21 replies to this topic

[Michael]

Feb 1, 2004 we released a website.

It's not showing up in SERPs unless we apply "-dddsfddd" filter in google search.

Then it turns up as predicted.

One of two things is happening:

1) The site is waiting out a four month period Google has applied to all new urls before they begin to show in SERPS. On June 1 it should re appear.

2) google has identified the site as an eCommerce site as suggested here:

http:// www .google-watch.org/fiasco.html

Drawing some conclusions myself after reading the above and consulting the "hit list" (http: // www.google-watch.org/scroogle.html ) I am willing to go out on a limb as say google is filtering sites that include the words "free" and "software" to:

i) reduce spam (makes sense to me)
ii) encourage Adwords spending

We're trying to offer a service much like hotmail or yahoo mail. Free invoicing. I'm guessing promoting this using Google for these search terms is no longer an option. Any thoughts?

[Jbrookins]

I would take anything google-watch says with a grain of salt.

What keyterms are you aiming for?

[Michael]

duly noted.

However, after reviewing their "hit list" an alarming percentage of searches for "Free" and "software" are being banned leading me to believe wonder the following:

Are we embarking a "new ERA" Keyword Research/Copywriting? (I'm not usually dramatic but that was kind fun)

Anyhow, consider this:
1) you research your keywords with Word Tracker
2) you optimize a page as you've done 100 times before
3) it doesn't rank because the keywords being searched are "commerce" or "spammy keywords" so google omits your page from their listings.

I strongly encourage you to read the google-watch article. I'm not saying I agree, but between the article, the hit list and the filtering I see in front of my face, I have to admit it makes a lot of sense to me.

[Jbrookins]

it's been read, beaten to death, read again, beaten to death, read some more, nuked into non-existance, repeat ad infinitum. (:

I know the article. Problem is you probably need to look really closely at how spammy "free software" is. You're fighting against and trying to get ranked against the biggest, most successful spammers on the planet.

Lots has changed and Google has tweaked it's algo, but you might want to consider the words you're aiming for competition-wise as well.

Edited by Jbrookins, 14 May 2004 - 05:25 PM.

[Jill]

Already discussing Google's Sandboxing Effect here.

If that's what you're talking about.

Jill

[Randy]

Michael,

Completely ignore at least half of what you read. Personally, I lean more towards disregarding 80% of the theories out there. Sorry to be rather direct with this one, but I'm in a blunt kind of mood tonight.

You said:

It's not showing up in SERPs unless we apply "-dddsfddd" filter in google search.

Then it turns up as predicted.

Predicted by whom?

Nobody has a Magic Bullet that works across all market sectors with Google or any other search engine for that matter. Well, except for Link Spamming that works with Google amazingly well. So whoever made the prediction was wrong. Simple as that.

If you want to rank well in Google these days the "formula" is simple. Get yourself 10,000 incoming links pointing to your site and make sure you manipulate the link text to be the phrases you want to target. You won't sell anything with that strategy, but you'll get fabulous Google rankings.

(Just kidding Mr G if you're reading along...or maybe not. Let's hope you're using this time to identify all of those link spammers out there that are skewing your results terribly.)

Now for the tough question Michael. Why be so Google-obsessed in the first place?

Hasn't everybody heard by now that they no longer control 80% of the search market like they did prior to mid-February? That it's more like 30% max for Google these days, including the AOL traffic?

How is your site doing in Yahoo and MSN? Surely not not ignoring two-thirds of your potential customers.

Again, sorry for being blunt. Jill will slap me around later I'm sure.

[Jill]

No slapping, Randy, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Jill

[amabaie]

Hasn't everybody heard by now that they no longer control 80% of the search market like they did prior to mid-February? That it's more like 30% max for Google these days, including the AOL traffic?

That's kind of a bold statement. Last I noticed, Google still controlled some 70%+ of organic search click-throughs. For most competitive searches on Yahoo and MSN, there are often no organic results "above the fold", so PPC results get the biggest share of the click-thrus.

Somebody actually released a study on this a month back. Google still rules.

[Randy]

It's not a bold statement from viewing the stats of my own 100+ sites David. But then again, having been around for far too long, I never managed to get into the Google-Centric train of thought many people did. So even when Yahoo! split from Google my sites all maintained high placement in the New Yahoo!

Across the board for my sites that have similar positions on each of the Big 3 search engines I see about 30% of the organic SE traffic coming from the Google/AOL combination. The Yahoo!/MSN combo --which is all driven by the Yahoo!/Inktomi database-- comes in around 45% of all traffic. The remaining percentage is made up of smaller engines, PPC campaigns, links from other sites, etc.

I'm not saying that Yahoo!'s or MSN's traffic has increased all that much. It's up a little bit maybe, but nothing earth shattering. It's just that Google no longer gets to count the Yahoo! traffic as their own anymore. I look at the Root level of where the traffic is coming from, or which Search Database is producing the results, not the search engine that is actually delivering it.

The problem with trying to measure traffic the way some studies do is that they don't factor in the fact that many sites which were optimized with a Google-centric mindset simply do not rank well on Yahoo! or MSN. That's the SEO's fault, not the sites. But it can and does skew the raw numbers.

IMO such "studies" should look at positioning of the sites across at least the Big 3 and disregard any results that are vastly different. But they never will.

[ephricon]

I'm not so sure about that 4 month deal you've said there - I've gotten some new URLs in and ranked more quickly than that - recently...

Regarding Google's weight - I'd still take top rankings in Google (and the SEs it feeds) versus everything else, given the chance. I've seen much more of a return there. I tend to think the average person uses Google more so - and that most of the traffic from the smaller SEs is skewed by people like us trying to see where we rank a bit. This would exclude Yahoo and MSN, naturally, but I doubt many "regular" average-joe internet users are thinking to go to WiseNut or some other engine like that as the first thing they think of.

[Jill]

Regarding the percentage of visitors from each engine, it also really depends who your target audience is. Different types of people use different search engines.

If you have techie-based products or services, you'll most likely find that your users search with Google.

However, if you're selling to consumers, many of them do use MSN or Yahoo.

J

[Randy]

I guess you can tell who my target audience is, hunh?

I agree completely Jill. Techies do use Google more often than not. At least based upon what I see with my sites.

[Karl]

Hi

Regarding the words "free" and other "spammy" words...

Does anyone recommend removing these terms or adding a . in between the letters for pages that have those words?

Thx

Karl

[powerofeyes]

Hello Randy,

Your stats are the most weird stats I have seen, Google/AOL 30% traffic Huh, We monitor somewhere around 60+ sites ( most of them high traffic sites ) and we see a massive difference in Google Vs Yahoo/MSN/Altavista/Alltheweb/Overture etc traffic, Google alone sends the same amount of traffic as all the search engines powered by Yahoo, That averages more than 50 to 60% of search engine traffic from google alone,
These sites range from Real estate, automobile, pets, web hosting, seo, dresses, hobby sites, immigration sites, products(shoes and many other type of widgets ) etc, Ranking almost match in most of the top search engines, I wonder why our stats and your stats show such a big difference ,

[Jill]

Karl, I actually see sites with "free" in them often do better than sites that are "selling" for a price.

Jill