Sites being heavily penalized by Google

Exactly, it is not the coop that is being penilised directly and some sites will sale through it - if yahoo stuck coop ads up it would not get penilised (or more likely its penality would have minimal impact). It all comes down to the site and what else it is doing, the sites quality etc etc. However, it does not take much to put two and two together when you see the huge number of COOP sites that are having their sites affected, that there is a definate correlation. Just look at this forum: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=42 almost every single post is about how their sites are suffering and their pages have gone supplimental - Coincidence that they are all in the COOP? - Same thing over at link-vault.com

 

I don't think that it's only co-op too.
Lots of people was affected just using white hat seo.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/34979.htm Part 1
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/35023.htm Part 2
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/35076.htm Part 3
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/35100.htm

 

I don't think we need references to WMW to tell us that. There are numerous threads here at DP on the same issue and likely with better information.

 

It is clear this is not a problem limited to co-op.

I think somehow is related to the billion pages spam. For instance, try looking for foros.elaleph. My home page (the same with .com) is ranked 20 (yesterday was 31). The 19 previous results are those .info domains with random subdomains scrapping my content. Maybe Google just penalized me because they detected duplicated content... in my site.

 

I don't really, the problem as explained initially and the problem I've had has been around far longer than the billion page spam thingy. My site hasn't been indexed properly since mid-May.

You're right in saying it isn't a problem limited to the co-op but it really seems like a relevant link thing and the co-op is clearly hitting a lot of alarm bells on the algorithm, on a lot of sites but not all. Similarly, other sites may have the same thing without co-op. How exactly they'd deem what is relevant and what isn't, I'd have thought would be incredibly extensive, so I'd presume a few false positives would be caught along the way - not that I'd expect google to take any action to rectify that, they haven't exactly been helpful so far.

 

I doubt they will, they are probably seeing what comes out of the results - seems like they have hit link networking, dup content with a very big hammer and taken a few legit sites down with it. If it pleases the masses of users though, then they are not likely to change. To be honest if it takes out most scraper sites, spam sites and site gaining SERP's with dubious link methods I am not going to complain, even if it does take out a few legit sites - as long as they are not mine - feel a bit sorry for those guys though, but I think google will tweak their alogrithm and they will come back eventually.

 

Finally Matt Cutts answered when someone asked him about the ongoing penalty:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reminder-check-your-sites


Cryptic.

 

Source Matt himself .

hmmm interesting indeed. Is anyone aware of such tools? I mean besides the typical tools like market leap, PR checkers, Site commands:. Specifically tools that may tell you what penalties Google has imposed on a given site?


H

 

So basically the big spam sites are getting penalized, not those running co-op? Specifically portal sites and such?

 

No. Not necessarily. Google's Big Daddy was, in part, an attempt to combat "aritifical link schemes", like and including the Coop and LV, and link-selling and link-exchanges. That's not ALL it was and in their attempts to combat such issues they screwed it up and took down a lot of legitimate sites in the process. It was also about how to accomodate the increasing size of their index aznd the increasing age of their hardware. It was about a lot of things.

Anyone who tries to understand Big Daddy as "penalizing" one thing is going to be seriously misled.

 

I see. I think that link building is a great concept. I mean after all it's very hard to get a new site out there without building links with similar sites; however, abusing the gift is wrong. When you are spamming -- which a lot of sites are, it gets out of hand. I believe Co-Op is also great, but once again 75% of the sites running it are 1 page sites filled with adsense and stolen content.

 

Very well said.

To add, I dont think places like COOP or Link Vault would have ever been this heavily targeted had something been put in place by each to prevent "selling weight". As soon as I seen this happening, I felt that it was only a matter of time before these products became useless or even worse, a negative in terms of google.

 

Who's selling weight? From what I hear CO-OP isn't really into the selling thing.

 

I believe some Coop members were actively advertising to buy and sell Coop weight.

 

i never could get the coop link thing to work

guess it's better if this is true..

hope not for all you other guys.

 

Yes, I have been approached by no less than 6 people wanting to buy weight $15-$25/k

 

Sites get banned for no reason - even ones that don't violate any rules or anything. I've had only good experiences with the coop.

 

Perhaps he missed the 11 pages of posts.

 

I find it quite interesting to see that the very first reply to my post was the usual "oh my... there always one in every crowd response"... lol... I think it's ammusing. Especially being I was hoping to have my "opinion" dashed against the rocks by proof that the coop ads dont effect sites in Google's SERPS. Or in the very least not in any seriously damaging manner.

However that didnt seem to be the case, just a lame response without any hard evidence brought to the table.

Why no link to one of your successful web sites running ads?

My guess is because you dont have anything to show that might prove me wrong. It's interesting to note that the one poster who dared to show her face came up with a site who's index page ranks: 1 of 10 in page rank and who's site doesnt even show any indexed documents for a search of her http url.

Are there any among the clamouring co-opers who would put this point to bed by pointing to a site that is doing any better than this?

lol

With all the responses not even one.

I believe the issue may not be so much an issue associated with the concept
of the co-op may merely be a problem with the approach of the co-op. Quite possible we can all avoid getting beat up in the SERPS by adjusting the code within the co-op in some way that would allow admins to select which category among a list of categories that better suits their sites... This way linking to this specific group of websites will only produce links that are relevant to each other within each category, thus avoiding what I believe is the major problem.

Something that I feel should be addressed. Like: Ads for Coffee running on a Heavy Metal Band Site. Where is the relevance? This is something I trust Google sees as blantant and irrelavant.

Google I assume is looking to streamline it's index to produce only the most relevant results for search queries... links pointing in from and out of sites that are unrelated in any way in my opinion is a negative with Google's algorithim and a sure way to find yourself dropping from any desireable position in the SERPS.

Now, don't get your panties all twisted people. Just prove this opinion wrong by pointing to a site running ads that isnt being crushed.

Thanks

My thought is however, that there may very well be a way to save the co-op