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Does Google Have A Glass Ceiling?
SEO News Source: http://dixonjones.com
Published: Oct 17, 2008 - 12:51 pm
Story Found By: NickWilsdon 1678 Days ago
Category: SEO
A small “Google awakening” happened on Tuesday night. There seems to to be a “Google Glass Ceiling” in the serps for certain types of sites. Mileage might vary, but if your site is pulling more weight than Google thinks it should, there is mounting evidence that Google is throttling your organic SERPS traffic.
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from NickWilsdon 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Interesting discussion started by Dixon. I know Goog keep saying they aren’t using the GA data for ranking but this would be a good way of working out the ’average’ performance for each site type.

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from SEOidiot 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Have to be careful this isnt something ill now use as an excuse for slacking off the work for a site, interesting thought though from Dixon..

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from NickWilsdon 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@SEOidiot If true, if it might be an excuse to ramp up the work rather than reduce it - in order to break through to the next "level". If a client isn’t getting anywhere this is a justification for a budget increase. Would be good to hear from other people experiencing this "flatlining" and if they managed to break through (what did they do?). I like these kinds of discussions though that encourage us to look at situations in a different way, esp. if we have some shared experiences to back it up.

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from Halfdeck 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Thrust of Dixon’s argument seems to be regardless of facts if enough people believe something it tends to be true: "it’s only going to take a few people to say “hey - yeh - that’s happening to me” for the idea to stick." According to that theory, knol pages get an auto-ranking boost, META keywords boost rankings (common perception among non SEO savvy webmasters I bet), and AdWords/Adsense influences organic ranking. <div></div><div></div><div>It’s a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum: a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it.</div><div></div><div></div><div>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum</div><div></div><div>For example, most people used to believe earth is flat and is the center of the Solar System.</div><div></div><div><div></div><div>That’s not to say I don’t think Dixon’s hunch is true or isn’t worth discussing. It’s also a pretty fun read. And ’course sometimes shared experience can unearth stuff like -6 penalty which turned out to be true. Still, bottom line is there’s no substantial argument backing up the theory so far.</div></div>

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from ANOnym 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I wonder if this is a response to various link building methods involving automation, such as tools, quizes, widgets, etc.For example, try searching for "Publishing Platform" or "Blog Platform" in Google. Wordpress.org is not #1, though we know it has 57mil links and the words in the title tag. Darren easily outranks Wordpress.org homepage with 320+ links. Then again, it could be anchor text, though.Possibly, this is just a consequence of them detecting the same link/nav blocks on websites, esp footers, and reducing their weight, though. Or it could be that more types of links became devalued. So it is not a "Glass Ceiling", but the strategies you use to get certain link types.That being said, I have heard rumors that even directory submissions do give absolute minimal value.For some reason, anything above is like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, with no cat in the room. I guess I’d rather focus on building links the natural way, similar to Nick’s advice to ramp up the work.

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from Halfdeck 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

"we know it has 57mil links"AnOnym, like you said, 57 mil links without the right anchor text only drives PageRank. Of course with 36,000 page index penetration, optimizing internal anchor text would obviously help."Possibly, this is just a consequence of them detecting the same link/nav blocks on websites"Hard to say without a "before" and "after" picture and in a poluted test environment with hundreds of factors at play.

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from Receptional 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree with Halfdeck... I am saying a cat has four legs... a dog has four legs... a cat is a dog at the moment, but kicking off the discussion is the point really. You can do some statistical analysis on yuor own sites... if the Google organic traffic is constant, but the paid is not, then there is a question worth asking.Dixon.

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from yetanotherben 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Excellent article, very well observed.  I’m not saying that I have previously considered my sites to have hit this glass ceiling but I have wondered whether variety would come into play if you became so dominant.  One of my sites is do especially well for instance, and I wonder whether it will continue do as well as this or more in to the future if it continues dominate.  If the site was Rolly Royce, I would be overlooked as Rolls is a super brand but as it’s a lonesome independant, I’ve got to wonder, does Google think this is the best result, every time somebody does a search for a term in that industry?  ...just a thought.Ben M

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from NickWilsdon 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 0

@rjonesxActually I wrote the title for this submission and put the question mark in there. I understand what you are saying but Halfdeck point is valid IMO. These days too many guesses are taken as "truth" - e.g. all the whole knol ranking advantage posts. It’s responsible to point out where we don’t have evidence. I felt my addition of the question mark supported that framing.Most of us know Dixon though and he’s a very experienced online marketer. I’d take his observations seriously and believe they are worth opening up to a wider audience here. My goal though (and the same can probably be said for Dixon and Halfdeck) is to publicise this in order to get more evidence. Public exposure can shoot down obvious flaws, reinforce through common experience and give us ideas for testing. There are lazy people in this industry though, who will take publication as proof. Worse still they will republish these kind of discussions without the cautions. Like Chinese whispers, the theory eventually becomes a fact. Halfdeck’s disclaimer is very useful for these folks. We should probably have it posted on every "theoretical" discussion thread :) 

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from sza 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 2

I had very similar feelings many times, as if my sites had a certain amount of traffic allotted by Google, regardless of perceivable ranking shifts.In fact, I see this not only for traffic, but for Adsense income, as well.Like, a traffic spike still brings in about the same daily total, as if that extra traffic brought down the value of clicks. And then a worrying drop happens in visitor numbers, where I fear earnings would also go down significantly, but "miraculously", clicks become so much more valuable, on aggregate, income basically stays the same. (Once it’s disappointing, once it’s a relief :-))

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from Halfdeck 1678 Days ago #
Votes: 1

" I am growing very tired of logical fallacy arguments."<div></div><div></div><div>@rjonesx I’m probably as tired of baseless claims driven by FUD. Not going to say much more than that since Nick spelled things out well. Also notice I voted for this post. </div><div></div><div></div><div>"Do you do that when you normally have conversations?"</div><div></div><div></div><div>tuh-mah-toh tuh-mey-toh who gives a shit as long as I get my point across? Your first point at least had some legitimacy. Your objection to terms I cut & paste off Wikipedia is shallow, like someone voting down a blog post because he doesn’t like the blog’s logo. You don’t like Latin? Too bad.</div><div></div><div></div><div>That said, its Friday and you probably had a long week (I sure did) so here’s to a relaxing weekend.</div>

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from NickWilsdon 1677 Days ago #
Votes: 0

Patrick(BlogStorm) agrees with the flatlining effect and suggests increases in content + links are the best way out of it. Not shocking conclusions but worth adding to this discussion.

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