Google Penguin Update: This Person Has A "Huge Recovery" Story

 

 

View All Videos How important is it to have keywords in a domain name? Todd Malicoat wrote an interesting article about the exact match domain update for SEOmoz this week. In that, he points to a Webmaster Help video from Google's Matt Cutts from early 2011, where he hinted that Google would be "turning down" exact match domains as a ranking signal. Here's what he said exactly: "We have looked at the rankings and weights that we give to keyword domains and some people have complained that we're giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. And so we have been thinking about adjusting that mix a little bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm so that given two different domains, it wouldn't necessarily help you as much to have a domain with a bunch of keywords in it." Malicoat also points to an article from Bill Slawki from last year looking at a patent for Systems and methods for detecting commercial queries, which talks about exact match domains.     Google's new Crisis Response By: janeth Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. People flocked to Google looking for immediate answers but Google was unable to help. Google's results were not dynamic enough. So Google created Google.org a Crisis Response team that copes with possible catastrophic events. During hurricane Isaac, Google found that 20% of search queries came via mobile devices from people looking for Geo information, shelters and evacuation routes. Google's new Crisis Response is built into Android Jellybean so that users will automatically receive a notification for nearby hazards, such as a tornado warning, without the user needing to search. I got all the above from searchenginewatch.com this article. But here's my problem with this. There's an earthquake. Houses have fallen and roads are blocked. I grab my cell and start running to the school. As I run to check on my kids my phone starts buzzing I look down and it's a map for evacuations. Times wasted all because 20% of people in another world looked at ways to evacuate, something I am not looking for? » Reply to the post...   Custom Infographic Design Services by Infographic Design Team - Order Now

Tuesday, Oct 09, 2012   Google has been pushing major updates left and right in recent weeks, and plenty of webmasters are feeling the effects for better or for worse. In late September, Google announced the EMD update targeting low-quality sites with exact match domains. Later, we found out Google had also rolled out a new Panda update around the same time. Business owners who saw their referrals from Google decline had enough fun trying to dig through that and determine which update they were actually hit by (this should have been easier for those who did not have exact match domains). Before the dust settled on those updates, Google went on to announce a new Penguin data refresh on Friday, after months of anticipation. So far, we have not seen many recovery stories, but we have seen one. We also haven't seen a whole lot of people claiming to have been hit by the latest refresh (though there have been some). We have, however, seen plenty who have been working on trying to recover from previous Penguin launches, but have not been able to please the algorithm this time around. Have you seen changes from the latest Penguin data refresh? Let us know in the comments. When Google's Matt Cutts tweeted about the Penguin refresh on Friday, he said it would "noticeably" affect 0.3% of English queries. He later tweeted that the refresh would be completed that same night. That means that the effects of the refresh should have already been felt by any webmasters affected. There has been at least one reported recovery from this round of Penguin. Marketer Donna Fontenot claims that she has one client that saw a "huge recovery". Here are some comments she made on Twitter: Additionally, Fontenot has been talking about the recovery in the Cre8asite forums (via Search Engine Roundtable). There, she writes, "Long story short, they needed to get rid of excessive footer backlinks, links that looked like paid backlinks (and some were), etc. The really tough part? Getting the client to be patient and wait for another Penguin update to roll around so we could determine if the efforts were going to help or not. Six months later. SIX MONTHS. To a client, six months of waiting is forever." "No one got those terrible links for them," she says later in the thread. "They accumulated the links themselves over several years. But I can attest that they didn't go out and get new links to get out of this penalty. They strictly went through a huge process of getting rid of backlinks that looked like possible suspects for a penguin penalty." She admits that she was concerned (while waiting for Penguin to roll out again) that she was having her client get rid of too many backlinks, adding, "What if I had them remove links that were actually helping rather than hurting? Then, when Penguin waddled back through, even if the penalty was lifted, it was possible that they wouldn't recover because now they would be missing links they needed to keep their rankings. Luckily, that didn't happen." While in this case it may not have happened, this is still a legitimate concern for those trying to clean up their link profiles. From what we've seen and heard, there has likely been a great deal of overreaction when it comes to sites getting rid of backlinks. Many sites spent time and effort getting rid of links that they would have otherwise liked to have kept, but elected not to in the off chance that they could be hurting the site in Google. More on all of that madness here. It seems fairly likely that following Fontenot's story, people will continue down a similar path. Still, there are some out there that doubt her story. Alan, commenting on the Search Engine Roundtable post, says, "No offense but there are a lot more non-recovery stories than recovery stories...Unless I see proof I won't believe her." Another reader adds, "I agree, I would like to see some proof. A ton of people got rid of links and never recovered. If it was that easy we would be seeing recoveries all over the forums. That is not the case." While we're not holding our breath, perhaps Fontenot will put together a case study about the recovery for the benefit of other webmasters and SEOs. Here's what she said about that when asked about the possibility on Twitter: What are your thoughts? Comment Now... Subscribe to our Newsfeed   About the Author: Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

 

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