WebAtlas banned from Google

[walkman]

"Have John and Nandini given an explanation on why PR dropped on Webatlas and Bluefind"
unless they work for Google I doubt they know. It's a risk you took when you added the link. If the PR had gone you would've won. Now it went down or got off Google and you lost.

[awall19]

Originally Posted by walkman

It's a risk you took when you added the link. If the PR had gone you would've won. Now it went down or got off Google and you lost.

I find it amusing how people associate $20 - $50 with a "big pile of risk" and act as though Google is the only search engine.

Some sites make more profit from MSN Search or Yahoo! Search than they do from Google anyway. Yahoo! and MSN Search are both easier to artificially manipulate than Google's are anyway.

Keep in mind that *nothing* is ever perminant and fluctuations do occur in any search index. Anyone remember when Amazon's home page was removed from Google?

If you want to wait out submitting because of how you percieve what Google currently thinks of the directory that is an option, but I know that stuff with Google can and does change.

There is no forever guarantee with most any type of marketing. Webmasters can not individually guarantee that they know how Google will perceive their site indefientally.

I also am one of those crazy people who have bought some ad placements which I knew Google does not and will never care about.

To each their own...

[G10]

Originally Posted by awall19

I also am one of those crazy people who have bought some ad placements which I knew Google does not and will never care about.

You crazy person you!

[DebbieV]

Some sites make more profit from MSN Search or Yahoo! Search than they do from Google anyway. Yahoo! and MSN Search are both easier to artificially manipulate than Google's are anyway.

As long as people continue to suffer from pixel envy and dependence on the toolbar they may never see the larger picture.

[clasione]

I personally feel that one of the reasons webatlas got hit was it's blatent ease with allowing the submitter to specify there own title/achor....

Don't make much sence to me - from a spiders point of view....

[awall19]

thumbs down to clasione

Originally Posted by clasione

I personally feel that one of the reasons webatlas got hit was it's blatent ease with allowing the submitter to specify there own title/achor....

Don't make much sence to me - from a spiders point of view....

1.) I think you are out to lunch on that
2.) many directories allow keyword rich anchor text links and do just fine
3.) so long as it is descriptive and categorized correctly does it really hurt search relevancy?
4.) most of WebAtlas's listings are official site names anyway.

[dcristo]

Originally Posted by clasione

I personally feel that one of the reasons webatlas got hit was it's blatent ease with allowing the submitter to specify there own title/achor....

Don't make much sence to me - from a spiders point of view....

Cant say that I agree with you. Having descriptive text which effectively describes your website/product/services is not done just for spider food - but for marketing. If you clearly explain in your link text what it is that you provide, than you make it easier for the searcher to understand what your site is about. What difference is there in a directory offering descriptive link text and any other site?

[vfunk]

Originally Posted by awall19

for the people who think buying a directory link is a manipulation of PageRank they may want to delink their post signatures since their posts are nothing more than a cheap attempt at manipulating PageRank

Well Said!

[Thermit]

I have to agree with awall19's and dcristo's recent comments about anchor text.

While unedited directories that let users erroneously enter a list of keywords as the supposed title of the site will wind-up looking quite junky, there is nothing wrong with a correct classification of a link by using appropriate anchor text.

There are so many websites that have dull hard-to-remember names like "Best Vacation Package Getaways" because most directories don't support for the corner stone of the SE algys: the anchor text.

Let's look at a hypothetical website called "Bob's Hangout", which is the top Net forum where marketing gurus meet to talk shop. The traditional link, especially with respect to links from a directory, is done by linking the site's title which tells Google that the website is relevant to "Bob's Hangout", but it doesn't reinforce the association between Bob's and the search term "marketing guru forum", for example. Naturally, a search for "bob's hangout" will likley bring up Bob's site, but this is only useful for people who already know about Bob's forum but forgot the URL. As a webmaster, Bob can both help SE's with the relevance that they seek, and help new members find his site by getting some links that do a better job of describing the content of his site, as opposed to the name of his site.

Nothing wrong with traditional-style title links to help Google and others provide relevant results for an identity search, but I think most people are actually searching for content on pages that they don't know about yet, which is why it's a good thing for search engines, webmasters seeking relevant traffic and searchers seeking relevant content to have inbound link anchor text based on content.