12 replies to this topic

[Carophilly]

Hi,

I have a client who claims that he has 'suddenly' lost his great positions in the Google SERPS for certain keywords.

He has thousands of backlinks.

Is it possible that if hundreds of the sites that link to him have dropped in PR because Google's decision about paid links, it could result in him losing positions in the SERPS? Specially if the keywords he's referring to were used as anchor text in those sites.

Thanks,
Caro

[wrockca]

Just out of curiosity was his anchor text all the same keyword for the thousands of links or random?

Did this client rent the links or were they permanent links?

When did you notice the change? and did you notice anything else change as far as the traffic?


Most important did any of these links have a nofollow tag?

[Carophilly]

Just out of curiosity was his anchor text all the same keyword for the thousands of links or random?
It's a mixture of text, very often the anchor text is the URL. The links are random, some from other sites, some from press releases, some from people who just wanted to link to him becasue his site is useful.

Did this client rent the links or were they permanent links?
For the most part, permanent.

When did you notice the change? and did you notice anything else change as far as the traffic?
Most important did any of these links have a nofollow tag?
He's a new client, so it's hard to tell. His sudden drop happened in the last few day. He did not mention any other changes. As he has over 11,000 backlinks, I think there's a likelyhood that some of them have nofollwows.

[wrockca]

Currently I think that this recent Algo change may not be the reason your client may have lost rank it maybe only one of the many things. You will need to run your top level research and verify recent updates, find how your client got so many links. Are they all valuable? Do they look spammy? these are questions you need to ask yourself.

From what I keep reading I have found most have just seen PR movements... As long as they are following the Terms of Services of Google they should be fine.

[Jill]

Is it possible that if hundreds of the sites that link to him have dropped in PR because Google's decision about paid links, it could result in him losing positions in the SERPS? Specially if the keywords he's referring to were used as anchor text in those sites.

Impossible to say without researching it, but sure, it's possible.

[wrockca]

Good Point Jill, it is very difficult to define exactly what has effected this site....

It goes back to SEO 101 what do we do to analyze a site and review in order to determine how do we define issues to fix and just like had been mentioned in one of Matt Cutts he spoke about link buying and how they would start filtering the PR.

Google is simple they are just cleaning up their algorithm to make it better for their visitors.

[projectphp]

I never get it: why start there? There are trillions of things that can go wrong, start with those first, and then get all conspiratorial.

[Jill]

Gotta agree with ProjectPHP there.

[wrockca]

It is a great starting point.

[Mhoram]

Regarding paid links:  If I buy a link from Bob, and he links to me without "nofollow", I know that could hurt his site, but does it hurt mine?

[1dmf]

As I understand it, someone linking to you does not affect your site.

If that was the case you could kill your competitors by getting links from bad neighbourhoods to their site!

[Mhoram]

That's what I thought; seems like it opens up a lot of opportunities for mischief.  We're being told that we're being hurt by links to us that look paid and don't have nofollow (some are reciprocal links; some are just the usual unsolicited kind), but I said I wasn't gonna get excited about it just yet.

[Jill]

Regarding paid links: If I buy a link from Bob, and he links to me without "nofollow", I know that could hurt his site, but does it hurt mine?

As far as we know, it doesn't even hurt Bob's site. All we know right now, from my understanding, is the it might lower your visible toolbar PageRank. That alone doesn't hurt anything other than possibly your pride.

That said, it's possible that it also hurts Bob's page from passing any REAL PR to your site and the others that are linked there. If that's the case (and it very well may be) then yes, it hurts your site because you get no REAL PR value from the link. Ideally, you'd be getting loads of traffic and wouldn't care, but many people purchase links only for the PR and/or anchor text.

And speaking of anchor text, we still don't know if they are stopping the flow of that also. The jury is still out on whether nofollowed links may still get some anchor text benefit with Google as per another thread we have here.