Penguin Update Petition

I agree, people should stop moaning and look at their websites to see how they can improve. That is what I am doing, myself, right now ... and without an SEO 'experts' help this time

 

Have you seen the serps?

Ridiculous sites are ranking in top spots, sites with ZERO content competely blank pages!!!!

This is not about webspam or user experience, it is google rewarding sites that pay for adwords and slapping down ones that don't.

See Matt Cutts BS Blog post

(or even no search engine optimization at all) - WTF

 

Yes, and they are improving. Not perfect, but they weren't before and much better now.

And some of those are for weird searches that hardly anyone does. It has also happened for competitive ones (that have been well-publicised), too, but some have already been corrected. And it's not like you can't report webspam. ;-)

For example? I've seen this claim a lot, but no examples of it. Also, if you take into consideration this Penguin update and past Panda ones, big sites also got hit.

I think he sometimes has a problem in articulating himself in the right way and instead he meant more about how the content is written. Let's take an example of not doing SEO. A common one is: keyword density. You will see various quotes about this, such as 2%, 5% (one person even posted a higher number on DP recently - such as 8%). Why worry about this at all? Write an article without considering it and you'll end up with one that reads well, is interesting and has a good flow. Rather than an awkward article that feels like it has had the keyword shoved in several times. Or a page title filled with keywords ("personal loans | business loans | loan quotes"), or the main keyword repeated in every navigation link (when Person, Business, Get Quote might be suitable) and navigation links at the top and on the left/right. There are different aspects of on-page SEO and it seems like he means (going by this Penguin update) the written content (including titles, redundant keywords meta tag, etc).

Just look at the uproar every time Google tweaks their algorithms, but what happens? Life goes on, people adapt their sites and techniques, it's all quiet (until the next update).

 

Absolutely agree, mate. GA bounce rate isn't the issue (it would be insanity for Google to use this, as it's not the only Analytics provider whatsoever), but bounce-back rate to search results (user click by and then click on another result). However, it's not new to this update. That type of bounce-back came into play long before.

 

It's shame to think of what Google is trying to accomplish. I only feel sorry for those who have been hit by it and I hope Google will take the penguin update away.

 

Petition for what? I mean like opposing the Penguin update?

 

Personally, I never have any problems using Google or any search engine. I know how to use it. Do you build your websiste for Google? Spending half your time optimizing/changing websites because they cant win the fight against spammers and keep changing their service? It's their problem, not of the honest webmasters. Now they only provide rules instead of service...

 

Did you actually read what I wrote and also the post by the other person?

 

I don't think bounce rate and time will be a factor for Search Results. But yes, I can see GA affect.

 

They did it last time, but then they revoked it.. I hope they revoke this new one too...

Btw any idea how to recover from the ranking loss ?

 

Revoked what...?

It's already mentioned in this thread and many other places. To summarise: well-written content that doesn't come across as spammy in any way whatsoever. So, really, this is the easiest update to overcome so far.

 

I thought this update was about search phrase domains?

 

No, it's about over-doing it on the content (really going back to the basics of webmaster guidelines, really: keyword stuffing, content that doesn't make sense, stuffing title and keyword tags, etc). EMDs getting hit is a coincidence with overdoing it on content. Not longer before it, there was a Panda update too. Many people seem to be confused about specifically what Penguin is for: it's content.

 

So why do I see a site with 12% keyword density ranking number 1 for a term I used to have with my exact match domain?

Do you work for Google ryan_uk?

 

I am seeing several sources saying even having links from artice directories could get you slapped?

 

Keyword stuffing isn't the same as a high keyword density. Take a look at the screenshots in the below blog post by Google for examples of keyword stuffing. You've probably come across such mindlessly gibberish sites before:

http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

Also another example provided by Matt Cutts:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing/

About keyword density: I don't know what % keyword density I had for one site, but it has remained at a solid position even after the update with an EMD and keyword (two words) appearing 18 times (in 500 words). The content was written for human consumption, despite the frequent keyword occurrence, and informative. Unique and original (not spun). Just not moving up due to the sites above all being very high authority and mine being new and having no links. Only after the update did I rewrite it to see if their would be a drop (the keyword is mentioned about three times now). No drop after several days. The same content, just not the same keyword frequency.

I prefer my current job to Google.

I'm just realistic: step back for a moment and look at every time Google makes an update. It's the same initial anger by people who had sites and lost rank. But we can either cry about it, or instead fix move on and fix what's wrong, make money, have fun.

 

One of my sites was hit by the panda update in October, I did nothing and 2 months later it came back.

Maybe that will happen again

I still think Googles serps are a mess

 

They are better than in 2004-2006 when searching for anything Linux-related frequently resulted in arriving at keyword stuffed cloaked porn sites. I'm just glad it's not as bad as back then.

 

I think the biggest takeaway is that no matter what you think of Google (believe me, I am not a big fan) is that your business should not be relying on just 1 source of traffic. Any way you slice that up it's still a huge problem. I, like many other people, got lulled to sleep with all the easy SEO traffic that was available (and still is) that I got lazy when it came to traffic generation. I had some sites drop and some do better but it is a wake up call in general. If your entire business is based on Google seo traffic then you live and die by at the whim of their algo changes.

 

I joined a Facebook Page, Boycott Evil Google.
Made me feel better