35 replies to this topic

[smc_online]

I just read the comment on SEORoundtable about a speculated -30 Google penalty/filter that has resurfaced (some claim this is not new). Well, it was news to me as I have never heard of it or experienced it before (nock on wood)!

Anyhow, I propose they change the name to "Dirty Thirty" to liven up the topic.

[rolf]

Interesting.

First I've heard of this - what's it a penalty for? and -30 from what?

[smc_online]

Hi Rolf,

Just like anything else that can trip the SEs algorithm, this too is supposed be triggered by many things.

There is an exaustive discussion over at WMW.

[mcanerin]

I've seen strong evidence that it exists, but the actual cause is, IMO, still up for discussion. It's plain wierd.

Ian

[robwatts]

This isnt new. Ive seen it in action for about a year or so.
Prolly related to trust rank or human review.

unsubstantiated stab in the dark possible theory...
It could be a case that if you are ranking well in a competitive serp and don't quite cut the mustard content wise then you get a little mark against you from the eval team and..kaput, you are dead in the water, holed below the water line, engines flooded, cut adrift with the flotsama nd jetsam.

[arlen]

Interesting read, and it certainly sounds real based on the comments. Supposedly goes back to before '03

But I really wonder how many of these folks are really as 'legit' as they profess.

Some admissions were ... (paraphrased)

... put up 100 'thin' affiliate pages.
... some pages have only a single sentence and tons of adwords.
... a site map with 400 links, all containing one common word.
... I pushed the boundaries.

Edited by arlen, 17 October 2006 - 10:11 PM.

[smc_online]

Thanks for the summary Arlen!

[thx1138]

Interesting, I've had some pages with affiliate links attached to my site for some time, and they had been ranking very highly for quite competitive search terms for 2 or 3 years until recently when they've dropped quite a lot.

The rest of the site wasn't affected however, if I'm honest I always thought that they were ranked artificially highly and are now probably in a more realistic position.

Guess I better kiss goodbye to that extra pocket money.

[nahanni]

We have a website suffering from the "minus 30 penalty". The pages with had listed high in Google are now all exactly on result #31 on search for each page's key phrase. The situation has been like this for us since August, and we have recently submitted a re-inclusion request to Google, hoping it might help. We have many of our pages indexed by Google(164), but no page has a better SERP than 31. W

We also suddenly dropped out a lot from Yahoo. We had 150+ pages indexed by Yahoo, now we have 3!

So the - 30 penalty is no rumor - we are experiencing it first hand and it is a major pain for us.

[Jill]

Interesting that both google and yahoo are penalizing you. Should be fairly obvious what you've done wrong, no?

[nahanni]

Not obvious no. There were a large number of links created to our site within a short time, which we assume caused this to happen. They were removed months ago, so now it just seems like a waiting game. Getting more quality back links couldn't hurt in the meantime.

[Scottie]

If you really have a great site, I find it hard to believe incoming links would cause a penalty...

[jehochman]

How did you get all those incoming links so quickly?

[Randy]

The situation has been like this for us since August, and we have recently submitted a re-inclusion request to Google, hoping it might help.

I hate to break it to ya, but the re-inclusion request isn't going to help.

Your site was never de-included, so there is nothing to re-include.

[nahanni]

Well, I can happily report we are back in Google!

I don't know if the re-inclusion request was the key, but we had been suffering from this penalty since August, and now 4 days after submitting that re-inclusion request - bam - we are back. Coincidence? I don't know.

I am aware we weren't "de-included", but I figured it can't hurt to submit the request. And it didn't hurt!

Jehockman, Digital Point's Co-op ad network can get you a lot of back links very quickly. I think that was the mistake - I don't recommend experimenting with it on any sites you care about.