Matt Cutts anounces over-otimization penalty!

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by mchrest, Mar 16, 2012.

  1. #1
    Have a look ! Hwat do you think will this change SEO....Get ready for some big changes ...like the need for useful content

    Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.”

    Matt announced this during a panel Search Engine Land’s Editor-In-Chief, Danny Sullivan and Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing at SXSW named Dear Google & Bing: Help Me Rank Better!. The audio for the session has been published where I learned that Google has been working on a new penalty that targets site’s that overly optimize for search engines for the past few months.

    Matt Cutts said the new over optimization penalty will be introduced into the search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. To give sites that have great content a better shot at ranking above sites that have content that is not as great but do a better job with SEO.

    Here is the audio clip, you can find Matt saying this about 1/3rd the way in. I have tried to transcribe it below but note, it is not 100% word for word.

    Here is the transcription:

    What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

    In 2009, Matt did a video on over optimization penalties saying there was no such thing. Here is that video:
    see full article here:

    http://searchengineland.com/too-muc...n-“over-optimization”-penalty-for-that-115627
     
    mchrest, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  2. iowadawg

    iowadawg Prominent Member

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    #2
    About time.

    Can see it now, some seo company will come out with a plan called "we will not let google penalize your site because we will do very little seo work on your site" and then charge more than the service is worth.
     
    iowadawg, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  3. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #3
    Great, now crappy sites will do poorly, good sites will do poorly, and the only sites that will do good is Walmart and other corporations that purchase the keywords.
     
    Laceygirl, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  4. mchrest

    mchrest Active Member

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    #4
    that is precisely the point , More cash in the big G pockets. Pay for it or dont rank!
     
    mchrest, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  5. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #5
    If this were true than sites like wikipedia would be destroyed by it because they cannot control their backlinks. They get billions from all over the place naturally.

    Will that happen?

    Nope, google will give them a free pass!
     
    Laceygirl, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  6. bigmac

    bigmac Peon

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    #6
    Sounds no different than what panda was supposed to do and failed..

    I think they are just flogging the dead horse.
     
    bigmac, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  7. Laceygirl

    Laceygirl Notable Member

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    #7
    ummm, no. Its actually the total opposite of panda.
     
    Laceygirl, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  8. bigmac

    bigmac Peon

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    #8
    I guess that depends on what your personal definition is on panda because no one is right.

    To me panda was supposed to improve the content provided by googles searches and as such better content should provide better ranking..
     
    bigmac, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  9. browntwn

    browntwn Illustrious Member

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    #9
    Their abundance of backlinks is normal and expected for wiki, there is nothing that would draw a flag. They do not look at every site through the same lens. Wiki is not expected to have backlinks like a random blog.
     
    browntwn, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  10. dtommy79

    dtommy79 Well-Known Member

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    #10
    I kinda saw this coming :)
     
    dtommy79, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  11. StevenPayales

    StevenPayales Greenhorn

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    #11
    Naaah.. I don't believe this. I have seen a lot of abusive websites with all keys being stuffed on the pages and the contents and yet they are still on page 1. If this is good to be true, then Big G must prove it.
     
    StevenPayales, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  12. p.caspian

    p.caspian Peon

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    #12
    Unn, this new penalty on over optimization will slow down SEO expert's job and SEO will totally be quality content based. I fully support google's decision to make googleBot smarter.
     
    p.caspian, Mar 16, 2012 IP
  13. BCRed

    BCRed Active Member

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    #13
    Seen this one coming for ages. I don't think it'll be a major update. My guess is they'll start giving a boost for internal pages of strong authority domains on mid-long tail searches as the end result. As mentioned above, somewhat of an anti panda really
     
    BCRed, Mar 18, 2012 IP
  14. Preneur

    Preneur Greenhorn

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    #14
    Interesting. Too little optimization is ineffective, and now too much optimization is going to be ineffective as well.
     
    Preneur, Mar 18, 2012 IP
  15. Deniel Ocean

    Deniel Ocean Peon

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    #15
    whenever Google update comes, some sites get benefited whereas some got penalty.
     
    Deniel Ocean, Mar 18, 2012 IP
  16. The-A

    The-A Peon

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    #16
    so how do u describe an over-optimized website?
     
    The-A, Mar 18, 2012 IP
  17. tonnele

    tonnele Peon

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    #17
    Over optimization of a web site and is such a "gray area". The bottom line is just build a great natural site and employ effective marketing strategies and if the demand for your product is there you will make money
     
    tonnele, Mar 25, 2012 IP
  18. whooget

    whooget Active Member

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    #18
    I really can't follow Google anymore, first it was this and now it's something else, and they constantly changing the rules of SEO but people don't see any results at all.
    I'v been writing incredibly good and useful content for two years now and still I'm amazed to see what kind of spammy sites are ranking better than me.
    Google is just loosing this game, honestly I don't know what will these changes bring to us.

    James
     
    whooget, Mar 25, 2012 IP
  19. WordPressJoomla

    WordPressJoomla Peon

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    #19
    I have felt the over optimization on some of my sites - it seems very true for new domains getting a back link, or domains that previously had no back links.

    I bet they will have to reverse the changes just like google panda - I wonder why they make such drastic announcements only to reverse it shortly after.

    I mean domains with no content were ranking for very competitive terms after the panda update - it was crazy! lol
     
    WordPressJoomla, Mar 25, 2012 IP
  20. Jim4767

    Jim4767 Prominent Member

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    #20
    Me too. I'm sick of junky-but-SEO'd websites sitting high in the rankings.
     
    Jim4767, Mar 25, 2012 IP