Google: You Weren't Hit By Penguin, Those Are Normal Fluctuations

Google: You Weren't Hit By Penguin, Those Are Normal Fluctuations
A webmaster noticed his rankings and traffic from Google sharpely declined after the Penguin 2.0 release and decided to ask about it in the Google Webmaster Help forums.

The webmaster said they noticed a "sudden drop in rankings for branded" right after the Penguin 2.0 release. So they investigated their links and saw "huge influx of spammy links coming into our site from Chinese Wholesalers."

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Google Manual Penalty Notification But Google Says No Manual Penalty...

Google Manual Penalty Notification But Google Says No Manual Penalty...
A webmaster posted in the WebmasterWorld forums that he received a manual spam notification for "unnatural links" from Google on June 27th. He cleaned things up and quickly submitted a reconsideration request. Shortly after, on July 3rd, he received the response not that the penalty was revoked but rather there was no penalty to begin with.

How can it be that he received a message days before saying he had a penalty but then be told there was no penalty?

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Do Larger Or Smaller Web Sites Rank Better In Google?

Do Larger Or Smaller Web Sites Rank Better In Google?
A WebmasterWorld thread is having renewed discussion around an old debate on does the size of a web site matter in Google.

There is no doubt, the more pages you have on your web site, the more chances you have to rank for more keyword phrases. But that being said, does a web site that is larger have a better shot than a web site that is smaller to rank for competing terms? If they are both trying to rank for [blue widget] does having a larger site improve your ability to rank for such a term?

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

July 2013 Google Webmaster Report (Google Is Hot)

July 2013 Google Webmaster Report (Google Is Hot)
It was an incredibly busy month in the Google SEO/Webmaster world. Besides for Google announcing the spam algorithm, explaining about Panda's slower rollouts, releasing a new mobile ranking factor and pushing out a multi-week update, we've also seen a ton of chatter around a few updates in the past 30 days.

In fact, with this multi-week update, all the Google volatility tools are lighting up over the past few days. Here are screen shots from them:

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Domain Crowding Search Spam Complaints

Domain Crowding Search Spam Complaints
I hate being in over packed elevators, don't you? Now, imagine if the elevator comfortably fits 8 people, but you are in it with a total of 10 people. Now imagine if 9 of the other people are clones of the same person. Would you find that fair? Would you find it crazy and unwarranted?
That is the way some SEOs and webmasters feel about a topic in the search field named "Multiple Domains Crowding."

It is basically the process of a webmasters or SEO owning multiple domains and web sites, that target the same query phrase. They are hoping to crowd the first page of search results with only their web sites, this way if a consumer clicks on the first result and decides not to buy there, they can then click on the second or third or forth and buy from that site. The money and traffic all goes to the same place.

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Should You Take Over A Competitor's Domain Name?

Should You Take Over A Competitor's Domain Name?
A HighRanking Forum thread has a site owner asking about expired domain names. Not any expired domain name, an expired domain name of a competitor that went out of business.

He asked if it would be safe to pick the domain name up and 301 redirect it to his site.

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Can You Test The Google Disavow Tool?

Can You Test The Google Disavow Tool?
I am surprised this topic has not come up more often in the SEO forums - the topic of being able to test the Google Disavow Tool but uploading a file, waiting, removing links, waiting and repeating this process over and over again.

A Google Webmaster Help thread kind of aludes to it but not fully.

The issue webmasters are having is that they are disavowing a ton and waiting and not noticing an increase in rankings. They are then scratching their heads and asking, did I disavow links that were actually helping my site rank? So they go back in and remove some of the domains and URLs from the disavow tool and wait again.

You repeat this process over and over again until you see any ranking benefit. If you remove a URL and your rankings drop, add it back. Of course, doing this can take forever.

Author: Barry Schwartz

Read More

Google's Matt Cutts: Disavow Can Help With Penguin

Google's Matt Cutts: Disavow Can Help With Penguin
Just in case anyone had any questions about Google's disavow tool being able to help those hit by Penguin, Matt Cutts said the tool can help with Penguin.

In a tweet, Matt responded to another tweet by @joshbachynski saying, "do you have doubts the disavow would help for penguin? there is a rumor going around a googler said it wouldn't."

Author: Barry Schwartz 

Read More