That's a plausable theory. An accellarating downward spiral where more and more sites drag each other down faster and faster. Could explain why it's showing en masse right now. Big snowball effect. I'll have to have a better look at the non-co-op sites which are facing the same. Some hardly even participate in linking schemes or exchange so I wonder what's up with them. I still don't think it's the co-op being penalized in it's own right. It's probably an algo tweak that happens to affect most co-op sites and sites similar to those. Google tightened the screws on the crp/duplicate content filter, perhaps they've done the same now on the bad neighbourhood or unnatural voting/linking filters.
Site has been live since 1998. No cross linking as this is only site I have. Nothing that I believe should be dup content and no 302 issues that I'm aware of. No hidden text or layers or anything deceptive that I'm aware of. Statistically my on-site density/prominence fall right in there with the top 5 ranking sites for all my targeted KW's and I'm improving in Yahoo and MSN. So I'm at a loss other then something to do with the Coop. Possibly a member that is considered a bad neighborhood, too many un-themed links too fast....probably a combination of things. Who knows?
Something to add My sites that have the coop on are dropping but the sites that the ads are pointing to are rising, these do not run ads themselves. I think this agrees with Gs statement that no one linking to you can harm you but it's who you link OUT to that screws you. So it is either bad nieghbourhoods or Google is identifying coop ad displayers and hitting them.
Well if that's the case I'm screwed since I only have one site and the ads are pointing to the one their displayed on.
I may be inclined to agree with this entirely. Depends on the quality control of the sites and I know this has been an issue of "suspect" proportions lately. I know sean has tried to control this however. Good question. Cheers
This is on google fact/fiction page: Fiction: A competitor can ruin a site's ranking somehow or have another site removed from Google's index. Fact: There is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. Your rank and your inclusion are dependent on factors under your control as a webmaster, including content choices and site design. Lets hope that means you cannot destroy a site that doesn't run outbound ads.
It is entirely possible that *Rogue* elements in the network (maybe even with considerable weight to their name(s)!) have got ads validated for a site and then completely changed it’s content… I know that there isn’t any control on the sites that point INTO the network so how people do gain weight for the links that we are effectively pointing OUT is also flawed. But, I know… Sean can’t check every ad, every day! And I have seen good results (from the co-op) in Y! and MSN… Hope I can keep that shit up! I’ve removed the co-op. Will let anyone know if it helps I might even come back with an increased Google weight and blow it on a new Yahoo! and MSN focused venture
Backlink update... I'm seeing an increase in page count... Anyone else? (Coop Ads Have been removed from site in question)
Well the site I posted about that had 13,000 pages on the API is now down to 190 On a normal site search I have 139,000 URLs only, nice... That has taken 14 days I am positive it is the coop ads doing this as the other site they are on is doing the same. They are hosted on different IPs in different countries and there are no links between them. Coop ads are coming off today. If shawn manages to calculate weight by another method that doesn't involve G, I have a site that I don't care what G does with it that I can display ads on, but other than that I'm afraid that's it. Oh well it was good while it lasted...
Nothing is conclusive... I'd liek to hear about what other people are experiencing before my assume it's because of one reason or another... Like I say, I have sites not running the coop that have been dropped, while Other sites I run are running the Coop and are still going strong...
Hi Oliver I really hope another reason is found and I can display ads again, I have fantastic rankings in Yahoo and MSN because of the COOP. I am still open minded, but will see what happens to my sites without the ads for now. .
I am with you - for me the jury is still out though from now on I will not be running ads on sites that receive ads. Up to this point I have not lost a site that runs ads only or receives ads only. I have adopted different strategies for websites I've lost. On one of my (previously) best sites I am determined to stick with it (running ads and receiving ads) to see what happens. At present this site is sporadically spidered by G (many days zero, the odd day 15, 150, or maybe 1500 pages) and those pages are indexed/cached - but G refuses to visit/cache my home pagewhich is where most PR comes to so the inner pages have little PR.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=8577&page=2&pp=10 You made these comments, was this directed at what Leeds1 said? I'm lost. 26 dec my site dropped from ALL number 1 positions (everything I wanted) to nothing. I dunno why, can we compare and try and make sense of it?
You're more than welcom to have a look at the domain... http://www.seo-dev.co.uk I'm still not 100% sure what the issue was/is, but it does seem as though the pages are slowly being reincluded in the index. Gbot crawls are back again (Still crappy, but a start) and I've had a couple of referrers from G in the last day or so, so It looks like things are on the up for that domain...
If linking to bad neighbourhoods damage the network, introducing automatic validation for ads via google, as Shawn suggested in another thread, might offer some more protection.
It continues... The only referals I am now getting from G are from pages on the site that did not have ads on them. Has anyone else seen this, pages that were running ads being deindexed and directories that were not running them still OK?
I have removed all adv. from my main money site. We'll see what happens. I have left them in place on two others with the weight equal to the three combined now pointing to the one. However...gotta say, this update today with G my ranks went up...go figure. Cheers
The great god gbot visited my home page again today. I am holding my breath to see if it appears in the cache.