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A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who claims that the Panda 2.5.2 update which happened around October 14th was more about Google's link algorithm being a bit buggy.
The niche he follows, he noticed a site jump to the top spot but couldn't figure out why. The site only had site wide links from very poor sites and didn't have any solid quality links to warrant the increase. He said:
Moreover, it looks like these are the ONLY backlinks that Site has. I said to myself - "well, google must be ignoring these links" and I spent a lot of time with Yahoo Explorer, Open Site Explorer and Majestic, to find that hidden powerful link that gives the Site its superb rankings. I couldn't find any.
For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why the site jumped up. He added,
I am wondering, what the hell is going on with the Google's paid links detection algo? Or with the backlink relevancy factor, that factor alone should be enough to send the Site far down where it deserves to be?
Several other webmasters chimed in saying they "noticed the same," adding "relatively new sites that have bought 100s of cheap backlinks in spammy directories seem to be doing quite well for certain terms at the moment."
Maybe the October 14th update was not about Panda and was more about links? Or maybe they are completely separate.
Did you notice sites with low quality or spammy links recently start doing really well?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Chris
10/28/2011 01:30 pm
I noticed such a site doing well - back in April. It hasn't moved since, still where it is. It makes me want to spam blog comments with links though, cause that is all this site did.
chrisloale@aim.com
10/28/2011 01:42 pm
Yes I work on several sites and all but 1 have been fine. This particular one jumped from page 2 to page 11 over night during this particular update and has not corrected itself since. I am planning on forwarding the domain today to an older site because i feel not only is it a links issue but also a history issue. With many new wp sites the front page is not being indexed. so not only is this a links issue but also an age issue philadelphia seo
Foogle
10/28/2011 02:10 pm
Google has gone rouge. Charging for maps, for translate, ripping off advertisers, cooking SERPS to make them more money, adding more ads. When you can't innovate you monetize.
Nathan
10/29/2011 02:48 am
Did you notice sites with low quality or spammy links recently start doing really well? -I my niche I've found sites with very little content (normally web scrapped content) was beating my originally written content. Some of these sites have a large portion of links from directories.
Graham Ginsberg
10/29/2011 01:58 pm
Why anyone tries to attach login or even intelligence to what Google does with its rankings is beyond me. Take for instance www.example.tumbr.com webpages. There are thousands of single pages with PR6 to 7 and not mention high PR7 youtube pages. WHen the world realizes that these are no geniuses behind the wheel at Google, maybe we will just calm down and just say "whatever". We survived before Google and we will survive after Google
Guest
10/30/2011 05:03 pm
Google search quality is going way down. Irrelevant splog links and comment links appear to work very well, which is very unfortunate for the hard working white hat folks.
Masood sabir
11/02/2011 12:49 pm
yes its true, there are lots of sites which have just bought some cheap theme links and now these sites are on the top. I have seen these sites by my self in my niche and also i have suffered due to this..
Chris Lancaster
11/12/2011 07:22 am
i haven't noticed in my niche ... its been basically the same sites for Oahu real estate keywords
WeRdaWorld
11/29/2011 03:48 am
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=0dbedca1caf6cd40&hl=en