well Matt's definitely the figurehead for the company, he's the one who's on Digg correcting information on Google's appearance and such. I'm pretty sure that he's actually involved in the PR department rather then engineering (of course they won't advertise this, because his credibility would be shot otherwise). He's too invested with his blog and on social networks...
To blame it all on the boom makes no sense... from day one till now Google has never done this and yet it went from couple hundred pages to trillions... now all of the sudden the "boom" takes effect? It don't add up... many have suggested it and it makes more sense than most ideas but it don't hold water IMO. I also assume the active blog is getting links and the nonactive one is not... I have seen this during this update. Google is confusing webmasters so they can't buy links... that is what I am seeing. Matt says whats good for Google... whether it is out of pure love for the company or he is being handed briefcases full of money under the table I am not sure - What I do know is in a case like this Matt usually says the direct opposite of the truth... so if he says something go look somewhere else
Although I have been heavily affected this time, the more I looked at this closely, the more it looks like the cumulative result of 2 updates rather than a drastic change in the algorithm. This does make sense because the previous update was 5 months ago in May. Since the internal PR is updated continously and is exported when Google wants. What we are looking is 5 months worth of changes rather than the usual 3 months. I am not disputing the fact that some large sites may have been manually downgraded, or that there has been an increased requirement in relevancy. But I feel that that there had been much more exageration and fear going around than is justified by the results.
There's nothing new in your blog post other than some errors. First, you keep talking about "PageRank(toolbar) update" (sic). It's very clear that this was a lot more than a simple toolbar PR export. This involved both manual penalties and algorithm changes. Second, the changes do not only affect paid links, although they are mostly about paid links. Third, the "evidence" presented that some sites which lost PR didn't lose traffic, or that some sites that lost PR later regained PR, is not evidence of anything except the fact that algorithmic changes always need to be tweaked a little following a roll-out. Fourth, your claim that Google is not just hitting sites buying or selling links but "hitting all sites in the hopes that webmasters will get sca" (sic) is simply untrue - it is NOT the case that all sites were hit. And fifth, you need to do some proofreading of your blog post if you still want to keep it public. And you think we should believe your flawed logic over what Cutts says? Oooohhhkayyyy.... LOL. More faulty logic. Uh, that happened BEFORE the update? Uh, Google already HAS competitors? Actually, it was both. Some sites saw PR changes with little impact on traffic. Others got hit with both. Look at the stats of some of the directories affected if you doubt it. Who is the "reputed SEO"?
My PR dropped drastically, lost traffic as well and listing dropped from No 1 to somewhere between page 6 and 7.
I bow to your great wealth of knowledge spewing forth from your inability to research anything for yourself. Too many sites where hit for this to have been a manual penalization. Second Google never correlates penalties with PR. PR has never been a part of that, a site can get penalized but many times will not interfere with its pr... this is because PR is irrelevant to search engine ranking. Your rebuttals to my posts are funny at best but have no merit. My theory is backed by both fact and research. Some of the top seos such as brad Fallon, Dan Theis agree with it but you go ahead and stick with what your buddy Matt Cutts says because he is looking out for you. Its a good thing too cause you couldn't make it without him Your idea that Google dealt with paid links massively here is intriguing but sadly based wholly on what Matt Cutts has said and none of it is based on fact. The problem with this is no mass penalization and banning was seen which would be the result of what you suggest happened. Even in your ignorance and arrogance you know I am right. You know that if a mass penalization had occurred there would be thousands of threads on forums discussing this... why have we not seen this? We see thousands of threads on PR drop but few on penalization, no more than average. You can call me a liar and say I am no seo and frankly I could care less... what I do care about is showing the right. if you insist on clouding minds with foolishness that is your problem. Lol as for proofreading my blog that is hilarious, really is. So if I don't quickly fix my spelling errors my site will be shut down? Will you take it to court? ROFL You should be a comedian not an seo... Even flawed logic is better than the enemies logic... but of course you aren't smart enough to figure that out. The problem with you is you post and then think(I am assuming you do think afterwards but maybe I am giving you too much credit) Yahoo and MSN are not the best example of competitors... they are losing ground. Sites are penalized and banned everyday.... its pure coincidence that some sites lost rankings and traffic during this PR update. Why did hundreds, nay thousands lose PR but no rankings? Many of which do indeed deal in paid links. Directories where hit months ago before this update in PR rolled out. Your confusing people with your nonesense. Certainly not you... even some seo who have stuck to PR being a factor in ranking are now giving it up. You can't because your ego won't allow you to. Again you guys can jump in and state I am making up stuff, going against Matt Cutts and don't know what I am talking about and again some people will be dumb enough to believe one of us without researching themselves but anybody who does research will see your wrong. So unless you can provide some actual arguments against what I said other than "Matt said this" you are pretty pathetic.
Absolute nonsense. And by the way, I said there were both manual penalties and algorithmic changes, not one or the other. That has been confirmed many times; I'm not sure how you missed it. No. It's not based wholly on what Matt Cutts has said. It's based on observations made personally and by a lot of people with actual credibility, unlike your misguided nonsense. Uh, there were many such threads. Again, I don't know how you missed them. Not at all. I'll bow to your expertise in doing that. I don't actually care what you do with your post. I would personally advise deleting it as an embarrassment but it's your call. And by the way, it's not simply spelling errors. Go take a look at the post. There's one section (quoted in my previous post) that is half a sentence ending with half a word. Up to you... That in itself is flawed logic. Falwed logic isn't better than anything. It's not even better than nothing. It's just that: flawed. And that conclusion is based on what exactly? In any case, you stted that Google needs competition. My point was that Google already has competition. I'm sure everyone but you understood the point. I think I already answered this. Actually, it was a matter of a few weeks and it occurred while the algorithm changes were in progress. Try to keep up, visio. Please re-read what I said before you dig the hole even deeper.
I am only going to argue one point to keep this topic on topic First of all you can say anything you want, you can say there is proof, you can say there are threads, you can say anything but evidence proves you wrong. I can't believe your dumb enough to actually say there is a drastic increase in threads regarding penalizations and bans. It is not the case. I moderate two of the largest webmaster forums on the web and neither has seen an increase. Your eyes must be going... And as for my post I am not embarrassed. I have had a great response from it and many webmasters are writing saying my theory lines up with what they have seen. So far your the only one to say anything negative about it... You are good at throwing darts... lets see you hit something for once.
I can't believe you've missed them. Look at DP alone... Really? And what might those forums be, pray tell? As I said, you're choice. If you're happy with a blog post that is illiterate and fraught with errors, then I'm happy for you. In any case, it's still there in public view. I'd say it pretty much speaks for itself.
Me neither. Maybe thats because there aren't anymore than usual. If I were to tell you you would then resort to picking on those forums as you hate them. The main reason is because some of the top professionals have started there... I know you will start spewing nonesense like "seochat used to be good"... and yes SeoChat is one of the ones I moderate. Finally something we can agree on. If only you can figure out how to make your posts speak for themselves.... then we might get somewhere.
This isn't a matter of opinion. For starters, go look at the Directories forum at DigitalPoint. It's not hard to find the forum and it's not hard to find the threads. Then go look at any other webmaster forum or webmaster blog (other than yours) for similar threads from about July on. For certain sections of the net, it's been the main topic of conversation for weeks. If you've missed it, it's because you haven't been looking, or you lacked the capacity to rfecognize it when you saw it. I'm not going to waste my time debating this with you any longer. The evidence for what I'm saying is there and very public.
Your warping things to look the way you want... as I said before directories got hit hard a couple months back. Corresponding this with the PR update is both foolish and ignorant. This PR update didn't just hit directories so why are you using that as proof? That proves nothing but my point. HOLD IT EVERYONE! We got a problem... Minstrel is illiterate and his posts are fraught with errors. Atleast that is how you take things and construe them. Smart move! If you continue too much longer you may even realize yourself the ignorance of your posts.
A sample from a single DP forum of threads that Viso says doesn't exist - note that this isn't an exhaustive list and the search goes back only to October 1, listed in reverse chronological order: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=537340 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=530907 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=532765 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=534975 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=531829 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=532515 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=530502 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=518667 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=532550 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=524002 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=532495 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=529970 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=472540 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=532535 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=527950 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=527708 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=526375 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=524342 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=513691 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=487403 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=510644 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=489696 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=509902 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=509240 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=504830 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=496708 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=502415 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=461494 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=503093 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=490396 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=497491 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=490256 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=498275 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=498816 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=495712 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=485901 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=496126 http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=497315 You can find similar information on blogs and other sites similarly hit with a quick search.
minstrel, if I knew where you lived, I'd be there right now, giving you a big damn hug. This article is poorly written, and has very little content. I'm glad to see someone else stepping up to say that.
Minstrel you have a big problem reading and processing... mainly processing. I keep telling you the directory penalizations had nothing to do with the PR drop. This happened a couple months back before this PR update. If what you say happened did indeed happen we wouldn't be seeing 50 threads... we'd be seeing tens of thousands of threads. Even someone who doesn't know seo could figure that one out How sweet! Did you teach him that Minstrel or did he learn that on his own?
*sigh* Talking to you is like trying to housetrain a dead dog... What do you think the directory penalties were all about? What do you think the blog penalties were all about? What do you think the fact that sites like TLA suddenly weren't ranking for their own names was all about? What do you think Google's stepped up anti-paid links campaign was all about? Or did you miss all those too? Of course it has something to do with "the PR drop". It may have started back in June-July but it's one ongoing process. It started with manual penalties and continued with the algorithm updates (and again this is NOT just a toolbar PR export as your blog post says repeatedly). This was (and still is) an ongoing process of improving paid links detection and penalizing other practices that Google calls "artifical linking and PageRank manipulation", a process that has in fact been ongoing for years.
Talking to you is like talking to the wall... you go in circles even contradicting your own nonesense. Google penalized and banned what they could... there would have been no reason to drop PR if they had already cleaned up the mess would there? Of course not. The PR drop was implemented to make ignorant people like you believe that it was related to penalizations so they would stop acting bad. And it worked, atleast for you it did. I guess some people are easily duped by Matt Cutts and what google says is going on.
I don't know I think the PR drop was just a decline in # of links (pages being removed, 404/403 errors, etc). And in some cases I believe Google picked up on link sales and penalized them manually (from paid link complaints probably). Is the market for paid links dead? Definately not..they can't stop them all, and of course Google is not the only search engine that counts links.