Cute but can be deadly at times.
Another day another Google Update – we’ve now had multiple Panda updates, over optimisation filters and now the Google Penguin update. I haven’t seen this many updates from Google in such a short time in my entire SEO history.
Here’s the link to Google’s blog about the most recent update:
www.googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
Interestingly, when you read it you’ll find there’s nothing new here and we’ve been teaching these best practises for years (as such our clients have been safe with the most recent update). Perhaps what’s changed is how Google is now targeting these algorithmically?
In any case, there’s blood in the water and people are still jumping to conclusions as to what’s going on. With so many changes released all in one go, it’s actually getting harder to isolate what issues a website might have. It’s like you need a checklist to ensure your website stays on the right side of Google.
With more data rolling in every day as we analyze our sites, clients sites and… I’ve had more people call me in the last couple of weeks (wanting me to fix bad SEO) than ever before.
I’m thinking it’s almost time for me to release another SEO update to share what I know. For now, stick to quality with links and content – diversity is the key – and if you haven’t already, start improving your social indicators!
The big winners in the most recent update was YouTube and Google Plus.
But I digress, I’ll save all that for my SEO update.
Here’s the Small Business Internet Marketing Weekly were we summarise news and helpful links for small/medium sized business owners.
Here’s what I spotted this week:
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Can your site lose rankings because of negative SEO? {interesting}
www.webpronews.com/can-your-site-lose-its-rankings-because-of-competitors-negative-seo-2012-04
Unnatural links investigation {got the webmaster tools email? read this}
www.blog.majesticseo.com/training/unnatural-links-investigations
Negative SEO case study {this makes me sick}
www.trafficplanet.com/topic/2372-successful-negative-seo-case-study
Negative SEO myths, realities and precautions {SEOmoz is always solid}
www.seomoz.org/blog/negative-seo-myths-realities-and-precautions-whiteboard-friday
Google penguin update {tips from Google}
www.webpronews.com/google-penguin-update-12-tips-directly-from-google-2012-04
How Google search works from Matt Cutts {getting back to basics}
www.seroundtable.com/how-google-works-video-15055.html
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Ok I know those updates were mostly around SEO this week but that’s where most of the action has been happening.
The biggest lesson with this Google Penguin update is, don’t rely 100% on SEO, you must build a business with more than one leg. Video, social, email, ppc and solid business fundamentals are now more important than ever.
Stick with it, you’re on the right track and you’ll often find the biggest opportunities when the masses run for the hills.
Last but not the least, video is still the lowest hanging fruit online. Start YouTubing!
www.melbournevideoproduction.com.au
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear David,
I recent subscribed to directory Maximizer (through your link ) just about a month ago and started the process of building links slowly. This coincided last week with a sharp decrease in traffic (from 50 hits a day to 12?) you can see the graph progressively decline in analytics . Now my site is nothing to write home about but slowly its been increasing to 50 visits a day (like I said nothing to write home about ) but monetized with an affiliated eBook that was generating a couple of sales a month to pay for its way. Suddenly this sharp decrease, so I stopped the linking. Would it be a correct assumption that this unnatural (paid) linking strategy is the culprit. All of my content is my own, and not overly optimized at all. As well I am wondering why perhaps the penguin algo would hit my site as the other algo’s never had an impact and I must once again state that all my content is my own.
Looking forward to your comment.
Pierre
Many big sites are hit hard by this changes, so these updates can be an opportunity to rank for some profitable keyword which seem to be impossible before.
Update from previous post. On Thursday May 18th zero clicks(0) nada, nothing. Wow if I was black hat in anyway I could understand. All content my own. This certainly demoralizes someone quickly.
Hi Pierre. Grace here answering on Dave’s behalf. You are not alone in this. Many sites have been affected and we have repeatedly read about site owners who swear they’ve never done anything shady. My own hobby blog which I’ve never done any considerable link building for has been hit and I have no clear idea why.
The fact is, only Google knows for sure what their exact algo is but it is now a common assumption among SEO experts that the updates this year are bigger and more fine-tuned than ever before.
Based on what other experts have been writing about as well (as you can see from Dave’s SBIM weekly summary), there are a couple of possible reasons for getting hit such as optimizing your site pages too much, links in low quality sites and lack of backlinks source variety.
I would say too that your use of Directory Maximizer and the decline in your site is most likely a coincidence. It takes time for links that you build to affect your site. Whatever on page or off page SEO factors got you into trouble might have happened months back.
Anyway, I’d suggest you sign up for a consult with Dave so he can go deeper into analyzing your problem. You’ll find a link to his consultation page on the services tab.
Hi Pierre,
Agree with Grace on this one… directory maximizer most likely isn’t the issue. Links to your site with the url as the anchor text from directories isn’t going to hurt.
There could be any number of issues here – with the recent changes there were a how suite of things they updated. I’d be happy to review and debug/review for you – we do our panda/penguin audits through my consultation service:
http://www.melbourneseoservices.com/seo-services-australia/internet-marketing-consulting-services/
Take a look and let me know. Failing that, I’m about to release a new report to help too. Stay tuned.
Dave