Google has just undergone a major update of its search algorithm, nicknamed “Update Florida” by the ever-growing community of search engine watchers.
Google trawls the web and modifies its results pages on an almost daily basis now. But updates to its algorithm happen less frequently and cause massive shakeups in the results that appear in its SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Earlier this year, Google underwent two major updates, nicknamed “Dominic” and “Esmerelda”. The Florida update adds the F to this series and is a much bigger update than its predecessors, with greater consequences for site listings.
A thread devoted to discussing the Florida update, which began last Friday, is already the longest, fastest-growing thread I have ever seen on any topic on any webmaster bulletin board.
The reason the Florida update is causing ructions among webmasters and SEOs (Search Engine Optimisers) is because the company has launched a major offensive against what it calls “spammers”.
In the search engine community, spam does not refer to dodgy email marketing, but to any unfair or underhand tactics used by SEOs to gain high positions in SERPs for the websites they represent.
Not everyone in the webmaster community agrees on what does or doesn't constitute spam. While most agree that hidden links (making the colour of links the same as the page background) is cheating, for example, less blatant tactics such as adding URLs to blogs or guestbooks are approved by some, but frowned on by others.
For Google the situation is clear: any webmaster, marketer or SEO who sticks by the guidelines outlined on its website is a “whitehat” (a good guy, basically), while anyone who breaks these rules is a “blackhat”.
The Florida update has seen a major crackdown on blackhats. In doing so, Google has once again improved the quality of its results, polished its integrity-rich brand, further upped the ante on those who try to cheat its system – and increased its power as the sheriff of the information superhighway
Comments
66 comments
So why are the blackhats coming up first now? Google's intention sounds like a good one, but I think they must have screwed something up. Alltheweb has been real valuable these last few days. Come on Google.
Florida is a failure until now. While google plays "oh what are we doing a good thing for our clients" many sites are dropped from the index that are no spammers at all, and spam sites get to the top.
Google is in deep trouble with this update.
Google is applying special filters to commercial sites in order to prevent them from appearing in the results and doing so to get more sales for its ‘AdWords’ program. The big problem for them is that this is a violation of the FTC rules. They have no other chance then returning to the fair practices or to pay severe fines in otherwise inevitable trails.
Whilst many Google results seem to exclude the more commercial sites optimized for few keywords, they seem to include sites that dilute keywords and just mention them a couple times.
I am also seeing quite unusual results returned with little to no relevance when searching for information.
Google has lost all credibility with this update. They are abusing their power in order to increase their revenue. As far as quality goes, I am finding pages from the same company appear 4 or 5 times on the firt page.
Remember when Google was the underdog? Now Google is a Microsoft--or even worse. We need a new search engine that is about valid search results, and not money. Google will fall more quickly than it rose.
I have been kicked out of the number 9 spot for my main keyword into oblivion not even in the top 500 and yet am still at number 1 for my second main keyword this whole thing makes no sense and the results showing up for my main keyword are irrelevant slices of newspapers and journals etc.
I just checked Yahoo and they are giving much better info and more relevant sites than Goggle is this the end for Goggle because the general public will soon move on to a search engine that give them what they are looking for not useless old news articles.
Gazza: I'm getting results from yahoo that are just as bad as those from Google. In fact, it seems that Yahoo and Google are giving exactly the same results, atleast from here. If Google is providing results to yahoo, I would have to imagine yahoo should stop using Google. For the moment, I have stopped using both. This week I've rediscovered AltaVista and Alltheweb, which seem to have much more valid results than Google. I've tried Hotbot, but it seems to have a lot of old pages in there that lead to dead pages. Still better than Google though! I hope they fix it soon.
This Update makes no sense whatso ever. Google wants to promote it's adwords and show how cruel it can get.
Lets not forget they need more money from the IPO. Money makes the mare go !
its altavista and lycos for me !
Hi all, I will suggest to wait a little longer because this can not be the end of this update. It looks to me old data in the serp. And old data was full of spamm, I believe google was much better before "florida" and when this will be over it will get even better
A lot of SEOs on the bulletin boards are complaining that Google was being unfair with its Florida update and was "punishing" people for no good reason. I guess that's the sentiment expressed here as well (by all except Alex, at least).
I can only go by my own experience, which is: I try to optimize web sites and pages using Google's guidelines, but now and again I have taken "shortcuts" that have given me some quick results.
Since the Florida update, my shortcut-based results have disappeared but most of my hard-grafted results remain unchanged. For one *highly* competitive "keyword1 keyword2" in particular, I had a number 10 spot -- now I'm absolutely nowhere to be seen.
But for most of results, I'm doing fine...
I still think Google was playing by the book on this one. And if you feel you have been "cheated", GoogleGuy has advised emailing info@google.com with update florida as the subject line, explaining your complaint.
Michael,
What about those of us that rely on Google for searches? As someone that uses Google for doing travel-industry research I can tell you that this 'update' is a huge disappointment. I was really hoping this mess would not stretch into another work week.
I would switch to one of the other engines, but Google's cache feature that locates words in the page is what makes the engine useful to me, and I haven't seen anyone else doing this. Despite that,I am ready to stop using Google. I think its absolutely ridiculous that they are manipulating the relevancy of results to punish people or increase their advertising. Whatever it is, its a lose-lose situation for those of us use Google for research purposes.
I no longer consider Google a legitimate search tool. Does anyone know of any other search engines that offer the 'cache' feature and don't manipulate their results?
One of my main competitor has never spent a cent on adwords, actually I never seen any kind of advertising from them on google. Well this update has brought him top rank for many keywords in all its websites. I can not believe in "They are abusing their power in order to increase their revenue". There must be something else.......
Troy,
My opinions are based on my own experience -- including direct interaction with Google as a searcher & designer/site optimiser, and conversations with other SEOs.
So I'm interested in learning -- what is it about the Florida udpate that has changed the quality of the results you're getting for your travel industry research?
Are you finding that spammers are replacing quality sites in the results?
I'm genuninely curious...
Michael,
Who cares about the web designers and search developers. Google should be focused on those that use its engine for searching! The quality of listings has gone down. There's more noise and less clarity. Perhaps I should have used bookmarks before--but several sites I simply can't find anymore on Google. Google is broken. Lets hope they are working to fix it! It atleast does appear to be improving slowly from last week.
Here's an example of how I find Google to be lacking. I'm compiling a list of wineries that are known for different types of wine. I'm starting with Zinfandel, so I type in "wineries known for zinfandel". Try Google. Try the first search result. Brings me to a page that lacks any focus on my search terms. Try altavista or alltheweb, it brings me to a page about zinfandel and wineries that are known for it. Google has lost its consistency, or maybe I need to relearn how to use it?
This isn't travel related, but I thought this was a funny example. Search on Google for "linux development", look at result #8. Its a "404 - Not Found page". Google has indexed the "404" message, yet they somehow consider this relevant to linux development? I just think that Google is broken, and I really hope they are working to fix it. If not, they have chosen temporary cash over long term relevancy.
Troy,
Like I said, I've been talking about my experiences as a searcher *as well as* from a design/optimisation point of view.
You say that "Google should be focused on those that use its engine for searching!"
I agree wholeheartedly. And so, in my experience, does Google. Google's success has been based on giving users the best search experience, and the most relevant results.
I don’t believe this has changed since the Florida update. In my experience, results have improved, as spammers have been hit hard.
The fact that you had to pick examples that are so obscure and exotic I think speaks for itself. In any case, I'm not convinced.
It really didn't take me long to find a list of wineries that specialise in zinfadel using Google. In fact, a simple search for "zinfadel" pulls up at least one or two good pages in the top 10 results that have comprehensive lists of wineries that specialise in zinfadel.
As for the 404 error – that’s well spotted, but we rarely ever see 404 errors listed in Google like this. So Google isn't perfect. So what? It's still giving the best results.
I've never said that Google is perfect. Nor could I care less about *which* company is the best search engine. But I've been a heavy internet user for almost a decade now, and I've found that Google has consistently given better results since I first starting using it (in early 2000).
Back to your 404: as a search user, I'm obviously not going to click on this link in the SERP -- but I've still got seven options left, on the same page.
As long as such errors slip through the net only rarely, I'm not even going to notice.
Once again, I have no vested interest in Google. I'm just interested in the internet and search. And Google is *still* giving me the best results – as a user. If it doesn’t, I’ll simply change to another engine, as will all its other users.
But I’ll do that based on my experience as a searcher, nothing else. Until that diminishes (or there’s simply a better alternative), I’m sticking with Google.
The relevence issue- My site is brainpuzzles.com and there I sell metal disentanglement puzzles. If you search for 'metal puzzles' you used to get brainpuzzles.com and seriouspuzzles.com within the first 5 results. Now one site shows up 4 times in the first 4 results and me and seriouspuzzles.com are both NO WHERE to be seen. Both of us are VERY relevent to the search terms and both have been dropped. How can this be good for searchers? On the other hand though, both of us buy google adwords. Were we dropped so people would HAVE to click to get to us? Thus bolstering the comments that google is doing this to make more money?
It's gonna be a bad Christmas for the Andersons....
Seth Anderson
Many of our searches are still ranking top where they are product specific with less relevant pages.
It seems the searches affected most are where there is 1,000s of matching pages. These seem to have given priority to 'news' sites.
I've mainly been looking at coffee related searches though.
Seth,
I just had a quick look at your site. It has a Google Pagerank of 5 on the homepage and most of the main interior pages, which is quite good.
However, your site is not optimised for the keywords you mention here. The fact that you scored highly for these phrases previously probably had related to the text on pages exterior to your site that linked to you -- but this is one of the things Google has clamped down on.
You could get high up for these keywords again fairly quickly.
This has nothing to do with you having Google adwords.
I'll email you with some more details...
Very sad. Once a great engine, Google now seems to see the irrelevant as relevant. Whoever came up with this change needs their head looking at. Have they forgotten what they were so good at? Another Lycos I fear.......gone gone gone
We have now moved the 'start' page on all of our computers, and at all of our 41 branches to MSN Search. We have the distinct sense that Google has entirely too much power and not enough intelligence. Yes, we now trust Microsoft over Google. :) Apple- its time for iLocate.
Google's current results are completely different from what they used to be. For some searches, up to 85-90% of the sites that were always listed have now disappeared. Thus, there are only two possibilities: either Google's current results are great (which would mean that they were bad in the past), or Google's results used to be good, and now they are bad.
From the few searches that I have done, it is clear to me that the change Google made is not an improvement. For example, if you currently search for "flower shop Houston", you would expect the top results to be flower shops in Houston. Well.., not any more. Check for yourself.
>>For example, if you currently search for "flower shop Houston", you would expect the top results to be flower shops in Houston. Well.., not any more. Check for yourself.
We are not a black hat. We've never been a black hat. We help clients improve HTML and add good content. That's it. So why did we get slapped?
This update is a disaster.
Ian,
It's unfortunate that you got "slapped".
I visited your site and liked your approach to SEO and web marketing.
But I think that your own advice in the article you posted, "Google's Florida Update: How I Learned to Love the Dance" is the best answer to your own question!
Our site has had top 5 to 10 listings for many relevant keywords for the past 4 years. Two Examples:
martial arts equipment
sparring gear
Our corporation owns 3 brands of web stores. Our main shop is endorsed by a major martial arts legend and film star. Our second is just a discount shop, and our third is a premium store that offers special handling and overnight delivery. We have lost our rankings for all 3 of our websites.
When our spokesman was making a visit to our city in October 2003, and doing a charity event, we advertised on all websites, linking to our one main site, and I also paid for an issued press release with PR newswire. As we always do, we solicited TV news media for appearances, and appeared on Phoenix Channel 12.
We were getting just under 3,000,000 hits per year on this site. Everything we did, that google may consider bad, was in my book extremely justified by honest marketing techniques.
The interesting thing to notice, is two of our competitors that have always used black hat tactics now appear multiple times in these afore mentioned searches. One of them uses dozens of invisible links on each page of their site, (except the front page), so they are actually having around 20,000 hidden links on their total site.
Our three sites are as follows:
http://www.superfoots.com
http://www.martialmart.com
http://www.karate-express.com
How did we get screwed, and the real blackhats get higher ranking?
Any ideas?
Thanks
Bob
Bob,
For one reason or another, Google has decided that you have been "gaming the system".
I can tell this because your site is nowhere to be seen for a search on "martial arts equipment" -- however, it is now number 12 for a search on "martial arts equipment -waffle -warble".
(To understand why I added -waffle -warble to the search, see Barry Floyd's article analysing the Google Florida update.)
However, it is important to bear in mind that Google is penalising you on this (and possibly some other) keyphrases. Your site itself has not been delisted, nor has its PageRank been diminished.
You can still try to rank higher for other phrases, just don't try *too* hard ;)
One of the main pieces of advice I'd offer is to optimise your site pages. You have a lot of backlinks, but the site pages themselves aren't optimised for many particular keyphrases, as far as I can see.
There are one or two deliberate steps you can take to modify this.
Let me know if you'd like me to email you with more details...
Michael,
Can you help me understand what we did wrong or what we aren't doing right????
We used to be ranked in the top 10 (usually around number 5) under WEDDING ACCESSORIES and we had the number 1 spot for BRIDESMAID JEWELRY.
We have been on the net since 1998 and we've always had top ten ranking with Google for the past 2 years or more.
I've been reading every post I can find on the net regarding this Florida Update and have tried eliminating the over-use of the word "wedding" and "accessories" but Google has yet to stop filtering out our site. I even removed all the links to internal pages that we had in the center of the page which took our customers directly to pages for each item they might be looking for since our sub-directory is titled "accessories" and I thought maybe that was tripping the filter.
Google hasn't spidered our page again since I removed the links but I'm not sure that is going to help us either.
I'm ready to slit my wrists since my hubby and I depend on the income from our business and Google represented about half the traffic that we were getting before this new update. We are spending a little everyday on ADWORDS on our main keyword but we don't have a lot of money to spend as this is our off-season.
Any words of advice from you or anyone on this board would be greatly appreciated.
Kathy Crow
Co-Owner, WeddingAccents.com
Hi Kathy,
The mist has cleared a little bit about what Google has done in its Florida Update since I posted my original opening piece for this comment.
The large response that I've got to this post -- and the outcry I'm seeing elsewhere on the web -- is making me realise that Google's actions may not have been taken simply to prevent sites getting listed. I think this is partly true, but it may also be at least partly true that they are looking at generating more money for adwords.
Anyway, I think I'll post something else about that.
In the meantime, here are some tips etc. for you:
First of all, I notice that you have got a lot of your backlinks from list or directory type sites. The sites you link from contain a lot of text about weddings and wedding accessories etc.
This is probably why you were delisted. It seems that Google is particularly hitting competitive keyphrases, where the inbound links seem to be coming from sites designed only to boost the ratings, or where the link text is always very similar.
I saw a suggestion on a board that if you try to vary the text in your links (i.e. get more links, but try to use different text in the new links), you may be able to revive your previous listings, along with adding some new successes for other keyphrases.
I notice that you are definitely being penalised for the keyphrases you mentioned, by the way. If you do a search on WEDDING ACCESSORIES -UNRELATED or BRIDESMAID JEWELRY -UNRELATED, you still come up in the top 10 or 15 results. This shows your position without the "filter" (a.k.a. penalty).
As for the action you already took -- i.e. removing the links, I don't know if this was necessary. In fact, I think you should be concentrating your efforts on improving your on-page optimisation within your site.
For some tips on how to do this, see Brett Tabke's tips on how to optimise your site for Google.
If you like, you can email me and I will give you specific tips about your own site Kathy.
Hope this helps!
Could someone explain exactly the definition of a "link farm" or sites that would trigger the new google filter?
Would a site that listed retailers for a specific product be considered a link farm? For instance, TopWeddingSites.com or TopWeddingLinks.com???
Thanks for your help.
Kathy Crow
Co-Owner, WeddingAccents.com
Hi again Kathy,
My understanding is that a link farm is a site (or group of sites) that is set up specifically for the purpose of linking to other sites, then charging for the links.
As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't pay for a link, especially to someone who claims that they will get you a top spot in search engines as a result of that link.
hi michael,
appreciate your comments and analysis above.
at first i thought that i had lost my rankings because i changed webhosts, but think it is pretty clear that we got caught in the florida update. i don't understand. i'm no webmaster with clever tricks!
the keywords used the most are running clothes, running apparel, running shorts. we're gone..used to get first page ranking. still do for flag shorts; hard not to be redundant, but all we do is running apparel. i've tried to tone it down a little, but..
this does seem grinch-like and self serving of google. i'm still up in the air about how to purchase google adwords and yahoo sponsorship.
we were depending on a holiday rush and have only been able to stimulate sales with our own mailing lists. devestating!
would appreciate any advice you might have. i'm afraid i've wasting a bit of money with submitting services..
thank you,
cheri
Cheri,
One of the first things you need to do is change the titles of all of the pages in your site. By title, I mean the words that appear in the blue bar across the top of the browser window.
You can change this title by changing the text between the and tags on each of the html pages. It's not a big job; should just take a few minutes.
The reason I say this is that currently each of your titles reads: "Soark Sportswear - Running Apparel - Running Clothes". Since the same title appears on all of the pages, Google (since the Florida update) is treating this as spam for these (and similar) phrases.
So change the titles, making them *substantially different on each page*. You can still use phrases that relate to your products of course, but try to make each title specific to the content of its page.
Another thing I'd suggest is trying to reduce the recurrence of keywords within your pages. For example, on your homepage, the word "shorts" appears far too many times, as far as Google is concerned, so it thinks you are spamming.
Maybe you could change the current list of links to individual shorts products by simply putting a single heading "Running Shorts" (just once) at the top of the section, then changing each of the links so that they say "supplex performance", "microfiber performance", etc. (i.e. NOT "supplex performance shorts").
The idea is to reduce the recurrence of the keywords. You've got to have the keywords on the page ... just not too much.
I hope this makes sense.
If you need help with the html, or more advice, email me.
Don't bother with submitting services -- they are definitely a bad idea. I wouldn't rush into spending a lot of money on Adwords or Yahoo sponsorship either. Maybe do it just for the xmas period, but not long term. Looking at your site and backlinks to it, the changes I suggested *should* work.
Lastly, I now agree that Google is shaking the money tree before xmas. My position has shifted very much from when I wrote the original post above, particularly in light of communications I've received from honest small businesses like yours.
Google has absolutely no objection to "spam" as long as you pay for it. Adwords is the biggest search engine spammer on the planet.
I have been a default Google user for years now, and today I replaced my Google Toolbar with the really impressive AltaVista one. Why? I'm getting far better search results there. It's that simple.
I have a client who:
~ owns the Registered Trade Mark for their keyword and URL
~ has a strong quality business site with lots of valuable content.
~ does not do any underhanded techniques
~ also is an advertiser with Google
And they have gone from #1 for their Main Keyword to oblivion (even when using the search technique supposed to clear away the effects of this latest GoogleDance).
Needless to say, they are NOT pleased and have let Google know!
Thinking of starting a new site called GoogleBlows.com .....
Looks like unfettered MoneyLust and Greed has some new converts over at Google!
Here's the one time I want to see Microsoft kick some butt! Come on 'LongHorn'!
As much as I don't want to believe this has to do money - just take alook at scroogle.com
Type in Projectors and see how many resellers got kicked-off -
There are very, very few resellers left in the new update
The Keyword projectors and projector is running well over $1.50 on Adwords -
Now tell me this isn't about money
michael,
thank you for taking the time to look at my site and advise. i see the sense of what you pointed out and have done some work. i didn't even realize i could or should have different page names. will ultimately be an improvement, if i ever get traffic again!
i saw where you suggested writing to info@google.com, but i think that there should be some sort of organized protest against google. is that happening yet?
thanks again. cheri
Cheri,
You're welcome. Yeah, I think one of the main problem with Google's update is that it suddenly makes a lot of innocent practices become spam. Such as stuffing keywords into page titles, for example. A lot of people don't even pay attention to their page titles; they aren't deliberately spamming ... but Google now sees them as blackhats.
And, "pissed", yes, I *do* now think that the update was motivated, at least partly, by money. My position has changed since I first posted this entry a couple of weeks ago, in light of the evidence...
Michael -
To throw gas on the fire - look a this chart someone did -
Wow- this is exactly what is happening out there
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/florida-dictionary-flow1.gif
And really the kicker here is that MOST Commerical Sites that are DMOZ Commerical Catagory are the ones being removed - Whoa -
Example look at the keyword Projectors again in Scroogle.org - out of the 60+ that were taken off - 57 of them were commerical retail sites -
Also my apologies for the wrong link on scroogle site - it should have been scroogle.org (not the.com)
The news just get worst -
Sprinks (another pay listing service) was just bought out by Google today -
Our account just got transferred to Adwords
https://www.sprinks.com/signup/create_user.htm
It this a frickin racket or what??
Pissed again!!!
I have had enough of this bloody Florida update. Stop the world I want to get off.
Michael:
I've been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off since I found out about the update (which luckily happened 2 weeks after it happened, otherwise it would have put a complete damper on the holiday).
I dropped from #1 for the keyword 'transformers toys' (and 'transformer toys') way down to around #300. I guess i was one of those overly SEO sites.
I dont quite understand why the keyword 'transformers toys' got such a knock-down, when other search terms such as 'transformers' (which is about 10 times more popular) or 'transformers for sale' have remained unchanged in the update (ranking in at #31 and #1 respectively), when my site has those keywords/phrases used more frequently than 'transformers toys'.
As for internal and external linking text, i dont think 'transformers toys' is used externally, and I know it's not used internally for my index page.
by the way, I have been trying for months to get other related sites to link up to me with friendly, subtle emails, but I swear, only 1/100 of those emails end up with any kind of actual link...I know i have some content that is original and useful to collectors (such as a system to id figures and parts)...but i can't buy a link (figuratively speaking)--any suggestions to this end?
Well, i'll stop typing now...thanks for listening.
Been following this for a week. All indicators are that google has become 100% the opposite of that little search engine I found years ago with totally the best results and no advertising. Then we as webmasters and searchers made it the most popular.
Like the last straw.
I say to all it is time to totally undo that!
It can be done. Everyone has friends, family, business associates, email, websites, ability to blog opinions, get media attention at all levels.
Every day this will be part of my effort from here on. Anyone who complains about SE Monopoly on the web who does not do likewise is just wasting their time.
Google really messed up trampling on too many mom and pop businesses all at once, but I say to you we can all come out better off in the long run now. We don't need a 900 pound gorrila dictating the web, remind you it is ours.
Now the SE war has really begun!
1) There is no mention of Hilltop in this thread - suggest any concerned users research this 1999 paper - the author is now at Google.
2) A 'filter' is not being applied to the search results ie. results are not obtained and then baddies filtered out. Try a search for
keyword -anyjunkword.
3) The results are crap on any search phrase that exists in the adwords database.
4) Google will very quickly and perhaps irreversibly drop from favour with searchers if this continues past their next update.
4) IMHO it is much more cost effective to advertise in traditional media than online - I've been doing both for about 6 years and have spent into 6 figures.
Hi
We are an internet-based CV writing company and are very concerned as we have disappeared from Google after having been consistently on the front page for over two years.
Since the Florida update exercise we are no longer on Google at all when visitors type in the words “CV writing” and, as an internet-based CV writing company, that is absolutely crucial to our survival as a company. Interestingly when you type in “professional CV writing” we are still listed highly, as we were before, but most of our clients looking for new CVs or free CV evaluations have typed in “CV writing” as their search words.
What are we doing wrong? And how can we be listed highly on one search term and not at all on another?
Can anyone help???!!
Oh and I forgot to mention that the website is www.winning-cvs.co.uk - if anyone has any ideas?
Michelle,
Yeah, you are definitely being penalised for what Google deems to be a competitive keyphrase.
Type "cv writing -unrelated" into Google (i.e. follow your search phrase with a minus sign and then any word that is not related to cv writing) -- you will see that your site is still coming up in the top ten.
But the penalty applies specifically to the phrase "cv writing".
Basically, Google knows from its own analysis what people are most likely to search on, and it is penalising popular search phrases rather than less popular ones.
You could argue that Google is also (unfairly?) trying to get you to bid for "cv writing" on its adwords programme.
As for what you can do. I don't see much wrong with your home page, except that you use the phrase "cv writing" twice in the same paragraph. Try using it just once.
Some of your links come from directory-style sites that may be "link farms" -- I can't tell from looking. Did you pay anyone to get links to your site or increase your position in Google? (They may be perfectly good links, but if they are paid links, Google may be penalising you for this also, in which case you should try to get lots more genuine links to your site.)
Hope this helps...
Michael
Thanks for your reply.
I have taken out the second CV writing in the first prargraph and hope that'll make the difference.
All links are genuine links and none are paid for - so hopefully that should not go against me.
I have written to Google but as of yet received no reply. I imagine that they are either inundated with complaints or they just can't be bothered to help.
As regards to adwords, I have noticed an increase in rival companies using this service. Maybe the same happened to them? For us it would just not be viable as the costs would end up being way too high! I have read that Google do not force their users into paying so this surely would be out of character for them?
Do you know how often they update their rankings? I get spidered every day so maybe I won't have to wait too long to find out if i'm on the first page?
Hi again Michelle,
It's good that all your links are "clean", that will help in your recovery.
I'm glad that you updated so quickly. Here's another tip: You should add a heading tag somewhere above the first paragrpah, with the words "CV writing".
You could also put the phrase once more in bold somewhere else on the page (though you might have to increase the overall word length of the page, so that the phrase doesn't seem to occur too often).
You should also ideally use text links instead of image as your menu.
Last tip: try to get links to the other pages on your site, not just your homepage.
To give you more of an understanding of why I'm recommending these changes, see Brett Tabke's advice on page optimisation:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm
GoogleGuy (Google's spokesperson in the online world) has said that Brett's advice still holds good, even after the Florida update.
I don't know how quickly you will return to your previous position, but following Brett's advice will definitely help.
Regards,
-- Michael
Hi Michael
Thanks for the advice.
I have today just found that when I do a "cv writing" search and then -an unrelated word that I have now completely disappeared from the listing.(I was 5th) Is this a bad thing? Or should I be pleased that Google are doing something?
Michelle
Hi again Michelle,
You did the right thing by removing the second instance of "cv writing" from the text of your first paragraph.
However, don't be afraid to go ahead and optimise your page as normal.
Basically, the idea is that you should have the phrase "cv writing" once (and I mean once only -- any more is considered cheating) in the title, once in regular text (which you now have), and once in a header (i.e. between tags), and once in the anchor text of an outgoing link from the page (even if that link is to another page on your site).
If you added another few paragraphs to your homepage, you could also include the phrase once more in bold.
Just don't do any of these things *twice*! Don't forget that the aim of the page is to convert visitors of course, so try to work the phrases in naturally.
Also, have you considered adding "UK" as a search term?
My web store has been on the top 2 pages on most of my key words for the past few years...Now since this update I am basically nowhere to be found. I e-mailed the webmaster at Google and was surprised to actually receive a response, although it doesn't help losing alot of the holiday biz...worst time of year to decide to do this. The response didn't really spell out anything that would remedy the situation.
The site is nauticaltropical.com
I know it could use some upgrading, and I am not a web guru, but so far the site has worked very well on most engines. In searching tropical decor I was amazed to see a couple hotels that just happen to have tropical decor in their rooms on Google's first page! I would think somebody looking for tropical decor would want to buy tropical decor or get ideas on tropical decor for their home or event. My web store has much better content that the customer wants... hope Google gets it together. They really are hurting businesses at the worst time. Luckily I have built up a great following since I add new items constantly, but I sure would like to know whay my store doesn't fit into their new update.
Same thing with AOL. Originally I was on AOL with Open Directory. It appears they have dumped this too, or at least Google has the most influence....AAARRRRGGHHHH
Jim
Jim,
Follow the advice I've given to others, above.
In particular, you should:
- Add a text heading (not just a graphic heading) to the site, which includes the words "nautical and tropical decor".
- Reduce the number of times you use the words "nautical" "tropical" and "decor" in the links from your homepage.
Hey all,
I have been on the net for over 10 years now, I had high ranks #1 on altavista, hotbot, northernlight, and many others over the years for keywords that had over 10 mil pages.
I have noticed that google is after spam, and getting money Well more money..
Here is something that I asked them..
(No responce yet)
Ok they are after spam, gateway pages, junk links, etc right.
Ok what if someone uploaded 10,000 junk pages, gateways, etc and pointed them all at one site? Google would prob kill that site, or hurt their ranks right?
Ok if this is true then I guess you could knock any person that is in the same business as you off of google just by adding alot of links, and junk pages to their site?
I emailed them a few months ago about this cause someone was linking alot of gateway pages to our site. And they email me back and told me "This would not hurt my site" Guess what it killed it from 850 hits a day to 100 in 4 weeks.
Another lie from google.
Guys Microsoft is putting a new engine out soon. It is crawling the web as what I hear now. :) Lets pray that this makes google do somthing!
From: 697,000 a year to 198,000 now
And never used pay per click nothing, and never will :)
Hi, all.
I had sites listed on search engines as early as 94 and have watched the search engines grow and change since yahoo had 150 sites listed. I have been doing SEO since '94. I built one site that received over 16 million hits/month using only SEO and word of mouth. These changes will keep happening. This is just another one of them. I think if people read pretty much all of searchenginewatch.com and similar sites, they can still get listed near the top for targeted, appropriate search terms. I manage to maintain #1 - #3 listings for clients that I work with. I do stretch out the page titles a bit, but I don't spam. I do use every possible way to get listed including alt tags, text blocks and text links on every page. Seems to work for me. Remember, "this too shall pass". Stick to the basic SEO rules, reading and improving your pages will get you a lot farther than any amount of kvetching. It's true in every undertaking.
Danj,
I agree that if you follow the guidelines on sites like Searchenginewatch and Webmasterworld, you can still optimise your site.
The problem is, ordinary 'mom & pop' type businesses don't have this SEO knowledge and shouldn't be penalised by Google for not having it.
As for your own site digistrat.com -- it's not a very good example of an optimised site! I'd advise you to replace the images with text and work on increasing your page rank.
hi michael.
thank you for being out there. since i last wrote, i've been busy "running" my business of MAKING running apparel and doing what i could to stimiulate web business throughout the google grinch......as you wrote "The problem is, ordinary 'mom & pop' type businesses don't have this SEO knowledge "...i'm trying to understand and follow yours and brett's 26 step advice..so a few more questions from this virtual idiot:
you suggested i change each page title, which i did right away. no small task because i have "virtual" header and footer. and i changed lists of links to eliminate repeat words. you said "shorts" is too often on homepage. do words inside the links count or just "text"? what is "anchor text"?
should the description tag be diffferent on each page? i've noticed that high ranking competitive sites don't bother with that.
do i need permission to link to other sites? such as Dupont for fabric information? and should i create more informational pages (like i did with Fabrics in my top banner)?
nothing has changed in the rankings and i am ready to get into more comprehensive adjustments. just don't know what they ought to be. i had eliminated a lot of text back when i had rankings and replaced with pics and cross links. now i wonder how messy it is. i'll be here editing and studying. any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
thanks again. cheri
Hi Cheri,
Anchor text is the text inside the link, and yes, this counts -- more than the regular text on the page. Try not to use any word or phrase more than once in the anchor text of a given page.
Don't worry too much about the description tags or any meta tags. They are not use by Google to rank the page, only to provide a description -- so just think of the user when you're writing them. (Google *completely* ignores the meta keywords tag.)
You don't need permission to link to other sites, but make sure you don't link to sites that seem "spammy".
Some people have already recovered after Google's Florida update, but it's difficult to say how long it can take for any given site. It depends on who's linking to you, etc.
-- m
In many categories google has replaced commercial sites with university and goverment sites. I think this makes search results extremely poor. Often I get directories of sites or university sites. Both are useless to me. I prefered old results.
Interesting Blog. I work in a school and have had my students coming to me and asking 'What went wrong with Google?'
'We can't find what we want'
'It's changed'
I have had no answers before, but I will point them over to Alltheweb!!
Kaz.
Google most likely won't be a major player in another 3 years. They were useful fools for Yahoo and AOL. Now Yahoo does not need them, maybe AOL next? But who uses AOL search anyway.
Take this to the bank. There are only 3 key players in the Internet game at this point. MSN, Yahoo and AOL. Scatch MSN and Yahoo from ever using Google search, period. That is 2/3 of the Internet portal search Google will never see. If they loose AOL, goodbye Google!
Google missed their chance to become a portal. Who wants them now? I already have my free Hotmail and free Yahoo accounts. I don't need a third for Google.
If this filter remains in place, Google suits should sell their stock options (if they have any) ASAP and buy that dream home while they still can...
I would suggest that we all refer our friends and associates to one of the other top search engines since Google is broke and apparently greedy for adwords and it does not look like it will ever be fixed. It's time to just move on... let Google die in peace.
Kathy:
topweddinglinks.com is a Directory like Yahoo! It definitely is not a link farm.
In my opinion, topweddingsites is the definition of what a link farm is. If you just wanted inflated traffic from other link owners and their families voting for them, then toppweddingsites is for you. We chose to go with topweddinglinks.com and we are already at PageRank 5 in few months not to mention the huge sales revenues.
Also we would never link to a link farm for fear of being penalized by Google with that dreaded gray bar...
Hope this helped...
Gregory
I AGREE, JUST LET GOOGLE DIE IN PEACE! I LOST EVERYTHING BECAUSE OF FLORIDA. AND I AM PISSED. YOU WILL PROBABLY SEE THOUSANDS OF LAW SUITS BECAUSE OF IT. I MYSELF PERSONALLY WILL NEVER USE GOOGLE AGAIN AND I WILL BE SURE AND TELL EVERYONE I COME IN CONTACT WITH TO DO THE SAME. ADWORDS IS MADWORDS TO ME!!!! HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MOM AND POP BUSINESS'S HAVE TOOK A DUMP BECAUSE OF GREED. IM SO PISSED I CANT SPEAK ANYMORE, SEE YA.