Friday, March 28, 2014
Google's Matt Cutts: Almost All Penalties Are For Quality Violations
The other day, Steve Plunkett asked Matt Cutts of Google, what percentage of penalties/filters are based on violations of Google's Quality Guidelines versus technology issues or bugs on the webmaster side?
Here is Steve's question as he posed it to Matt:
Matt Cutts responded that "almost all for quality violations."
Matt added that "violations of tech guidelines typically just result in
those pages being pruned" instead.
Here is Matt's tweet:
I don't think this comes to any as a surprise but good to have in writing.
Google On IE8 Drops SSL & Passes Full Referrer
If you are using Internet Explorer 8 and go to Google, the default experience will not be over SSL and thus the referrer data will pass in full to the webmaster.
Google has switched their search results page to virtually 100% SSL late last year, resulting in a 90%+ count of not provided for keyword data in analytics.
But today, if you use IE8 and go to Google, that experience will not be SSL enabled.
Here is a screen shot of me testing this:
Notice the http and not the https.
When you click through to see if it picks up the referrer, it does:
Now, Matt Cutts warned us of some changes to IE8 in the near future, so this may be it. I was expecting Google to not pass the source or any data during this phase, but maybe it didn't work out that way? I suspect this will only last for a short period of time.
However, some folks at WebmasterWorld are hoping this is a sign of of what Google promises to change with not provided and thus dropping SSL. I highly doubt that, highly doubt that.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Did Google Do An Algorithm Update Yesterday?
We've been noticing a steady and consistent level of chatter in the forums and social networks
from webmasters and SEOs around Google's search results fluctuations.
The steady an consistent level of chatter is actually higher than the
typical, but it is steady and consistently asking if there was shifts.
As you know, Google has been active on manual actions recently around a lot of link networks, so I first suspected
the chatter and reactions were around sites being impacted by that. It
still may be but it seems the chatter has slightly increased over the
past day or so.
Here are some posts from the WebmasterWorld thread that tracks these things:
Seeing
huge movement since saturday. It seems to be the "softer" Panda update.
Unfortunately it looks more like a hardend version, since almost all
small websites in my niche (including mine) went down a few spots and
many big brand sites with low quality content are ranking much higher than before.
We've seen some negative shifting here, down 5 - 10 positions for most of our main terms. Bad times again spooned out by Google.
My
small niche site's traffic has doubled since last week. I did get a big
link last week and added rich snippet breadcrumbs the weekend before
and google is now showing the review score snippets finally, so don't
know if it's an algo thing or any of the latter.
The search results tracking tools all report heavy activity over the past couple days, this includes Mozcast, SERPs.com, SERPMetrics and Algoroo. Here are screen captures of those charts:
Truth
is, my internal signals from all of this makes me believe there wasn't a
major algorithm update but I can be wrong. I just think there is a lot
of manual actions going out this past week or so and a lot of SEOs and
webmasters disavowing a lot of links, thus shaking up the search
results.
I can be wrong but that is my gut feeling.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Google's Matt Cutts Admits To Google Penalties In Greece
Early this morning, after 3am EST, Matt Cutts, Google's head of
search spam, seems to have confirmed that Google took action on spam in
Greece recently.
Matt responded on Twitter to someone noticing penalties to Greek web sites. Matt responded saying, "ah, you noticed the action in Greece?"
Here is Matt's response:
Normally, Matt comes right out and says that they've taken
action on a link network of some sorts in a specific country. Matt has
not done that this time, likely because he has been busy at TED in
Vancouver fort he past few days.
We did have someone post a comment on our site four days ago about noticing a "serious serps updates in Greece search results."
So
it does seem something happened in Greece. Matt did basically confirm
it but the big question is, what link network did Google target in
Greece?
Google Pays AdSense Publishers Later This Month
Google posted in the Google AdSense Help forums that payments will be made a bit later than normal due to the timing of when the weekend falls out.
Google
said in the thread that instead of payment going through around March
22nd, it is likely to go through March 24th instead. Here is Google's
explanation of why:
During most months, we
typically begin initiating normal monthly scheduled payments at
approximately midnight GMT on the 22nd calendar day of each month and
send the instructions to our bank later that day. Due to this date
falling on a weekend this month and to align with bank business days, we
will begin initiating March regularly scheduled payments later this
weekend for accounts with no payment holds and a balance exceeding the
minimum payment threshold. We expect our bank to receive and begin
processing your payment instructions around mid-day (GMT) on Monday, 24
March. For EFT or wire transfer payments, the payment clearing
processes in various locations may take three or more additional banking
days before you receive the funds in your bank account.
Google says expect to get payment posted to your bank account before the end of the month or maybe sooner.
If you have additional questions or concerns, feel free to ask them in the forums.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Lots Of Google Search Activity: Likely Manual Vs. Algorithmic
The ongoing WebmasterWorld
thread that tracks Google activity has webmasters and SEOs asking if
there are algorithmic updates going on, either Panda or Penguin. I can
say, Google has not told us about any update but there has been a heck
of a lot of penalties, manual actions and widespread targets on the
manual side that happened over the past couple weeks.
For example, this week, we had a blog network penalized impacting many of the publishers associated with that network. Last week, Google took action on link networks in Spain, Germany and Italy. Earlier, Google also target networks in Poland and France.
Google
has clearly stepped up their activity in a very manual way, targeting
networks that use links to manipulate Google's rankings. This is both
on a large scale, going after larger networks, as well as the daily
smaller scale manual actions.
So while there may have been a Panda refresh, since they are kind of pushed out monthly. But if Google pushed out that softer Panda update, Google would have likely told us.
I may be wrong, but most the tracking tools seems pretty flat, with the exception of one.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Google Penalized Link Networks In Spain, Italy & Germany
Google has penalized a few more international link networks on Friday
afternoon. Google went after, as promised Italian and Spanish networks
and those who participated in them - as well as a couple more Germany
link networks.
Earlier in the day on Friday, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, tweeted
that Google has "taken action" on another German link network, this one
named efamous plus a German agency network. This is the second time in
almost two months that Google booted a Germany link agency and network. The thing is efamous looks pretty legit but I guess behind the scenes, in Google's mind, it was not?
Later on in the day, this may be somewhat historic, but Matt Cutts didn't announce it first, that they penalized an Italian and Spanish link network. Giacomo Gnecchi, a Google search quality analysts who has been with Google for maybe about 4 years, tweeted it in Italian and then much later, Matt Cutts retweeted it and then posted a translated version on Twitter. This shouldn't be a surprise because Matt warned it days before.
In any event, here are those two tweets:
Here are some recent link networks taken down by Google:
- Google To Slap Link Networks In Italy & Spain
- Google Targets Poland In Latest Link Network Penalty
- Google Boots Large German Agency & Clients For Link Schemes
- Google's Matt Cutts: We're Taking Action Against Buzzea, The French Link Network
- Google's Matt Cutts Calls Out Nailing Another Link Network
- Google Penalizes Another Link Network: SAPE Links
- Google Crushes Ghost Rank 2.0, A Russian Link Network
- Backlinks.com: The Next Link Network Penalized By Google
- Google's Matt Cutts: Text Link Ads Link Sellers Targeted
- Google Penalizes Blog Networks, Did SEOs Use It To Hurt Competitors?
- Beware: Google To Squash Another Link Network Very Soon
Friday, March 14, 2014
I Got In A Fight With My AdWords Rep & Google Dropped My Organic Rankings
Here is a fun story at the Google Webmaster Help of a webmaster who said his rankings dropped the day after he got in a fight with his AdWords representative.
As you may know, Google has said time and time again, AdWords and organic search have no influence on each other. There is a church and state separation between the two.
Here is what this webmaster had to say:
My site used to rank #1 for an entire year when searched in San Diego.
About
two (2) months ago, I had a conversation with Google Adwords. The
gentleman I was speaking with became disagreeable and belligerent with
me. When I asked to speak with his supervisor, he refused. When I
pressed the issue, he eventually handed the phone to someone else who
hung up on me. The NEXT day, my Google rank dropped 7 places. Since
then, Google has stopped indexing articles on my site.
Of course when someone posts something like that in the Google forums, the top contributors go at it and have fun.
They started picking apart the linking schemes and stolen content on the site.
The webmaster deleted his posts but once it is out on the web, it is there forever.
Here is a Matt Cutts video on AdWords and organic search:
John Mueller from Google did respond to the thread saying:
I
just wanted to confirm that we have a very strict separation of our
search and ads teams, and that nobody on the ads side would be able to
adjust your site's ranking. If you are seeing changes in how your site
appears in search, those changes would not be related to any contact you
might have had with the ads team.
For what it's worth, off
the bat I don't see anything specific that is being picked up as bad for
your website, but there are almost always things that could be
improved. Is there something specific that you'd be interested in?
Google's Matt Cutts Wants To Give Ranking Boost To SSL Sites
At SMX West Matt
Cutts gave the attendees a few tidbits, one of those items was that
making your site secure, encrypted, i.e. SSL enabled, is an important
trend for 2014.
At the end of the session, I asked Matt if this
means Google is looking to give sites that enable SSL a ranking boost.
Matt Cutts shrugged his shoulders and explained that if it was his
choice, he would make it so. But he said, it is far from happening and
there are people at Google that do not want this to happen.
On one
hand, if Google announced they would give a ranking boost to SSL sites,
it would encourage a ton of sites to go SSL, which would be a good
thing.
On the other hand, some older sites are hard to make SSL and they would feel at a disadvantage.
There
are other considerations, such as those that sell SSL certificates
would love it and it can have an impact on Thawte, Verisign, GoDaddy and
other SSL providers stock price. So Google needs to consider that as
well.
But as of now, despite Matt Cutts personally wanting to give
a ranking boost to SSL enabled sites, it doesn't seem like it will
happen for sure. Down the road, maybe, but from my impression, it is
not that likely to happen in 2014.
Google's Matt Cutts: New Softer Panda Update Coming Soon
At SMX West Matt
Cutts of Google announced they are actively working on the "next
generation" Panda update that will "soften" the algorithm.
Matt
specifically said this is aimed at helping small businesses that may be
impacted by the Panda algorithm. There was no date given on its release
but he made it clear, this will be a bigger update that will make Panda
less of an impact on certain sites.
Yes, that is a Google Glass vignette view from Danny Sullivan while on stage, with my Search Engine Land story on the topic.
Didn't Google already soften the Panda algorithm? Yes. They announced it last may and rolled it out in July. With that, only 18% recovered fully with that last softer Panda update.
I assume when it rolls out, Matt Cutts will let us know, unlike other Panda refreshes.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Google Humans Do Review Every Reconsideration Request
Over the past week or two there has been some people suggesting that
Google does not review manually every single reconsideration request.
A new Google Webmaster Help
thread has one such complaint but the truth is, at least from what we
are told, Google employees reviews 100% of all reconsideration requests.
I have been told that directly by Googlers and Matt Cutts did a video a couple years ago on the topic. That was before Google swapped the reconsideration requests in the manual action viewer where now all reconsideration requests have to be submitted via the manual action section and thus all are reviewed by humans.
They might have some templated responses they use but humans do click on, read and paste the response.
Here is Matt's video:
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Google Webmasters Team Now On Google+
I am not sure what took so long, being that Google+ is so important
to Google. The Google Webmasters team finally made their own page on
Google+ at +GoogleWebmasters and announced it on Google+.
They had a Twitter account for years at @googlewmc and now playing catch up on social media, adding their own on Google+.
Don't
get me wrong, many Googlers on the webmaster team are very active on
Google+. Just not on the official Google channel, now they can be.
Last night, Google announced it on Google+ saying:
Welcome to our Google+ page!
The webmaster outreach team at Google will use this page to post announcements, events, tips, quizzes and other resources to help webmasters like you make great sites that can be found in Google Search. Follow us and join the webmaster community!
They then posted this picture:
I wonder if they will keep it up? I assume the Matt Cutts videos will be posted here frequently, as they are on Twitter.
Google's Matt Cutts On Good Guys Spamming Google
Daniel from Miami asked Matt Cutts of Google a fun question, which Matt turned around and answered almost a year later in a video response.
The question in detail was:
Matt, Does the good guys still stand a chance? We're a small company that hired an SEO firm that we thought was legit, but destroyed our rankings w/ spam backlinks. We've tried everything but nothing helps. What can a company with good intentions do?
But Matt's video answer was "Can sites do well without using spammy techniques?"
In
short, Matt Cutts said that when it comes to spam, then maybe you are
not a good guy - or at least he implies that when it comes to evaluating
Google's search results.
Google's webmaster team and search
quality team does not consider web sites that spam as good guys. The
owners might be good people but if they spam or hire someone that spams,
it is not a good thing.
Matt of course says, yes, good guys that
do not spam can rank over time and do. Good guys that spam won't rank
over time as Google blocks more and more spam.
Here is the video:
Kaspar, a former Google webmaster team member, said on Google+ that if you spam, "being sorry for spamming is not enough for ranking well." Ouch.
Google To Slap Link Networks In Italy & Spain
Yesterday, Google's head spam man, Matt Cutts, issued a stern warning
to link spammers in Italy and Spain. This warning will likely be
followed up with some unnatural link notifications and ranking penalties
within the week.
Yesterday afternoon, Matt warned both Italian
and Spanish SEOs and webmasters that they will be cracking down on link
spam. I don't really get why they issue the warning and not give them a
few months to revert things because now it is too late. At least when
some armies drop bombs on cities, they drop warning flyers to leave by a
specific time. Here, Google is trying to break their spirits by warning them without any real immediate recourse to save themselves.
I should be fair, this is part of the webmaster guidelines forever.
Here are Matt's tweets:
Google recently penalized Polish link spammers and German link spammers.
Here are some recent link networks taken down by Google:
- Google Targets Poland In Latest Link Network Penalty
- Google Boots Large German Agency & Clients For Link Schemes
- Google's Matt Cutts: We're Taking Action Against Buzzea, The French Link Network
- Google's Matt Cutts Calls Out Nailing Another Link Network
- Google Penalizes Another Link Network: SAPE Links
- Google Crushes Ghost Rank 2.0, A Russian Link Network
- Backlinks.com: The Next Link Network Penalized By Google
- Google's Matt Cutts: Text Link Ads Link Sellers Targeted
- Google Penalizes Blog Networks, Did SEOs Use It To Hurt Competitors?
- Beware: Google To Squash Another Link Network Very Soon
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Matt Cutts Gave Specific Details On Your Google Link Penalty
What would you pay to get specific actionable advice from Google on how to remove your unnatural link penalty?
Russ Ruggles got incredibly lucky yesterday after asking Google's Matt Cutts on Twitter about his penalty. He tweeted:
Matt said he won't be doing
external emails in March, so there is no way to ask him for one-on-one
advice. That is unless you get lucky and tweet him and he has a minute
to look.
Matt Cutts responded that it has to do with when he purchased links from backlinks.com, which happened to be penalized in December 2013. Matt tweeted:
Not only did Matt Cutts give Russ specific actionable advice
on what he needs to do to remove the penalty. He said he has emailed
his team to follow up and potentially remove the penalty. Matt tweeted:
How can you get this lucky? No clue, it is about timing and timing.
Of course the thread Russ made a couple days ago in Google Webmaster Help only helped a little.
Google Places Bulk Upload Listings Known Category Errors
There is a known error with Google Places where when you use the bulk
upload listing feature, your business categories may go bonkers.
A
parking lot company said they are "having an issue" with their Google
Maps listings. He said Google is saying there "is a problem with my
categories, but when I update them, the error is still there."
Jade Wang from Google responded saying it is a known issue:
This
is a known issue (strange behavior with categories in some bulk upload
listings). We're working on it; thanks for letting us know!
Working
on it for how long? Is it a new issue or just a lingering issue on the
back burner? As you know, Google Places is polluted with bugs.
What's Up With The Fes Marker In Google's Matt Cutts Videos?
You, like me, have likely watched hundreds of videos from Google's
Matt Cutts. And if you have, you've likely seen the map in the
background with the pin over Fes, which is a city in Morocco. Why Fes?
Does it have anything to do with spam?
Bas van den Beld posted on Google+ asking and answering the question.
It
happens to be that all of the rooms in the building Matt Cutts works in
are named after cities in Africa, thus this room is named Fes and the
poster is there to symbolize that. Matt actually answered this in May
2013 on Twitter - here is the tweet:
This is just a neat tidbit and gives you absolutely nothing to take home and implement today with your SEO or SEM campaigns.
Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site?
As more and more Google penalties become more transparent, recovering
from them seems to get harder. Even when you do recover, the rankings
don't always return.
In a recent column by Eric Ward named When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site
where he concluded that "in almost two-thirds of the cases I advised
that the best move was to kill the site." This is when it comes to
unnatural link penalties or Penguin related issues.
The question is, is that true? Is it often easier to kill off the site?
Matt Cutts has said time and time again that digging yourself out of a spam hole is often harder then starting fresh.
Also, now that we know penalties may follow you
to your new domain, if you don't start a fresh new web site, then
making the decision to kill off a site is even more costly and timely.
If
it was as simple as copying your site to a new domain name, switching
might make sense more of the time. But if you need to rewrite your
content, redo your CMS and design, then it can take a long long time.
Google's John Mueller posted on Google+ a comment about Eric Ward's article saying:
It's
never a decision to make lightly, but there can be situations where a
website has built up so many problems, that it may appear easier or
faster to start over with a fresh & new website, rather than to try
to fix all of those problems individually. This isn't an easy way to get
past problems that have been built up over the years, it's a lot of
work to create a new website, even if you already know the business
area.
If you feel you're in this situation, make sure to get
advice from friends & other people that you trust (including
webmaster communities where you trust their opinions) before doing
anything drastic!
In a Google Webmaster Help
thread, John Mueller gave advice to someone in a hole that if he will
go the new site route, he should start fresh. John wrote:
If
you're creating a new website, and don't want to be associated with the
old one, I'd strongly recommend really making a *new* website and not
just moving the content to a different domain. You don't need to wait
for anything in a case like this -- it's fine to remove (or block) the
old website, and to create a really new one elsewhere at the same time.
So making the decision to start new is not easy. If it was me, I'd go in this order:
(1) Try removing the bad links
(2) Submit a reconsideration request
(3) Repeat this a few times until it is successful
(4) Wait two months for traffic to change
(5) If no traffic change then start a new site
Of course, it is
not always this black and white and the specific situation might change
the solution. Like if you put a ton of money into your brand name and
you can't go elsewhere. Or if there are investors you need to worry
about. Or if you simply can't make a new site.
It is a shame to have to deal with this stuff.
Google's Matt Cutts On What Is A Paid Link
Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts posted a detailed video trying to define how Google's manual spam fighters determines what is a paid link versus what is not.
Now,
99% of the time, Matt Cutts said it is clear if a link is paid or not.
It is a clear transaction that the link on a site was paid $X for. But
sometimes it is not clear. Matt summarized it on Google+
these are the other criteria Google uses to determine if a link is
considered paid or not. Google asks these questions when looking at a
suspicious link:
- What is the value of the gift, product, or service?
- How close is the gift, product, or service to actual money?
- Is it an outright gift or a loan?
- Who is the intended audience?
- Is the intent of the gift to get links?
- Would the gift be a surprise to third party?
Here is the video:
I strongly recommend you listen to it once today and once again shortly after.
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