Google seems to be dancing

I'm definitely not seeing the same thing. Rankings dropped regardless of my title or any other body content. It seems to me that on-page content is completely irrelevant to the changing in the SERPS. Just my observation...

 

I wish that was the case, the few good ranks I have left are for items my page truthfully should not score well for, but brings me decent trafic. My most relevant and usually my best selling and overall traffic terms though are almost all gone. Hard to make any sense out of what's going on as on the surface as of yet nothing I am seeing is making any real sense

 

What do you mean by off-topic anchor text?

 

Oh well... that at least would have been an improvement

I mean something along the lines of a link with anchor text "Housing Rentals in Pittsburgh" or "Spyware Removal" which actually points to an online pharmacy or porn site or other site unrelated to the anchor text. Spam techniques.

Added: Or yes, Google-bombing as McDar points out below.

Too bad that ISN'T one of the things going on...

 

This may have already been brought up before but...

In regards to theories of certain types of links being devalued, it seems that Google has not been able to compensate in their algo for Google Bombing!

The most famous Google Bomb is the Biography of George W Bush coming up number 1 for the keywords search "miserable failure". (still #1 so the current Google Event did not effect the White House).

to view the links pointing to that page search...
link:www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html


Just an observation.

Caryl

 

That was brought up in SEO chat. I think the thinking was that since its a .gov site 1 or 2 links could have accomplished that. It definitely suggests that anchor text hasn't been devalued. But how competitive is "miserable failure" anyways, really? When a BBC news story and some other press reports are top 10, it tells me its not a competitive phrase at all.

I don't think off-topic links are the issue. Most of the links that I know about come from me writing articles, linking back to relevant pages. And from link purchases on directly related sites (gardening sites mainly) back to my site. Keywords dropped. If anything, I'd say that sitewide links have been further reduced in value.

Possibly dupe content pointing back at the site has been devalued. RE: article spam.

 

Going over last night's Google referrers (didn't take long )
I found this interesting tid bit, and played with it a little.

Search on 'web-hosting paypal':
http://www.google.com/search?q=web-hosting+paypal&start=10&sa=N
There I am at 16... I was at 15 before all this.

Search on 'web hosting paypal':
http://www.google.com/search?q=web+hosting+paypal&start=10&sa=N
Gone, I am at 91 when searching this way.

Seems it works with other phrases, different results.

I was using 64.233.167.104, for those interested.

 

New bloggpost by Matt:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/update-jagger-contacting-google/

Seem like they want feedback.

Brett named the update to Jagger, so it is not Katrina.

 

katrina would have been only -slightly- inappropriate.

 

Didn't you know? they've got the one word phrase now.. just

FAILURE

Which still isn't that competitive. And if you look at #2, looks like the conservatives struck back and bombed Michael Moore to second place.

 

"Update Jagger" is a really dumb name. Brett Tabke should retire.

 

Ah... that explains this thread:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=33783

 

Doesn't look like that here. If that was so, my competition would have been hit hards. Wishful thinking on my part.

 

LOL @ "I can't get no... Satisfaction"...

 

Back on topic...
Anybody tried this for a dropped phrase and experienced similar results?
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=378747&postcount=647

 

WOW - when I saw that I thought maybe since the name of my page is the keyword1-keyword2.htm

BUT

NO DICE

Caryl

 

I am noticing a similar thing - it is the lots of minor terms I have dropped for - relative to pages deeper down our website. The most major terms which apply to the main pages have had a far less effect ( although still minor drops).

So our website is looking like a tier effect with the homepage targetting the main keywords showing a tiny drop in SERP's, then subpages showing secondary keywords showing larger drops, and then third tier pages targeting 3rd level keywords showing large drops.

Another point to note with the above is that:

The homepage had a higher percentage of natural links to COOP links than the second level pages, which in turn had a higher level of natural links to COOP links than the third level pages.

So that is one correlation. Before you say that this result points directly to the COOP links just being devalued and not causing a penalty, then I would also point out the drops are far in excess of the SERPS when no COOP links where applied at all.

However I am loath to believe that either COOP links or Link Vault links etc are destroying the SERPS as this would proove the theory of Google Bowling. Which if true, then it means to knock a sites SERPS all you have to do is point COOP links or other links to a competitors site.

This will just turn SEO on its head, where the best method of SEO is not to Optimise your own site but just to Bomb all your competitors out the lisitngs. If this is proven true expect to see it on a massive scale and the SERPS will get totally screwed - leaving google back at square one.

So essentially I am completely stumped as the above results point to a penalty but I can't believe google would apply a penalty to links pointing to a website.

 

I thought it was odd... slumber-rolls (you know the phrase) you are #56, shows different than slumber rolls... #1...
Just the opposite.

web-hosting vs. web hosting...
etc.

I would expect it to be the same or very similar. When I saw my results so close to where they were before, I thought I was on to something.

Guess my results are a fluke, or perhaps I am not experiencing the same thing as others, regarding my drop.

 

Why would you expect that? its two totally different searches. Its like searching for birdhouses and bird houses or bird-houses.

 

Because I am at 90 something for the non-hyphenated, I would expect NOT to be in the top 20 for the hyphenated... perhaps different, but not THAT big a diff. Then I find it's one spot off of where I was before all this... I thought I found another -asdf type trick. Besides, there is no occurence of web-hosting in my site...