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Google Major Index Update

Some Relief for Google's Sandboxed Sites

Part 2

Originally Published: March 2005

Continued From: <<< Google Major Index Update: Some Relief for Google's Sandboxed Sites Part 1

Google has gotten better at recognizing artificial link structures.

It's still a bit difficult to tell at this early stage in the game, but all preliminary data we're seeing boils down to one simple idea – Google has gotten better at recognizing artificial link structures. And smart search engine marketers will adapt their online strategies accordingly.

For reference, here are the guidelines we published (Nov '04) on how to build a natural looking link structure:

1. Focus on creating a natural incoming link structure that builds steadily but gradually over time.
2. Focus on getting links from authoritative sites with high PageRank. If they also happen to be on-topic, then all the better.
3. It's ok to get links from less important sites but remember: the lower the PageRank of a referring page, the more you'll want it to match your topic.
4. Strive to get your inbound links placed on pages with few outbound links... the fewer the better.
5. See to it that the URL format of your referring links are consistently identical.
6. Get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. However, avoid identical incoming link anchor text.
7. When starting out, focus on the major directories as a source of important links then shift to the topic-specific directories to solidify the theme relevance of your site.
8. Work your trade directories, press releases, suppliers, customers, and testimonials as an outside the box approach to building a gradual, solid, lasting, and natural incoming link structure. Think creatively.
9. Don't waste a lot of time getting reciprocal links. Their value is diminishing in the current SE environment. We see a time coming when the value of reciprocal links between non-authoritative sites will be discounted or entirely cancelled out.
10. Avoid reciprocal links with pages that are designed solely for exchanging links.
11. Avoid linking back to sites that are unlisted by Google or Yahoo. Seriously avoid linking to link farms, web rings or any site that exhibits behavior contrary to a search engine's recommended protocol. Avoid linking to controversial sites unless they perfectly match the topic of your page.
12. Always remember that profits are your goal. More links does not always add more customers. Avoid wasting energy on projects that may increase link counts but add little or nothing to gain customers that generate profits.

Referenced article: 12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links

And now we'll add three additional guidelines:

1. Avoid run-of-the-site links. These are links where every page of a site links to your homepage. When you have, say, 1000 incoming links all originating from subpages within the same site, it appears to Google that your link count is artificially inflated.
2. Make sure that some of your links are deep links — i.e., links to sub-pages within your site and other than your homepage.
3. See to it that your incoming links from off-site pages do not include the rel="nofollow" attribute within the source code of the link; nofollow renders the link useless to your ranking efforts because Google doesn't credit your page for having that incoming link.

Sites that followed the above guidelines – including all the sites we manage (save for a few test sites) – were totally unaffected by this latest update. In fact, if we had only been focusing on our own commercial sites this month and not testing and monitoring the rankings for several high profile keywords, we might not have even noticed there was an update at all. That's how focused Google's algorithm update appears to be on clearing out what they view as link-spam.

Now, let's make one thing very clear. We are NOT advising you to dismantle your existing "artificial" link structures – chances are, that would be a huge mistake. This is especially true if you weren't effected by the most recent update. See it instead as a wake-up call in the event that you were thinking that Google would never get around to detecting and discounting artificial link structures, and as an incentive to begin focusing more on developing natural-looking incoming links. But otherwise, follow the rule, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Relief? ...overkill? ...a slight (maybe temporary) rollback?

After the initial onslaught left many sites decimated in the rankings, Google actually rolled back some of the changes. As a result of the rollback, some of the fallen sites have risen back to their previous status within the rankings. Perhaps Google felt they had overstepped their bounds? After all, many of the fallen weren't engaged in link-spam but got caught up in the sweep anyway. One thought is that maybe the algorithm update didn't go entirely as planned. In any case, it's clear that Google pulled back a bit from their initially aggressive dragnet.

Regardless, wide swaths of sites that formerly ranked on the first page of Google's search results based on aggressive link-building tactics now find themselves with a much lower ranking even for relatively unique search phrases like their own company or domain name.

Incidentally, Google has set up an email address dedicated to taking webmaster's comments about this latest update. Perhaps it's because they want to feel your pain – but it could also be an indication they are a wee-bit uncomfortable with the way the update turned out. You can register your views by going to feb05feedback@googlegroups.com.

Planet Ocean Communications
Reprinted by permission from: SearchEngineNews.com

Continued From: <<< Google Major Index Update: Some Relief for Google's Sandboxed Sites Part 1

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition.
FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings.

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July 24 2008 03:20 UTC