You're probably already aware of this, but just in case

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   daflaposted 10 years ago

   Google changed its algorithms way back in October, and it's still just hitting some people.  It's meant to penalize people who use link farms and who buy links, as well as those who use subdomains for multiple sites with the same content.  It all started last summer, when they started getting complaints from the retailers, wholesalers and those with big sites that their sites were being knocked down to the second and third page by the spammers using links farms (like PayPerPost) and such.  Google took awhile to work the algorithms out, and now we're seeing the end of the purge.  Now they're purging people with only one page with a lot of links to and from other one page sites, and giving better rankings to people with niche sites with real content, which is as it should be. 
   
   You can read more about it at the links on this page:
   
   http://www.mattheerema.com/archive/goog … rks-suffer
   
   Personally, I'm glad they're doing that.  These places like Clickbank, where everybody is selling the same e-books, and using "black hat" methods to get traffic is dishonest, and I, for one, am very happy that it's coming to an end.  I got so tired of every page I clicked on page one of Google being one of those screaming one page ads for some e-book or something, with all the attendant popups.  Now when I Google, I get better results.  For instance, if I Googled SEO, I wouldn't get all that crap from The Rich Jerk and stuff. 
   
   I believe that people who take the time to build a blog or a site with real content on one main subject deserve to have their content get better ratings.  I see some people who have one Hub and they say they get 5000 hits a day, and make hundreds a month on it.  Then they whine when Google takes that away from them.  Squidoo is full of them too, and worse, because they allow adult content.  My thought is "don't put all your eggs in one basket".  Some of these "sites" with one or two pages that are nothing but an advertisement to sell something have them posted under hundreds of subdomains and crosslinked back to each other, giving them hundreds of crosslinks.  That's one reason Google started punishing duplicate content, but then they just started changing each one just enough to get around it, so action had to be taken. 
   
   I remember not long ago searching for an herbal treatment for something, and EVERY SINGLE AD I clicked on page one was a one page ad touting some miracle program for some amazing amount of money. Used to be, I got the actual sites with information, and even medical sites on the condition.
   
   I have nothing against affiliate ads, and I use them on my site as well, if they are related to the content, but you know what I mean.  I've seen them here on Hubpages, and flagged a few. They are the people who come on here, and every Hub is an advertisement for another product or e-book.  There is no cohesiveness to what they write, it's just spam.  A bunch of "Product Reviews" for products you've never used, but only picked up on an affiliate catalog, and made up some fake review for it does not constitute "content", IMHO. 
   
   Well, hooray for Google, for doing their part in cleaning up the internet for us.

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   Dorsiposted 10 years ago

   I agree- there has to be some regulation. I too was getting sick and tired of googling and getting someone trying to shove a sale down my throat- very irritating!

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   Buggyposted 10 years ago

   In my opinion, Google is the cause of their problem. By relying so heavily on links in their algo, they are penalising the smaller, independant writer and rewarding the more tech savvy (spammy?) webmaster who spends less time on creative writing and more on link building.
   
   The problem with tinkering with the algorithm to benefit one group, you affect others by default. So Google is actually setting itself up to be spammed. It's incredibly easy to get to the top of their serps...just get more links than the next guy.
   
   This is why sites such as Wikipedia always float to the top of the serps for absolutely any keyword even though the wiki page has only a fleeting relevance to the original search term.

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   topstuffposted 10 years ago

   Thats nice,it has to be.Spammers must get penalty by anyway.

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   embitcaposted 10 years ago

   Yep, Wikipedia is bad enough, but About.com is even worse. I've gotten to the point where I actually have to put About.com in as a negative search phrase just to avoid getting pages from that site.

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      daflaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The thing about Wikipedia and About is that they have so many internal links leading to their own pages.  I get tired of reading Wiki sometimes, because most of the words are "blue".
      
      
      
      I guess from what you posted not too long ago, the change hit you too.  Didn't a couple of your hubs just disappear from the search results?
      
      ALL of my hubs have disappeared from the search results since I took the Frugal Gardening 101 stuff off.  I'm having to start all over, reregistering every single hub, lens, blog, and webpage separately to try to get something higher than page 5, but then, I knew that would happen.  It's tough starting over, but I feel like it will be all for the best.

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   Mark Knowlesposted 10 years ago

   Have to agree with you embitca. About.com is not only all pervasive - it's a terrible resource full of extremely poor advice. Only a matter of time.....

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