News Source: http://www.seoco.co.uk
Published: Jun 12, 2008 - 10:47 am
Story Found By: patrickaltoft 2137 Days ago
Category: SEO
"This seems to be a particularly harsh move by Google if you ask me. I mean people have ran awards and given out badges to the winners for years and it is totally white hat."
28 Comments
Comments
I wonder if the badges have tripped some kind of filter? Or has a manual editor decided badges are unnatural links? Or is it because the page is too long?
Um, is this hoaxbait? Coz Rand’s command of the English language is usually a lot better than that. Wondering if the seoco guys are going for some kind of SEO equivalent of the Fake Steve Jobs blog. Sphunn anyway, coz it’s still pretty funny.
Hmmm, it’s a grey PR bar: http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0I’d like to take a quick pole. When you see the grey bar in cases like this does it make you think it’s a manual or an algorithmic penalty? I am leaning towards automated because most hand penalties I have seen just go away with no evidence like a grey PR bar.
@Jeremy, alternatively it could just be the exact same kind of grey PR bar that appears for every page on the internet that has been published since the last time Google released an update of Toolbar PR displays. You can’t take that to mean anything.
You, see it’s not a Google’s fault that that site is not ranking well. Web 2.0 is too general term, and i believe the sites that are ranking at this moment could be even better web 2.0 resources then the site you are mentioning. If you type web 2.0 award or web 2.0 awards then you can see the site you are looking for. Google is really good search engine!
Seoco is spouting off a bunch of phooey if you ask me, no offense.#1 - The toolbar remains grey until the next toolbar update, no drama there.#2 - The article ranks as highly as 8th, which means it hasn’t received a manual slap. If it HAD been manually penalised, it wouldn’t be able to rank on the first three pages, ask John Chow.It’s simply not an SEO friendly topic to rank for any searched for term. Does anyone look up "SEO Awards" anyway?
@infatex The site was ranking page 1 or 2, (I forget) for "web 2.0" up until today. The page does not rank anymore for "web 2.0 awards" either: a short version of the awards ranks, but the page in question (seomoz.org/web2.0) has been kicked out of the index.The page had a PR 7 until today. We’re not sure why it’s been penalised, but we’re looking into it. It’s actually pretty fascinating and we’ll undoubtedly post about it when we figure it out.
Secondly, I actually find this quite exciting. Since I can confirm that this is definitely a penalty, can anyone take a guess as to what set it off? Have we accidentally linked to something we shouldn’t have? Whatever the explanation, it’ll be great to work it out.
I see the /short version of the page in the #1 spot on Google for "web 2.0 awards" no quotes with a PR 6.
@everett Yep, all the supplementary information is still there. Zeigeist, short-version, everything. It’s just that one page that’s gone.
@Jane, so this is for real after all. I thought it was another joke piece of linkbait (apologies to seoco in that case - although I still think it’d be hilarious if someone did create a Fake Rand Fishkin blog a la Fake Steve Jobs, or maybe a Fake Matt Cutts would be even funnier)
A typical example of claiming Google is out to get someone when in reality this is a normal part of Google’s workings.
Jane the page is still in the index but it isn’t being cached.KenJones it is some kind of penalty/filter (intentionally given or otherwise). Seoco probably hope that by writing about it we can all discover what happened and therefore avoid doing the same to our own sites.
@Janecopland - I have a very strong feeling that linkbaiting via social networks has caused this penalty - it maybe something new thats being trialed. To be honest, it wouldnt be hard to get an algo to visit most well known sites, identify the top hot topics and then discount title based anchor text links to the end page...Or maybe I have drunk too much koolade...
Looks like a redirect just might not have caught up. I find the page in G listed under /web2.0?2008 with a 301 to the /web2.0 page. 301s have sometimes been known to impact the SERPs until the SEs get them sorted.
The URL /web2.0 has been around for a long time and we update the content each year for the awards. Could this changing of content (including a ton or new links) cause suspicion?@patrickaltoft I don’t see it
Well, since the ?2008 form is in the index this might just be a Google hiccup; anomalies have been known to happen, I usually just roll with the punches for a while.Content changes on exisiting pages shouldn’t have any effect in and of itself, especially if it’s just an update, unless some on-page factors went totally pear shaped.
Looks like 2006, 2007 pages didn’t get the smack down and are still ranking for web 2.0 awards 2006/2007.
Jane it appears with the info: operator.http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&suggon=0&safe=off&q=info%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.seomoz.org%2Fweb2.0&btnG=Search
I wanted to make sure your redirect is a 301 redirect, but SEOmoz has been down from here for at least several hours now.
Hmm. The above search. Every snippet is identical. Have you got the same problem that Threadwatch had a few years ago, but with a far more severe effect:http://www.threadwatch.org/node/8222#comment-43362
I’s my first time to hear about this one..I think I have to read more posts on this one s I will be informed why and how SEOmoz was actually penalized..^^
We’ve had confirmation as to what happened; expect a post on SEOmoz about it shortly :)
Must be nice to get confirmation on what happend so quickly ... I wonder if it came from Google...
But why?http://www.seomoz.org/blog/unwritten-google-webmaster-guideline-dont-end-urls-in-0
See also: http://sphinn.com/story/52718
I just did a post to clarify this issue for everyone: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dont-end-your-urls-with-exe/<div></div><div>By the way, the headline for this Sphinn is now way-incorrect. :)</div>
They are back check this:http://ankitrawat.com/blog/seomozz-got-its-web20-page-back-in-google/Congratulations rand !