
Another step to reward high-quality sites - antr
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
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ChuckMcM
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.

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AznHisoka
link to XKCD comic?

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ChuckMcM
<http://xkcd.com/810/>

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davemel37
Here is site number 2: [http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-
and-eas...](http://profitmonarchs.com/get-fit-using-these-simple-and-easy-
methods/)

This might be site number 1: [http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-
link-building-...](http://best-seo-software.biz/no-hands-seo-seo-link-
building-software/)

look at the popular searches box on the bottom right.

Although it seems a few affiliates might have the same string of keyword
stuffing.

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davemel37
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
For most sites, the vast majority of anchor text would be the domain or brand
name.

~~~
davemel37
Perhaps...but there would be a diversity to it. It wouldn't only be their
domain and exact match anchor text.

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a5seo
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.

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davemel37
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?

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AznHisoka
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
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
Why run thru a platform? Isn't it obvious just by seeing them?

~~~
davemel37
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.

