Big update, what happened?

Ok, I'm not interested in hearing about your new rankings, you can go post those here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=21886

What I would like to discuss is what just happened... this is a very weird update, there seems to be a hard algo tweak from Yahoo. Searchenginewatch says that Yahoo sudenly went back to their usual algo of on-page optimization... and I must say I agre to that, keyword density seems to be playing a top role in the new rankings.

I also noticed that when targeting double keywords, like "blue widgets", I am now ranked in very good spots for "widgets", sometimes ranking top 10.

Any other comments?

 

I have good rankings with almost zero on-page optimization on Yahoo. IMO, Yahoo is still in its infancy as a search engine being a basic combo of Link Popularity(importance) and Information Retrieval(specificity) score. The way I think Yahoo operates is this:
1. they recalculate link pop scores and we see big jumps as is now
2. the other time, the simply expand their index. Changes in SERPs are due to anchor text, on page SEO and new/removed pages

I view Yahoo SERPs as this:
- they change a little daily mainly based on new found anchor text links
- unless you wait for the next link popularity update, you won't see huge improvements for competitive keywords

In the years, my rankings have always climbed slowly and made a couple of big jumps in the updates.

 

I think On-page stuff is more inportant. I have a non competitive term I have incomming links with that anchor text, but I dont have that text exactly on the page. my rank for it is N/A on tracker.

 

I have a general cateogry site that used to sell "blue widgets" but about 6 months ago, I moved all the "blue widets" to another domain that I've owned for 6 years. The new site now only has "blue widets" and is ranked well in MSN and Google. Yahoo initially indexed about 500 pages and ranked it #5 - #8. After adding the co-op (which may be a coincidence) yahoo dropped all but 1 page and hasn't sent any traffic to the new site in about 2 months. Both sites are custom coded, proprietary product- nothing to do with affiliate products.

The old site doesn't mention "blue widgets" or even have related keywords- and hasn't for about 6 months. The only link to the old site that mentions "blue widgets" is a DMOZ listing.

This new Yahoo update now lists the old site #2 for this highly, highly, competitive keyword that hasn't existed for 6 months on the site- while the new site that has only "Blue Widgets" still only show has one page indexed and of course, doesn't rank for the term.

The yahoo ranking makes no sense unless it is giving a huge amount of weight to the DMOZ listing- but even that doesn't make sense because there are thousands of DMOZ listings that mention this competitive keyword.

There is also no obvious connection between both of these sites. While I own both, one is in a business name and the other isn't. They are with different hosts, on different class C ip's. The only similarity is that while the addresses are different, they are both in the same city. The only other possible connection is that they both run adsense and have the same "ID" in the code.

Really odd, but it certainly has nothing to do with on-page optimization in my case. Unless Yahoo is using 6 month old data, I am at a loss.

 

i jumped a lot on sites where i added more keyword dense content

 

And on the flip side, some of my sites where I haven't changed anything on page in months got a bump in the rankings. All I've done for those sites is add more links.

 

I am seeing the more importance for onpage factors on this side too.

 

My opinion, is they did some kind of rollback, prior to the last update. I work for a SEO company, and all the sites I've worked on from the last update to now, have all been deindexed. Now, the pages are back in the SERP.

It looks they realized the last update was sucky-sucky, and they simply decided to go back to the old index, and to start a new update using different factors..

OnPage still seems to be the major factor....

 

It aint a roll back based on the prior serps or i would be ranking on my keywords again. Unless thye applied some filters again.

 

Crazyhorse, I'm not stating that the index you currently see is the old one. I'm only saying they have reverted to the old index, and they then have started a new update. So, the pages that were indexed from the last update to now were initally gone from the index. Now the pages are back up again, with a BL update, but the SERP do not reflect it yet. IMO...

 

I saw what I think are these new SERPs for about 2 days roughly 3 weeks ago. And, they are definitely not any 'old' SERPs at least not for my kws and not for the last 7 months.

On-page, specifically density does seem to be the key, but I'm only about 65% confident in that statement.

At this point, I haven't figured out anything better

/*tom*/

 

Tom-

We have a site that is a very competitive real estate KW and it moved up to #5 with about 1% KW density. To us it almost kind of feels like a small sandbox. Several of our clients sites are now on the first page....... like five sites and numerous KW's all overnight. (Small Yahoo Sandbox, IMO)

Still very much link based.

Stuart

 

BTW, I'm seeing two sets of SERPS for Yahoo right now. One KW has a 31 position differnece.... probably depending on the DC.

 

IMO - sitewides aren't working after this update - I've had two sites steadily ranking with just sitewides - they're both gone from the top 50

 

Good job Yo-Yo! I would tend to agree they have been devauled in Yahoo.

 

Interesting.... that explanation could also fit my situation, if by sandbox we are talking about a 'too many links too quick' filter.

I have been reasonably aggressive in link building, in addition to lowering my kw density a bit. Either one could be the cause of a drop from #1 to #3.

There's one other possibility I can think of. In the past, I have seen my site fall during an update, only to re-take the same or better rank once the update has completed.

So, maybe it is best to see what shakes out over the next week or so before jumping to conclusions.

/*tom*/

 

It seems onpage have the biggest factor on this update.

 

Spammers won the day ....I will wait until the end of update to comment on it because the SERP are looking very very stupid and funny right now.
However i think that onpage factor is highly important so far...that's why spammer won the day.
Hope by the end of update the index go reliable again ......

 

This is most likely (at least i hope) one of those 2-3 day "things" they do and everything changes again. My $$/earned today just decreased by 300%

 

me too .. i'm back to zero.had only 1 click the whole day ( what a joke!) .. my ranks are replaced by a lot of spammer/irrelevant site. But i'm holding my breath and hope that it's temporary