Many webmasters have already started to feel the heat on Jan 17th 2013. Stronger signs of a possible Google update can be felt. Majority of the webmasters have experienced a sudden drop in rankings and traffic and a few of them have witnessed a sharp rise. No official announcement has been made by Google so far but it is sure that something is being cooked by the chef Matt Cutts and his team. Some are saying it to be a Panda update, while others are pressing on Penguin update, even some of them are of the opinion that its an EMD update. The rest of them are arguing that its an entirely new update. Only Google knows the answer to it!

What is it exactly?

Google employs human raters to determine the quality of sites, whether or not they are spam, their relevance, or to determine what is their commercial intent so the algorithms can continue to improve. This document was the training guide given to these raters to help them classify sites based on how relevant they were to specific keyword searches.

Why does Google employ human reviewers if it already uses an algorithm?

According to Google, “every day we answer more than one billion questions from people around the globe in 181 countries and 146 languages. Fifteen percent of the searches we see everyday we’ve never seen before.”

Google cannot possibly take on the load of reviewing each and every site so it partners with companies that hire reviewers to test the utility of search engine results. Raters are provided with query results which include before and after sample changes to the algorithm. If the reviewers like the “after” changes and see a higher quality of sites according to Google’s guidelines (the Quality Raters Handbook), the algorithm will be updated to reflect these changes.

How would you like to get your hands on this handbook? You can’t. Google has asked those who publicized it (Pot Pie Girl and Search engine land) to remove the link. The handbook is already eliminated from the index.

Some of the information in the handbook seemed unimportant but a good portion of it was helpful and offered an idea of how Google defines a high-quality or “non-spammy” site.

Much of it is already known…hidden text, keyword stuffing, doorway pages, etc., but some of it I found enlightening.

Here are some of my thoughts about the document:

I am not at liberty to divulge the specifics but there is a section that describes “spam” websites and what they often look like. According to the handbook, pages should not be assigned as spam if they provide information to users. If pages exist only to make money and not to help users, they are to be flagged.

Most of the “spam” information is related to affiliate sites or those containing PPC ads (Adsense).

There is a designation labeled as “thin affiliates” which describes those websites that are created with the sole purpose of making money.

Isn’t that what we are all trying to do with affiliate sites? Yes, but Google likes to see helpful information on these sites which shows that the webmaster has intended to help users and not just sell to them.

Here are a few tips based on what I read in the handbook which reaffirmed what most of us already know:

• Be careful with your content – If there is no content on your site, it could be flagged. If your content is copied from another site, of course it will be “spam” as well.
• Original content – Even if your content is original, a reviewer can designate it as “spam” if it is poor or unreadable. This decision is left up to the person reviewing the website.
• Contact information – If you can list your contact information on your website it will add credibility. Nathan Anderson, the search guru who runs algorithm possibilities on thousands of websites, has been touted as saying that Google slightly downgrades private registrations. Apparently, Google does not like it when people hide.
• Ads – If you are creating a website strictly for Adsense revenue it will be obvious to a human reviewer. What is the first thing a visitor sees on the page? Ads or valuable content?

Google, in this article, describes how it views a high-quality site. This article is not top-secret information.

Here are the questions the article states you should ask to determine if a site is high quality:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

So, if you do find yourself on page 1 for your keyword, you are not out of the water just yet.  You may just find your site under human review. Will you pass?

Basically, put out great content and hope that you will maintain or increase your rankings and not be taken out by something beyond your control. Such is the life of a website in the Google index.

Thanks to Pot Pie Girl for the great information posted on her site.

What made negative SEO worries arise?

Let’s take a step back and see what lead to the new wave of negative SEO concerns. Thing is, negative SEO had been discussed and dreaded many times in the past, but Google repeatedly managed to keep SEO’s assured that the former can never be effective to the extent that it should be feared.

This time, here is how the situation unfolded:

• March 16, 2012 – Matt Cutts hints to the upcoming “over-optimization” penalty they are working on. This leads to mild negative SEO concerns among optimizers who begin to wonder whether one can artificially make a competitor’s site look “over-
  optimized”.

• March 26, 2012 – Google cracks down on blog networks. Many SEO’s see their rankings nosedive as the result of some of their backlinks becoming devalued.

• April 2, 2012 – Google sends tons of “unnatural links” notifications to webmasters. According to Google, they have simply
  become more vocal about what links they distrust. However, some webmasters claim their sites were down-ranked despite them practicing only white-hat SEO, and debate the probability of negative SEO.

• April 24, 2012 – Google’s Penguin update hits. Many SEO’s shout foul and say they were unjustly affected by the update, which leads to more negative SEO concerns. Links’ anchor texts become a widely discussed issue.

• April 27, 2012 – Panda 3.6 is released. Minor SERPs changes are observed.

• May 26, 2012 – Penguin 1.1 is released. Some websites that had been hit by Penguin 1.0 go up, while some new websites nosedive within the search results.

As you see:

- Quite a few important changes to Google’s ranking algorithm were introduced over a relatively short period of time;

- Most of these changes have to do with backlinks and anchor texts – something webmasters do not always control;

–Stating the exact reason for each individual rankings drop is impossible in most cases (while there could be many/different factors at play).

Hence, all this gave rise to concerns and different speculations about negative SEO.

Is there substantial proof that negative SEO works?

In the light of reemerging worries, two notable incidents related to negative SEO took place. One is SEOMoz challenging the industry to take down their website. And the other one is Dan Thies’ website getting hit by spam links after Dan tweeted his support of Matt Cutts’ crackdown on blog networks.

The conclusion that can be drawn from SEOMoz’s case is that, if your site is old and reputable enough, it’s pretty much immune to negative SEO. While in the case of Dan Thies it’s very hard to tell whether the rankings changes were caused by spam links or not, since this coincided with the time of “the site move” as stated by Dan himself. He did receive the unnatural backlinks notification, though.

That said, a solid and a well-documented negative SEO study is yet to be conducted.

Is Google finally taking notice?

Of course, all this negative SEO talk could not go unnoticed by Google. As Matt Cutts said at SMX Advanced just recently (emphasis mine):

“Some have suggested that Google could disavow links. Even though we put in a lot of protection against negative SEO, there’s been so much talk about that that we’re talking about being able to enable that, maybe in a month or two or three”.

So, Google is thinking about enabling the disavowing of links. This means that soon we might see a mechanism that will let webmasters dissociate their site from particular backlinks.

Incentives and challenges for Google

No doubt, Google would like to penalize each and every trespasser of their Webmaster guidelines out there. However, in doing so, they don’t want to compromise the quality of their search results, and this is exactly what would happen if negative SEO were easily doable.

The presumption that negative SEO is now possible is based on the opinion (which, to the best of my knowledge, Google never confirmed) that, with Penguin update, Google began penalizing websites for suspicious links rather than simply discounting those links (by “penalizing” I mean ranking lower algorithmically, which is the opposite of a manual penalty).

However, if we listen to what Google did say and confirm, we’ll see that the only statement he made was that Google has now become better at identifying blog networks and deindexing them (not to confuse with deindexing the sites they link to) as well as catching paid links.

My opinion is that Google cannot afford to penalize all sites for suspicious backlinks just yet, as it doesn’t have an effective mechanism of identifying voluntarily acquired links and links that have been “donated” to the site by ill-wishing competitors.

I also think, when/if Google introduces such mechanism, it will most likely begin using suspicious
backlinks as a much stronger negative signal in their ranking algorithm.

What can one do to avoid negative SEO done to them?

Now, what makes a website immune to negative SEO? First of all, the more positive signals Google can find about your site, the harder it would be for someone to influence your rankings in a bad way.

Hence:

1. Attract quality backlinks (write about the industry’s news, post helpful posts, do something extraordinary on your site, connect with the industry folks by commenting on their blogs and taking part in forum discussions, get featured on important resources, etc.)

2. Take good care of on-page optimization (this includes using the number of keywords in your site’s copy that would be natural to use, fixing crawlability issues, preventing canonicalization confusion and removing duplicate content).

3. Get as much social media love as you can (social media signals have only become more important in recent years, not to mention that they also serve as great traffic channels).

Sounds like a traditional SEO plan? It is! The more SEO fronts you have covered, the harder it will to take your site down.

Another good habit you could develop is to continuously monitor your site rankings and backlinks. This would allow you to detect negative SEO done to your site early on and react accordingly.

What happens next?

Many people wonder what will eventually happen, that is, whether or not there will be more negative SEO instances, and whether or not Google will offer an effective solution to that. Here is what I think about it:

- It takes more resources to do negative SEO than to do positive SEO, because in the case of the former you invest in “SEOing” several sites, while in the case of the latter you have only one website to take care of. So, many people may not afford to do negative SEO in the first place.

- Negative SEO pays off only temporarily. If someone gets hit by a bunch of spam links and reports that to Google, eventually, the site would come back to where it was before.

- I strongly believe that, even if there will become more space for negative SEO as the result of Google’s future updates (which, I think, will be the opposite), Google will have no choice but to come up with a solution to that and might eventually introduce a disavow-your-links option.

Until then, let us not panic and continue doing the awesome SEO job we’ve been doing so far.

After pandas, penguins, penalties, and panic, Google is now adding salt to our wounds and stealing any shred of hope we had to re-gain our rankings or compete for any decent spot in the search engine.

Many of our readers have spent thousands of hours learning about and applying SEO practices to their websites, only to find the game changing and their rankings failing.

Remember the days when blog networks and article marketing were touted as solid linking strategies? Now all of those once-valued links you obtained from those systems have landed most of you in Google purgatory.

And now, SEO will become even harder?

Well, that’s what Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team had to say…

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan sat down with Matt Cutts during a “You & A with Matt Cutts” at the recent SMX Conference in Seattle.

When Sullivan asked Cutts about information related to paid links (LINK), Cutts said Google is constantly working on improving its tools that discover blog networks and link buying.

Google has been warning against link buying for years, and according to Cutts, the practice will become riskier as Google builds more tools and enforces it more.

Cutts also mentioned that people who purchase links may think they are escaping Google’s clutches but most are unaware of the footprint of the website from which they are buying links. This is where Google steps in. Essentially, Cutts is saying…you will have a hard time escaping Google if you buy links. (my own words)

Cutts went on to explain how SEO is entering a new phase and it will become more difficult.

“I believe, if you ask any SEO, is SEO harder now than 5-6 years ago, I think they’d say it’s a little more challenging. You can expect that to increase. Google is getting more serious about buying and selling links. Penguin showed that some stuff that may work short term won’t work in the long term.”

If you are feeling a little downtrodden, I understand. But, there is some good news on the horizon. Here are some more valid points discussed at the session:

I’ve Been Hit!

Has your rankings suffered as a result of the latest Google changes? Did you get one of those dreaded link message alerts in your Webmaster tools account?

According to Cutts, Google wants to see “earnest effort” on your part in eliminating those links from your profile. Once you remove them or at least make an effort, you can submit a reconsideration request. Google will then consider how much “progress” you made.

Sullivan asks, “What if you can’t get rid of bad links pointing to a page, should we get rid of the page?”

Cutts responded, “If it’s not an important page, you could. Or you could at least document the effort to remove the links and share it with us.”

Good news! Google is discussing the possibility of a “disavow-this-link tool that will allow webmasters to “disavow” any suspect links they see pointing to their sites. Cutts said even though Google has implemented many protective measures to combat negative SEO, there has been a lot of discussion on the topic. If the disavow link materializes, it will be ready in a matter of months.

Negative SEO refers to outside parties sending spammy links to your site to manipulate its rankings and get your site downgraded. With this disavow link you could potentially tell Google you had no part in the suspicious links which could maintain or help your rankings in the long run.

Matt Cutts Clears Up Misconceptions About Panda and Penguin

Are they penalties? Algorithm changes?

Cutts talks about the difference between signals and penalties, a word Google rarely uses.

Here is the exchange:

Danny: What’s the deal with Penguin. Is it a penalty?

Matt: We look at it as something designed to tackle low-quality content. It started out with Panda, and then we noticed that there was still a lot of spam and Penguin was designed to tackle that. It’s an algorithmic change, but when we use a word like “penalty,” we’re talking about a manual action taken by the web spam team — it wasn’t that.

We don’t think of it as a penalty. We think of it as, “We have over 200 signals, and this is one of the signals.”

Danny: So from now, does “penalty” mean it’s a human thing?

Matt: That’s pretty much how we look at it. In fact, we don’t use the word “penalty” much, we refer to things as a “manual action.” Part of the reason why we do that breakdown is, how transparent can we be? We do monthly updates where we talk about changes, and in the past year, we’ve been more transparent about times when we take manual action. We send out alerts via Google Webmaster Tools.

What is Your Experience?

Many of you have commented that Google downgraded your site and you are disgruntled and unhappy because of it. And others including SEO consultants/companies mentioned that their sites have not suffered at all. Some sites have even received a boost. Do you fall into one of these categories?

If so, we would love to hear from you.  How have you handled your downgraded site rankings? Why do you think your site/sites have escaped the latest updates? 

The story interviews a few small business owners who were hit hard by the update. One business owner saw his sales drop to $25,000 this month, down from $68,000 the previous month. Another small website owner saw roughly 30% of his traffic disappear over night. And another lost 20% of their traffic. Most of the article goes through small business owners who lives have changed for the worse due to this update. But there are some stories that lead me to believe they are not directly related to Penguin.

Again, there were several updates last month – Penguin was happened on the 24th. But there were two Panda refreshes, link network penalties, bugs and many more updates.

Even if all those cases were not Penguin related, Penguin is now main stream after hitting a major publication like the Wall Street Journal.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus.

Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi.

Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet.

• Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet.
• Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue.
• Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi.
• Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus.

Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.

Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem.

Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem.

Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo.

Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massculus mus.

Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo.

Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus.

Use image size large and align left to show an image that ignores the textbock boundaries

Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus.