I read somewhere in this forum that it is surprising that the media and general public are not aware of Google's technical issues which are devastating small businesses (and probably big ones too), who have relied on Google year after year to turn up relevant results. The end user of the search engine is also cheated, because the search results deemed relevant are so out of whack.

:eek: So how do we fight back against the Google Monster? Or is that too much like biting the hand that feeds?

Sure, I'm upset that Google results for my web sites are all goofed up, but I'm sure I'm just one of millions of voices of companies and web masters experiencing the same thing. We've spent countless hours and years perfecting Google friendly sites only to have them disappear from Google's index. Joe Public has started to trust and count on Google's relevancy, which is now gone.

SO what can we do? Anyone know how to start one of those emails that goes around the World and everyone Forwards? Maybe it'll reach someone's inbox who can get this thing public.

What exactly are you trying to achieve by doing this?

What exactly are you trying to achieve by doing this?

I apologize, I assumed that this would be self explanatory.

To put the control back in the people's hands. People made Google popular, they can make it unpopular too. At least long enough for Google to get a clue. They have a God complex... Their stocks are high and the general consensus is that they're the greatest. I have no issue with this, if it were the same Google we had months ago. Remember the Google that was not battling with Yahoo for the World's most irrelavant search terms? The Google we could type in a search phrase and get the most logical results, (as long as we looked beyond the sponsored ads).

Remember the Google that set the standard for designing search friendly pages? The Google that had predictable results and seemed incredible? Remeber the Google that remembered pages better than the webmaster who made them? I can remember not so long ago, when there was such a Google.

Then came gmail, enterprise and a couple dozen other useless features came that remind us all of Microsoft's half developed software, (at least they call it all Beta)... Now as if all that wasn't enough they lose perfectly indexed pages and put perfectly relevant sites in the dumper to make room for what???

All I'm saying is that people ought to know. Google ought to know. WE DON'T NEED GOOGLE... Google needs us and they'd be wise to remeber that before they become another EnRon.

They are working on it and sites are being re-indexed if they are good sites, hang in there and follow Google webmaster guidelines and stay far away from link spamming!

They are working on it and sites are being re-indexed if they are good sites, hang in there and follow Google webmaster guidelines and stay far away from link spamming!

How do you know??? And who determines if a site is a "good site"? Google mandates that anyone who wants a fighting chance of getting the top results much have back links, (which is totally stupid, because back links have nothing to do with relevancy whatsoever). At what point is enough enough?

To put the control back in the people's hands. People made Google popular, they can make it unpopular too.For one thing, the people don't own the search engine, with the exception of the stockholders and there are other ways they can make their voice heard. The people have no right to "control" anything that doesn't belong to them, nor did they ever have any control over Google or any other company - all they did was vote with their mouse clicks.

Secondly, the people made Google popular because they liked the search results (and the simple, uncluttered interface) and most important, found what they were looking for. If they stop liking it and stop finding what they're looking for, all they have to do is go elsewhere for their searches.

How do you know??? And who determines if a site is a "good site"? Google mandates that anyone who wants a fighting chance of getting the top results much have back links, (which is totally stupid, because back links have nothing to do with relevancy whatsoever). At what point is enough enough?


If you create valuable content others will link to it, this is called organic SEO and it works, the higher value your content is, the more people that link to it, I link to many pages with high value using anchor text everyday!

Those are backlinks, but no one paid me for them!

because back links have nothing to do with relevancy whatsoeverExcept that most high quality sites won't link to a site that's not relevant to what they're being linked to for. So to a big extent, legitimate links are somewhat of a measure for relevancy.

Another very important point is that relevancy of pages is not the only measure used in scoring. Both on-page relevancy and importance are taken into consideration and factored in.

Importance is a link/citation based metric, and started being included in the scoring criteria by most, if not all, search engines years ago, especially valuable because there was so much abuse (i.e. keyword stuffing) being used to artificially inflate the appearance of on-page relevancy.

99% of GOOG revenue is from selling links. Its toughest competitor is not Yahoo or Microsoft or Ask. The all powerful and overwhelming competition to GOOG is the upcoming potential of half a billion webmasters that work beyond the control of Google and Microsoft and Ask et al.

Before we reach that half a billion mark, Google has a chance to disuade webmasters from reciprocal links or link buying/selling or linking out to other sites by using their algorithm to kill the traffic going to those sites.

Later, when webmasters realize that they have more power than any one and even all search engines combined, they will buy and sell links, endorse other sites by linking out to them and trade traffic by swapping links. They will become the dominant voice directing traffic across the internet and finally earn a fair and due share of revenue now being horded by search engines.

And click fraud will never again move money from a web site to a search engine. Bidding for clicks will become a bad joke. Paid links will price on actual traffic flow and endorsement value and visitors will be real people following a free or paid endorsement from one website to another.

Your biting the hand that feeds.

You need to use your energy in a positive manner, whining (it's true) on these boards will get you no closer to ranking (sorry to say).

Go do some research, learn what has happened, adapt your site and get ahead of the pack. Links and content.

Google owes you nothing. Don't get left behind.

These latest updates not only have not affected some, but a lot of sites have moved up. Google is getting smarter (dare I say it), and you now have to live with that no matter what your feelings are towards the issue.

Part of life in the SEO world, either use it as a learning curve or get left behind.

either self learn - start here - http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2616

or hire a professional seo to tell you why your ranking dropped.

Best of luck!

airtravelcenter,

I think your forgetting the fact that when one ranking drops, another moves up.

Some people are actually happy with this update, and you won't find them posting in the forums. Educate yourself or get some paid help (proper seo advice not PPCrap), whining is simply a waste of energy.

*I'm upset that Google results for my web sites are all goofed up*

From what I've seen, it could be argued you rather than G "goofed up" ;-)

:) I appreciate your responses I really do, there are some other SEO forums I visit that I rarely ever see responses to anyone's posts. So, first thanks for participating in the thread... I just want to try to address some of the replies especially by Marcia, Glengara and Wilksy...

Marcia, not sure where the whole "people don't own Google" thing came from... Maybe you just breezed through my thread - I'm guilty of that from time to time as well. The paragraph you replied to said the same thing you did, but with a different tone. Since we're talking about capitalism ultimately, popularity is control. Shareholders and Corp Execs may go day to day thinking they have control, but in the end the people decide... (Metaphorically speaking). And yes I know how reciprocal link strategy works... But that still does not make sites that are linked to, (even from a high quality site) anymore relevant - I mean honestly.

Anthony, I completely agree that there are SOME cases where back links, might enforce popularity, such as when I typed in "Google Problems" into google and found this forum... I was looking for information on Google Problems. By me linking to Google Problems (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11894) with a text link I can create artificial organic SEO, true. Linking to a particular page, (web address) from within an indexed site can increase relevancy of the page pointed to and the page pointed from. Additionally, or perhaps primarily, siders can crawl both directions from site to site. I say "artificial organic seo" because that's all it really is 99% of the time. Hypothetically this will deem importance to a site or sites(s) because somewhere at another site, someone is talking about or recommending something at that other site. In practice, every web master knows about this strategy so they link to things they want to show up well during searches using key phrase text... duh. EVEN if web masters did not exploit it, this type of SEO is still biased to those subjects in life which are worth purposely taking the time to link to! There are many, many, many things in life that are important and relevant, yet no one will ever link to them. Does that make them less relevant? With so many things to link to, how can one really be that much better than the other?

Airtravelcenter... Hmmm - Kind of out in left field there huh? Whew where did that come from? Sound like you have some issues with the legitimacy of sponsored ads and the PPC fraud... Yeah me too. I recently got burned big time when my Yahoo account was drained in less than 2 minutes while some PITA used his email harvester or WebPosition software on one of my keyphrases. I was really talking about more organic stuff.

Wilksy, I'm not whiiiinnning :(.. just to whine. I'm trying to create a stir to get some buzz going about these issues. Google has people all over these forums and everywhere else. What I was actually hoping is that "Google Employees" would eventually hear the buzz and get a clue that their search engine is broken. The more people talk about it, the more chances of them figuring out they have a problem. It's obvious they don't test it themselves and God knows their support is a joke. As a matter of fact "what support"? How can a huge company like Google not even have a telephone number or way to contact someone directly? The only people you can talk to are sales reps and AdWord trolls. What I'm talking about is not SEO learning curves, I'm talking about HUGE CHUNKS of DATA disappearing and therefore causing much of the chaos we're now witnessing.

Glengara, I did'nt goof up anything... I run a Top 100K site that's over 4 years old. The format, coding and strategy is the same. What I'm referring to is 60+% of my site disappearing from Googles data center. I'm talking about my page rank going from 5 to zip. I'm talking about my reciprocal links going from 17000+ to literally zero. I'm talking about the subsequent Alexa drop of 70k to 100K - NO... I'm afraid this is Google's Goof - I have plenty of my own goofs I'm more than happy to own up to. Perhaps Google could get a new name "Goofle"... :D

Hi FDJA

A (belated) welcome to SEW forums.

..I run a Top 100K site that's over 4 years old. The format, coding and strategy is the same. What I'm referring to is 60+% of my site disappearing from Googles data center. I'm talking about my page rank going from 5 to zip. I'm talking about my reciprocal links going from 17000+ to literally zero. I'm talking about the subsequent Alexa drop of 70k to 100K...
Are you refering to the site in your profile? Or another site?

Just to clarify a bit... My original thread of How do we fight back against the Google Monster? (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11894) was really a call to arms more than anything else.

Don't get me wrong... I totally appreciate all that Google has done for my sites over the years. Their requirements for high ranking positions have made me a better web master for sure. I need to mention that because I've read posts on other forums where it seems the poster just hates Google because their site won't show up good. That's not me. I get the rankings I deserve and Google has shown me that over the years and I've adapted to make sure my stuff gets found.

Unfortunately right now, we're not talking about the Google of old. Google has evolved into a profit seeking beast, no doubt in direct connection with their current stock status. That's the problem with any traded company, especially those that have value surges. They become the slave to their own shareholders. They HAVE TO forget about mission and value for consumer, simply to address current demands for share value, net worth and other crap.

Here's the deal. Google's big now. SO big, they have a dramatic influence on the World's economy and a billion personal economies. It's because of this position that they need to think before they react. Analyze before they make changes. That's just not the nature of the beast though. How does a fly by the seat of your pants company which yields new ideas like they're in a race for the World's most innovative company competition, slow down enough to respect what they have and apply changes that don't adversely effect those who rely on them? They cant... That's a job for a big slow growing company. The kind filled with red tape and where new ideas collect dust long before they're implemented. Not so great for Hollywood movies but much more reliable. Ambition killing big corporate companies, while despised, are still the best model because they offer security for clients and shareholders. Comparitively speaking, Google is like a teenager with ADD, hopped up on crack, running for class president.

Google is now faced with the necessity of being focused on revenue and subsequent perceived value, which is the complete opposite of what they used to be or have the capacity to be. Like trying to train a coyote to guard the chicken coop, it's just not in their blood... Google is an innovative company with cutting edge ideas that get implemented seemingly overnight. Google is trying to fit in shoes that are the wrong size. When trying to make a better search engine with the roll out of Big Daddy, they just simply tried to do what they know how to do best, while trying to generate more profit for shareholders. They forgot billions of people around the World we're counting on them.

Do I blame them? No, of course not... That is the natural evolution of a traded company. They get bigger and bigger until they bust, or sell whichever comes first. Until then, unless the end using public or web mastering cyber community interjects, they''ll no doubt keep implementing bone-headed knee jerk ideas like "Big Daddy", which might be the best thing since the invention of the wheel, but the fact remains that they are destroying millions of businesses in the process, by knocking out their web sites while the search engine is still available for public use! Like I said, they need to be more responsible than that. At least make a public announcement that the search engine will be down for several months while they make technical improvements and hang an "Out of Order" sign on the home page, so Joe Q. Public knows to use one of the other search engines that still work right.

Hi FDJA

A (belated) welcome to SEW forums.


Are you refering to the site in your profile? Or another site? Thanks for the welcome... And yes you are correct it's the one in the profile.

You mentioned one thing, you mentioned "I'm talking about my reciprocal links going from 17000+ to literally zero" :eek:

How did you work all those reciprocal links man :confused:

PS: Don't you think that might be one reason for your troubles :confused:

*Glengara, I did'nt goof up anything.... And yes you are correct it's the one in the profile.*

I'd warrant a cynical examination of your linkage might well point towards a "links scheme designed to improve PR or rankings"...

Who said massive amounts of automated reciprocal links were good in the first place or reciprocal link directory links for that matter :confused:

The problem here is that webmasters fall for just about every scheme they read about hook line and sinker on webmaster & SEO forums! :eek:

Who said massive amounts of automated reciprocal links were good in the first place or reciprocal link directory links for that matter :confused:

The problem here is that webmasters fall for just about every scheme they read about hook line and sinker on webmaster & SEO forums! :eek:

I've heard they were not good. Nothing on my site is automated, nor do I participate in auto link sites.

You mentioned one thing, you mentioned "I'm talking about my reciprocal links going from 17000+ to literally zero" :eek:

How did you work all those reciprocal links man :confused:

PS: Don't you think that might be one reason for your troubles :confused:

Why would 1000's of naturally occuring links hurt? According to Google, "there's nothing a competitor can do to harm your rankings"... If too many back links could potentially hurt site rankings big sites like mapquest, yahoo, google and others would be eliminated from search engine rankings altogether. No... I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.

You have read the threads on the various forums dealing with Matt Cutts' Timeline blogpost?

Here's a post I made at the Google support forum, regarding my web pages disappearing, search rankings up and down, but I forgot to mention the back link count being wrong... I suppose they'll figure that out if they ever invesigate it.

I know that the subject of disappearing sites and pages is talked about extensively across all SEO forums as well as Google's own forums, but I still have not heard any official resolution time frame, let alone an official response from Google acknowledging the problem. It seems like something they should post on their home page to let people know the Google Search Engine is temporarily out of order.

Case in point: My primary site, http://freedjamerica.com has been indexed by Google for years, yet now pages are disappearing from the index. Search rankings are all over the place too. If I check the same key phrase from one day to the next, I've seen my results vary by as many as 1000. One minute I'm #2, the next minute I'm #40! Google shows I have 591 pages, Yahoo shows I have 1800 and MSN shows 2214...

BEFORE someone bothers to say, "did you follow googles guidelines" or "why don't you hire a professional"... I'll tell you in advance that according to Alexa the site has been ranked as high as 70K, (now at 100
+/- thanks to Google's Big Daddy). It's had over 500,000 unique
visitors originating at search engines with up to 74% traffic coming from Google. It's a clean site with good structure that fits within G's guidelines. In addition, I use Google Sitemaps which currently shows me that everything is fine. In the past 4 years nothing has changed about the way I update the site etc...

I've tried getting help through Googles forums for several days with no help. I've tried using their support form at: Google Support (http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py) and I've dropped a note at www.mattcutts.com (http://www.mattcutts.com) hoping that he'll read it and bring the info back to the office. In his blog he mentions he hates it when people complain without giving particulars, so I resent support a message with the exact pages that were dropped lately.

So that was the post and I also submitted a similar support help request, which I listed a couple of dozen primary pages that are AWOL. From the sounds of it, everyone replying to this post has not been adversely effected by the Big Daddy - I was the same way as you, until it happened to me. If this happens to you too, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Untill then, perhaps some passers by who are experiencing the same problem, will help with the buzz.... :cool:

You have read the threads on the various forums dealing with Matt Cutts' Timeline blogpost?

No not really... I actually have a really tough time navigating blogs. For some reason nothing seems to make sense. I visited Matt's blog for the first time yesterday and read that he was on vacation, etc. The I saw some old stuff about the Big Daddy data center, etc.

I guess the main thing I read that made sense was that he mentioned he hates when people complain without giving particulars. I'm the same way as I help 1000's of members too. If they don't tell me what the problem is, it's hard for me to understand what they're talking about. So, instead of complaining about something I only assumed Google knew about, I recently sent in a support request with some particulars.

At least I responded to your question 'How do we fight back against the Google Monster'. I am pointing out that you are the monster that Google fears. Each webmaster can direct traffic across the internet by endorsing other websites. That action displaces search engines. Webmasters can exchange traffic among themselves using various modalities of endorsement or they can sell traffic, valued on merit, to each other using a healthy array of in house or hosted programs. If GOOG can dissuade webmasters from using their position to endorse other websites por gratis or paid, they protect that position and preserve those dollars (more) for themselves.

Google has made it clear that they are penalizing websites that buy sell exchange links. "The sites that fit “no pages in Bigdaddy” criteria were sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site. Examples that might cause that include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling", Matt Cutts.

I wonder if business ethics guide one company to punish another company for competing with it. I wonder if it is legal.

No matter how we couch efforts toward relevancy or blame algorithms, beginning with the bourbon update 20 May 05, Google has been methodically, programmatically, carefully using its position and all the information retrieval technology in its arsenal to befuddle and push back against a world full of webmasters who (together) present the greater of all challenges to its position in the marketplace.

You want to fight a monster, be a monster. Preserve and defend the position you have earned.

When I landed at this forum, I assumed everyone was pretty much up to speed on Google problems that are effecting massive numbers of web masters. I may have been too presumptious, so here's a few bits of the best and most relevant things I have found lately on the Google Big Daddy Disastor:

Recent Google Problems (http://www.sitepoint.com/article/google-seo-algorithm-problems)

Google Results Suffering After "Big Daddy" Update? (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060504-083459) (that's this forum)

Is Big Daddy Choking Google? (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1959865,00.asp)

Google Busted (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/6537)

Googles own forum (http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.support.general?)

and Google's SiteMap Forum indicates problems (http://groups.google.com/group/google-sitemaps?lnk=li)

or for a ton of other resources see results for Google Big Daddy Disaster (http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Google+Big+Daddy+Disaster&FORM=QBHP)

FDJA you said you had 17,000 RECIPROCAL LINKS, not one way incoming links, but RECIPROCAL LINKS, right :confused:

Were these link trades that you made with an SEO software program or through a reciprocal link exchange :confused:

I asked you once already and you did not answer the question directly yet!

Yes we know about the indexing problem Google had, but some sites may not be re-indexed because of linking problems!

FDJA you said you had 17,000 RECIPROCAL LINKS, not one way incoming links, but RECIPROCAL LINKS, right :confused:

Were these link trades that you made with an SEO software program or through a reciprocal link exchange :confused:

I asked you once already and you did not answer the question directly yet!

Yes we know about the indexing problem Google had, but some sites may not be re-indexed because of linking problems!

Links period, coming in. MSN shows 7,721 and Google used to show 17,000 but now they show "Your search - link:freedjamerica.com - did not match any documents"

Re: SEO software: Nope... Never used it. Can't figure out how really. In 2003 I downloaded a trial of WebPositionGold, but it was so darn hard to figure out I never bought it. So... No it's all natural. I honestly am envious of some of my competitors who use it, because their search engine rankings score huge, but I simply don't have time. My site is all static HTML, so there's 100's of hours per month I spend on it. I wrote a book to help people build natural SEO sites. http://WebsiteDesignBootCamp.com

Re: the reciprocal links, I have a lot of them too, but I'm not sure how many. Lots and lots.... Maybe several thousand at least. I've been around since 2002. Late last year, or perhaps early this year I started using http://LinksManager.com but it's not automated. The software helps organize stuff but the links are all old fashioned and when someone requests a link I have to make sure it's a decent site and then when the software tells me that it found the linkback I then approve their request and publish their link.

There is no telling if they will re-index your site if they found things they don't like, just start getting rid of suspect links (reciprocal links that were just there to game the engine) and clean up your site the best you can!

There is no telling if they will re-index your site if they found things they don't like, just start getting rid of suspect links (reciprocal links that were just there to game the engine) and clean up your site the best you can!

As far as the SEO book, that looks like a landing page to me for a PPC engine!

I think maybe you clicked through before I corrected the link... I rushed the web address while typing and when tested, I saw some site with pop-ups and sponsored like ads. The real web address is http://WebsiteDesignBootCamp.com Sorry... Hope you didn't get AdWare.

It's cool, I study landing pages anyway and that was a good one :)

Like I said, just tidy up your site the best you can, I'm sure it will get re-indexed if you follow common sense organic SEO, that is my best advice to you!

You got site wide links to other sites you own (which all copiously link back to your profile site).

TBH your site looks a little spammy. Pages like this hold no value for users: h*ttp://www.freedjamerica.com/CHICAGO_DAY_SPA.html - clearly made for Adsense.

How is a page "about" (I use the term loosely) Chicago Day Spa even remotely related to DJs?

From your MSN backlinks you seem to have an unusually high percentage of homepage links from other sites, which may be a perfectly legitimate use of banner advertising, but it could also suggest to an algorithmic filter that some form of mass link building going on there (while having site wides to your own site, this probably doesn't look too good).

I'm sure you've had the best intentions in the marketing of your site but to be perfectly honest I think you've gone a little overboard in areas.

Get rid of the irrelevant MFA pages, work on getting more one way quality links (from actual sites, not others you setup) - consider consolidating your domains into one main site and 301 redirecting the others to it.

You're also throwing out a lot of random links, which I assume is a form of advertising you offer - eg, h*ttp://freedjamerica.com/gay_marriage_lesbian_wedding_sex.html - the entire header + all links on it head to another site (and the same happens on other pages).

You also have adsense + adbrite on that page (I'm probably wrong on this but isnt it against adsense TOS to have 2 contextual ads on same page?).

Also;

average of 15,000+ unique people

Ain't that much - got to break it you. Ditto Alexa ranking. Not a great loss there.

You say you spend 100's hours per month on the site - what you spending your time on?

I understand it must royally suck to have a site smacked about by Google like that but with all due respect I think you need to knuckle down and get up to speed with current SEO issues if you want to continue to compete in your market.

Your homepage A-Z of DJ locations is just a little spammy and could be redesigned (serious SEO overuse of keywords there). Your actual DJ listing page is great, as is how you approach listing them on your homepage.

I think you could stand to ditch some of the more irrelevant advertising (eg Adsense referrals) and make space for some more appropriate stuff - maybe try CJ.com for some affiliate banners, etc?

In general, clean up the more spammy aspects of the site, work on some quality links rather than networking on sites + recips, and I think you'll get your site back on track with Google.

These changes (that happen all the time btw) aren't that big a deal - in fact they probably solve more problems for Google (and the rest of us) than they create - there are many many full time spammers out there that dedicate a lot of resources to beating Google's algo so it's just a commerical reality of the web that smaller website owners will get hurt in the crossfire. But if they weren't removed then many smaller sites wouldnt even see the top 10.

Best bet is to learn and move forward. Your site isn't banned, it's just been downgraded or devalued somewhat. You need to reassess why and work to adapt that.

It's no different than the real world (and just cos Yahoo and MSN are OK with your site just now, doesn't make it right! ;)).

MG

This is what the homepage looks like in the MSN cache (http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3293926078284&lang=en-US&mkt=en-US&FORM=CVRE) and it's the same thing in the Google cache. In fact, it looks like all the page caches are like that at MSN (http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=site%3Afreedjamerica.com&FORM=QBRE) and Google search for site: (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-11,GGLD:en&q=site%3Afreedjamerica%2Ecom). Blank.

Obviously, this is my first post. I have read this forum for years without making a post. However, I can no longer sit idle.

FDJA makes a completly valid and on topic post. Instead of the focus being on the post, the topic has turned to FDJA's site, credibility, etc...

FDJA certainly has issues with his site and SEO methods, but this is not the point. Every one of us can certainly be "torn down" in some way regarding seo, marketing, graphic design, etc...

So lets get back on topic. Google has made a number of MAJOR mistakes as of late. They are mistakes made in an attempt to provide relevant results while at the same time combating spam - black hat SEO techniques.

FDJA is attempting to provide a forum - go figure posting on a forum to raise awareness to an obvious problem - only to have the topic stray to attempts to discredit his/her post by attacking his/her site listed on user profile.

The responses to FDJA's post will only hurt this forum and others. People will stop posting for fear of being personally attacked, attack the premise of the post not the individual.

FDJA, what is happening is Google is completely rebuilding their index based on the big daddy update. The organic results are pre-big daddy. The end result of the big daddy update will be seen in less than a week. And yes, the data centers listed in previous posts are more representative of the end results, but not completely.

However, the bad news for sites that have relied on SEO techniques of old, link exchange, recip links, etc. will not fair well and must completely redesign their sites based on the new and better way of ranking sites.

Also, sites like FDJA's - sorry as it sounds hypocritical based on my post - will never recover to pre-big daddy updates. Reasons are numerous and I will not go into because my post is too long enough.

My last point. While Google has made mistakes, it is rebuilding its index in an effort to provide more relevant results. Yes, it will hurt many a website, and yes it will hurt websites that have relied on Google's own webmaster guidelines - link building etc. - BUT the Internet is dynamic not static, therefore owners of sites and webmasters in general must adapt and learn to compete in a dynamic, not static, environment.

Great post, but no one attacked him, he was in the attack mode and has calmed down, we were just trying to bring out facts which we did and make points to him!

Thanks for finally joining the forum and posting, fantastic insight, even though I disagree with one of your points.

You got site wide links... TBH your site looks a little spammy... Pages like this hold no value for users... unusually high percentage of homepage links from other sites... I think you've gone a little overboard in areas... Get rid of the irrelevant MFA pages... consolidating your domains into one main site and 301 redirecting the others to it... throwing out a lot of random links, which I assume is a form of advertising you offer.. You also have adsense + adbrite on that page... 15000 uniques per month Ain't that much... Ditto Alexa ranking....100's hours per month on the site - what you spending your time on? MG

Thank you for the deep and sincere look at the site. An unexpected bonus for sure.

I've thought about eliminating some of the "unrelated" pages. The toughest part is letting go of the traffic they bring in. I'm also not convinced about the validity of the "irrelevant content harming search rankings" theory. There are plenty of web sites that do extremely well and they have all sorts of various content. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org (http://) I honestly have doubts about whether or not search engines even care, or can tell if something is related or not. I mean really... That's a tough one to decipher and would cross all kinds of lines. Obviously if I'm designing a site for a client I keep it all super focused, but on my own site I've done all sorts of pages and they show up fine and the site as a whole continues to do well. For example a page I put up a totally unrelated page a very long time ago, which still shows up high for phenylpropanolamine recall searches (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=phenylpropanolamine+recall+warning) Does that make my site a bad site? Did it hurt my rankings for wedding disc jockeys type searches (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=wedding+disc+jockeys) ... NO!

In regards to heavy homepage linking If that were true that it caused a problem, all the big sites would disappear from the rankings... That's not gonna happen anytime soon.

The day spa page, was a remnant of an ad campaign for a day spa that offered wedding makeovers... The client trimmed back their ad campaign, but several of the pages still received good traffic so I left a couple of the better performing ones there and put some Adsense on them.

RE: running Google AdSense and other competitive ads... You are right. I never noticed that before. AdBrite does not have a problem with it, I guess Google does: google adsense policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) Loooks like I have some work ahead of me.

I don't know what you mean by MFA, consolidating sites, or 301's... Sorry not that techy. If you mean "sub-domains" it's something that the search engines are trying to combat because they are definitely spammy.

Some of the random links I have are mostly done for networking or to help get a site seen on the search engines.

The unique hits and alexa rankings might not be that impressive to some, but considering the market I'm in, that's not too bad. It still blows my mind to think that I've had 1/2 million people come to the site primarily looking for a DJ or DJs looking for advertising and checking out their local competion. Many similar web sites with lower rankings, worse alexas etc boast that they have more visitors, but I sincerely doubt it. I know my traffic tracking stuff only tracks real hits though... Not search spidering etc. Maybe that's why it seems low. Would I like a bigger piece of the action? Of course, but truthfully the only way my competition had done it, is by expanding into the wedding related categories, like photography etc... That's a big nut to crack, I'd rather be focused on DJs and mobile entertainment. People pay me to help get them work so I do what I can.

100's of hours a month working on site... Yes, it's true and shamefully so. It's a PITA and I'm the chief cook and bottle washer, so I do everything from web maintainence, to accounting. I was a cheap SOB and started the site from scratch. Everything in it is static. I have no dynamic pages. Keeping up with 1000's of DJs is a time consuming. They want their phone number changed, or their rate changed, or they have a new website, etc... I have new listings to put in and old ones to take out. It's a chore.

Anyway thanks again... Cleaning it up is one of my current projects. I'm glad you mentioned the AdWords VS AdSense complication.

Obviously, this is my first post. I have read this forum for years without making a post. However, I can no longer sit idle.Welcome to the public side of the forum. :)

FDJA makes a completly valid and on topic post. Instead of the focus being on the post, the topic has turned to FDJA's site, credibility, etc...FDJA used his site as an example to support his claims. It seems logical that others might then look at his site when considering those claims, don't you think?

Google has made a number of MAJOR mistakes as of late.For every site that feels a mistake has been made, there's another that feels things are finally fixed. That said, Cutts/Google did admit to the screwup related to [site:] searches.

only to have the topic stray to attempts to discredit his/her post by attacking his/her site listed on user profile.As an unbiased 3rd party, I don't feel anyone is attacking anyone. I do see a lot of helpful posts pointing him toward things he may not have noticed or considered, and these posts are coming from people I've seen being very helpful in cases like this over the years, whether here or on WMW or wherever.

However, the bad news for sites that have relied on SEO techniques of old, link exchange, recip links, etc. will not fair well and must completely redesign their sites based on the new and better way of ranking sites.There's nothing wrong at all with trading links to relevant sites. It can be a great way to gain traffic. However, if you think trading links will also help your SE rankings, you'll be disappointed. Beyond that, trading links with off-topic sites, with junk/spam sites, etc., can be detrimental now, as Cutts recently explained on his blog. But this is something that's been a long time coming, as the SEO mantra for years has been to focus on natural link building, not trades/recips.

Just my two cents, no attack implied. :)

I noticed this site (like your others) is a Homestead product, never heard of them before, but if it's a "community" thing, there may be linkage implications....

Obviously, this is my first post. I have read this forum for years without making a post. However, I can no longer sit idle... FDJA makes a completly valid and on topic post... So lets get back on topic.

Who was that masked man anyway? Wow... Thanks. That's the trouble with forums. It only takes a couple of misinterpretations or comments to send the whole thread spinning into a frenzy. It happens everywhere. Anyway thanks for putting it so eloquently and I'm glad that even if I accomplished nothing else today, I did get you to post a message. Very cool.

So - now that the original post completely lost it's zest... and I'm too tired to argue anymore, can anyone point me in the direction of the new and improved Google guidelines? I have a site to restructure.

I've thought about eliminating some of the "unrelated" pages. The toughest part is letting go of the traffic they bring in.You want to have your cake, and eat it, too. :)

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org (http://)It's an online encyclopedia, so of course it'll have a wide variety of information. It also has A) great content, and B) tons and tons of inbound links, so obviously it will rank well for a variety of terms. (Frankly, it ranks too well in some areas, but that's another topic altogether.)

I honestly have doubts about whether or not search engines even care, or can tell if something is related or not.You should read some of the information retrieval documents that have been published -- the stuff that touches on how SEs work. The people that work at G, Y, and MSN are among the brightest minds on earth in the field of information retrieval. The science behind what looks like a simple search box is stunning. It's very easy to analyze the words on a page, the links to a page, the links from a page, the anchor text of those links, etc., and find similar "related" pages.

For example a page I put up a totally unrelated page a very long time ago, which still shows up high for phenylpropanolamine recall searches (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=phenylpropanolamine+recall+warning) Does that make my site a bad site?As was said earlier, it makes your site look like spam/MFA. (MFA = Made for Adsense)

The day spa page, was a remnant of an ad campaign for a day spa that offered wedding makeovers... The client trimmed back their ad campaign, but several of the pages still received good traffic so I left a couple of the better performing ones there and put some Adsense on them.So another MFA page -- this is what most of us, even the people who make fortunes off MFA pages & sites, consider junk/spam.

Some of the random links I have are mostly done for networking or to help get a site seen on the search engines.That last part is exactly what Cutts is saying has been targeted -- a link (scheme) designed for search engines, not for users.

alexa rankings... are generally considered useless because it only tracks via people who've actually installed the Alexa toolbar. That group of people, as I recall, consists largely of webmasters/SEOs and users in ... is it Korea?

Anyway, there's some good advice posted above and it's cool that you seem receptive to it. Good luck with making things better!

I noticed this site (like your others) is a Homestead product, never heard of them before, but if it's a "community" thing, there may be linkage implications....

Homestead (http://www.homestead.com/?sourceid=qIpcRH9XNjLmAmC0IYle&siteid=0039892001) is awesome. I'm surprised you never heard of them. They're a big company and have been around for a very long time, (in cyber years)...

They're not like TriPod or GeoCities if that's what you mean. It's a pay for hosting type place, but they provide almost all the tools necessary for ease and success. I've been with them since 2002. They have real 99.9% uptime, industrial strength servers and protection.

It's just an all inclusive web publishing solution. No need to mess with FTP, domain transfers or expensive web software. I can design a site, publish it and promote it in days, instead of weeks. I can publish on the fly without the site ever being offline. The sites adapt to all web browers automatically. They even have web based content management! No more worrying about a small time hosting company buying space from a server farm and all the complications that go along with it.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. Maybe "attacked" was too strong of a word to use.

My main point was I felt the topic of the post, which is a very very important topic, lost its way and I wanted to see it get back on track.

To follow up, Google is and always has been designed to provide relevant results for non-commercial based information - remember the Internet was not intended to be a "commercial" based mechanism, rather a way to exchange and expand intellectual knowledge.

Spammers - or more accurately capitalists - figured out a way to make money off the Internet by driving traffic, and Google figured out a way to profit off this (Adsense).

Now you have a very good search engine attempting to find a balance between the two, while providing accurate and relevant queries.

Bid daddy is attempting to find that balance.

The sites with thousands of dynamicly generated pages designed to "drive traffic" or sell an affiliate product are not necessarily providing the best and most relevant results based on the premise of the Internet.

Thus, smaller sites with well internally linked - on theme - content are moving up in the organic results, and the sites with on the fly generated pages are moving down.

In addition, emphesis is being shifted from external links holding all the weight in ranking, beacuse they are open to manipulation, to a different less manipulatable (is that a word) method - of only which Google knows, but gives very LOUD and Clear hints.

Thanks again for the warm welcome!

So what's the answer to non-spam web design, in Google's eyes?

From what I've read at Matt Cutts qand other places, it seems the only way to combat Google's new Big Daddy is:

A) Remove all AdSense from site and cancel account. This seems like the only way to be sure that a site won't seem MFA or "Made For AdSense".

B) Remove all outbound links. This seems like the only way to be sure that a site won't be penalized or omitted for appearing to be a link farm, or appearing to sell links.

C) Page naming... Although it has not come up too much, It seems like the next likely target. Go back to naming pages "about us", "our products" etc?

You know, maybe I'll just donate my site to Google.

Don't get me wrong FDJA I wasn't disrespecting your efforts at all - I certainly started out in this business in the same postion as you and I'm sure a lot of other people did.

My main point was to reassess how you are approaching your website, particularly the time you are putting into it. It's not the case that you shouldn't be so dedicated, but more re-focusing your dedication onto areas that have more long term rewards.

Agreed, the loss of the pages that bring in traffic is hard to bare. Perhaps you could adapt the overall theme of your site to more naturally include these areas (ie so they don't stick out so much).

The Adsense issue isnt the fact that you have it on your site, but more the way it's displayed - the pages you have large Adsense blocks on look like content generated specifically for that purpose (ie as oppose to created for users). If I was designing a page such as that I would look to take some focus off the Adsense and place it more on the content.

MFA sites have many more "tells" than simply having Adsense on the page - it's the way the ads are placed, positioned, how the content is placed in relation to that, how the site achieves link popularity and many other areas. While it's unlikely search engines have an algorithmic filter to measure all this (accurately) I've found it's a pretty safe bet to assume they do and plan / design accordingly.

No need to remove all outbound links either - again, just do it in moderation. The pages like the one I mentioned before "seem" to be designed solely for outbound link popularity (and I realise that most likely isn't the case) - pages created which have lots of OBL's to one site (including deep links). Again, I'd consider a more "natural" way to approach linking out than using this method.

Page naming, again not a big deal but needs to be done in moderation.

It's likely that no one single factor has hurt your site - perhaps just a combination of a few (although, that said, it could simply be the Big Daddy changes affecting link quality / indexing so more quality IBL's would help).

301 redirect = a sever side redirect (hosting company should be able to set it up) that tells browsers (and search engine spiders) that the page / domain has permanently moved to a new location (so SEs will treat links to the site as going to the "new" site). Basically speaking it will transfer link benefit from all your related domains to one domain, which hopefully would be enough to regain rankings + full indexing (although if the other domains have lots of links I would consider doing this one site at a time over a period of months).

This would mean the benefit received by all of your domains would be "consolidated" on one domain.

Honestly, I think what has happened is that you've been caught up in the link building aspect of SEO for a while now and concentrated on that and not kept up to date with other aspects.

Nows the time to re-evalute your strategy and make some changes.

And it doesn't all have to be a crisis case of "what can I do to fix x, y or z" - look at ways to further monetise the high traffic pages - mess around with different advertising programmes, ad formats, positioning - add new content (how to become a DJ, club listings, etc) - expand into related areas (ie music sales via affiliate programmes) and so on.

Sometimes it takes a smack across the chops to really get you going. I've found my best periods of productivity are when I really have something to strive for - my largest site just now really took off back in 2003 when a guy started copying me - if it hadn't been for that motivation and my subsequent content building, link building, the site wouldn't be anywhere now - I think the same can apply to you now.

Just take the enthusiasm that you've focused at Google and turn it onto your site - screw Google - they ain't gonna bloody listen. Make your own future! ;)

MG

(available for motivation seminars across the country... :P)

FDJA,

The answer is to continue to do exactly what you are doing, bring attention to the matter, this is why I replied to your post. When google sees a change in search behavior they will take note and look for answers. Hopefully they will continue to look for answers in webmaster community forums.

In the meantime, I have had success with redesigning my site structure into categories and sub-categories, with each sub-category having a minimum amount of on topic related pages linking back to the sub pages. I do not link to ANY internal pages off topic with exception of privacy, user agreement, etc..

I have read in another forum where there is theory of pagerank determining the levels crawled and indexed. The theory is pr5 will get 4 layers of indexing.

This is a flawed theory. The internal linking structure determines levels crawled not the pagerank, all else held constant.

I have had all new pages crawled, indexed and ranked in a matter of days of publishing, based on my above referenced linking structure.

Currently all pages within my site are indexed with very few in supplemental results.

Hope this helps.

Regardless of the real problem with your site you have some canonical issues that may be causing dup pages:


http://freedjamerica.com/files/FDJA_NEWSLETTER___May_11th_REMINDER_CONTEST_DEADLI NE_APPROACHING.htm
http://www.freedjamerica.com/files/FDJA_NEWSLETTER___May_11th_REMINDER_CONTEST_DEADLI NE_APPROACHING.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Awww.freedjamerica.com&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hs=8YB&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=site%3Afreedjamerica.com&btnG=Search

Regardless of the real problem with your site you have some canonical issues that may be causing dup pages:Canonical issues have been causing serious problems for sites, it's been posted about in forums for months and months. Two other issues are the 256K size of the homepage - without even including graphics - and the fact that the cache is blank for the pages indicates a very serious problem with parsing the pages.

I'd suggest running at least the homepage through an HTML validator - there seem to be some very serious issues with the source code of the site including lots of code bloat from non-HTML code inserted by the page creation program.

Pages not cached is a red alert.

So what's the answer to non-spam web design, in Google's eyes?That has never changed and I've been doing this 10 years. Google isn't the only SE and at some point there will be a real challenger and then you'll be screwed because you've let the algo's of one dictate how you develop websites for everyone not just SE's.

From what I've read at Matt Cutts qand other places, it seems the only way to combat Google's new Big Daddy is:
A) Remove all AdSense...
B) Remove all outbound links....
C) Page naming...
First, if Matt Cutt's wrote "Remove all AdSense from your site and cancel the account." he no longer would be Google Guy, he'd be Unemployed Guy. So I have to wonder how you came to that bit of logic. ;-)

AdSense sites in the "SERP's" of all SE's are the gravy so.... in a sense it's inclusion, paid for by the advertisers. I can tell you that from what I've seen "contextual" ads are effective if monitored closely. I also see, just as many, if not more, Yahoo! "contextual" ad sites in the Google SERPs and vice versa on Yahoo!, so I will never belive that "Adsense" alone will adversely affect positions or indexing.

However, if you have a bunch of sites, Adsense, or otherwise and you're using them to manipulate link "reputation" then... it's hurting the SERP and... it will be treated like any other manipulation of "reputation" via links.

Also as an Advertiser these type of low quality AdSense sites owned by one person do pi$$ me off royally and if there's anyway I can get the site on the negative list (I'm almost always maxed out) there's not a hope in hell any of this crap gets another dollar from me. Harsh but it's obvious to me your head is so far up your rear entry hole that being nice just won't have any affect because you "feel entitled" to positions! Yes, I have a client who sells DJ equipment so.... woop there it goes! :-(

As an Adwords customer I don't have a lot of problems with contextual ad sites in the organic listings if they are quality sites built for users. These are seldom a drain on the budget.

As an SEM I see a huge oppurtunity to sell my services, especially at the local level via Adwords. However, if those customers see their ads running on low quality sites it will diminish the perceived quality of that service.

As an SEO I'm not thrilled by Adsense sites in the SERP's, but... I didn't like Inclusion either... but neither are much bother for me because they are often manipulating rank via links and IMO, that was/isn't a long term strategy, eventually I get where I wanted to be, it just takes a little longer. I'm not in a hurry I've got nothing but time once the site is built. I get links the old fashioned way, I earn them, by providing content and services not available on a hundred other sites. I don't have to go begging everyone with a site dumb enough to put an email addy in a public area.

As a directory developer I see a huge potential for "web 2.0" directories with SE's providing all/most of the tools and means to build and monetize it.Then all I have to do is concentrate on building a better "mousetrap" for users. IMO, that makes the web a better place and everyone benefits.

Yes I'll likely own a bunch by the time I'm through but there won't be one that you could say it was built only to run Adsense on it and some will be sponsored by real advertisers who see the benefit in what I'm doing. I also won't cross link them even if they are relevent to each other, which is, IMO, strictly amateur hour.

Only domain owners benefit from this. You might want to consider looking further than your own pocket book when your developing a monetization strategy! For any strategy to be sound "all affected parties" must benefit.

What I found in 5 minutes on your site and and 3 minutes at Tucows registry IMO, refutes your logic for the statements above, and makes your call to arms seem more like whining about being treated unfairly. Don't be angry with the results, IMO, you're biting the hand you thought was going to feed you.

You might want to re-consider the cross linking of domains on, I assume, the same C Block. All links I checked the registry for at the bottom of this page:
http://www.freedjamerica.com/IA_DJs.html
Pointed at domains you own. Of course not knowing any better they are all on the same domain servers... so it's pretty safe to assume they're on the same C block. Consider that Google has recently registered a patent to find this sort of activity. Some would call this a link farm but... I'm not going to judge... only point out that BigDaddy's crawl algo might not like your deep pages because of this. Let these sites stand on their own otherwise... be a man and accept the consequences for an ill advised strategy. Learn from it and move on.

A)IMO, Leave the Adsense remove the crosslinking or use the SE's "lazy link analyzer" 'nofollow' attribute in the links to domains you own. Google doesn't like votes for yourself, especially when you're seemingly stuffing the ballot box. Even micro sites are fine provided you don't use them to build a "network" of sites interlinked. IMO, SEO suicide!
if it walks like a duck....

B) Remove all outbound links to domains you own or at least show a little respect and make a little effort to hide the network, so a dummy like me can't figure it out in a few minutes with a half dozen queries. Consider, if it's in the domain registry Google knows everything contained in the whois record. By the way, I see you recently renewed some domains? IMO, that gets G to a sniffin', where you might not want them a lookin'.

Did the problems begin around the time in May when your domain was renewed? Wouldn't surprise me if that is true... I've seen problems begin on other sites with "multiple domains" registered, with content, duplicate or otherwise on them. We wiped them out and voila Google loved the "real" site again. ;-)

C) It makes sense to optimize architecture/infrastructure, that's what an SEO is supposed to do, not manipulate link pop! Try to limit - in directories and try to keep it manageable in File names. If youve got two in the domain name I'd be real careful about using them in filenames.

IMO, anything that seems extreme in its implementation likely will be problematic at some given time in the future. 10 years of doin' this has taught me at least this much, "When you follow the herd, you get slaughtered with the rest of the herd". If everyone is saying "get more links" do the opposite or use a different technique to accomplish the same thing because at some point it pays off! Yes, T's always the contrarian when it comes to technique. Todays legitimate manipulation technique is tomorrows spam... er... BigDaddy crawling adjustment/filter.

Links have been a pre-occupation with SEO's for too long. Links weren't even considered SEO services before Google. IMO, it should have stayed that way because paid links (an express review, IMO, is a paid link) are advertisements and ads are targeted using audience demagraphics and relevancy (to a lesser extent) not just relevancy which is what is important for SEO.... so... It's not an SEO service, it's a very specialized service and should be handled by people who specialize in it. Most SEO reciprocal link campaigns are "amateur" at best and are responsible for a ton of email spam. Yes, if I get email for a link I think it's spam, since afterall, they couldn't have reviewed the site because if they had they'd know "It's a F...in' reviewed directory"! ;-)

Myself and others have been doing some research on "Directory Repuatation", I say some research, it actually spans almost two years.

Directory "reputation" was seemingly enhanced with Florida, at first, then degraded slightly. Between Florida and Jagger we started seeing a degradation of reputation in about 20% of the 125+ directories listed in SeoPros Reviewed directories. Jagger seemed to refine the "filter" further and BigDaddy took that and seemingly adjusted the crawl breadth and depth. In fact it was so bad just before Jagger we stopped publicly updating PR in the reviews until we were more certain that it was not a blip or haywire "filter".

I will say there was only one thing I could see that was a constant. In all cases they were seemingly selling "reviews". IMO, if you're a directory then... be a directory. Let the quality of the listings be your SEO. You might also want to consider value added services (like allowing users to review a listings service if they use it?) that make the site more attractive as a directory to both users and SE's.

Quality, always beats quantity and quality links will never harm you, IMO, with BigDaddy there seems a potentaial for IBL's to hurt you, not penalize but affect the crawl ie:limit crawl breadth and moreso depth.

IMO, first generation "General Directories" based on the "review" for pay model will be almost extinct in 3 years and be replaced by the Redfins, TrueLocal and other "web 2.0" directories that have business models that use either AdSense/OV/MSN Equivalent or "value added" services ie: mashups and social communities, or lead generation to monetize the directory in a manner other than subscribed website listings and reviews. IMO, links from most directories have little value now, and will have less in the future.

Canonical issues have been causing serious problems for sites, it's been posted about in forums for months and months. Two other issues are the 256K size of the homepage - without even including graphics - and the fact that the cache is blank for the pages indicates a very serious problem with parsing the pages.

I'd suggest running at least the homepage through an HTML validator - there seem to be some very serious issues with the source code of the site including lots of code bloat from non-HTML code inserted by the page creation program.

Pages not cached is a red alert.

Marcia - Thanks.

Yup... The errors, (approx 1200), are worrisome. Here's the problem with both of those things: As much as I absolutely love homestead, their proprietary software does some funky stuff that appears to be html errors, however everything works fine and the search engines never minded before. I think the cached page pic problem comes and goes. Alexa has problems once in a while and back when MSN showed previews sometimes they'd be blank. I ahve notified homestead and gave them a copy of the erros. Hopefully they can fix it. First things I asked them for though was #1) 301 Domain redirects, #2) WC3 Compliancy and #3) Firefox code patch so that it locks the CSS and does not let text change size. IE handles tha pages fine, but with Firefox the text can grow.

Double Yup on the size... There's not much I can do about the size. I put my pages on diets all the time, but they always go back to big. Again, search engines have never had an issue despite all the web pro disapproval. I sincerely don't think size matters when it comes to web pages, as long as the content is original and in proper density and proportion. Images are of course the demons everyone faces. I've had a lot of luck with Macromedia's Fireworks. It seems to do an excellent job creating small file size, high quality pics.

I am in the process of cleaning house now. You can see what's it looking like now: http://freedjamerica.com

Thanks again.

That has never changed and I've been doing this 10 years... it's obvious to me your head is so far up your rear entry hole that being nice just won't have any affect because you "feel entitled" to positions!... As a directory developer I see a huge potential for "web 2.0" directories with SE's providing all/most of the tools and means to build and monetize it... there won't be one that you could say it was built only to run Adsense on it and some will be sponsored by real advertisers... You might want to consider looking further than your own pocket book when your developing a monetization strategy!... What I found in 5 minutes on your site and and 3 minutes at Tucows registry IMO, refutes your logic for the statements above, and makes your call to arms seem more like whining about being treated unfairly...

:rolleyes: Okay... Sorry for quoting you with only the uglies, but sorry you deserve it. Don't get me wrong "Webmaster T", I'm sure you're the greatest, but some folks just were not born assmart as you.

Looking past the nasty undertones I do find your post to have some good info and I certainly appreciate your willingness to share YO.

This has certainly turned into more than I ever imagined and before rebuting and commenting on your SEO and web design items, I'd just like to steer back into topic and mention that I'm not "whining" about not ranking well. Hey, I'm so grateful when I see my stuff in the top 10, that I'd never bitch about not showing up, I simply try harder. The point I was making, is that when you run something as big and influential as Google you can't just "roll something out"... What Google did was so severe, so drastic and so radical that it would be akin to waking up and finding out the dept of transportation reworked all the roadways so they have rails instead of pavement. Or going to put your ATM card in the machine, only to find out that the night before every bank in the hemisphere thought it would be a good idea to remove all card readers and install finger swipes. What Google did, while I'm sure it'll be for the greater good, was pathetically stupid and unthoughtful. IF people were aware that the search engine would be down, or IF they had temporarily shut down and IF they gave clear instructions to webmasters and site owners WAY in advance than that would be more appropriate behavior.

Bottom line is, that G didn't do any of those things. They put their own ambitions in the way of the greater good. Did they care if millions of folks all around the World lost their asses simultaneously because of their lack of planning or consideration? Tell me genius T does that make a damn bit of sense? AND don't even say... BBBBUTTT Matt Cutt's Blog says this and Google Guidelines say that. They both read like bad instructions for build it yourself furniture. Seems like these almighty's have forgotten the Golden Rule in Web Anything, and that is that you must assume your end user is an idiot. Yup... Maybe that's me. It took me 8 minutes to figure out what IMO meant. Somebody else on the board had to explain MFA. I run a website for a living, I don't have the time or desire to earn a degree in computer science, so please G just tell me what I need to know and I'll gladly comply. Google's guidelines are so vague they can be interpreted a zillion different ways. Their specifics are so specific only the dude that wrote it understands it. AND WHY? To stop smarties like you from exploiting their logic.

Anyway, sorry about that - I'm usually a really nice guy. really :)

I'm guilty... I admit it. When I'm not maintaining DJ listings and sending out client leads, (well over $1,000,000 worth now), I build websites for small businesses so I linked to them from my PR5 hoping they'd get some respect. Big Deal.

As for all the SEO and Web Stuff you mentioned: First, it sounds to me like YOU might be someone who works an awful lot of PPC and I don't know if it's coming or going in AdSense or AdWords I can't tell, but I HATE PPC... Sponsored ads on the Internet show the absolute pit of humanity. They are specifically designed so that under acheivers can make money from the web based on the fact that a huge percentage of web users are either A) Morons or B) Lazy. That's what I think of sponsored ads and the sites that put their crap ads, ESPECIALLY so called "directories" that are obviously designed specifically for sponsored ads with or without valuable content. IMO!

The site I run is a true directory. THE ONLY REASON I ever put AdSense in, (and it's typically a one liner 125x125), was in hopes that G would give me some love for having their crap ads on my site. Monetary Gain? You must be joking! In 1 year I think I've made like $300 from AdSense, so believe me it's definitely not worth the real estate. I'd get better results filling that space with background, at least that way they don't wander off somewhere.

There are thousands of listings in the directory which have all come directly from Mobile DJs and Party Services. Every single ad was submitted via form to my Inbox and then I literally created, edited and published them. EVERY reciprocal link to my site was either earned or placed in ernest and even requested in a few cases. Yeah, people pay to be on my site. That's business. I call it advertising, not "SEO". Using a website as my vehicle for helping these folks book gigs involves the necessity of SEO, but it's definitely NOT something I care to do. After 4 years I've managed to self teach myself how to help these folks get seen on the web, but I've never tried to get seen on the web to turn around and jettison my visitor off to some foreign site, like so many self proclaimed "webmasters" do with wannabe directories, link farms and scraper sites. IMO - All three of those are from the same bloodline and what G ought to stamp out.

I'd love to ramble on, but common sense is stopping me thank God. I have several thousand hungry DJs that need to find parties to go to, so I'll be getting back to restructuring a couple thousand pages by hand. I am soooo happy that Big Daddy came along. What would I have done with all that spare time otherwise? Sleep? Eat? Hmmm... Who knows though, maybe it'll even the playing field a bit. As it is, I've solely competed with some pretty big dogs for position over the years and succeeded. It's just me at the end of this keyboard unlike nearly all my competition that employs 12, 25, 50 people or hmmm... How many does "superpages" or "yellowbook" have? Did you know that companies like that know they suck at relevancy, so they're now pushing PPC on businesses via middle man PPC managers? Unreal - What will they think of next? :(

Good post WMT, harsh but fair as H might say...

FDGA, you seem to gave got your (fair) share of Flak without taking it too personally which is great, your only way is up ;-)

To follow up, Google is and always has been designed to provide relevant results for non-commercial based information - remember the Internet was not intended to be a "commercial" based mechanism, rather a way to exchange and expand intellectual knowledge.That was the Internet, but we are dealing with the Web, which is different. The Web is for commercial and non-commercial stuff alike. Google was never designed for non-commercial stuff - it was designed to index the Web.

I have read in another forum where there is theory of pagerank determining the levels crawled and indexed. The theory is pr5 will get 4 layers of indexing.

This is a flawed theory. The internal linking structure determines levels crawled not the pagerankIt was never a theory that PageRank determined the frequency of crawl. It was a fact as stated by Google. Since BD, other factors may also play a part, but PageRank is still used for that purpose. I don't believe that directory levels (if that's what you mean) ever came into it. A URL is a URL, and that's all.

FDJA.

I haven't read this thread, but I think I've got the general idea from your last post. I'm writing this as one who has been burned by BD, and as one who is dead against what they've done in BD.

It would be very nice if Google told everybody in advance what they were about to do, so that everyone could take steps to avoid problems, but there is no reason for them to do that. The wellbeing of other people's sites is not their responsibility. That responsibility lies with site owners.

You say that Google put their own ambitions in the way of the greater good, and I disagree. If I've understood the new crawl/index function correctly, it appears to me that it's an attempt to do something about link pollution, which has a huge impact in their serps, and I don't disagree with them trying to do it. I don't see that as being Google's "ambition" in the way that you mean. I see it as trying to recover the quality serps that they once had before link pollution became so widespread. It's something that they had to do, and it's something that they have to continue doing.

Having said that, they way that Google went about trying to deal with link pollution, if that's what they've done, is very wrong, imo, because the way they've done it hits totally honest, clean sites, and is very bad for their own users. It's the worst thing they've done yet, and they've done some bad stuff.

FDJA.

I haven't read this thread, but I think I've got the general idea from your last post. I'm writing this as one who has been burned by BD, and as one who is dead against what they've done in BD.

It would be very nice if Google told everybody in advance what they were about to do, so that everyone could take steps to avoid problems, but there is no reason for them to do that. The wellbeing of other people's sites is not their responsibility. That responsibility lies with site owners.

You say that Google put their own ambitions in the way of the greater good, and I disagree. If I've understood the new crawl/index function correctly, it appears to me that it's an attempt to do something about link pollution, which has a huge impact in their serps, and I don't disagree with them trying to do it. I don't see that as being Google's "ambition" in the way that you mean. I see it as trying to recover the quality serps that they once had before link pollution became so widespread. It's something that they had to do, and it's something that they have to continue doing.

Having said that, they way that Google went about trying to deal with link pollution, if that's what they've done, is very wrong, imo, because the way they've done it hits totally honest, clean sites, and is very bad for their own users. It's the worst thing they've done yet, and they've done some bad stuff.

Hi Phil, yes you have it just about right. Obviously there's a lot more context throughout this thread which STARTS HERE (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11894), but in a nutshell you've got it.

I'm way past resentment and have worked diligently cleaning up my site, http://freedjamerica.com thanks to some of the additional insight provided by searchenginewatch, as well as what I've picked up elsewhere including google's user forums and sitemap forums. I've wanted to clean house for a while and never got around to it. Big Daddy lit the fire under my butt. In addition to info I've seen on this forum, Matt Cutts and other bits and pieces I've picked up along the way, I've come up with my own theory as to "why" this happened and perhaps answered my own question as to "why google would rollout something so obviously flawed on the public at large"... Bringing down plenty of well intentioned sites in the process and crippling many a small economy including my own. - I think we're all lab rats in a much bigger google beta (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11965)... It's all speculation of course, but it makes sense to me and I started a new thread to see what others think. ;)

Remember the Google that set the standard for designing search friendly pages? The Google that had predictable results and seemed incredible? Remeber the Google that remembered pages better than the webmaster who made them? I can remember not so long ago, when there was such a Google.
So I can remember when AltaVista set the standard for designing search engine friendly pages, not Google.

I can remember how before Google, search rankings would commonly fluctuate among the major search engines, yet some people would still get shocked if they fell out of the top results for Excite, Infoseek, etc.

I can remember many in the SEO community becoming Google obsessed, thinking about nothing but Google and its dependable results. Except they weren't always that dependable, or the term Google Dance would have never developed, along with that disease, the Google Dance Syndrome (http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2216081) .

I can remember the Google Florida Update (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3285661) of November 2003, and how a wide range of site owners found themselves no longer able to depend on "dependable" Google. They should have never, ever been depending on it so much to begin with. But they did, and they got hammered.

So now more than two years after Florida -- and frankly ten years of search engines demonstrating they are fickle creatures -- Google's new infrastructure is clearly acting goofy and causing problems for some people unintentionally (and for others, probably doing exactly as intended, knocking them out). I totally have sympathy for anyone being knocked out where many would agree Google should be ranking them well. But to say there are "predictable results?" I'm sorry -- it just doesn't fly with me. It never has, and changes like we are going through are frankly a normal part of the process.

>AltaVista set the standard

Florida and BD were/are cakewalks compared to AV's Black Monday.

I'm kinda disappointed that we haven't had the usual calls for class action lawsuits in this thread.

... "predictable results?" I'm sorry -- it just doesn't fly with me. It never has, and changes like we are going through are frankly a normal part of the process.

Danny, I think you're correct and you hit on an excellent point. Although I didn't include your entire quote here, basically I agree that we should not depend so much on one search engine when designing our sites, etc... Things change it's inevitable.

For me, the toughest part about not designing a website that google hopefully favors, is that I would be ignoring at least 56% of my traffic potential right now. Months or years down the road, who knows we may have to make websites that works well with a different search engine. Maybe Google will be one of those multitude of search engines wayyyy down on the list of SEO thoughts. Curious, when was the last time a webmaster purposely designed a site to meet Alta Vista Guidelines?

I suppose my comment about "predictable" came from my perspective as a web designer, not the end user searching for something. For the past several years (even with FL and BD), it's still fairly easy to design sites which will have fairly predictable search results. Obviously if targeting a highly competitive market or search phrase everything gets blurry and everything is questioned, but in building a site for niche markets or obscure phrases is pretty cut and dry and you can "predict" fairly well what it will show up for, perhaps not the ranking, but you know it will show and based on your experience with successful seo you can sort of guess it'll be in the top whatever based on the number of relevant results and where that relevancy suddenly gets ugly... Usually around page 4 - 10

airtravelcenter,

I think your forgetting the fact that when one ranking drops, another moves up.

Some people are actually happy with this update, and you won't find them posting in the forums. Educate yourself or get some paid help (proper seo advice not PPCrap), whining is simply a waste of energy.

I said nothing that relates to whining. I answered the question.

The answer is that a bazillion webmasters ARE the monster. Accept our responsibility to direct traffic across the Internet. We are the experts in our fields of endeavor. No algorithm can ever match the experience and expertise we hold. Be judicious in directing visitors to other websites. Apply your expertise and experience. Whether paid or gratuitous, direct your visitors (you know your audience better than any other) to what you know will be of better service to them. Extend and enhance their visit to your site.

Within your site and beyond your site, use your experience and expertise to provide the very best products services facility information and references to the people who comprise your audience and your clientele.

the toughest part about not designing a website that google hopefully favors, is that I would be ignoring at least 56% of my traffic potential right now.This is a chicken and egg situation. Do you focus on making Google happy because that's where most of your traffic comes from? or does most of your traffic come from Google because that's where you focus?

Ultimately, our job is not to focus on a single engine because (as has been said) things can change at any minute.

Good luck with the changes you're making. Hope it works out for the best. :)

This is a chicken and egg situation. Do you focus on making Google happy because that's where most of your traffic comes from? or does most of your traffic come from Google because that's where you focus?

Ultimately, our job is not to focus on a single engine because (as has been said) things can change at any minute.

Good luck with the changes you're making. Hope it works out for the best. :)

Thanks and I like the analogy... Never thought about it like chicken VS egg, but you're right. I suppose that instinctively I design primarily for Google knowing that they're number 1. The other advantage is, that sites I design to "compete" in Google, typically smoke the comptetion at MSN. With those two out of the way, I can safely say that I'm getting a good bit of traffic (89% right now) from those two combined. If and when I show up in Yahoo is so sporadic and inconsistent that I really don't care. If you ask me, their main focus is on Sponsored Ads, which is how they make money and justifies screwy organic results.

I said nothing that relates to whining. I answered the question.

The answer is that a bazillion webmasters ARE the monster. Accept our responsibility to direct traffic across the Internet. We are the experts in our fields of endeavor. No algorithm can ever match the experience and expertise we hold. Be judicious in directing visitors to other websites. Apply your expertise and experience. Whether paid or gratuitous, direct your visitors (you know your audience better than any other) to what you know will be of better service to them. Extend and enhance their visit to your site.

Within your site and beyond your site, use your experience and expertise to provide the very best products services facility information and references to the people who comprise your audience and your clientele.

You're right. Many a webmaster do try to get out there and steer traffic one way or the other. Sometimes intentionally, other times not so intentionally. Sometimes for self profit or fun, sometimes for hire. Sometimes it's entire teams of webmaster clone interns knocking out cookie cutter pages for big Page Rank sites to spam the universe with.

What-chu doing this weekend? I need help painting flowers on my VW Mini-Bus. :)

Actually, I believe the devil is alive and well on the Internet and taking the form of Amazon, EBay, Wilkpedia and a few others... Tell you what, after we paint the flowers on the mini-bus, we can grab a soap-box and drive to corporate headquarters for the major players who claim to have everything under the sun at their website. If the morality sermon doesn't work we'll cruise to WalMart, do a little shopping in sporting goods and go back and try again. Joking of course! < Got to place that there for when Google hands over info to the White House (if they can outbid the Chinese).

Florida and BD were/are cakewalks compared to AV's Black Monday.hehe... I could never remember which day of the week it was - thanks for the reminder :)

Whether or not that comparison holds up depends on whether or not a site was hit. Black Monday was devastating, but so was Florida, and so is BD for those who were hit. AV totally dumped sites, whereas Forida and BD didn't, but the devastation for those who were hit is pretty much the same.

I don't remember it being a Monday, it may have been that it picked up the name from other bloodbaths in history. I do recall that it took a day or two to come to the realization that this wasn't just in one's own niche but that AV had been pretty indiscriminate in doling out the black dots.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?p=19393

FDJA, does it matter what data center Google is using to return the serps? Since the update a lot of my serps have varied, some of them greatly depending on which data center was returning the results. With some data centers I am positioned well and with others my results are horrible?

FDJA, does it matter what data center Google is using to return the serps? Since the update a lot of my serps have varied, some of them greatly depending on which data center was returning the results. With some data centers I am positioned well and with others my results are horrible?

I'm flattered you asked me, but honestly I don't know. I read that somewhere else and it sounds extremely logical. Even though it's unconfirmed from Google, I would say it's the best explanantion I've heard.

It almost seems with the minor research that I've done that Google wants to vary their serps, so they are changing data centers more frequently throughout the day. This way it shows different results almost all the time and gives the appearance that the serps are fresh. It also makes it really hard to maintain a top position on more sought after terms. Less sought after terms seem to hold their results in the serps more.

I don't remember it being a Monday, it may have been that it picked up the name from other bloodbaths in history. I do recall that it took a day or two to come to the realization that this wasn't just in one's own niche but that AV had been pretty indiscriminate in doling out the black dots.Whatever day it was, I remember it well - one of my sites was hit, and never recovered - not that it mattered for much longer after that.

Ah - the good old days :D

Whatever day it was, I remember it well - one of my sites was hit, and never recovered - not that it mattered for much longer after that.

Ah - the good old days :D

The announcement and relaunch was October 25, 1999. (http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3_67392_Ext) $US8 million on the launch day :p Back then I was still in the 'bubble', oblivious to what was to follow in the next 12 months. Good times.

Nice post Danny! Ah the good old days...

I can remember the Google Florida Update (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3285661) of November 2003, and how a wide range of site owners found themselves no longer able to depend on "dependable" Google. They should have never, ever been depending on it so much to begin with. But they did, and they got hammered.


One of my big non-commercial reference sites just went AWOL. Dozens of universities link to it, even a handful of government sites link to it. It died for ranking for it's own name and now it's disappearing entirely.

No, it won't make me personally poorer if Google never crawls it again - but I really can't see Google users benefiting either.

For me, the toughest part about not designing a website that google hopefully favors, is that I would be ignoring at least 56% of my traffic potential right now. Months or years down the road, who knows we may have to make websites that works well with a different search engine.
Yep, more and more people are waking up to this fact, which used to be a big issue for some pre-98/99. I can remember (there he goes again) when Webposition rolled out the page analyzer tool to help those who wanted to build to target Infoseek, AltaVista, etc. I can't say I miss the days where it was easy to tell what someone was doing because the URLs would all end in initials of the search engines a page was targeted at (page-is.html, page-av.htlm, page-ex.html).

I always got a kick when a page clearly targeted by someone at Excite would rank well for AltaVista and so on. To me, it underscored how these tools trying to get you to do the "perfect" page often wouldn't deliver -- plus the differences recommended often were so slight as not to matter.

Still, I can see that coming back. In fact, the SES San Jose agenda just went up (http://www.jupiterevents.com/sew/summer06/glance.html), and the beginning of the second day is a session called "Can You Please Them All?" Session descriptions haven't yet posted, but we're going to revisit the issue. People are again wanting that top ranking across the board without losing out on whereever they are at. I think building three different sites and robot.txt banning out all the untargeted search engines is a massive pain for most people and instead tend to recommend the be happy with ranking with one of them approach. But that's not for everyone, I know.

I am new to the subject and do not understand a lot of what is being said here. Nevertheless, I am trying to understand that Google is concerned about quality and is also smart to filter out bad boys. This shoud have resulted in much smarter, better maching, better targeted hits to the same question (search string) on Google than on other search engines or sites. I haven't noticed this as a user.

I am new to the subject and do not understand a lot of what is being said here. Nevertheless, I am trying to understand that Google is concerned about quality and is also smart to filter out bad boys. This shoud have resulted in much smarter, better maching, better targeted hits to the same question (search string) on Google than on other search engines or sites. I haven't noticed this as a user.

Vilipa... Welcome and your statement says a lot... It really does.

We'll just have to wait and see. It tokk MSN over 6 mo's to make their new search engine work, (and they have Microsoft Muscle)... It may take Google as long or longer. New software and new equipment = T-R-O-U-B-LE

I still think they should have hung that "Out of Order" sign up on the home page of Google :)

t tokk MSN over 6 mo's to make their new search engine work, (and they have Microsoft Muscle)Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to make their search engine work, but that's probably best discussed elsewhere in the forum....