Is Google Ever Wrong About Links?
In case it wasn’t bad enough that fear of Google has kept people from linking to other sites, and got them requesting legitimate links be pulled down, Google is reportedly sending unnatural link warnings to sites based on links that are actually natural.Is Google ever wrong about links? Does Google ever really look at legitimate links as bad? Let us know what you think in the comments.
It’s hard to say if this is happening often, or if with 100% certainty that it is happening, but Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable appears to have found at least one example in a Google help forum thread.
The webmaster says he received a warning in February, noting that this was “understandable” because he’s worked with SEO agencies in the past that did advertorials, and was spammed with “really bad links” by unknown individuals.
“So we spent the last months, contacting webmasters, getting links removed and nofollowed and we disavowed around 500 Links,” the webmaster writes. “Next to that we stopped the redirection from our old domain to which there are quite some spammy links pointing.”
“I think we have done everything within our ability, at considerable time and cost to our company, to comply with Googles guidelines,” he adds. “We have completely stopped working with agencies and we pursue a quality approach.”
He says after his last reconsideration request was declined, Google gave the following URL as an example of one of the bad links:
http://sustainablog.org/2013/07/furniture-recycling-endangered-animals/
“This is a completely legitimate post and it was not influenced by us in any way,” he says. “They are writing about a campaign we are running. I have the feeling this sometimes is completely random. I am even unsure if it makes sense to take the time to actually file another reconsideration request under these circumstances.”
He later notes that there is no relationship between his company and the blog with the “bad link”.
Another discussion participant suggests that the “money” keyword link “Guide To Recycling” in the article, which points to the webmaster’s page, could be the problem.
“Well the so called ‘money keyword link’ was chosen by sustainablog itself, probably because they thought it would best describe what we do,” the webmaster responded. “We have no influence on this, and we certainly have no interest in ranking for ‘Guide To Recycling’”.
So yes, this sounds like a natural link, at least from this side of the story.
Interestingly, the person who suggested the “money keyword” issue said the same thing happened to one of their clients – also in the furniture space.
Schwartz suggests the webmaster is “better off disavowing the link, and also finding links like it,” and doing the same for them. This might be good SEO advice, but it also highlights a possible issue in webmasters being forced to have Google ignore legitimate links.
If this is really what’s going on, it’s pretty sad.
It does, however, come at a time when independent reports are finding strong correlation between Google+ and authorship and search rankings. You have to wonder if links are simply starting to play less of a role in Google’s algorithm than in the past. Even if they are still playing a role, it’s possible that they’re not being given as much weight. Following a recent Moz (formerly SEOmoz) report about +1s and rankings, Matt Cutts set out to “debunk the idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google web rankings.” But if you think about +1s like links, it’s not necessarily link quantity that really counts either.
There’s also question about whether Google is going to continue to update Toolbar PageRank. It’s not the same as pure PageRank, but it’s still a de-emphasis, if they’ are in fact killing it.
Either way, Google has been changing its wording related to link guidelines, putting out multiple new videos about “unnatural links” and suggesting webmasters use nofollow on more types of content.
Google Panda Update Overview:
According to Google’s official blog post when Panda launched,
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
Basically, Panda updates are designed to target pages that aren’t necessarily spam but aren’t great quality. This was the first ever penalty that went after “thin content,” and the sites that were hit hardest by the first Panda update were content farms (hence why it was originally called the Farmer update), where users could publish dozens of low-quality, keyword stuffed articles that offered little to no real value for the reader. Many publishers would submit the same article to a bunch of these content farms just to get extra links.
Panda is a site wide penalty, which means that if “enough” (no specific number) pages of your site were flagged for having thin content, your entire site could be penalized. Panda was also intended to stop scrappers (sites that would republish other company’s content) from outranking the original author’s content.
Here is a breakdown of all the Panda updates and their release dates. If your site’s traffic took a major hit around one of these times there is a good chance it was flagged by Panda
1. Panda 1.0 (aka the Farmer Update) on February 24th 2011
2. Panda 2.0 on April 11th 2011. (Panda impacts all English speaking countries)
3. Panda 2.1 on May 9th 2011 or so
4. Panda 2.2 on June 18th 2011 or so.
5. Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd 2011.
6. Panda 2.4 in August 2011(Panda goes international)
7. Panda 2.5 on September 28th 2011
8. Panda 2.5.1 on October 9th 2011
9. Panda 2.5.2 on October 13th 2011
10. Panda 2.5.3 on October 19/20th 2011
11. Panda 3.1 on November 18th 2011
12. Panda 3.2 on about January 15th 2012
13. Panda 3.3 on about February 26th 2012
14. Panda 3.4 on March 23rd 2012
15. Panda 3.5 on April 19th 2012
Search Engine Land recently created this great Google Panda update info graphic to help walk site owners through the many versions of the Google Panda updates.
Many site owners complained that even after they made changes to their sites in order to be more “Panda friendly,” their sites didn’t automatically recover. Panda updates do not happen at regular intervals, and Google doesn’t re-index every site each time, so some site owners were forced to deal with low traffic for several months until Google got around to re-crawling their website and taking note of any positive changes.
Google Penguin Update Overview:
The Google Penguin Update launched on April 24. According to the Google blog, Penguin is an “important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.” Google mentions that typical black hat SEO tactics like keyword stuffing (long considered webspam) would get a site in trouble, but less obvious tactics (link incorporating irrelevant outgoing links into a page of content) would also cause Penguin to flag your site. Says Google,Sites affected by this change might not be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise, but the common thread is that these sites are doing much more than white hat SEO; we believe they are engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings.
Site owners should be sure to check their Google Webmaster accounts for any messages from Google warning about your past spam activity and a potential penalty. Google says that Penguin has impacted about 3.1% of queries (compared to Panda 1.0’s 12%). If you saw major traffic losses between April 24th and April 25th, chances are Penguin is the culprit, even though Panda 3.5 came out around the same time.
Unfortunately, Google has yet to outline exactly what signals Penguin is picking up on, so many site owners that were negatively impacted are in the dark as to where they want wrong with their onsite SEO. Many in the SEO community have speculated that some contributing factors to Penguin might be things like:
1. Aggressive exact-match anchor text
2. Overuse of exact-match domains
3. Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
4. Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
It’s important to remember that Panda is an algorithm update, not a manual penalty. A reconsideration request to Google won’t make much a difference–you’ll have to repair your site and wait for a refresh before your site will recover. As always do not panic if you are seeing a down turn in traffic, in the past when there is a major Google update like this things often rebound. If you do think you have some sort of SEO penalty as a result of either the Google Panda or Google Penguin updates, please contact your SEO service provider to help or start trouble shooting.
Google Page Rank Update for year 2012 isFirst Google January Page Rank 2012 Update
Expected time: 30 Jan, 2012 – 2 Feb, 2012
Second Google June Page Rank 2012 Update
Expected time: 30 Jun – 2 July, 2012
Third Google October Page Rank 2012 Update
Expected time: 30 Sep – 2 Oct, 2012
Fourth Google December Page Rank 2012 Update
Expected time: 31 Dec – 3 Jan 2012
