Massive google traffic drop

[NeoSeo]

> Sometimes I think Brett asks Google to do this to get traffic.

I really wish that could happen. The case for se reps in forums like we have at WebmasterWorld is pretty simple: They participate and read in all the major seo forums, so it is either they id themeselves or they don't.

Which would you rather have:

1) se's participating and using that knowledge acquired without telling anyone they are there?

or b:

2) announcing their prescence and participating where ever and howerver possible given the constraints of corporate life?

Out of thet four big reps we have had in the forums (Google, AllTheWeb, Teoma, and Overture), Google has been by far
the most forthcoming with info. Things like:

- announced several of the toolbar betas.
- announced the advent of ppc based adwords.
- announced updated penalties as well as the fact that pr0 was not a bug ;-)
- took feedback and based on that, added the "what's related" feature.

That is just the beginning of the info that has come out of Google in the forums.

This all stemmed from the SEO vs SE wars of 97-98. During that time, many seo's were tracked and banned from search engines along with their clients (as we saw in the famous seo black list publish in the forums).

Throw in the fact that there is at this time, only 1 real search engine left, and the premise is pretty simple, we can either be part of the solution, or part of the problem. Either way, by Googles public participation, we win with occasional bits of info that are worth their weight in gold.

Is all info in forums good? Oh god sake no. In any open forum you will have those that know what is going on and those trying to seed disinformation about what is going on. This is true in just about every forum on the web today. You always have to be careful of what you read and learn what and where to trust info. I mean come on - you guys are aff guys, you know how it is.

Anyway dudes - looks like a nice forum brewing here.

> Sometimes I think Brett asks Google to do this to get traffic.

Honestly - I have more traffic than I know what to do with. I've been slowly ratcheting it back over the last 4-6 months. Traffic is ok an all - but traffic that converts is what it is all about.

Anyway, back on topic:

I think it is too early to tell yet what really happened in this "update" (for lack of a better term). Most of our sites haven't shifted much, but
I don't stress too much about minor flux as we aim for that soft under belly of google (3+kws per phrase).
We pull from 80-90k unique phrases a month so it is hard to tell what an update has done until we can look at traffic for a week.

From what I've read in this forum, that is a big stylistic difference from most optimizers here. Most it seems are using the Niche approach and going for the micro content targeted 5-10 phrases max. I've always thought it better to hunt with a shotgun and spray a big pattern of 4-5 kw's per phrase, than going hunting with a rifle trying for that 1-2 kw sweet spot.


-bt

[Surfn]

NeoSeo "Throw in the fact that there is at this time, only 1 real search engine left, and the premise is pretty simple, we can either be part of the solution, or part of the problem."

I would like to know how you arrived at this premise? It doesn't draw a parallel with my experience.

[Linkster]

First off I'd like to welcome you to the board NeoSeo - it's good to see you over here Always have recommended the Guide to getting a site to do well in Google in a year - although the actions recommended in that guide will probably work a lot faster these days

Surfn - I think that we all have our own experiences - mine happens to be closer to what NeoSeo stated - the other SEs only bring about 10% of the traffic to my sites - of course that may change in the relatively near future - and that includes the fact that Google is feeding most of the other large players right now so I count that as Google (Yahoo, AOL etc.)

Although an earlier post I made intimated that I dont get useful info over at WMW, that is far from reality - there is a ton of good info and especially if you can read between the lines of SE reps postings, you can garner some solid money making tips.

NeoSeo - there are still a few of us that use both methods they have their place, with this side of the biz really built on niches, there are the mega affiliate sites that do well with what you use - some here put the shotgun method in effect on their larger link sites and then take the leftovers and filter it down to the niches.

Again welcome and don't be a stranger here - we can all learn from sharing our experiences whether on the adult or mainstream side

[Alphawolf]

NeoSeo,

Must be nice to chill out somewhere else. Not that I wouldn't expect you to be proactive and lurk on multiple boards across many industries.

Amazed you have the time though.

Amen to Mods you can trust and do a bang up job.

WRT SE reps lurking or being public. I'm *sure* there are Google Lurkers and anonymous G and other SE employees all over your board. Clearly, any official rep will have an agenda and heavily skewed bias. This is common sense.

Ain't much one can do about that except allow readers to think for themselves.

That stated, you forum is still the place to be. Bummer on the no adult stuff but well understood.

I do feel GG steers newbies in an awkward path of aligning morals to website practices. The whole ETHICS thing some people have drives me friggin' nuts.

I think Google's mindset would have newbies believe:

1) Build a quality website.
2) People will naturally link to you because it is good.
3) Hence, the cream rises to the top.

Being based on the 'democratic' nature of the web- perhaps doable.

Too bad...the web ain't democratic. Perhaps, within the confines of a tightly nit academic and scientific community this seemed an ideal solution...at the time.

I think GG's response to the question: "Well, how can people find me to link to me if I can get ot he top?" would be AdWords.

Ask any average non computer professional person and they will tell you they click the top 5 or so sites because they feel those are the best sites. I know many people avoid clikcing on those links because "No, they are paying to be there- they are advertising. I want to see the natural best." Sure- I'm paraphrasing and extrapolating but this is the deal.

Anyone who deals with PPC knows the % ads get under broad competitive terms.

I took this report into strong considerations when I first saw it:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/presentation/

I saved it to my local drive and feel a link to it should be posted on those Google threads every 10th post.

In the end- Google's results ARE "free". LOL. And ya get what ya pay for.

Did I metion I really took to the report above?
.
.
.
THAT would probably be the best thing for newbies to see first and seasoned pros to take a look at now and again. BTW, I don't consider myself a seasoned pro by any stretch. Just someone who latched onto reserach like, well- a wolf and really spent a lot of time learning.

Actually, just 11 mos into SEO. So, everyone feel free or inclined to ignore my ramblings.

>>>I don't stress too much about minor flux as we aim for that soft under belly of google (3+kws per phrase). <<<

Yeah- took me a while of going over logs to 'get it'. Convincing clients of this is tough to impossible. Put simply it's an ego trip for many to see their site on the top of Page 1 of google for that broad term.

One can copy and paste referral info from logs showing 80% of traffic comes from those 'less important' phrases, but not many 'get it' much less appreciate that more targetted but less glamourous KW's.

>>>We pull from 80-90k unique phrases a month so it is hard to tell what an update has done until we can look at traffic for a week.<<<

I found WMW from a comment on another message board. Did I mention I like that report above?

>>>I've always thought it better to hunt with a shotgun and spray a big pattern of 4-5 kw's per phrase, than going hunting with a rifle trying for that 1-2 kw sweet spot.<<<

"It depends."

There are some niche industries where 2-3 KW phrases are pretty much it. = $$$$$$$$$$$

Sometimes a shotgun is good, but there are times when one needs an expensive custom made sniper rifle + a few dozen shotguns to get the job done.

Anyyywho...wish I could get to a friggin PubCon, but all my money is going to naked pics lately.

Nice to see ya here. When GreenGuy gives me the finger I figure he means it in a loving way.

It's my only Adult hangout where I actually post.

Hope you can hang out here a bit more, NeoSeo.

[MikeC]

My SERPs that I track actually went up and yet my overall traffic is down 20%. I'm not sure that makes a whole lot of sense. My results are littered with spam though. I filed a few spam reports this afternoon I was so frustrated, and I never do that. Hopefully something will come of it.

[SomeCreep]

Originally posted by boneless
anybody else noticed a sudden drop in traffic from google?

i was allways nice listed #1 or #2 for dutch porn and now im completly away from the listing. Costs me bout 75% of my google traffic.

Something similar happened to one of my listings. Google is basically turned upside down on its head right now. Theres been a massive shakeup. I dont know whats going on over there but I hope things go back to the way they were because I'm seeing a lot of SE spam and shitty FPA's getting first page listings.

[wicked1]

Originally posted by Surfn
NeoSeo "Throw in the fact that there is at this time, only 1 real search engine left, and the premise is pretty simple, we can either be part of the solution, or part of the problem."

I would like to know how you arrived at this premise? It doesn't draw a parallel with my experience.

Hi Surfn,

Do you wish to elaborate on this ?.

I'm getting about 80-90% of my traffic from Google, the rest is a mix of MSN,Yahoo,Altavista,Hotbot etc...

I'm finding that top ten results in other search engines are returning little traffic for the time invested. Although this may just be related to the topic of the keywords more than the actual se's ability to deliver traffic across a wide variety of search terms.

Also I'm seeing a huge difference in traffic results compared to "anticipated" search numbers from Wordtracker or Overture search results.

To date I have had similar to anticipated traffic results.

I'm begining to wonder if I'm realy missing a large slice of the pie by not using paid advertising on these se's.

Can anyone comment on paid advertising effectiveness on thses se's ?.

Regards,

Wicked01

[Surfn]

70% of my SE traffic has nothing to do with google. It comes from AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Inktomi, Yahoo (main site listings) and smaller SE's such as Lycos etc.

goole comprises only about 20%-25% of my SE traffic.

[wicked1]

Cool thats what I wanted to know, I do admit that when I build sites they are with Google in mind , So it's not all that surprising the others are not listing my pages very well when I have not studied them all that closely.

For me Altavista seems to be clogged with spam and most of the rest Spider my sites on a regular basis but do not rank very well..

Wicked01

[Surfn]

I’ve been working with SE’s since 1991 on the non-adult side, 96 on the adult side. I won’t give away for free what I learned but I will say this. Since day one I build gateway pages tailored to each index. There is a simple code you can place on a page that only the spider you want to see that particular page can. All others will just skip that page.

Different SE’s use different methods I’ll use Meta Tags for example: some rely on meta tags, some penalize for meta tags, others ignore meta tags. Your relevance and ranking on that those indexes rely on other things. Which means you, the webmaster/submitter have to know what each of the indexes uses for it’s own criteria.

This is not magic or luck it’s hard diligent work.

[Alphawolf]

Surfn,

You are running IP cloaking and servin' up the tastiest page to each respective bot? This is what I'm reading into your post...but maybe something else.

Cloaking seems like a major hassle to keep on top of things.

>>>70% of my SE traffic has nothing to do with google. It comes from AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Inktomi, Yahoo (main site listings) and smaller SE's such as Lycos etc.

goole comprises only about 20%-25% of my SE traffic.<<<

Is this on a European domain or just a .com?

[Surfn]

All com's except 1 net

[MikeC]

I'm #3 for a keyword combo I track on Altavista and it nets me about 2 or 3 hits a day whereas I'm #8 on Google/Yahoo for the same combo and it nets me closer to 200 hits a day. I would argue that if only 20% of your traffic comes from Google then you're not getting nearly as much overall traffic as you should be. With that said, I would be more than happy to hear any suggestions for optimizing specifically for AV, Lycos, Ink, MSN, etc.

[xxxjay]

AV and Inktomi SERPs may be a good thing to have, but all of the traffic is with google and even more of ity is headed that diection, barring if Yahoo does go to Inktomi. When they do that - the traffic will go right back to google, because of yahoo's shitty serps, unless yahoo can apply some kind of intelligent algo to make sense of inktomi db. Now onebody has been able to do it yet.

I've done some cloaking. A lot of the top ranked mainstream pages are cloaked. Cloakin is such a touchy subject though. I got into doing it a few years ago, then stopped when google said they were going to put their foot down over it. Altough there are legitimate reasons to cloak your page, such as flash designs.

[Surfn]

Originally posted by MikeC
I'm #3 for a keyword combo I track on Altavista and it nets me about 2 or 3 hits a day whereas I'm #8 on Google/Yahoo for the same combo and it nets me closer to 200 hits a day. I would argue that if only 20% of your traffic comes from Google then you're not getting nearly as much overall traffic as you should be. With that said, I would be more than happy to hear any suggestions for optimizing specifically for AV, Lycos, Ink, MSN, etc.

The 20%-25% from google is more than you might think. I too have top 10 results for dozens of words and combos on google. My thinking is "why be satisfied with one SE?" That simple for me, as I've said it's habit making separate gateways. I did that before there was a google.

I'm not going to quote exact numbers because I'm quite satisfied with my results. I'll let most of the rest of you keep on keeping on.

[wicked1]

Thanks for the feedback, As for cloaking .... I've never tried it. So far I'm doing fine building pages by hand one by one.

Occasionally I get spammed out of the top ten but a few weeks to a month later I have been coming back. But it does hurt to loase a months worth of traffc to some asshole Se Spammer running a script that generates tens of thousands of Spam pages in no time.

On the upside SE Spammers like virus writers are always far too keen to press the send button and many of their pages are pure shit, I look at what they could have done better and then try to do so.

It's an ongoing battle of wits that sometimes gives you the shits but I love the challenge and being able to say I generate my own traffic.

I do not have a lot of traffic but what I do have converts very well,it's a case of quality verses quantity.

The only numbers I want to spin around in my stats are behind the $ Sign

Thats what pays the bills

Wicked 01