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Google Is Planning To Penalize Overly Optimized Sites

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-keywords-for-you dept.

tekgoblin writes "This is an interesting move by Google but not completely off the rocker for them. Last year they blocked search results from the co.cc domain because they believed they polluted the search results. Google plans to penalize overly optimized sites because they want to level the playing field for other websites who do not concentrate on such efforts. From the article: 'Google Engineer Matt Cutts explains the following: “We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.” The search engine at Google is about to go through a major overhaul and de-prioritizing sites with heavy SEO is just a small part in the big picture to bring better search results. The changes to the search engine will be coming in the next few months.'"

14 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Good by heypete · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Too many site owners are worried about SEO strategies rather than producing good content.

    1. Re:Good by davester666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about somebody mentioning to Google that we also don't want Google+ crap spamming our results...

      We shouldn't have to hit page 2 before we start getting useful results.

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    2. Re:Good by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It used to be that good content was what search engines were looking for. And by producing good (and well organized) content you automatically ended up at the top of the search rankings.
      Unfortunately search bots don't actually know what "good content" is, so all they can do is try to work with the bits that they can figure out, and that led to SEO which really ONLY exists to game those algorithms.
      This is a good move on google's part. I think one of the big failings of all search engines recently is that they have mostly been accepting SEO rather than fighting it. This leads to lots of garbage sites with good SEO grabbing all the top spots, and makes it very difficult to find really good sites. The smarter they can make GoogleBot the better, I long for a day when the only way to do SEO has the side effect of having to make useful information for human visitors too...

    3. Re:Good by buchner.johannes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Too many site owners are worried about SEO strategies rather than producing good content.

      Surely the reaction to this will be producing good content, and not employing more SEO gurus to circumvent the new weights by dodgy techniques.

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      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    4. Re:Good by slimjim8094 · · Score: 5, Informative

      See the globe next to the person icon, the one that says "Hide personal results"?

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    5. Re:Good by green1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I had mod points this would be +1 Funny...
      SEO is the business of circumventing the proper weighting of search results by "dodgy techniques", it always has been, and always will be.
      SEO didn't exist until people realized that bots had specific things they were looking for, and people started putting only those things in instead of writing good content that happened to include those things (what the bot writers originally assumed would be found)
      I hope this is the start of a new war by google against the SEO business, one where humans benefit by being able to find sites that are actually relevant.

    6. Re:Good by Armakuni · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The first thing I will do then is buy a number of spammy links to be sent to my competitor's otherwise entirely white-hat site that currently ranks in 1st, thus making sure his excellent site never troubles me again. Meanwhile, he's too honest to do the same to my site, so I benefit. This is called negative SEO and is not new. It's the reason Google haven't done what you suggest.

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      That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
    7. Re:Good by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You folks logged in when you use Google? I never log in and I never get Google + results. Testing this just now
      I searched for "how to sing" not one Google + result and I went in 6 pages.

      I'm also not a Google + member (none of the social sites) but that shouldn't matter.

      I log in to my Youtube account anytime I need to do anything, then log out. I have one video that's seeing 50000 views a week
      and the info on people (those who have logged in or never log out) is quite interesting; allowing one to specialize their spam

      BTW: The video mentioned is on a different account, 5 seconds long, and nobody likes it, but it's doing rather well :}}.
      Not one item of spam, not even a link to my other site have I placed (outside of the description).
      -Citation: youtube search for "How to get a Mob Spawner" by badactorEP, I've left the basic statistics open.

    8. Re:Good by symbolset · · Score: 5, Funny

      The horror! Have you sought counselling for the trauma? Are you finding the injury disabling?

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    9. Re:Good by Ihmhi · · Score: 5, Informative

      And on top of that, when you're signed in they have that whole useful "never see links from this site again". If you type in $BAND $SONG lyrics, you're bound to get sites that use shitty flash apps, annoying ads, etc. They are erased from my personal search results, and now I only see relevant ones.

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      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  2. Not a very good wingman... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Last year they blocked search results from the co.cc domain because they believed they polluted the search results

    So now Google is officially a co.cc blocker.

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    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  3. Oh this is too good. by chr1st1anSoldier · · Score: 5, Funny

    HAHAHAHAHA! I love this! The company I work for makes every employee write blog articles and in turns makes our sales team write eight comments a month on those blog artles for the sole purpose of increasing their google standing in search results. You have no idea how much this makes me smile.

  4. I imagine the SEOs are rubbing their hands now by Molt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All this is doing is changing the rules on which sites will be rated more highly, this changes what needs to be done to a site to gain artificially high ranking- maybe making it more difficult- but it'll still be done. I can imagine the SEO service sellers being delighted about this, new customers will still be buying their services to gain ranks and since old approaches will now be penalised they can start to sell again to those who'd bought their services before the change.

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  5. Old SEO joke by s7uar7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    How many SEO experts does it take to change a light bulb, lightbulb, light,bulb, lamp, lighting, light switch, lightswitch, switch, energy?