View Full Version : May 31st Google Backlink Update
rustybrick
06-01-2004, 01:51 PM
Hey All,
It has been a long time since the last backlink and pagerank update.
The PageRank and Backlink update seems to have been updated across all the Google Data Centers.
If you have the tool bar installed, checkout your new pagerank. If you want to check your new backlinks, go to google and use the link:www.domain.com command.
Thanks,
gvenditto
06-01-2004, 02:02 PM
thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.
- Gus
AussieWebmaster
06-01-2004, 04:12 PM
We drop a point... it is sad we seem to be dropping every time I look at the backwards links total... we now have about 250 when it used to be over 1200... and it is not like we have less inbound links.
Guess they are filtering them a little heavier now... this is the first time our page rank has dropped though... but we still have a serious number of number 1 SERPs so go figure.
minstrel
06-02-2004, 12:04 PM
this is the first time our page rank has dropped though... but we still have a serious number of number 1 SERPs so go figure.
...which is of course the only truly meaningful part of all this Google watching anyway, right?
It's always nice to see that little green bar get bigger and there's always that instant of panic when you see that it's shrunk... but in the end if the SERPs remain, that's all that really matters.
rustybrick
06-02-2004, 12:08 PM
...which is of course the only truly meaningful part of all our Google watching, right?
It's always nice to see that little green bar get bigger and there's always that instant of panic when you see that it's shrunk... but in the end if the SERPs remain, that's all that really matters.
Not if your in the business of selling PageRank. ;)
minstrel
06-02-2004, 12:14 PM
LOL... you have a point ;)
St0n3y
06-02-2004, 12:18 PM
My site has been moving back and forth between 5 and 6 for about a year. Never really been much concerned about it though, just keep working on getting those quality links.
PR for my site remained the same. Backlinks did not change appreciably either.
TheFesta
06-02-2004, 12:42 PM
Was happy to see that my PR went up 1 to PR5. Time to get to work on PR6 now. :D
easycure
06-02-2004, 12:52 PM
We have remained at PR6. I suspect we were very close to PR7, or that's what I wanted to think anyway :rolleyes:
Lots of the sites I monitor regularly have dropped, so I guess we are still 6 but not that close to 7 anymore :mad:
Lost a few backlinks, but nothing important.
SERPs are improving a lot tough, so very happy on the global result of the update :p
Anthony Parsons
06-02-2004, 12:56 PM
I don't give a hoot about PR, but I did give a hoot about the smashing I copped for an accidental link I made.
One of my Partners, Brawley Web Design, which I have links on my site too, when I changed over my SEO pages to the new design, instead of linking to http://www.brawleywebdesign.com, I linked to {www.brawleywebdesigns.com} which is some rubbish crap that contains links to gambling, porn and who knows what else. Here I am thinking I had it right, but one little "s" mistake made a redirection to that rubbish from my homepage and every other page through the site. Ouch, big time.
Good thing the engines update monthly huh, otherwise I'd be screwed.
minstrel
06-02-2004, 12:58 PM
I dropped from PR5 to 4 but this happened initially in the April update and after a few days returned to PR5... rankings for my main search phrases haven't changed at all so I'm not concerned.
Dodger
06-02-2004, 01:00 PM
We drop a point... it is sad we seem to be dropping every time I look at the backwards links total... we now have about 250 when it used to be over 1200... and it is not like we have less inbound links.
Guess they are filtering them a little heavier now... this is the first time our page rank has dropped though... but we still have a serious number of number 1 SERPs so go figure.
Yep. I noticed a drop in backlinks too. But I think the links that I lost was due to interlinking of some sites. I also gained some too. Overall, the total went up slightly, as did the internal PR of pages that were deep into the site. Overall I was pretty happy with it.
AussieWebmaster
06-02-2004, 03:45 PM
Yep. I noticed a drop in backlinks too. But I think the links that I lost was due to interlinking of some sites. I also gained some too. Overall, the total went up slightly, as did the internal PR of pages that were deep into the site. Overall I was pretty happy with it.
Yeah I have to get a couple of people working on this eventually but with everything else it becomes less of a priority when the keywords stay where they are...
St0n3y
06-02-2004, 04:01 PM
I am amazed that so much time and energy is put into looking at PR and linkbacks, what links were dropped, etc. I feel its more important to know what makes a good link, what doesn't, etc. but such detail (which you have not control over) eludes me. Not knocking anyone, I'm just not a minute detail person. Glad to know there are people out there that are, though.
Anthony Parsons
06-02-2004, 06:35 PM
I am amazed that so much time and energy is put into looking at PR and linkbacks, what links were dropped, etc.
Doesn't amaze me at all, simply attach Google to it and enough said!
Webmaster-Toolkit.com
06-02-2004, 07:41 PM
As far as I can see, this update seems to mirror the changes in serps I saw at least a month ago. I think G is providing us a very good delayed response to real updates. And I agree that this is probably to discourage link brokers and anchor text spammers, though it doesn't stop them from topping the serps
powerofeyes
06-02-2004, 11:48 PM
Yes I agree it looks like a pretty Old update for me, It is pretty surprising google does this, They usually take into account backlink data not more than 15 days old,
I feel an other pagerank update might come in pretty soon, April had 2 updates as everyone is aware of,
VIJAY,
seobook
06-03-2004, 12:00 AM
there is definentally some sort of delay mechanism going on. as they make link renting cloudier
pagerank might be old and or inaccurate
site might not pass pagerank
certain pages might not pass pagerank
site might have link popularity blocked for selling pagerank
they make it way harder to buy and sell links, but I am sure the market still has a ton of demand and is rather lucrative for many people.
nuclei
06-03-2004, 01:09 AM
This update has been a very odd one, with many people losing both backlinks as well as PR. It would appear that new filters are now firmly in place for both obvious link area /links /partners etc. as well as many forum signatures seemingly devalued.
Any ideas on this?
nuclei
06-03-2004, 01:10 AM
there is definentally some sort of delay mechanism going on. as they make link renting cloudier
pagerank might be old and or inaccurate
site might not pass pagerank
certain pages might not pass pagerank
site might have link popularity blocked for selling pagerank
they make it way harder to buy and sell links, but I am sure the market still has a ton of demand and is rather lucrative for many people.
It is all in how you manage things. If you let them know where you are then yes, you could be blocked quickly.
Chris_D
06-03-2004, 03:44 AM
I'm seeing reciprocals filtered, but not unreciprocated links. I haven't finished the analysis - but thats the way it's starting to look...
Dysfunctional Monk
06-03-2004, 04:09 AM
I have a client who has had a 301 redirect from Site B to Site A, yet when I do a pure search in Google for site A and check the back-links, it has the links that are pointing to site B. And those links have been updated!! Not sure what is going on there, but this update has been quite odd for me. On my web site, I have lost some of my internal links as well as some external links (yet my PR remains the same) :confused:
I think I'm going bald at a faster rate these days :)
This update has been a very odd one, with many people losing both backlinks as well as PR. It would appear that new filters are now firmly in place for both obvious link area /links /partners etc. as well as many forum signatures seemingly devalued.
Any ideas on this?
I am seeing some strange things like backlinks going down and PR going up with rankings remaining the same.
I particularly notice that forum sigs seem to be eliminated or at least devalued. Anyone else seeing this?
AussieWebmaster
06-03-2004, 01:20 PM
I am seeing some strange things like backlinks going down and PR going up with rankings remaining the same.
I particularly notice that forum sigs seem to be eliminated or at least devalued. Anyone else seeing this?
Oh well there goes my world ( :D ) my hose of cards is based purely on forum links....
Yes I have noticed a devaluing of them... but funnily enough blogs are holding strong.
minstrel
06-03-2004, 01:29 PM
That's not my experience - I'm still seeing backlinks from forums for my sites...
nuclei
06-03-2004, 01:34 PM
That's not my experience - I'm still seeing backlinks from forums for my sites...
I am still seeing some as well, but only a fraction of what there used to be.
Almost seems like they are giving 1 link for every 5 I used to get.
minstrel
06-03-2004, 01:42 PM
I'm noticing two other curious things:
1. although toolbar PR for my primary site slipped a notch in this last update, the number of backlinks reported by Google increased (and the actual rankings didn't change)
2. some of the backlinks from forums no longer have "snippets" in the SERPs
I don't remember seeing either of these in previous Google updates
mcanerin
06-03-2004, 01:50 PM
It's also been brought to my attention (thanks, vijay) that some URLs with less than PR4 are being shown, but so far only if the URL is obviously dynamic. I have one PR0 and one PR2 showing up now, both dynamic (one ASP and one PHP)
Ian
nuclei
06-03-2004, 02:01 PM
Yeh, I have a feeling the reason for this update hitting about 1-2 weeks later than everyone expected was due to them rushing new filters into the algo before running the update. If this is so, then we may well see some reversion in the coming weeks from fallout of this update.
It appears tho that google is trying their best to slow down sales of links. This is not unexpected at all, but I would have expected it to be done a lot differently. As-is this will not affect link sellers or brokers much.
nuclei
06-03-2004, 02:12 PM
Hmm, it would seem as if they have devalued the ability to aquire basic pagerank thru internal linking somewhat. Definately an interesting update.
minstrel
06-03-2004, 02:15 PM
Hmm, it would seem as if they have devalued the ability to aquire basic pagerank thru internal linking somewhat.
What are you basing this on, nuclei?
seomike
06-03-2004, 03:12 PM
Ooooo new romping room. I like the forum.
I don't think the update is complete. Some of my new sites that went in right after the last update haven't been PRed :) But they do show backward links
AussieWebmaster
06-03-2004, 05:05 PM
I just had lunch with a couple of the guys at Google NY and one is a business development guy. He said this recent update was looking to remove duplication and improve the linking valuation (scrubbing the noncontextual links a lot harder)...
Hmm, it would seem as if they have devalued the ability to aquire basic pagerank thru internal linking somewhat. Definately an interesting update.
I am not seeing this at all, in particular I have a site where the overall backlinks shown dropped, th external backlinks dropped, the internal backlinks increased and the PR increased.
unreviewed
06-04-2004, 01:16 AM
AussieWebmaster, that is what I'm seeing across the board. Loss of inbound links. Loss of PR. Many of the affected inbound seem related to web sites that are sharing the same IP. However, SERP positions, traffic/keyword patterns, seem only slightly affected.
nuclei
06-04-2004, 01:51 PM
I just had lunch with a couple of the guys at Google NY and one is a business development guy. He said this recent update was looking to remove duplication and improve the linking valuation (scrubbing the noncontextual links a lot harder)...
Hey aussie, You the same one from *biz? :)
By contextual do you mean non themed links? If so, thats a load of hogwash the biz dev guy fed you. Googles algo still can not tell themed links from unthemed ones.
nuclei
06-04-2004, 01:53 PM
Only if humans at google manually check them and find that they are the same persons. Most cheaper hosts now use one shared ip for all standard hostees. Google wouldnt cut their throats like that.
Only if humans at google manually check them and find that they are the same persons. Most cheaper hosts now use one shared ip for all standard hostees. Google wouldnt cut their throats like that.
Have you looked at the Google LocalRank Patent? It does exactly that and includes links on the same Class C IPs
AussieWebmaster
06-04-2004, 03:48 PM
Hey aussie, You the same one from *biz? :)
By contextual do you mean non themed links? If so, thats a load of hogwash the biz dev guy fed you. Googles algo still can not tell themed links from unthemed ones.
Same person... am branding the screenname across all areas of the web.. must be working!!
AussieWebmaster
06-04-2004, 03:52 PM
Actually they do have the ability to check the weighting of the site for the keywords that are being pushed by the site they are linked to... if there is not compatibility then the link value drops to a low value... if the site with the link also ranks high for the keyword then a higher value is placed on that link...
Also they are working to get rid heavily of duplicated pages... pages where a certain percentage of words and source code are exact... obviously this has to be a robust program as sites that keep the same look and feel will have a fair amount of duplicated content...
Actually they do have the ability to check the weighting of the site for the keywords that are being pushed by the site they are linked to... if there is not compatibility then the link value drops to a low value... if the site with the link also ranks high for the keyword then a higher value is placed on that link...
Can you tell us what you base this on?
AussieWebmaster
06-05-2004, 07:46 AM
I have had a couple of conversations with the biz dev people and they spoke about the recent changes being geared towards clearing dupliactes and improving linking validity...
Duplicate links or duplicate content? If duplicate links then what is a duplicate link?
And what does link validity mean? I see Google coming up with these very nice sounding terms in thier official line (link validity, quality signals, etc) but I don't see any practical definitions of these terms or any working examples.
To me it seems that Google is perhaps taking some small steps in the right direction, but day to day the same old strategies work as well today as they did last year.
AussieWebmaster
06-05-2004, 08:47 PM
Duplicate pages... or close enough to duplicate... though how they determine this against pages that are the same except for a chart or pic I will have to ask.
The links are being worked on to further qualify them... a continuation of Florida really.
nuclei
06-05-2004, 08:52 PM
Actually they do have the ability to check the weighting of the site for the keywords that are being pushed by the site they are linked to... if there is not compatibility then the link value drops to a low value... if the site with the link also ranks high for the keyword then a higher value is placed on that link...
Also they are working to get rid heavily of duplicated pages... pages where a certain percentage of words and source code are exact... obviously this has to be a robust program as sites that keep the same look and feel will have a fair amount of duplicated content...
I agree wholeheartedly about the duplicates issue, in fact I was the first one to see it in action and show evidence of it. But as far as weighting links by relevance, that is pure garbage. Google does not have any type of theming going on yet.
They wish they did though. And it is coming sooner or later.
nuclei
06-05-2004, 08:55 PM
Same person... am branding the screenname across all areas of the web.. must be working!!
You know me as WilliamC then :)
AussieWebmaster
06-05-2004, 09:01 PM
You know me as WilliamC then :)
G'day mate...
Duplicate pages... or close enough to duplicate... though how they determine this against pages that are the same except for a chart or pic I will have to ask.
The links are being worked on to further qualify them... a continuation of Florida really.
Ok if we are talking about duplicate content or pages, then I wholly agree, as to how they determine them look at Googles recent dup content patent for some ideas.
If links (especially anchor text) are going to continue to be weighted heavily in the Google algo then it only makes sense that they should introduce some relevancy factors involving the linking pages and surrounding text into them, but I really doubt that this is something left over from Florida.
AussieWebmaster
06-07-2004, 01:48 AM
Florida was the start on the decrease in backlinks but not the dropping of the actually rankings at our sites... and the number has steadily decreased for the past 5 months or more... but SERPs are holding strong... moving a little here and there but not too much
St0n3y
06-07-2004, 04:45 PM
Also they are working to get rid heavily of duplicated pages... pages where a certain percentage of words and source code are exact... obviously this has to be a robust program as sites that keep the same look and feel will have a fair amount of duplicated content...
One problem with that is that I have many pages on my site with duplicate paragraphs, but only because its necessary. Example: four "packages" each with overlapping services. Each package has its own page outlining its services, etc. Is this in danger of being penalized? I would hope it wouldn't.
seomike
06-07-2004, 05:10 PM
I'm sure it would have to be based on a percentage and not word for word.
Something to the tune of 90% of page A is an exact match to page B = drop the one with a lower score.
nuclei
06-07-2004, 05:25 PM
I'm sure it would have to be based on a percentage and not word for word.
Something to the tune of 90% of page A is an exact match to page B = drop the one with a lower score.
Take a gander at googles patent on "fingerprinting" parts of pages to establish duplicity. It really is a rather intesting read, and the results of it are far reaching as we saw a few updates ago when they were apparently testing it out and it struck a whole lot of people it shouldnt have.
My best guess is they attempted to use it to weed out some of the affiliate crap that is so widespread in their index, and it went too far. It appears to have gotten a lot more subtle since then.
Also regarding which page gets dropped, from what we all saw, the newest pages were only affected. The grandafathered pages were not affected at all.
St0n3y
06-08-2004, 02:56 PM
This topic just became much more interesting. I have a client whos PR has dropped from a 4 to 0 (home page only). After researching we found that they had a second URL pointing to the same IP address. This URL has been active for years but it appears that Google might be penalizing them for duplicate content.
nuclei
06-08-2004, 03:06 PM
That is very possible indeed. we saw a large number of sites hit by the dupe filter go from decent PR to being zeroed out completely. So that would not surprise me in your case at all either. There is a large thread about it in detail here: http://webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=1010
Jeff Martin
06-08-2004, 05:32 PM
This topic just became much more interesting. I have a client whos PR has dropped from a 4 to 0 (home page only). After researching we found that they had a second URL pointing to the same IP address. This URL has been active for years but it appears that Google might be penalizing them for duplicate content.
Are we talking about multiple domain names pointing to a single IP? I've never worked for a company or a client who only had one domain name pointing to their web server IP. My experience has been that multiple domain names signify diversity, not duplication. The content still exists in one physical location, it just goes by more than one name. Now if you've got a mirrored site up on two different IPs its just a matter of time before the penalty hammer falls.
AussieWebmaster
06-09-2004, 03:16 PM
This topic just became much more interesting. I have a client whos PR has dropped from a 4 to 0 (home page only). After researching we found that they had a second URL pointing to the same IP address. This URL has been active for years but it appears that Google might be penalizing them for duplicate content.
This is something they will discover eventually... though in the case where people join sites etc and point them to the same location then the oldest would be the one... I would have suggested another 301 redirect so that you notify the spiders that the moves is occurring and any PR/links etc get passed to the one place with one improved ranking in the SERPs...
St0n3y
06-09-2004, 03:22 PM
Are we talking about multiple domain names pointing to a single IP? I've never worked for a company or a client who only had one domain name pointing to their web server IP. My experience has been that multiple domain names signify diversity, not duplication. The content still exists in one physical location, it just goes by more than one name. Now if you've got a mirrored site up on two different IPs its just a matter of time before the penalty hammer falls.
In my experience, multiple urls pointing to the same content/IP address is still can create potential for problems. What makes me think this is the case even more is that the home page is the ONLY page that lost PR while the other pages maintained theirs. My theory here is that Google found the second site, saw duplicate contante and threw an immediate penalty on it. If it deep crawls the site later it will find more dupe content, but at that time *might* see that this is simply a parked domain, but maybe not and the rest of the site will lose PR.
The webmaster has now put a 301 permanent redirect in place. I'm hoping that this will cause any penalty to be lifted sooner rather than later.
nuclei
06-09-2004, 03:34 PM
The 301 should resolve the matter in my opinion.