Post: #1

Okay so I'm no wiz when it comes to SEO and Google so was wondering if someone could explain in an easy to understand way what the new Google Penguin update means?

If I'm not mistaken this has happenned within the past month or so. I have done a bit of research but still don't fully understand the changes though I know a lot of great blogs and sites have taken big hits in google rankings.

From watching this one guys videos and reading his writing he seems to say with this new update that Blogger and Wordpress sites got hit really hard. Is that true and is it possible that an entire platform get hit with the updates?

Though it's never really been confirmed many people have theorized that blogger sites would get good rank since they are a google product. Also Wordpress seems to be the way to go for blogs as well as ecommerce and for big companies alike so how and why are they penalizing Wordpress blogs if that is true?

This particular guy was also saying that poor quality links though they have never been good are now penalized very heavily which he said means that with this new update negative SEO against competitors is something that the new update is vulnerable to.

Just wondering if someone can confirm if those things are true and also if someone can break down in lamens terms what all this means?

Post: #2

(10-23-2014 10:25 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  Okay so I'm no wiz when it comes to SEO and Google so was wondering if someone could explain in an easy to understand way what the new Google Penguin update means?

If I'm not mistaken this has happenned within the past month or so. I have done a bit of research but still don't fully understand the changes though I know a lot of great blogs and sites have taken big hits in google rankings.

From watching this one guys videos and reading his writing he seems to say with this new update that Blogger and Wordpress sites got hit really hard. Is that true and is it possible that an entire platform get hit with the updates?

Though it's never really been confirmed many people have theorized that blogger sites would get good rank since they are a google product. Also Wordpress seems to be the way to go for blogs as well as ecommerce and for big companies alike so how and why are they penalizing Wordpress blogs if that is true?

This particular guy was also saying that poor quality links though they have never been good are now penalized very heavily which he said means that with this new update negative SEO against competitors is something that the new update is vulnerable to.

Just wondering if someone can confirm if those things are true and also if someone can break down in lamens terms what all this means?

The latest Google update(the most recent refresh of Penguin) just happened a few days. Usually wait a week or so for the dust to settle before figuring out what it means.

Before this, there was recently an update which targeted Private Blog Networks.

In both situations I ended up getting through without much damage. The key is to think years in advance, and assume that Google is quite good at their job. That way you avoid careless mistakes or risky strategies.

Post: #3

(10-23-2014 11:08 AM)Saladin Wrote:  

(10-23-2014 10:25 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  Okay so I'm no wiz when it comes to SEO and Google so was wondering if someone could explain in an easy to understand way what the new Google Penguin update means?

If I'm not mistaken this has happenned within the past month or so. I have done a bit of research but still don't fully understand the changes though I know a lot of great blogs and sites have taken big hits in google rankings.

From watching this one guys videos and reading his writing he seems to say with this new update that Blogger and Wordpress sites got hit really hard. Is that true and is it possible that an entire platform get hit with the updates?

Though it's never really been confirmed many people have theorized that blogger sites would get good rank since they are a google product. Also Wordpress seems to be the way to go for blogs as well as ecommerce and for big companies alike so how and why are they penalizing Wordpress blogs if that is true?

This particular guy was also saying that poor quality links though they have never been good are now penalized very heavily which he said means that with this new update negative SEO against competitors is something that the new update is vulnerable to.

Just wondering if someone can confirm if those things are true and also if someone can break down in lamens terms what all this means?

The latest Google update(the most recent refresh of Penguin) just happened a few days. Usually wait a week or so for the dust to settle before figuring out what it means.

Before this, there was recently an update which targeted Private Blog Networks.

In both situations I ended up getting through without much damage. The key is to think years in advance, and assume that Google is quite good at their job. That way you avoid careless mistakes or risky strategies.

I guess I was surprised by the thing I heard about links. I know in the past links were good which is why everyone was buying links and stuff. Then I thought they started getting away from the importance of links because its so easy to buy poor quality links and also to stop people from being able to negative seo competitors. NOw it seems however that this has returned. Is that true?

Post: #4

(10-23-2014 11:31 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(10-23-2014 11:08 AM)Saladin Wrote:  

(10-23-2014 10:25 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  Okay so I'm no wiz when it comes to SEO and Google so was wondering if someone could explain in an easy to understand way what the new Google Penguin update means?

If I'm not mistaken this has happenned within the past month or so. I have done a bit of research but still don't fully understand the changes though I know a lot of great blogs and sites have taken big hits in google rankings.

From watching this one guys videos and reading his writing he seems to say with this new update that Blogger and Wordpress sites got hit really hard. Is that true and is it possible that an entire platform get hit with the updates?

Though it's never really been confirmed many people have theorized that blogger sites would get good rank since they are a google product. Also Wordpress seems to be the way to go for blogs as well as ecommerce and for big companies alike so how and why are they penalizing Wordpress blogs if that is true?

This particular guy was also saying that poor quality links though they have never been good are now penalized very heavily which he said means that with this new update negative SEO against competitors is something that the new update is vulnerable to.

Just wondering if someone can confirm if those things are true and also if someone can break down in lamens terms what all this means?

The latest Google update(the most recent refresh of Penguin) just happened a few days. Usually wait a week or so for the dust to settle before figuring out what it means.

Before this, there was recently an update which targeted Private Blog Networks.

In both situations I ended up getting through without much damage. The key is to think years in advance, and assume that Google is quite good at their job. That way you avoid careless mistakes or risky strategies.

I guess I was surprised by the thing I heard about links. I know in the past links were good which is why everyone was buying links and stuff. Then I thought they started getting away from the importance of links because its so easy to buy poor quality links and also to stop people from being able to negative seo competitors. NOw it seems however that this has returned. Is that true?

No. Think about it - if there are no links to anything, then how the hell does Google work in the first place?

The answer to this is to market naturally. Do what big marketing brands do - build the brand, produce content, try and build grass roots movements and loyalty from your consumers.

The fact is Google and other search engines want to replicate a human browser. When you say, "links are bad" think about what you do as a consumer. You follow a link. If it's to a terrible site, you don't share it with your friends. You click back to google and find a better site.

Your behaviour is what the search engine is trying to replicate. Gaps in the market - like buying up a thousand russian links or doing a hundred guest blog posts in a month, only work because the algorithm isn't as sophisticated as a human being yet. But with each update Google gets closer to being able to discern crap links from great ones.

So when somebody says, "links don't work" it means a specific type, number and location of links are no longer as effective as they once were. I know you want to build a website, jamaicabound. Do it.

Do it and concentrate on making an excellent site. Then worry about how you're going to get visitors to it. Don't be put off by SEO stuff. Most of it is irrelevant, and the stuff that isn't is intuitive and comes as a byproduct of building a brand in a strong way.

Post: #5

Penguin came about a couple years ago, because the search results were bad due to the effectiveness of linkspam. You could rank anything for everything with a good domain name, one page of text and thousands of automated spam links. Penguin penalized sites which had a lot of those types of links and used exclusively keywords as anchor text. That eventually led to people discovering that they could spam their competitor and have them get a penalty next time around. This Penguin was supposed to be better at discerning so called negative SEO.

New Google updates work on aggregate probability data. They use human raters to rate thousands of websites from authority to spam/scam, then use algorithmic machine learning to figure out what spammy sites have in common and what authority sites have in common. That's why trying to trick Google becomes ever harder. There are patterns in link profiles and Penguin targets certain patterns.

Linkbuilding is still very effective, but needs to be done with caution. Either go full spam and enjoy the spoils until next update or focus on links which bring traffic.