Sites being heavily penalized by Google

Big Richard is correct. What you received is a form letter.

 

Minstrel,

Do you by chance use Co-op and have this update affected any of your co-op sites?

 

Seems Google feels the same way> They have also delivered a like message to me on thousands of my pages. The message was delivered like this . This page used to have a good PR rank (PR5-7), now it is 0. All my pages that were envolved in some kind of link scheme (not DP) were effected exactly the same way. These were all pages with decent PR as well. There are no other known infractions these sites were guilty of, but these days who knows with Google. Seems that they can penalize you for missing the toilet


H

 

I think it's a bad sign.

 

It does seem the Google is cracking down heavily on sites with "unnatural" links, whether it be co-op, buying links, link exchanges?

Do you guys see the same pattern? The site that got dumped used co-op and link exchange with other sites, no other black-hat SEO techniques.

 

I stopped using the Coop completely in October or early November 2005, long before Big Daddy.

Doesn't apply to me.

 

I am not too sure about this but theres something which comes to my mind many a times... If Google does not like co-op then why does it not totally de-index a site? If your site showed up in 1st 10 results and now its on page 3 or 30 how sure you are that its because of the co-op? What I feel is ...if you are using co-op and Google thinks its not a good thing to do then your site shld be de-indexed for following wrong practices....how would it do something less or more?

Matt Cutts in his blog has talked about sites using irrelavant outgoing links. If Google starts penalizing such sites than IMO 90% of the sites should be penalized. CPM banner ads...are they relevant to your site? I dont see relvant ads on sites like Yahoo and MSN...are they not correct as well?

Now you might say they are using banners and not links... but what difference does it make...end of the day you are linking to a non-relevant site.

How many over here have irrelevant AdSense ads on your site? I am sure alot of them do. If not, try using CMS like PHPNuke...You will see PHP and hosting ads for long time untill you contact AdSense and get it rectified.

If Google is so strict about irrelevant links then they should ban their AdWords program first. I daily see ads on my site which say something else (Keywords related to my site's content) but when you click on the AD...you see something totally different and not as something that was mentioned in the AD. Is this not a case of linking to non-relevant links and "cheating" me and alot of AdSense users there?

 

They don't have to de-index your site. All they have to do for your site and every other site using Coop is discount (reduce PR value to 0) all of the incoming Coop links. If ALL you have is Coop links, you'll disappear. If you have a large number of non-Coop incoming links, it won't have as great an effect.

 

Adwords and CPM banners don't influence the serps. If all the dodgy, irrelevant, outgoing footer links were done in javascript do you think google would still care?

 

Does this mean if I use a no-follow tag on my footer irrelevant links, Google would be fine with it?

 

Yes, googlebot wudn't know they are there

 

Actually, Googlebot (and all other bots) will know they are there and still follow them. They just won't count as 'votes' toward PR and link popularity.

IMO all outgoing links, whether they are tagged no follow or not, will after a site's PR (i.e. too many out going links)

 

The coop "ad" network has never been an actual advertising network -- AT ALL.

Answer these questions:
Why did the network start implementing semi-static linking ONLY WHEN Google got smart on dynamic linking?

Why does it not have tracking links? E.g. adclick.digitalpoint.com/?id=3838 This would allow the accurate tracking of CLICKS and impressions -- a fundamental aspect of all ad networks.

Why is it acceptable in the TOC that you can have links in the footer in a small font? This has very little, if any, advertising value.

The coop IS a linking/SERP manipulation network.

 

It WAS designed as an ad network ... ppl have chosen to use it as they will.

 

Address the questions and tell me it isn't a LINK network.

Most importantly, why would people want to advertise in the footer of websites, with no CTR statistics etc?

"DigitalPoint" has accepted that it is LINK network by creating a static link feature... I quote (forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=15507&page=7):

Oh and LaCabra, do you really think the coop "ad" networking links on the bottom of your site leatherpages.com really have any real value to the owner of the sites they link too? And I mean in an ADVERTISING sense!

 

Were guns designed for hunting and personal protection or for senseless killing and other illegal activities?

 

Nice -- that's a great comparison :-/

I take it you wouldn't mind the AD networking implementing non-spiderable links, and forcing users via the TOC to display the adverts in a reasonable position?

Or do you use the AD network for SERP manipulation?

 

To be fair, I've been out of the Coop for months now but I did see some traffic from the Coop links to various sites.

It's hard to claim with a straight face that most people are in it for the advertising value but that doesn't mean there isn't any.

 

I agee and have the same opinion..

 

In the thread you reference "DigitalPoint" says:

"No, because it's not a link network, it's an advertising network. Not sure how many times I have to repeat myself on that."

There are some limited features within the coop that hamper one's ability to integrate the ads seemlessly into one's own site. For example, we are limited to either text links or old fashion banner style/size ads. As part of the TOS, the ads must appear on every page, again something I would rather not have to do. I have them on the bottom of my Leatherpages.com because I can NOT integrate them into my site's ad management system or integrate them unintrusively on the pages I wish (my main traffic areas). Additionally, the coop lacks in the ability to adequately categorize sites and thus the links on appropriate pages. I have seen traffic to my site from the coop, although not heavy traffic I still have seen traffic. You have to remember that the coop has changed very little from when it was first launched and I can say that if Shawn (DIgitalpoint) had time or the inclanation to invest the time required to make certain adjustments to the coop, it would be a much better program.

You will also notice that I also run Bcentral's link exchange on my site. Bcentral's link exchange is now viewed as an unfavorable linking mechanism by G. That link exchange has been around since before 1999 and once again was deployed as a way to advertise your business on other sites, not as a backlink building scheme.

G's dominance in the market is unparalleled and I think you would agree. The problem is that certain aspects of G's ranking algorythm is flawed - its that simple. For example G's PR. The concept of PR (the importance of a page) should NOT be measured primarily on backlinks. In many of my niches there are actual governing bodies, entities and organizations that ARE THE TRUE AUTHORATIES in that subject matter, more so than any goverment agencies or educational institutions, yet they have PR1s to PR3s for their site. Clearly G is unable to correctly differentiate their status as authorative from a MFA site or an online store selling diapers and leather jackets with hundreds of links.

The concept and proposed function of PR, (identifying authorative sites), is very viable, but G's inability to accurately reflect such algorythmically has led to a cat and mouse game between G and webmasters. Webmaster are getting desperate. Everyone is engaging in reactive counter measures. Webmasters start building backlinks to get to the top of search engines. G start penalizing, services that have been around way before they were even a force in the industry because a) its effects their algorythm and b) they do not know how adequately handle these side effects. So their solution is to just penalize them in an attempt to rectify the problem by getting everyone to drop or CHANGE their service models.

G from the get go have pushed their PR model and other search engines followed because it seemed like a viable approach. This has created a feeding frenzy in the webmaster/seo community. People are buying links on high PR sites - a derrivative of G's own PR model. People are out submitting links to tons of article and directory sites to increase backlinks - another derrivative of G's own PR model. People are sumitting to DMOZ for that magical high PR link (because G views them as authorative while some of the editors there have no clue when it comes to certain topics) - once again a derrivative of G's own PR model. G claims to be the best, but their inability to build and maintain a viable and intelligently savvy algorthym causes people to game the engine out of desperation and FEAR.

Further more, there are many ways to build ad networks. You can use all sorts of different approaches, languages, tracking methods and implementation models. I, for one, do not like people or organizations telling me what or how to implement any of my services. Do you think that adsense was built in javascript by design? Perhaps? Then, why would G insist that other ad networks use javascript in their implementation of their service? Have you ever considered that just maybe, javascript implementation of ads is a way for G to address certain flaws and issues within their algorythm? Maybe G's PR model and their heavy dependency on backlinks is inadequate and prone to abuse? Should RSS feeds that display their contents in HTML also be penalized? Why should an ad networks not be allowed to roll out their service in HTML or using other crawlable implementations? If adsense and other javascript ad networks were rolled out in a crawlable state people would be getting tons of backlinks which would .... ummmmm .... literally bring G PR model to extinction.

Google domiance of the market is making people deploy their sites around G's parameters (and exploit G's vulnerabilities). G is not directly forcing you to play by their rules, but is the playground bully indirectly swigging a hell of a hammer and saying its my game so play by these rules or we'll send you to the corner. The domino effect is tremondous, because certain webmaster comply, others see that their competitors rise in the serps which now forces them to comply aswell. Many other search engines have instituted similar (more backlinks = important site) strategies and models which is adversely effecting accurate reporting of serps. Do you think that the recent 3 week old site with supposive Billions of scrapped pages and links is an authority on virtually every topic and deserved to knock more authoritive sites out of the serps, probably not, and that is a CLEAR example that G's PR model is flawed.

In short Speeple, don't come in here tooting your horn and critizing an individual's effort to create a FREE ad service that others have used in ways other than which it was originally intended because G is INCAPABLE of maintaining a viable model. Look at the source of the problem and the the big picture; there is a playground bully using a clearly flawed approach to deliver supposively the best results based on authorativeness and "page importance" .... yahhhh right!

regards
Frank