Major Google Update (24th April) - The END of mini-sites

I don't agree. I see that many sites with no content or minimal content (pages with some photos and a few words) are outranking some quality sites with hundreds of articles.

 

just a matter of time..Sooner or later they will share the same fate..

 

Looking upon the quality of results Google is showing, i think the title of this should be "Major Google Penguin Update = The End of Google Era"

 

this can be the end of seo, what is very very bad.

 

I seriously doubt it.

 

care to explain? coz even big authority sites got hit...

 

this will not be the end to seo. every time google finds a way to block our techniques which they have been doing for several years, we just find new ways of getting around it. How we do SEO may change but SEO will be around for a long time.

 

this is true actually, yes.

 

I do not think it has to do with mini site, I got my insurance niche who is NOT punished, in fact it has increases in serp. I guess it has to do with link farm or private blog post or too many links at once.

 

What I've read about this update, called Penguin, is that it mostly targets keyword stuffing. So, I'd suspect the folks who are seeing issues with mini-sites are the folks who are using the giant single pages flooded with keyword text.

If so, that suggests that folks who are SEOing the right way have nothing much to worry about.

 

i still see one page ranks ranking

 

Google is DEFINITELY still sorting their "mess" out. And I have a feeling that they are doing it semi-manually.. It's very interesting to observe that soon after someone mentions an obviously miss-ranked site (best example being the empty make money online blog that used to rank 1st), the site drops to oblivion. And yet, there are many other empty (or close to that) sites ranking which makes me think that it's not algorithmic.

In regards to my assumptions:

Review sites ARE what visitors are looking for. However, that doesn't always mean that they will rank at the top. I used to outrank Amazon and the sort with ease, but that's not the case anymore. After this update, the sellers WILL rank at the top, then some major resellers, and then maybe some review sites. This is not how it should be - but it's how thing are at the moment.

Nevertheless, I was referring to general smaller sites that don't necessarily review specific products.. For example, I have a bunch of sites that talk about furniture and give interior design tips and advice - all of them used to rank at the very top for many furniture related keywords (ie. computer desks) but now the first page is occupied by larger companies.

More specifically, we have a large computer desk retailer with the exact domain, and then we have Amazon, Overstock, Sauder (manufacturer), Walmart, Office Depot, Best Buy, Cymax, OfficeMax, etc... And do you want to hear the funny part? These are ALL multimillion dollar corporations that also happen to occupy ALL the Adwords ad spots for the same keyword. Just run the search and watch how almost all the top 10 organic results are also the top paid ad spots.

In regards to the rest of your comments - I agree - in many cases, affiliate and review sites have MUCH more information for the visitors and they should be ranked higher than the original source. But that doesn't mean that they will.

On a sidenote - in the 3rd observation, when I say "BIGGER" site I don't necessarily mean a site with more articles. I am referring to a site that has the budget to run huge campaigns and generate a lot of buzz - ie. Amazon and the sort. Before this update, we were able to get a fair share of traffic by marketing to specific target groups while the big boys were aiming for the bigger piece of the pie.

For example - maybe Amazon would rank 1st for the term "desks"... maybe 1st for the term "cheap desks".. but we would always be able target something like "cheap large desks" and cover the topic to a certain extent, add some good links, and outrank the big boys. Right now, Google will rank big companies for almost ANY product related term and they will most likely rank a useless post from an unrelated (but huge) forum that mentions a keyword rather than a smaller site that is totally on point. Don't you agree?

P.S. I love the results for "search engine" - I never though that this would be the case lol

About Negative SEO:

I really don't think that this is plausible yet. At least I hope it's not. I believe that Google simply targeted a few types of links which it devalued and that is what caused this fiasco. For example, I used to make a site, post 10-15 articles on it, and then make X type A links, Y type B links, Z type C links.. I would wait a month or two and see my site at the top. If Google were to devalue type A and type B links, then all I would be left with would be type C links which would most likely not be enough to keep me at the top. I think, and hope, that this is what's happening here.

If you have any comments/ideas about ANYTHING that has to do with this update please do share. I want us to try and figure out what type of links still work - if any. I am thinking that maybe after this update we should concentrate on making a few select Web 2.0 properties (which would be on already established and large sites) and then link to those and not to the money sites directly. That way, the money sites would only have a few but very powerful links - a slower but definitely safer option in my opinion.

 

Yes Google is still sorting their mess out. So it is not time for conclusions.

 

no they don't, the rankings are quite stable since 24th April more than 2 weeks ago..

 

It's getting harder for mini sites. Authority sites with youtube videos seem to be working, as long as you have unique content and have niche related videos.

 

I do not see evidence of smaller sites losing out but here is what I have found...

Google Anayltics
Traffic down by about 35%
Bounce rate improved from around 50% to about 30%
Average time on site up from under 2 minutes to over 3 minutes.
Total page views is similar
Sales are down about 10%.

My experiences show the whilst traffic is hit with many KW falling in serps, there seems to be more relevant visitors as sales has fallen only marginally compared to traffic.

Time will tell

 

Interestingly enough I will have to agree... sort of. Traffic is definitely down by a LOT, but with that said, I am noticing slightly more targeted visitors across the board. Lower bounce rates, higher time on site.. But my sales were certainly affected by far more than 10%.

The fact is - for every relatively "short tail" keyword, while there used to be small sites in the first page, all you see nowadays is big sites most of which happen to advertise on Adwords. I tested this with several KWs and have yet to find an note worthy exception.. and I am definitely not the conspiracy theory type of person - I really try to study the facts.

 

I totally agree with what you are saying. But in a way I am not surprised by all of this because that is the way it is. The small affiliates are the ones that made Google, but now it appears that Google is sending a message stating thank you for you hard work, but your service is no longer required. I visit lots of forums and there are a lot of people that feel the same way you feel. And it is not just Google that is pushing the small business owners off the main pages, YouTube is also doing the same thing. Big surprise there since Google now owns YouTube.

I had several pages booted from the first or second page of the search engines. I had one that was on page one in position number 2 and now it is on page 54. I had a YouTube account that had over 60 videos and they were all ranked either on the first or second page of Google and ranked on the first page of YouTube. Then one day, I looked up and my account was suspended. All my videos were gone, traffic gone, opt-ins gone, and the explanation I got two months later was one of my videos did not meet the Community Guidelines. It turn out the I had the words "Make Money Online" in the title and that is what got my account suspended.

I have been fighting with YouTube and Google to get that account back, but so far no luck. It is funny that I see so many other big business YouTube video with the same words in the title, but they are still online. Google started pushing the small business guy away when they changed all the rules and prices for Adwords and it seems like each update is designed to make Google more big business focused and not something for the small Affiliate.

I will bet by the end of this year Google will make another change and that change will only affect the small business owner. But Google better watch out, because they are up to day, but tomorrow could be a whole different story. Somebody will knock the off the hill and it is just a matter of time. Remember with AltaVista was the top search engine, now they are history.

 

I can tell you one thing for free - this is Google doing their best to promote Google Products - I used Blogger to back up my articles for my money site - I only added the articles 2 weeks later or when the originals had already been indexed by Google. The blogger site was three pages beneath my money site and after this last update - the Blogger site is on page one and my money site on page three - what gives?

The front page of Google now is terrible - so many ads and wikipedia, ebay, maps, contact details, shopping, Google Products - there has gotta be a competition rule against this somewhere.

We should follow China and Ban Google haha

 

I think trying a few, select links on a new site first might be the way to go.

1. Never link spam links to your money sites directly.
OK - Apparently Penguin doesn't run all the time, so sites with spammy links that didn't get caught this time, may get caught next time. Not sure how often they'll run algo.

2. Diversity in anchor text
http://searchenginewatch [.] com/article/2172839/Google-Penguin-Update-Impact-of-Anchor-Text-Diversity-Link-Relevancy

Take out the [] around the . in .com. Link to anchor diversity study.

3. Slow down building links
I have a generic phrase, half built site with maybe 10 links to it, which is on page 2 or 3 for most key phrases in a high competition niche. Most of my sites with no link building rose during Penguin. Anything I bought links for, tanked.

Google did not reach it's goal for the last reported quarter. It's easy to become paranoid about their motives in rolling out this update, but they also don't want to get sued by fraud. Tweaking the algo to load the results with Adword clients would leave a paper trail a mile wide. What are showing up are authority sites that, yes, have outspent you 10 to 1.

Thinking outside the box is the only way to go.

Let's say you register YOURBRAND Furniture and Design.com. Pay for 10 generic furniture articles that target your keyword. Make sure the titles are catchy. Make sure they don't overlap. No "cheap office desk," then "cheap wood office desks" articles. The wood BS should be incorporated in the first article. Low keyword saturation in articles.

For furniture, come at this via relocation sites, blogs and forums for Office Managers and Admin Assistants, who make purchasing decisions. Pinterest groups who target office workers, forums that cater to the same. (A desk is a capital item that needs tons of approvals to order for a business, but it usually started with me looking at a catalog or our chief engineer working with a designer for a new buildout. Just sayin.) Join design forums - link to your test site. If it tanks, you know this is not working.

It would have cost you 10 spun directory listings, real articles on Squidoo and Hubpages and 8 other Web 2.0, 7 days participating on Pinterest, as well as 9 other forums. Twitter and Facebook accounts dedicated to new site. So maybe two and half to three days of real work, plus $200 on articles, new domain and hosting. Drop 10 relevent comments on authority sites in your niche that are deeplinks. 3 social bookmarks at high Trustrank sites. That's it.

Don't put more than 50 links to the site in a month, don't repeat the keywords. Don't repeat links, ie, use instead: http://www.mysite[.]com, http://mysite[.]com, mysite[.]com, http://www.mysite[.]com/page1.html, keyword1, deeplink full url for keyword 1, mysite, click here, etc.

(I forgot the ratios for deeplinks to homepage links, and direct links to keyword links to non keyword links. I'll find the video for that and email the link to you.)

If the new site works, AFTER the next confirmed updates, 301 it to your old site. Then repeat for old site.

While Panda was an annoyance. Penguin is a game changer. Until the dust settles, I'm hand building links - very, very few links in select places.