

Which websites dropped the most in the latest Google algorithm change? - mitultiwari
http://www.quora.com/Which-websites-dropped-the-most-in-the-latest-Google-algorithm-change

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jhuckestein
Please edit the title.

"Which websites dropped the most in the latest Google algorithm change? -
Quora" reads as though the answer to the question is Quora.

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ComputerGuru
I think that's subjective.. I had no problem understanding the title as the
poster intended.

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ahlatimer
Fair enough, but the domain is already shown next to the submitted link on HN.
It might not confuse _you_ , but it apparently confused other people, and it's
really redundant information anyway.

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Matt_Cutts
[http://www.sistrix.com/blog/985-google-farmer-update-
quest-f...](http://www.sistrix.com/blog/985-google-farmer-update-quest-for-
quality.html) and [http://searchengineland.com/who-lost-in-googles-farmer-
algor...](http://searchengineland.com/who-lost-in-googles-farmer-algorithm-
change-66173) are other links I've seen. Bear in mind that much of this third-
party analysis compares e.g. US queries vs. queries against Google from
Canada, Italy, or India, and geolocation can change the results. Also,
different people are running different sets of queries and that subsampling
can skew things depending on the query sets. Please bear those disclaimers in
mind with any third-party analysis.

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zone411
Matt, I've seen some high quality smaller sites (Internet versions of
traditionally published books with original content) drop as well. Is there
any place to submit such sites in order to help this algorithm improve?

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zone411
Looking through this list of larger sites that dropped, I see one that is
similar to the sites I'm talking about, so more people might be able to say
what happened: findarticles.com. I have no relation to this site (it is
actually a competitor), but I believe the vast majority of its content is
licensed versions of articles published by real books, magazines, and
newspapers
([http://findarticles.com/p/articles/an_1/?browse=A&tag=co...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/an_1/?browse=A&tag=content;col1)).
It seems to have dropped just as much as content mills with low quality
articles, such as ezinearticles.com or articlesbase.com. It is possible that I
don't know something about findarticles, but this makes it appear like this
algorithm change is looking at some superficial common factors and is unable
to really distinguish high quality sites from low quality sites.

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jonknee
> licensed versions of articles published by real books, magazines, and
> newspapers

That makes it sound like Find Articles is quite likely to have a lot of
duplicate content, one of the things that Google's update was meant to
penalize:

> This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which
> are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that
> are just not very useful.

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zone411
Maybe, but this quote talks about punishing sites copying content from other
websites, which is not what they are doing. Most newspaper sites will have the
same versions of AP or Reuters articles as well, but this new algorithm didn't
affect them. I believe that many older newspaper articles on their site are
not republished anywhere else on the Web.

~~~
bricestacey
> I believe that many older newspaper articles on their site are not
> republished anywhere else on the Web.

I'd hope those particular articles should surface then. Their other content
though is of low value.

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jrnkntl
There it is, Mahalo (14), a drop of 84%. Justice.

~~~
bconway
What's the animosity against Mahalo? I looked at it years ago when it first
started, have they degenerated into a content farm since then?

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corin_
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1433676>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073723>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2128170>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1439043>

I think it's pretty widely accepted (especially here on HN) that what Mahalo
is doing doesn't benefit anyone except themselves.

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jmtame
I would be interested in the flip side. Which sites stand to gain from the
algorithm changes? Wikipedia? Stack Overflow? Yelp?

~~~
orijing
Great question. My first instinct would be that none of the gains are as
dramatic as the drops. Basically this change gets rid of most of the negative
outliers.

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andrewljohnson
It will be interesting to see how JCalcanis spins this. Last I heard he was
congratulating Google on going after the content farms and changing their
algorithms, claiming Mahalo had superior original content. Assuming these
stats aren't totally bunk, something's gotta change in that statement to avoid
massive cognitive dissonance.

~~~
shareme
No, you have never seen the Jason Calacanis Reality Distortion Field in
action..

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vaksel
anyone else really surprised that ehow isn't on that list? I mean seriously
they are some of the worst offenders I've seen.

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forgotusername
As a single live-alone late 20s male, I do not understand this position.
eHow's content often seems perfectly tailored to people like me (I suck at
cooking, carpet stain removal, calcium buildup removal, ..., all questions
I've found perfectly satisfactory answers to via eHow).

In the meantime I'm deeply disappointed to see that the collateral damage of a
change largely driven by a problem I don't understand includes faqs.org losing
most of its ranking.

~~~
DevX101
eHow has taught me how to tie a tie more than once.

~~~
forgotusername
Ha. :) It's taught me how to cook a burger at least twice.

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Xuzz
Somewhat ironic: AllBusiness, which is #25 on that list, has a relatively
high-quality (non-content-farm) post that _praises_ this exact change:
[http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/software-services-
appl...](http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/software-services-applications-
internet-social/15479951-1.html)

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mkr-hn
It took me about 7 articles on AC before I realized Google would eventually
catch up with the content farms. That's also the same time I recognized the
problem I was contributing to.

Happened a lot sooner than I expected though. :)

ETA: On the plus side, my articles should make the cut if they go on a purge
to raise the quality level.

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jonpaul
I really don't get much utility out of Mahalo, but why would it drop in this
algorithm change? Isn't the site like a wikipedia for search results?

~~~
jonknee
Used to be. Now it's just a content farm. It has been a few different things,
none of them useful.

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ThomPete
is it somehow possible to put that list into the chrome block list plugin?

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jonknee
I have most of those and a lot more in a list of content farms I compiled.
There are links provided to speed along adding them to your block list:

[http://www.jongales.com/blog/2011/02/14/list-of-content-
farm...](http://www.jongales.com/blog/2011/02/14/list-of-content-farms/)

