4 ms·

Another step to reward high-quality sites

23 points by antr 15y ago

losethos 15y ago
"in the world but not of the world" "You gave me these Father. They do not belong to the world."
davemel37 15y ago
Can someone try to track down those two sites he shows screenshots of and figure out what they are both doing to figure out what this new signal or change is?
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  1st site is doing keyword stuffing. The 2nd is producing spinned content. I imagine the new algorithm is improving the way they determine whether content is automatically generated, or written by a real human, or even written well.
  - davemel37 15y ago
    Both those examples are things google noticed and penalized a decade ago. I took this as examples of sites that are being penalized, but examples of other less subtle versions of webspam to illustrate his point... My guess is this new update is irrelevant to those examples other than the two sites those screenshots are from will both be hit. I think this is a puzzle to solve. Figuring which sites those two are and running them through an seo platform to see what they are both doing that is grey area.
    - AznHisoka 15y ago
      Why run thru a platform? Isn't it obvious just by seeing them?
      - davemel37 15y ago
        I would assume anything obvious to the eye would have been detected by previous algorithms and updates. Matt Cutts is implying there is a NEW update that both those sites will get hit from.
  - davemel37 15y ago
    LDA has been used for a while. How much better can that get? It definitely isn't new. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-correlated http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-cor...
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Its an interesting step, as a search provider (Blekko), I am pretty amazed at how creative some black hat SEO types are. I used to point folks at a web site that took PhPBB, a markov chain text generator, and I don't know, maybe 20 million 'forum' messages which were all about a bogus software product. Forum messages from users that included links to the bogus product with text like "this was a good value <link> and it really helped with performance and security I love <link> and its usability performance and security. It has great value I got it at <link> and love it" Not quite the XKCD joke of robots commenting on robots but entire simulated user communities. All there for the consumption by the algorithm de-jour. Impressive actually.
- davemel37 15y ago
  why don't you publish the 10 funniest or most creative attempts and black hat webspam... I bet it would be great link-bait. (ofcourse stuff that doesnt work... wink wink.)
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  link to XKCD comic?
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    http://xkcd.com/810/ http://xkcd.com/810/
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
davemel37 15y ago
Here is site number 2: http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-and-easy-methods/ http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-and-eas... This might be site number 1: http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-link-building-software/ http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-link-building-... look at the popular searches box on the bottom right. Although it seems a few affiliates might have the same string of keyword stuffing.
- davemel37 15y ago
  I ran it through opensiteexplorer.org and found issues with their backlinks. 97% are followed links. no anchor text diversity in the link profile. For profit monarch, the anchor text was either the full domain, or "profit monarch" For best seo software, the anchor of almost all links are "Best SEO Software" This is my best guess off hand.
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    For most sites, the vast majority of anchor text would be the domain or brand name.
    - davemel37 15y ago
      Perhaps...but there would be a diversity to it. It wouldn't only be their domain and exact match anchor text.
a5seo 15y ago
Take-away: Google is getting a lot more aggressive about using purely algorithmic spam penalties. About 6 months back, they changed the Webmaster Guidelines to specifically make a point that penalties can be either manual OR algorithmic (previously they just discussed manual penalties). Everything they've done lately follows this trend. What's surprising to me and most SEO's is the thought Google was not already heavily using this approach to combat spam. Either they always have, but now are just telling the world about it... (But if so, shouldn't the results speak for themselves? Why make such a point to talk about it? Is this just marketing? Is their bark more effective tool than their bite?) ...or they were NOT, and now actually are really using algos for the first time. (In which case, I wonder why did it take so long? Were the algos not effective in the past? Were they worried about collateral damage? How much do they expect now? Were the algos limited in other ways and not adaptable/flexible?) Is this a sign of desperation? It could be a) a good solid enhancement, b) pure marketing noise, or c) a potentially risky algorithm with bad consequences.

23 points by antr 15y ago

"in the world but not of the world" "You gave me these Father. They do not belong to the world."

Can someone try to track down those two sites he shows screenshots of and figure out what they are both doing to figure out what this new signal or change is?

AznHisoka 15y ago
1st site is doing keyword stuffing. The 2nd is producing spinned content. I imagine the new algorithm is improving the way they determine whether content is automatically generated, or written by a real human, or even written well.
- davemel37 15y ago
  Both those examples are things google noticed and penalized a decade ago. I took this as examples of sites that are being penalized, but examples of other less subtle versions of webspam to illustrate his point... My guess is this new update is irrelevant to those examples other than the two sites those screenshots are from will both be hit. I think this is a puzzle to solve. Figuring which sites those two are and running them through an seo platform to see what they are both doing that is grey area.
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    Why run thru a platform? Isn't it obvious just by seeing them?
    - davemel37 15y ago
      I would assume anything obvious to the eye would have been detected by previous algorithms and updates. Matt Cutts is implying there is a NEW update that both those sites will get hit from.
- davemel37 15y ago
  LDA has been used for a while. How much better can that get? It definitely isn't new. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-correlated http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-cor...

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Its an interesting step, as a search provider (Blekko), I am pretty amazed at how creative some black hat SEO types are. I used to point folks at a web site that took PhPBB, a markov chain text generator, and I don't know, maybe 20 million 'forum' messages which were all about a bogus software product. Forum messages from users that included links to the bogus product with text like "this was a good value <link> and it really helped with performance and security I love <link> and its usability performance and security. It has great value I got it at <link> and love it" Not quite the XKCD joke of robots commenting on robots but entire simulated user communities. All there for the consumption by the algorithm de-jour. Impressive actually.

davemel37 15y ago
why don't you publish the 10 funniest or most creative attempts and black hat webspam... I bet it would be great link-bait. (ofcourse stuff that doesnt work... wink wink.)
AznHisoka 15y ago
link to XKCD comic?
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  http://xkcd.com/810/ http://xkcd.com/810/

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

davemel37 15y ago

Here is site number 2: http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-and-easy-methods/ http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-and-eas... This might be site number 1: http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-link-building-software/ http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-link-building-... look at the popular searches box on the bottom right. Although it seems a few affiliates might have the same string of keyword stuffing.

davemel37 15y ago
I ran it through opensiteexplorer.org and found issues with their backlinks. 97% are followed links. no anchor text diversity in the link profile. For profit monarch, the anchor text was either the full domain, or "profit monarch" For best seo software, the anchor of almost all links are "Best SEO Software" This is my best guess off hand.
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  For most sites, the vast majority of anchor text would be the domain or brand name.
  - davemel37 15y ago
    Perhaps...but there would be a diversity to it. It wouldn't only be their domain and exact match anchor text.

a5seo 15y ago

Take-away: Google is getting a lot more aggressive about using purely algorithmic spam penalties. About 6 months back, they changed the Webmaster Guidelines to specifically make a point that penalties can be either manual OR algorithmic (previously they just discussed manual penalties). Everything they've done lately follows this trend. What's surprising to me and most SEO's is the thought Google was not already heavily using this approach to combat spam. Either they always have, but now are just telling the world about it... (But if so, shouldn't the results speak for themselves? Why make such a point to talk about it? Is this just marketing? Is their bark more effective tool than their bite?) ...or they were NOT, and now actually are really using algos for the first time. (In which case, I wonder why did it take so long? Were the algos not effective in the past? Were they worried about collateral damage? How much do they expect now? Were the algos limited in other ways and not adaptable/flexible?) Is this a sign of desperation? It could be a) a good solid enhancement, b) pure marketing noise, or c) a potentially risky algorithm with bad consequences.