Matt Cutts On Penalties Vs. Algorithm Changes (SMX Advanced Conference)

[snakeair]

I didn't read the whole thing or watch the video. Going to do this as I have the free time so I can digest what was mentioned.

Is it a penalty? Or is it just a change to Google’s algorithm? That’s been one of the hot topics in search marketing in recent months thanks to the Panda and Penguin updates, and it was one of the topics of discussion tonight at our SMX Advanced conference in Seattle.

During the annual “You & A with Matt Cutts” keynote session, Google’s web spam chief told Search Engine Land Editor-In-Chief Danny Sullivan that Google’s definition of a “penalty” is when manual action is taken against a site — and that Google doesn’t use the term “penalty” as much as they say “manual action.” Cutts went on to say that neither Panda nor Penguin are penalties; they’re both algorithm updates.

He also mentioned — and this will be good news to many search marketers — that Google is considering offering a tool that allows web masters to disavow certain links, but that may be months away if it happens.

Other topics included why some spam reports aren’t acted on, whether Google+ and +1 votes are a strong SEO signal right now and much more. We’ll have separate coverage of those topics in future articles, but for now you can read my full (and largely unedited) live blog below.

Continued at: http://searchengineland.com/live-blo...dvanced-123513

[Manish Pandey]

Well the only thing which kinda sounds good to me is that he's pretty darn cool about people criticizing him.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

Well the only thing which kinda sounds good to me is that he's pretty darn cool about people criticizing him.

He has a pretty good philosophy:

People aren’t striking out because they’re vicious, they’re striking out because they’re hurt or they believe Google isn’t doing the right thing.

I think Google should build more tools to indicate some issues like for example, the tool they can make available in the Google webmaster tool about disallowing the links pointed to your sites(s), at least we can clean up a huge part of spam links ourselves.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

He has a pretty good philosophy:



I think Google should build more tools to indicate some issues like for example, the tool they can make available in the Google webmaster tool about disallowing the links pointed to your sites(s), at least we can clean up a huge part of spam links ourselves.

I'll double that.

It's a really nice concept which he talks about but they should do something about the poor quality sitewide links and high quality sitewide links. As both these links are of huge difference. Quality sites would link to you only when you've a quality site. Why only give preference to contextual links? Perhaps one day some Google Engineer would read this and understand the difference.

Link building is definitely becoming hard these days but at least it's good for some SEOs who love their work and keep updating themselves. In the past SEO had become everyone's cup of cake but for now it's not.

[Bernard]

The web is not a one size fits all medium. It saddens me to read/hear statements like "build a quality site and people will link to you with contextual links". lol. That may work in some verticals/industries/topics, but not all.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Bernard

The web is not a one size fits all medium. It saddens me to read/hear statements like "build a quality site and people will link to you with contextual links". lol. That may work in some verticals/industries/topics, but not all.

I agree with you. We have some decent articles on our site and the majority of backlinks come from spammers or poor quality automated sites. The option we have is extemely limited because what you do on your own site for marketing could be interpreted as link spam or link schema from Google which is very subjective in my opinion.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

I agree with you. We have some decent articles on our site and the majority of backlinks come from spammers or poor quality automated sites. The option we have is extemely limited because what you do on your own site for marketing could be interpreted as link spam or link schema from Google which is very subjective in my opinion.

But then again those scrape links add in value as they count in your link profile as varied links which Google considers as natural links. LOL

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

But then again those scrape links add in value as they count in your link profile as varied links which Google considers as natural links. LOL

Well I don't know how Google count these links, but I can tell you that the spammers/scrapers use our work to sell adsenses.

Not sure why Google value these kind of links...and what kind of user experience they can provide.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Well I don't know how Google count these links, but I can tell you that the spammers/scrapers use our work to sell adsenses.

Not sure why Google value these kind of links...and what kind of user experience they can provide.

Penguin update was just for that. To improve user experience.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

To improve user experience.

LOL, To see the efficiency you take the meta description from my index for example, google it and you will see how Panda/Penguin let the spammers duplicate my contents, you can also test the same thing for all my product meta descriptions

You can also find some other online stores duplicating and using my meta descriptions for their benefits.

If you have the time, you can also check all the sites using my copyrighted work to display adsenses, they were reported but they are still there after months if not years... That's how my link profile could be seen...

[Brave7]

For example I take the first category of products from our site indexed, look for the spammers:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ba...w=1151&bih=535

Similar results can be found on our other categories or product pages.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

For example I take the first category of products from our site indexed, look for the spammers:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ba...w=1151&bih=535

Similar results can be found on our other categories or product pages.

It's really bad to see that Google isn't following what it preach. Why wouldn't they penalize sites which are ranking top 10 using techniques that don't come under their guidelines?

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

It's really bad to see that Google isn't following what it preach. Why wouldn't they penalize sites which are ranking top 10 using techniques that don't come under their guidelines?

That's true Manish, because if these spammer sites are indexed it means that they have a certain SEO weight. Their technique is to link to good sites because in this case Google gives some weight.

What disgusts me the most is that we cannot market our own products or own articles the way we want on our own site.

Right now I am testing some contextual anchor links with variations, marketing our product pages and it seems like Google doesn't like it. I am wondering how can we rank the pages now if we cannot indicate the keyphrases we want to rank for and give a good user experience in the same time. I don't put anchor text links just because I found the spot in the contents, I re-read all my contents to put myself in the reader shoes.

It really looks to me that now the SEO/SEM and rankings work like a Russian roulette.

We as a site owner don't decide for which main keywords or main keyphrases our site rank these days, Google does.

[syedakram]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

It's really bad to see that Google isn't following what it preach. Why wouldn't they penalize sites which are ranking top 10 using techniques that don't come under their guidelines?

May be they will update their algorithm in the near future, but all their algorithms are affecting on the good and authority sites also!

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

That's true Manish, because if these spammer sites are indexed it means that they have a certain SEO weight. Their technique is to link to good sites because in this case Google gives some weight.

What disgusts me the most is that we cannot market our own products or own articles the way we want on our own site.

Right now I am testing some contextual anchor links with variations, marketing our product pages and it seems like Google doesn't like it. I am wondering how can we rank the pages now if we cannot indicate the keyphrases we want to rank for and give a good user experience in the same time. I don't put anchor text links just because I found the spot in the contents, I re-read all my contents to put myself in the reader shoes.

It really looks to me that now the SEO/SEM and rankings work like a Russian roulette.

We as a site owner don't decide for which main keywords or main keyphrases our site rank these days, Google does.

Jean have you tried Articlebase for submitting your articles and getting a link or two from there. I was researching a competitor and found that they are using it very effectively and Google kinda loves Articlebase right now. Also, you can think of writing for eHow and other quality sites which actually rank well on Google. That will help you in getting the links and of course the traffic.

Originally Posted by syedakram

May be they will update their algorithm in the near future, but all their algorithms are affecting on the good and authority sites also!

Thanks for your comment.

Can you please specify the sites you're talking about?

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

Jean have you tried Articlebase for submitting your articles and getting a link or two from there. I was researching a competitor and found that they are using it very effectively and Google kinda loves Articlebase right now. Also, you can think of writing for eHow and other quality sites which actually rank well on Google. That will help you in getting the links and of course the traffic.

Thanks for the tips Manish, we used Squidoo, Merchant circle, Mommy blogs, blogspot, related forum and a few article directories. In the past we used directories too.

Since a couple of years, we really wanted to focus on interesting articles, large product descriptions and mini articles about the ingredients used in the products on our site.

Each time we give away articles on other sites like Squidoo or else they are heavily duplicated either by sentences, paragraphs or just spinned.

We have a better control of our contents on our site and we can protect better legally our work.

I think to rank these days you need a massive volume of links artificially made on different sites that you own to boost or to become an authority site.
Actually this method works for Google and pass through all Google updates, even the recent Panda/Penguin.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

Thanks for the tips Manish, we used Squidoo, Merchant circle, Mommy blogs, blogspot, related forum and a few article directories. In the past we used directories too.

Since a couple of years, we really wanted to focus on interesting articles, large product descriptions and mini articles about the ingredients used in the products on our site.

Each time we give away articles on other sites like Squidoo or else they are heavily duplicated either by sentences, paragraphs or just spinned.

We have a better control of our contents on our site and we can protect better legally our work.

I think to rank these days you need a massive volume of links artificially made on different sites that you own to boost or to become an authority site.
Actually this method works for Google and pass through all Google updates, even the recent Panda/Penguin.

Well if you own a lot of websites then you can think of that but for smaller sites that's not possible. Right?

Even owning a large number of sites is not a solution to this problem because I don't think people would have 10-12 websites dedicated to one niche. They may have 10-20 different website dedicated for different niches and cross linking different niche sites wouldn't be a good idea.

The only solution as I see it is to get quality links. No matter how you get them, just go get them.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Manish Pandey

Well if you own a lot of websites then you can think of that but for smaller sites that's not possible. Right?

If you have a single site, like us, it is more natural in my view than building a small artificial farm links to be in a gray area where you are still under the Google radar. But if it works, a small link farm will generate thousands links that you cannot have with a single site.

Even owning a large number of sites is not a solution to this problem because I don't think people would have 10-12 websites dedicated to one niche.

Well at the first look, the other sites don't look dedicated to one niche

They may have 10-20 different website dedicated for different niches and cross linking different niche sites wouldn't be a good idea.

LOL, that's what they want you and the search engines to believe. When you have hundreds cross links, perhaps it signals that it is not so insignificant that they appear to be.

The only solution as I see it is to get quality links. No matter how you get them, just go get them.

If you aren't a quality site, don't expect that site owners will give you a quality link, because you have to be at least an authority site in your niche to get that or you can buy links, but it is at your own risks.

I tried another way to have a reputation on our products by enabling commenting customer reviews on each product page, but look what I get from spammer bots, I was forced to turn it off, proof on the PDF.

Let me ask you a few questions about this:

Why an authority site or a high ranking site will give you free quality links?

Why an authority site or a high ranking site will give you some free links and give their customers or their readers an opportunity to get out of their own sites to go on yours?

Perhaps they paid expensive ads or huge marketing budget to do direct marketing on magazines with their website addresses and get their readers from there. Perhaps they do direct marketing for their brick and mortar businesses, franchises, etc and generate some traffic from that, or simply their own returning customers buying online for special events.

I mean they need to have a good reason to give you some free high quality links to your site.

[Manish Pandey]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

If you have a single site, like us, it is more natural in my view than building a small artificial farm links to be in a gray area where you are still under the Google radar. But if it works, a small link farm will generate thousands links that you cannot have with a single site.




Well at the first look, the other sites don't look dedicated to one niche



LOL, that's what they want you and the search engines to believe. When you have hundreds cross links, perhaps it signals that it is not so insignificant that they appear to be.



If you aren't a quality site, don't expect that site owners will give you a quality link, because you have to be at least an authority site in your niche to get that or you can buy links, but it is at your own risks.

I tried another way to have a reputation on our products by enabling commenting customer reviews on each product page, but look what I get from spammer bots, I was forced to turn it off, proof on the PDF.

Let me ask you a few questions about this:

Why an authority site or a high ranking site will give you free quality links?

Why an authority site or a high ranking site will give you some free links and give their customers or their readers an opportunity to get out of their own sites to go on yours?

Perhaps they paid expensive ads or huge marketing budget to do direct marketing on magazines with their website addresses and get their readers from there. Perhaps they do direct marketing for their brick and mortar businesses, franchises, etc and generate some traffic from that, or simply their own returning customers buying online for special events.

I mean they need to have a good reason to give you some free high quality links to your site.

Of course you can do all that but what's the point here? Why do something which sooner or later may come in the noose of Google.

Link building as I already mentioned is becoming harder by the day. Then again it is our work and it should be fun.

Why then people preach to create something unique, something out of the box, so that those high quality site owners may wish to link to you and send some of their traffic to your way as well.

[jjmcd82]

Originally Posted by snakeair

During the annual “You & A with Matt Cutts” keynote session, Google’s web spam chief told Search Engine Land Editor-In-Chief Danny Sullivan that Google’s definition of a “penalty” is when manual action is taken against a site — and that Google doesn’t use the term “penalty” as much as they say “manual action.” Cutts went on to say that neither Panda nor Penguin are penalties; they’re both algorithm updates.

I don't know if Google's definitions here are of any use to us. When I see a site being outranked by people scraping its content, it looks like a penalty to me. Doesn't really matter if that filter was applied manually or through an algorithm... except in how you go about fixing it.