Google's 950 Penalty

[Bill]

Originally Posted by CaptainJSparrow

the theory that you might be penalized as part of a network.

Where have you folks derived this theory, which you have repeated a number of times, that being part of a network is the source of the problems?

Has Cutts or google said something specifically that leads you to think this?

I haven't been able to follow the logic that it's the networks that are responsible, when the other factors that google has emphasized (anchor text, too high a percentage of reciprocals, lack of oneway incomings) are all so clearly a big part of the recent model of adult linking.

[Maj. Stress]

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

I was thinking of this site: www.sexforwomen.net

It only has one link exchange and is made primarily of articles. I haven't changed it in ages, and it's probably overoptimised. It's also guilty of interlinking between my own sites. This site is on page 10 for numerous keywords.

There was a time, way back in the distant past, when it was number 1 for a quite a few phrases.

I'm thinking I need to go and nofollow all my own links to see what happens.

Is the "distant past" around 2002? There were some interlinking tricks that worked back then that will get filtered out nowdays.

[CaptainJSparrow]

Bill, I don't have all the answers...wish I did. I'm throwing ideas up for discussion. I'm fairly convinced that there is a penalty that alot of our (meaning that group of sites that all interlink) sites are suffering from. When you look at the back of the index, you'll see alot of pages from most of those sites buried there. If you look at alexa's traffic details, you'll see that alot of those sites all fell about the same time.

Whether it's a penalty, or an algo change, we all need to try to figure it out and try to get out from under it.

My company still has sites/pages that do very well with google. We are trying to be pro-active and working to keep those sites/pages from falling. Of course, we've lost placements too and we're trying to get those back.

My best guess regarding an answer to your question #2 is that our (I'm referring to everyone's sites, not just the ones that we own) little group of 100 or so Link Lists are certainly not the only adult sites on the 'net. We barely scratch the surface. We have, however, all placed well in the past for lots of terms. Linking outside of our network is certainly necessary. Finding sites within this network that have been buried, are not being cached by google, have not been updated by the webmaster for a long period of time, etc and ending link exchanges with these folks is probably not a bad idea.

It's a trial and error thing. We can't just sit still and hope that placements come back. That said, the "Chicken Little" syndrome will not help anyone here. Open discussions, bouncing ideas back and forth, and trying new strategies seem to be what's called for.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by CaptainJSparrow

Whether it's a penalty, or an algo change, we all need to try to figure it out and try to get out from under it.

And that's really the interesting and important thing - how to adapt to these new conditions.

I'm glad that you're doing some tests on this.

I do tend to think we are in a situation where we'll need to be pretty creative and thoughtful to come up with a solution.

[spacemanspiff]

We've been the bad networks from the beginning. We exist for purely commercial purposes, despite the pretense of giving away free content. Everything we do violates google guidelines, from their perspective.

I've heard this a lot and I'm just not convinced that this is the case. I just don't think that Google penalizes a website because it's mainly commercial in nature. Even though they're sitting up their on their mountain, hugging trees and knocking back Starbucks by the gallon, they're in this to make a buck (or a couple billion) just like the rest of us.

Think about this. Joe surfer goes online and searches for "ink cartridges". What is he looking for. "The history of the ink cartridge" or "how to properly dispose of the ink cartridge". No. He wants to buy some ink cartridges. If all he gets is informational sites, he's packing has cyber bags and heading for Yahooville.

I do a lot of searches for recipes. If you think the adult spaces are ad driven, try searching for "chicken and dumplings" (mmmm, chicken and dumplings). Usually what you'll see is a three column table, with the recipe in the middle surrounded by ads for all kinds of culinary junk.

We may have a rep as a bad neighborhood but that's probably because you see a lot more blackhat in adult. Or maybe it's because of guys like Jerry Falwell, although he's now irrelevant as his maker has called him home where he'll spend eternity in a latex bustier and thigh-high boots watching Hit Me Baby One More Time over and over, just like he always secretly wanted.

[Halfdeck]

My understanding is that if you tag a link with "nofollow" then it will not improve search engine ranking. Is that not the general consensus?

Nofollow is a way to shield you from penalties. Google does not need them to detect artificial links.

You can also use nofollow to tweak PageRank flow through internal links. By spreading out PageRank to a targeted set of pages, you exert some influence over which pages Google includes in the main index.

I was thinking of this site: "www.sexforwomen.net"

1) Competition increases over time. If a site doesn't continue to gain inbound links, it will eventually be outranked.

2) A gradual loss of ranking is different from a sudden drop in ranking.

3) The site is 108 pages big, but I only see 8 pages in the main index. The reason is simply that you don't have many strong IBL to the domain. (e.g. "http://d.sankey.ca/blog/322/there-is-a-tv")

4) I agree the on-page text is over-optimized ("Sex for Women, orgasms, clit pumps, g spots, female ejaculation, anal sex, vibrators, adult videos, better sex, centrefolds")

Where have you folks derived this theory, which you have repeated a number of times, that being part of a network is the source of the problems?

Bill, no one is claiming that being part of a network is why people get smacked over the head with the 950 penalty. I'm not even claiming that the penalty exists. All I'm saying is that being part of a network makes artificial links much easier for Google to detect. And considering the fact that linking violations incur the harshest penalties, its something worth keeping in mind.

I understand you guys think it's a penalty, but I don't think you can claim that just because you are suddenly dropped in the serps

Rankings shift daily across various DCs. That shift might be due to several factors, including 1) a dramatic algo upgrade, 2) data refresh, 3) PageRank shift, 4) increase in competition, or 5) a penalty.

When a site that was ranking #1 for "free porn" suddenly plummets to 870th, you can rule out 4 because 870 urls aren't going to suddenly outrank you over night. You can rule out 2 because data refreshes usually will not lead to a loss of 870 positions. A PageRank shift (3) that knocks thousands of pages into the supplemental index is a possibility, but if your site has at least TBPR 5, you should not see huge fluctuations in the number of pages in the main index. As for #1, these days I don't expect Google to unleash monumental algo upgrades; its more likely that Googlers tweak their algo on different DCs so that you see slightly different results on different datacenters.

I'm not claiming that msnaughty.com, for example, is penalized, but I think the chances of it not being penalized is close to nil.

If ALL clusters of sites (for example grandma scrotums modest little personal network) are now networks that google penalizes, how could one ever escape networks?

It's ok to link into a network as long as the link is editorial. And it's also ok to get a link from a site belonging to a network as long as the link is editorial.

Yeah, I know, the problem with us is that its unnatural to link to our competition, and everybody is our competition. But blogs are changing all that.

If some networks are worse than others, how could you possibly tell which network is good and which one is bad?

Relevance and signals of quality. If everybody linked to sites they liked, there would be no bad neighborhoods. One thing to keep in mind is that adult webmasters aren't our only source of IBLs.

If just creating a standalone domain with no "risky" links to possibly bad networks was enough to grab #1s again, why do you think we haven't all discovered this already?

Bill, no one suggested you'll rank #1 by building a domain and not linking to crap. You obviously need people linking to you to rank.

[CaptainJSparrow]

Yes Bill, Matt Cutts has said that being part of a network/link farm will get you penalized by google.

In Google's help area it states:
"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

I think it's pretty obvious that a network of somewhere between 50 to 100 sites, where most of them interlink all of their categories with most of the other sites in that group, could be determined to be a link scheme designed to increase rankings in the serps.

There is no doubt that some form of penalty or flag has been applied to alot of the pages of the sites within this group that we are all discussing. I've already spelled out earlier in this thread how to determine that...matter of fact, I've done it twice in this thread.
Now, we're all trying to determine what caused these penalties...

[Bill]

Yes, but thats very old.

You seem to be saying you have some new reason to believe that the linking thats been going on has either been (1) newly marked by google as somehow illegitimate, or (2) has somehow changed or grown to the point where it is hurting everybody when it used to help.

I was just wondering if there is some new reason you think this?

[Bill]

You said "it's no doubt that its a penalty".

I think it's just as likely that it's simply the way the new algos score and therefore rank a site.

I haven't seen yet a good piece of evidence that it's a flag or a penalty.

I understand you guys think it's a penalty, but I don't think you can claim that just because you are suddenly dropped in the serps, that it's caused by a penalty, when a algo change in ranking determinates is just as possible, and given what I think we know about google, more likely.

When I ask this question about networks, I'm asking, do you have some new evidence that it's networks, and not the other more publicized factors, that are causing this.

For all I know you have good evidence - I just haven't seen it, or heard anything that I think supports it, yet.

[Bill]

I think this question of networks is of critical importance, so I want to keep on asking certain questions about it, questions that very much determine the tactics and strategy of solving this problem for we adult businessmen.

If the crash in rankings is a matter of networks, then:

(1) Why aren't some of the TGPs being affected?

(2) Where could one position a adult sites like ours without being in a network?

(3) If ALL clusters of sites (for example grandma scrotums modest little personal network) are now networks that google penalizes, how could one ever escape networks?

(4) If some networks are worse than others, how could you possibly tell which network is good and which one is bad?

(5) I'm fully aware that you have a network, as do most of us here in this conversation. Why do you believe that google would decide your network is good, but someone elses is bad?

I think question 2 is the most important tactically. How would it be possible to create a profitable adult site that isn't somehow tied to a network?

If just creating a standalone domain with no "risky" links to possibly bad networks was enough to grab #1s again, why do you think we haven't all discovered this already?

[Ms Naughty]

Since Halfdeck keeps using MsNaughty as an example, even though I didn't ever want to mention that domain in this thread (I don't want to be considered a "bad neighbourhood" LOL), I'll say this. The link exchanges I have going on there don't seem to constitute a bad neighbourhood as such, since almost all of the sites I've exchanged links with rank well. There are two that seem to have joined me on the last page, but overall my "neighbourhood" seems to be OK.

So should I get rid of those two links? I don't want to. They're good sites and relevant too. And I link my link exchange partners.

At this stage I'd rather believe that the penalty is due to me madly linking to myself across my many domains, using anchor text that is too similar. This is my theory of the moment because everything else I've done made no difference at all.

I worry that in trying to cater to Google's insanity I'll lose my good Yahoo and Live rankings, but at this point we're all slaves to the monster, so I'll do it anyway.

[Halfdeck]

I don't want to be considered a "bad neighbourhood" LOL

My apologies, but seriously, why are you worried? The entire adult niche is a big bad neighborhood.

The link exchanges I have going on there don't seem to constitute a bad neighbourhood

You seem to not grasp the fact that exchanging links is a violation of Google guidelines.

I'm not saying you should pull links. I have hundreds of trades on one of my domains. The point is if you're black hatting, know the risks involved.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

The entire adult niche is a big bad neighborhood.

This is one of the things I was trying to get at with my recent posts about networks.

We've always been, all of us, the "bad neighborhood". We've been the bad networks from the beginning. We exist for purely commercial purposes, despite the pretense of giving away free content. Everything we do violates google guidelines, from their perspective.

We're all bad networks. We're all outside of the "trustrank" circle, and so far I haven't been able to see or imagine any reasonable way to get links from the google elite network commonly referred to as "trustrank".

[Ms Naughty]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

My apologies, but seriously, why are you worried? The entire adult niche is a big bad neighborhood.

Well, considering I'm a linklist hoping for submissions, it's never a good idea to say "Hey, submit to me, I'm on the last page of google results." LOL That's why I didn't really want to be the prime example in this thread. I am grateful for your help and suggestions, of course, Halfdeck.

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

You seem to not grasp the fact that exchanging links is a violation of Google guidelines.

I'm not saying you should pull links. I have hundreds of trades on one of my domains. The point is if you're black hatting, know the risks involved.

I had not considered exchanging links with other similar sites to be "black hat" but I guess you could read it that way.

"Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...=35769#quality

One of the reasons I've done link exchanges is to get more traffic to my site. Which is why I've been wondering about the issue of the "traffic link" versus the "full link" idea.

But dare I say that there are plenty of linklists out there who have also participated in link exchanges and they're doing fine. Penisbot's entire system is based on manipulating rank via links and they're still top of many searches.

[Maj. Stress]

Originally Posted by Halfdeck

You seem to not grasp the fact that exchanging links is a violation of Google guidelines.

The operative word there is "guidelines". Normal link exchanges as far as I can tell do not raise flags. People have been exchanging links way before the phrase "page rank" existed.

As far as the talk about bad neighborhoods, I like to look at it another way. Is your page really optimized for the target keyword(s)? And if it is, does the search engine algo recognize your target keywords to be relevant to the industry you are promoting or something else?

[Halfdeck]

I'll connect the dots one more time, then I'm done. Mainstream is at a similar standstill, but they're fighting over paid links - they've graduated from link trades long time ago.

In the end, you'll believe what's easiest for you to believe. But you know you'll never outrank Penisbot by copycatting their SEO tactics. It's a catch up race and you're a few years too late.

All I'm saying is you can beat the big boys with less work if you think creatively.

Since Big Daddy, Google is no longer passing full link value on every link it finds. Google evaluates trust on a per domain, directory, url, page-component level to decide how much value each link passes. Before Big Daddy, if a link pointed to a page, PageRank calculation was pretty straight forward - it depended on number of links on a page and the PageRank of the linking page. It's no longer that simple.

If Google doesn't trust you, Google devalues IBLs pointing at your domain. That doesn't necessarily mean a penalty or a ban. It means that when it used to take 10 links to rank 1st for a term, now it'll take 30 links to get the job done.

How do you gain trust? By linking out editorially and having people link to your site without you asking for them. When Google sees a pattern of links being planted on your sites and on other sites that point at your site, Google will trust you less.

This is one of the things I was trying to get at with my recent posts about networks.

The adult niche is in a bad neighborhood not because of topic. Matt Cutts himself admitted Google can't tell the difference between quality adult sites and spam. He asked Tony Comstock for suggestions because he thought Google needed to do a better job of separating the two. But he wasn't sure what signals of quality they could use to accomplish that goal:

Dear Tony,

I worked on Google’s SafeSearch filter years ago, so I know that distinguishing between the “good porn” sites compared to the “regular porn” sites is a hard
problem. I used to be able to reel off names like Jane’s Guide, Persian Kitty, The Hun, Greenguy, Luke Ford, etc. These days I haven’t worked on porn-related stuff in years, so I’m less familiar with the space compared to how I used to be.

In fact, I’d be curious to hear your take on what several the highest-quality porn-related sites would be these days. I’m familiar with stuff like fleshbot.com or nerve.com, but less so with sites like tiny nibbles or erosblog.com.

Why are adult sites in a bad neighborhood? Spammy linking patterns that dictate how every adult site links to each other. That pulls every site down to the same playing field. Each link in the adult niche is worth pennies to the dollar. Why do you think LOR and Penisbot, two authority LLs that's been online for years, are only TBPR 5?

Massive link devaluation.

Why is LOR and penisbot still ranking high? Because they are not competing against mainstream sites. They're competing against other sites in the same neighborhood with the same, spammy link profiles. In that game, they win, because they have many more links than you do and your IBLs are no better quality-wise than theirs.

Penisbot also profits from the the rich get richer phenomenon. Sites that rank high in search results gain organic links much faster than unbranded sites that rank deep in the SERPs. I've experienced this. Just by ranking #1 for a search term, people link to me, and people who read those sites link to me, and so on, till I got a ton of links pointing to a page without running a single trade. And because of those links, my site remains #1. More importantly, those organic links make those domains more trustworthy.

DMOZ/Yahoo Directory links also prove that those domains are not spam.

More trust means more value per inbound link. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand and you get a huge boost from even a slight upward movement in the TrustRank of a domain. With complete trust, IBLs pass their full link value.

Finally, a site like Penisbot with high link velocity has an advantage over sites that gain links at a slower pace. A LL that accepts 100 free site submissions a day has higher link velocity than a LL that accepts 10 free sites a day. You can improve ranking just by increasing your site's link velocity.

--

I'm not telling you not to spam search engines. I'm not telling you black hat SEO is bad. I'm saying you can outrank the big boys without spending month after month collecting free site recips if you exploit Google's new algorithm instead of fighting against it.

[Halfdeck]

What types of site and structural designs might work better in this new age of google?

Having access to several adult-oriented contextual link brokering services might be nice.