Don't let my results blow your theory. Even though we're an older site we dropped out of site in the SERPS in both G and Y after the changes a few years ago. Been fighting ever since to get back to the top. Which was working but now all seems to be lost. Hopefully it's just a temp thing. What really bugs me is that for most of my KW's the sites G is putting in the top 10 seem to be a mix of decent sites as well as obviously junk and spam sites. Maybe thay haven't applied all their filters yet? PS: Typed Ad Words earlier but ment AdSense. I run ads but don't advertise with them.
Yeh, I don't think its older sites, on other forums I've visited sites have ranged from new 6 month old sites to 10 year old sites. I'm seeing alot of directories, which are from web stat sites, anyone noticed that? Also alot of directories, and naff search engines appearing in the results.
I noticed that also. As well as a lot of those "Top 100" type sites. This is the only forum I frequent so it's good to hear it seems to happening across the board. I was starting to think that possibly the Ad Network might have something to do with it. Huge jump in BL's, non-related links and that sort of thing? But apparently it's not.
Nah, it's not the ad network, my weight is still 0 because my php forum is taking an age to get indexed properly in Google, so I've no BL's from the network, and it's happened to one of my sites.
I don't think it is the ads, I have no ads and my domain is 1.5 years old. I have moved about from the top to the position of 100 for most of my keywords.
Has anyone noticed today the BIG increase in indexed pages for their site? At the beginning of the week our site had 3,000ish pages, tonight 6,000 are indexed, that's pretty much all of our pages indexed on Google. EDIT: I've just checked on Yahoo and I have over 9,000 links pointing to my domain, Google is showing a feeble 300+ At one point I think it was any BL's with PR3 and under, looking at some of my links on Yahoo, that is not the case, it' simply only showing a small percentage of links. My guess to stop some of the link buying that's gone in recent months.
It's not necessarily the co-op itself, but possibly what the co-op does isn't working with the new algo. of google. My initial guess is the age of links are being taken into account and not given full weight until they've been around for a while... therefore, if you get a bunch of new links (especially if they rotate and aren't static), youwon't get the benefit of them for several months...
I am wondering if the new alog, is penalizing webmasters who have many backlinks? Maybe they are showing backlinks but filter our there effect on serps? I did get a deep crawl this weekend as well.
bad neighbourhood linking perhaps? I have not dived at all for any of my KWs - but run a forum I try and carefully check what sigs and links in messages are posted but you never know. Maybe it is a links thing - maybe you get a penalty if you link to bad people (see the other threads for xxxx material in the network) hmmm....
Of the sites that I have with substantial controlled backlinks [read anchor text] my positions have been stable or improved [on one of these the backlinks have gone up from 5500+ to 7400+] - on those sites and pages where the position has been mostly because of text and onpage seo they have plumetted. On one newish site with backlinks mostly in the plural it is the singular that has improved [I need to investigate which sites with links in the singular are causing this to happen as some of the sites are anchored with the singular] On those sites where I have lost links I have lost position
Same here Foxy. On the site that has rankings plummeted, the links have reduced in the last update. I thought it was a link problem, but I've heard of sites that have increased in links still have keywords that have plummeted. I also thought it could be a penality for some reason, but have not done anything out of the ordinary to warrant a penalty, unless it's due to linking to a bad neighbourhood. It's all baffling to me because in general Google as acted normal, deep spidering of pages, massive increase in pages indexed in Google, from 3,000 pages to 6,000 pages, the only thing out of the ordinary is the links situation where I have 9,000 pointing to me on Yahoo and only 384 in Google. Weird.
wwhhomes/ all for those whose rankings have dropped - is this for ALL terms on your site or just a few terms ? I think the bad neighbourhood is an interesting one and there now maybe something in the algo that reduces the value of your site if you link out to a) bad neighbourhoods and b) non relevant sites - - ie: coops....
I have seen ranking drop across the board for my site. I am very careful who I link to, but who is to say they put on the black hat after a few proper link exchanges? On a side note, yahoo seems to have updated its index sending much new traffic. I hope G comes back around. From what I have seen, there are lower quality spammy sites now at the top.
How do you identify what is a bad neighbourhood though? Also non themed links, i.e. coop, that could be true, and to test this theory, I've dumped all non travel links, and disabled my coop account, and will let you know if this has a positive impact on my serps.