that I used GSA SER on. Newer sites which I stopped using programs on remained steady or improved. Also I am noticing from competitors sites that their Emds took a hit while their sub domains on an already establish site improved while using almost the same link building methods.
Quick Poll: With respect to affiliate websites, and for those that got hit, was your affiliate link just simply hyperlinked in plain view (so when you hover over the link, you see the actual affiliate link)?
Branded domain that I registered 5 years ago. Site was being slowly built to be authority site with custom written (by a professional writers) long and high quality informative health-related articles. No affiliate links, just adsense. Site had 50 articles. I built links with GSA to 10 articles but whole site got hit. Ranking dropped by 90%.
Had lots of natural links from social sites (some articles had hundreds of real shares). I used GSA only for contextual links with very strict filters.Then built some contextual links to the T1 contextuals so all appeared high quality. All articles for contextual links were hand written and hand spun and not only readable but quite good quality. Anchor text mainly domain or brand or related keywords.
No duplicate content, no keyword stuffing. Everyone who looks at the site says it's very high quality.
So it looks like despite all this I got hit. Now don't know what to do.
@maree - I think the sad part is that you said you have a real business, but then you took no steps to protect it from penalties by not using a buffer for your linkbuilding. At least if shit hits the fan, you can disconnect the buffer. You can still take the good content (leave those other 10 pages behind for good measure), and rebuild.
That is what you do when you get hit like that. Do not even look back. I could write a book on this, but I don't want to bore everyone. Do not waste one day thinking about it. You lost 90%. You blew up. We all have sites that blow up. Get over it, and do the intelligent thing (rebuild), and do it as quickly as you can. And then start doing homework on buffers and everything else. It is called growing. You will be all right, trust me.
@davbel - Thanks - I would have expected you were cloaked, but needed to hear it. Just trying to look at possibilities, but there doesn't seem to be anything there with theories on leaving the affid naked.
@maree -Start searching for buffer sites, parasite websites, rebuilding after a penalty. I was pretty specific on my advice. I'm not going to write out the details. No one ever told me as much as I told you. Come on mate.
@maree Your biggest mistake was not protecting the site, a site like that needs some sort of protection. I would never point SER directly at anything but a churn and burn site. Sites you want to maintain rankings and you sites want to last as long as possible you should always have some buffers. Whether it be from PBN links, Web 2.0s, or a 301.
@ron I had non-cloaked aff sites hit big time. I thought that not cloaking them would be a little more transparent and therefore left them. However, I was quite (very very very) aggressive on those sites so I don't think it makes a difference cloaking or not. Unless you've seen otherwise.
I'm half-tempted to neg SEO the competition, it's so much easier to kill a site than rank one at the moment. Lots of test sites tanked, which is awesome, as I have so much more information now.
I think someone else has mentioned this, but I had one site that got hit on Oct 4th last year, no link-building done all year until September when I restarted it using SER and some 301 Sape links, and it's leapt forward like a mo-fo. Seems the Disavow lists only made an effect after Saturday's update. I think last October's update has been removed and this new one put in its place rather than a refresh as a friend of mine has the exact same story as above on his huge authority site.
If you are watching the SERPs for your keywords ( which is why I starting developing SERPWoo in the first place ), you would notice every day who in your SERP was moving up and down over time and who was getting penalized and who was getting rewarded.
Lets take the keyword "buy garcinia cambogia". For the last 2 months, 1 URL has not only endured this latest update, but all the manual penalties that get handed down in this SERP as well.
Sure, its not #1 or #2, but it has steadily risen over time and has cracked the top 10 now.
If I was wanting to build up a solid foundation of links to carry me through until the next round of penalities, I would be starting with this site and finding out what kind of links it has, the velocity at which it got them, etc.
Then and ONLY THEN, would I start devising ways to improve it from its 10th spot to 4th and 3rd.
You guys really need to be analyzing your SERPs. I caught this guy last month moving up from the second page and knew I needed to keep a watch on him.
@eliquid - Interesting! I noticed the same site (one of my niches) but what I don't understand is that the link profile doesn't look to be anything special. It's not an EMD. I wasn't sure what made it rank that I could even begin to duplicate success.
On an unreleated note.. that site is so spammy (nicely done but it's nothing but a pitch page). I think this update just moved some pitch/spam pages down and other up.
It sure as heck didn't bring real information to the consumer that is in anyway helpful.
It started moving up way before the update and even hit 9th at one time.
The secret isn't in "how many" or "how fast" you can bring links, which I feel a lot of people got over their heads in with GSA, but in building up and "blending" in with other sites over time
People really need to stop looking for "magic links" or big differences ( not saying you are, im just saying in general ) and start looking at the stuble differences, over time, within their own niches.
What do you think was so special about this site late August that it even got on the second page? What work went into getting it moving up to 13th in September? It clearly is not the quality of content, what other factors did that? Those are your secrets there.
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edited October 2014
Google is laughing to see how we try to figure out last updates ... I belive they put into the game some random factor too to shake up the serps from time to time to bring some more ,even 100% white hat projects) into their ADWords therefore we all see even not SEOed sites get hit ,with perfect content, links builded by real people etc. It`s business so it will happen again and again, we must be prepared for that.
I also have a projects with got hit, but the strange thing several ones which I linked really hard by all the spam from GSA SER survived, they were not even tiered, just C&B, of course they will get hit sooner or later but this they didn`t by last update makes me think they have no real clue how to fight with us (: so random factor is another weapon only.
The strange thing is also I have several web 2.0 (EMD) which are still on top3 on main keyphrases ,they were also linked exclusively by GSA SER, not so hard as others but this shows me the random factor is the part of the game and we shouldn`t try to find any logic inside of this what happened. The only sure thing is we should randomize everything as much as possible to not leave any footprints, thats for sure.
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Most likely automatization got devaluated again sadface.
However, I don't plan to change much in my game, I guess from now on we can just get back to work and do the same over and over, because the next penguin will be in a year probably.
Or the people who have been trying to follow Google's guidelines. I feel for them, must be very dispiriting.
So I got hit, and got hit badly.
Branded domain that I registered 5 years ago. Site was being slowly built to be authority site with custom written (by a professional writers) long and high quality informative health-related articles. No affiliate links, just adsense. Site had 50 articles. I built links with GSA to 10 articles but whole site got hit. Ranking dropped by 90%.
Had lots of natural links from social sites (some articles had hundreds of real shares).
I used GSA only for contextual links with very strict filters.Then built some contextual links to the T1 contextuals so all appeared high quality. All articles for contextual links were hand written and hand spun and not only readable but quite good quality. Anchor text mainly domain or brand or related keywords.
No duplicate content, no keyword stuffing. Everyone who looks at the site says it's very high quality.
So it looks like despite all this I got hit. Now don't know what to do.
Thx
Lets take the keyword "buy garcinia cambogia". For the last 2 months, 1 URL has not only endured this latest update, but all the manual penalties that get handed down in this SERP as well.
Sure, its not #1 or #2, but it has steadily risen over time and has cracked the top 10 now.
If I was wanting to build up a solid foundation of links to carry me through until the next round of penalities, I would be starting with this site and finding out what kind of links it has, the velocity at which it got them, etc.
Then and ONLY THEN, would I start devising ways to improve it from its 10th spot to 4th and 3rd.
You guys really need to be analyzing your SERPs. I caught this guy last month moving up from the second page and knew I needed to keep a watch on him.
Here is the link to a much bigger picture of it so you can see:
http://i.imgur.com/WAQOoxl.png
Keep watching those SERPs, new link oppertunities, new parasites, new changes pop up everyday and you need to be tracking them over time.
On an unreleated note.. that site is so spammy (nicely done but it's nothing but a pitch page). I think this update just moved some pitch/spam pages down and other up.
It sure as heck didn't bring real information to the consumer that is in anyway helpful.
People really need to stop looking for "magic links" or big differences ( not saying you are, im just saying in general ) and start looking at the stuble differences, over time, within their own niches.
What do you think was so special about this site late August that it even got on the second page? What work went into getting it moving up to 13th in September? It clearly is not the quality of content, what other factors did that? Those are your secrets there.
I belive they put into the game some random factor too to shake up the serps from time to time to bring some more ,even 100% white hat projects) into their ADWords therefore we all see even not SEOed sites get hit ,with perfect content, links builded by real people etc. It`s business so it will happen again and again, we must be prepared for that.
I also have a projects with got hit, but the strange thing several ones which I linked really hard by all the spam from GSA SER survived, they were not even tiered, just C&B, of course they will get hit sooner or later but this they didn`t by last update makes me think they have no real clue how to fight with us (: so random factor is another weapon only.
The strange thing is also I have several web 2.0 (EMD) which are still on top3 on main keyphrases ,they were also linked exclusively by GSA SER, not so hard as others but this shows me the random factor is the part of the game and we shouldn`t try to find any logic inside of this what happened. The only sure thing is we should randomize everything as much as possible to not leave any footprints, thats for sure.