What's been done since Jagger to bounce back

mtb167 - when I hear internal linking improvements, I think, breadcrumbs, text links (versus image links), and all main pages are pointed to from all pages site-wide. Anything else?

 

I don't think that point was clear to some of us. Thanks for making it clear.


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Derek

 

Links higher up(usually with higher PR) have always had more weight than those deeper down-- nothing new. Is this primarily what people are talking about with internal linking?


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Derek

 

I had two sites take a major dive with Jagger (either the end of Jagger 2 or beginning of Jagger 3). When Jagger 1 and 2 hit, I was pretty much unaffected, but then came the pain. I'm on about page 3 or 4 for those searches now, which is a lot better than before, but still not very helpful. Maybe I can work back up.

 

I've recovered to a similar level-- I once was on page 1 for almost all my words, and now I'm page 3-5 for some, and even those keep popping in and out of the top 100... My best is #19(page 2), and that's for my exact product name-- which should rightfully be #1, period.


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Derek

 

It sounds like some of you are saying that internal linking has become more important because of Jagger. Internal linking is somethin i have always paid close attention to - and is perhaps why i didnt get any shifting during Jagger.

From some previous posts is looks like some of you might need some tips on internal linking so i'll give you my brief advice. Hope it helps.

Internal linking principles should be similar to you back links philosophy:
Always use keyword anchor text
Vary the anchor text to appear more natural
If the link is an image, use "alt" text with keywords

A good rule of thumb is to develop an entire page for one keyword/phrase. Dont try to jam several keywords on 1 page. Provide links to this page with keyword anchors. If the term is higly competietive, continue adding links until to it from more and more pages until it is getting good placement.

For pages that arent intended for the SEs or their keyword isnt competetive, minimize the links pointing to them.

The main principal to understand is that the more internal links to a page lets the SE know which page the webmaster thinks is most important.

Hope that helps...

 

This will probably be itterative, but overall, it seems like if you have a site that is easily navigable for your visitors (not just bots) and you used good link building strategies (not reciprocal links) you made it through Jagger unscathed.

My site didn't take any hits after jagger, and I made very few changes during it, but it seemed like the pages that I had more internal links going to had an improvement after the update.

 

Also, is it safe to say the having reciprocal links hurt everyone?

 

Both sites I mentioned are easy to navigate and have 0 reciprocal links. So, that is definitely not it.

 

Great feedback - thanks all - I would love to hear more people's opinions.

I think you may be simplyfiing things a bit. I know of lots of sites that fit your above criteria that didn't do so well after Jagger.

So do people think that internal linking is the most improtant thing to look at if hit by Jagger and have either not recovered at all or recovered somewhat?

Surely there are other big things to be reviewed too, besides internal linking. I am surprised to not hear much about IBL's (inbound links) - I think that is the single most improtant thing to Google, before and after Jagger. But I would love to figure out specifics.

For instance, one term for one site I am ranked #40 with 100,000 IBL's to the site, and 250 to that particular page that ranks #40.

A competitor, for the same phrase ranks #7 and they only have 20,000 IBL's in total, and about 2 to that particular page.

And our on-page optimization is very similar, so I think it has to do with links

Now some may say this is due to them having way more relevant links. But that is not so I think. We both have similar IBL-type links.

Thoughts?

 

What Matt Cutts said back in July was, that what was around the text, that was important, was what was important.

OK .. a nebulous statement...but..think about it!

So I did, and, on a long standing site at number 5 I was crucified to 700+ and then crept back to 30+ and even higher 17 - I did not touch anything. What I noticed however in the first instance after recovering, was the sites around me had identical titles, that is, the KW only.

I went and had a look at the ones that were at the top - mostly they are directories - and this is correct as the KW is generic - but what they had in the Titles were many words - in the middle of the "group" was the KW.

The first instances of text were alt - all the sites had images first - no h1's at all and all the sites were similar in make up with loads of IBLs with KW anchor text, and even without.

So I had found two things:

1. The words around the KW were important wherever that was
2. The sites around the position were "important" in the sense of being similar make up

Since then I have changed just the title and on the new datacentre http://66.249.93.104/ that Matt Cutts says to watch I have crept back to 10 as I have on a number of others except two where I remain at around 40 - so I expect to come back with the others.

If you look at McDars tool http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php and do a search on ski france you will see what I mean - look also at the allins where I am high throughout but now 1 on the allinurl.

Now what was interesting is that this site has lost its database which I haven't replaced [as it is not important] to use as an experiment.

So just recently I created [December] a knitting site which I created in the style of images first no h1s - go and look at the allins for knitting yarn - no2

Then I created for a bit of fun a shell site - that is no substance - last week - go and look at keyword dog deli - I would expect it to be there with such an obscure KW as it is an easy one for G to compare with other sites - but it does show similarities with the other sites.

Anyhow there it is - sort of

Have fun

PS - They don't have many IBL's but they will in the future

PPS - I have just done an allin on the ski and it would appear that G is moving at the moment because the search showed me at 16 for allin url and 55 or the SERP whereas it was 1 and 35 respectively, before I wrote this post, and then I did an immediate research and it showed 1 and 12 respectively.

 

Just to clarify, what exactly did you do to your title to go from 40 to 10?

 

Originally it was just ski france and the h1 the same - that was changed to what you see - I left the h1 intact but added one more KW.

With recent experience I willdrop the h1's use - use images first with alts and a bundle of links both internal and obl and, of course reinstate the db

 

Can you be specific please? Which one is your url!? And what is the term you're using? I believe it is 'ski france' but which site is yours so I can find what you did?

Thanks,

 

Bless you - I'm tryng to be a little hands off here but.....www ski-f.....-ok .com and the term is correct

 

What about IBL's? Has anyone changed their strategy for those since Jagger?

 

Reciprocals are just a waste of time ... always have been ...the sheer effort of getting them far outweighed the value, and the risk factor of being marginalised [as they are now] made them useless.

Loads of people said otherwise but now the case is settled.

Inward bound links are still very valuable, and important, one way in, but people must not ignore OBLs..they are more important and have beenfor 18 months ... it's just that I am struggling to find a satisfactory way of using them without losing custom...there is the dilemma !

 

Here's my experiences for 4 keywords I'd optimized/linked three pages on the same site for:

1. Term 1, medium difficulty - before applying the DP coop I was ranked no 4 using a number of one way and reciprocal links, with the coop applied I jumped to No 1 and held that position throughout the entire jagger process. I removed the coop in the first week in november. The ranking has remained at no 1 the entire time.

2. Term 2, medium difficulty - before applying the DP coop I was ranked no 9 using a number of one way and reciprocal links, with the coop applied I jumped to No 3 and held that position until Jagger 2 when the ranking for the term went 200+. I removed the coop in the first week in november. The ranking has recovered to around 120.

3. Term 3, easy difficulty - before applying the DP coop I was ranked no 4 simply through internal linking, there were no external links pointed to the page at all. I applied a minimal amount of Coop weight (perhaps less than 100) and bumped the ranking up to no 1. Jagger 1 saw the ranking dissappear, I removed the coop in early november. In the last two weeks the ranking has improved to the mid 20's.

4. Term 4, very easy difficulty - pre jagger this page ranked top 20 for the targetted term based entirely on internal linking, the Coop was never applied to this page. Jagger 1 saw it wiped out. It has not recovered.

So there you have it. I've not changed the content in any major way, the on page SEO / internal linking is the same. I just don't get it.

 

One would draw a conclusion from this that you are saying that, in your opinion [because you withdrew the ranking] the coop affected your rankings during Jagger.

This is an incomplete argument and seems to have been a kneejerk reaction at the time - to be sure of this you would need to replace the coop in one of the instances and gauge the effect against itself and the others.

I think that what you might find is that at worst it had no effect at best some effect.

In all the instance I have quoted I have kept the coop intact or placed it on new sites.

There is no reason for Google to "attack" the coop in anyway after all it is what it says - advertising and that is legitimate linking.

If you view what I said before and apply it to the coop it may give you a better picture......it is what is around the KWs that is important.

So if you have a link or links in a row "marriage, funeral, baby, home, nappies" there is a fair chance that they will carry "weight" with Google, but as the coop links are not "themed" and are random they, at worst, probably won't.


PS I have already asked Shawn if he would place the description on the "ads" around the link, but to no avail at the moment.

 

I have never attacked the coop. If you read my post you'll see some KW recovering after removing the coop, some not changing before or after the coop, and some being nuked without the coop being applied at any stage. I'm sorry if you read it as coop bashing.

What I am saying is that Jagger is clearly complex and that no one thing can be said to the cause. Reciprocal links for example, are demonised roundly yet the KW I still rank no 1 for has a largish proportion of recip links. On the converse, one of other terms has about the same number and proportion of reciprocal links and shows no sign whatsoever of recovering to its previous positions.

At the moment I'm not willing to reapply the coop to this site because it is the major source of my income and I want to be as straight down the line as possible.