What in the name of god have they done this time?

OK here’s the theory, those of you who have been avid readers of this blog and my arcane ramblings over the past few years will realise I have no love for Google (oh god here he goes again on one of his “rants” I hear you cry?) because of the cack-handed way they always seem to deliver or roll out their “algorithm updates”.

How can such an organization seemingly filled to the rafters of so called intelligent people so habitually get it wrong but I digress, back to the theory.

Webmasters complaining about changes made by Google is nothing new. Every time Google releases a major algorithm update like Penguin or Panda, the outcry is everywhere. But, like it or not, that’s Google trying to better its algorithm, and ultimately improve its search results. You could also argue that any traffic one site loses, another gains. Somebody wins.

OK that’s the theory but funny it never seems to work out that way and especially with their latest developments regarding Image Search.

Now any good SEO Agency worth their salt will advise you that it is advisable to been seen almost everywhere for a client. The name of the game nowadays is all about branding and making sure that your name is found everywhere above all others so as well as making sure you rank in conventional SERPS you need to make sure you can be found in places like Google Blog Search, Image Search etc etc.

But….

The Image Search story is a bit different, however. This is not an algorithmic change designed to point users to higher quality images or more relevant image results. It’s a cosmetic change, and while some users may find the experience to be an upgrade, it’s clear that many webmasters have not welcomed the redesign.

 “55% dropped for websites with images…”

“My traffic has dropped to 1/5 of what it was before the new Google Images search roll out…”

“My traffic was cut by half overnight…”

“My image based website has lost 2/3 of the visitors after the change…”

“Google image traffic has dropped by 50-70% on my site…”

That was back in January. It doesn’t appear that things have gotten much better.

Define Media Group published some findings from a recent study on Monday (hat tip to Search Engine Land). According to the firm, you might as well spend your time in other areas of search engine optimization and online marketing, and not worry so much about optimizing for image search anymore.

“We analyzed the image search traffic of 87 domains and found a 63% decrease in image search referrals after Google’s new image search UI was released,” explains Shahzad Abbas. “Publishers that had previously benefitted the most from their image optimization efforts suffered the greatest losses after the image search update, experiencing declines nearing 80%.”

“In the eleven weeks after Google’s new image search was released, there has been no recovery – which means for image search, the significantly reduced traffic levels we’re seeing is the new normal,” he adds. “In the aftermath of the new image search experience, image SEO has been severely compromised, and we have no choice but to recommend deprioritizing image SEO when weighed against other search traffic initiatives.”

Of course, there’s always the chance that your images could turn up in universal search results on Google’s web results pages, but even then, personalized “Search Plus Your World” results tend to get the emphasis when applicable.

It’s all made even more interesting due to the fact that Google pitched the changes as good for webmasters, indicating that they would actually drive more traffic to sites.

“The domain name is now clickable, and we also added a new button to visit the page the image is hosted on,” wrote associate product manager Hongyi Li in the announcement. “This means that there are now four clickable targets to the source page instead of just two. In our tests, we’ve seen a net increase in the average click-through rate to the hosting website.”

“The source page will no longer load up in an iframe in the background of the image detail view,” Li added. “This speeds up the experience for users, reduces the load on the source website’s servers, and improves the accuracy of webmaster metrics such as pageviews. As usual, image search query data is available in Top Search Queries in Webmaster Tools.”

It’s possible that some sites are seeing more traffic from the Image Search changes, and just aren’t being as vocal, but there has been an overwhelming amount of complaints since the redesign, and this new study is not doing anything to defend Google’s case.

Of course, Google is all about placing users first (even over webmasters), and they’ll continue to do what they think is best for them. From a user experience perspective, the changes aren’t bad. But that’s little consolation for those who now have to find other ways to get their content in front of an audience.

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Whatever your faith or whatever traditional Mid Winter break you observe, it is always nice to be able to take time out and spend it with special friends and family.

Our Databases and Data mining tools here at simple Leveraging have been working overtime these past few weeks and as part of a special “Twelve Days of Christmas” promotion we are supplying a lot of our High Page Rank Lists at knock down rates but the quality and the exclusivity remains the same i.e. there will only be limited availability to preserve a degree of exclusiveness.

These are also a precursor to the annual “Simple Leveraging Methodology Overhaul” we carry out at this time of year…every year.

The reasons we have remained in existence for so long whilst other groups have come and gone is that we continually (well once if not several times a year) “reinvent” ourselves.

The reason for this being is that though Best Practice in Link Building by and large remains the same, despite what the other “Gurus” claim, it does need “tweaking” from time to time. Sites and particular aspects that worked like “gangbusters” several years ago perhaps aren’t quite as efficient today whilst other basic techniques just steam along nicely working year after year.

Taking all of this into consideration we continually review what is working on our own and client sites, review and listen to what is working amongst our Simple Leveraging colleagues sites and then amalgamate this all together into our core “Simple Leveraging Methodology”.

This sounds all very pretentious I know but what it all boils down to is “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” or “if it is broke then try and understand why”. We then take this information and add it to our basic Simple Leveraging Approach.

It is by doing this that we are able to call upon a wide degree of expertise across the board and recently when Google rolled out the latest in their Penguin Updates I was able to find out pretty quickly who had been hit and why we thought so but more importantly who hadn’t been hit and even more importantly why we thought they had avoided a slap and survived?

We’ve amalgamated all of this and one of our longer standing SLS Members, Blake Webster, has compiled a beautiful set of charts which in principle he has agreed to share but what we’ll do is put them all into a Webinar/Workshop format and then make sure that all those who wish to get this information can do so?

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Now for those who haven’t spotted this. In a nutshell this is what Google Disavow is all about. First up Google hit a site with either an outright penalty in the form of a de-indexing or a 500 place drop because they feel that the site has not conformed to Google Best Practices etc. Either that or they send out a message via Webmaster Tools indicating that there might be problem issues amongst certain of the sites back links and that if they aren’t removed, the Webmaster can fill out a form and inform Google which links the Webmaster would like Google to ignore (yeah right).

Now Google Disavow has the potential of all of the last few Google Updates to be the “real deal” in terms of rewriting the Back Links Landscape totally. It will completely force a rethink at every level of SEO and Link Building.

It has to, as it has been designed purely by the Google FUD Dept to do exactly that. Spread Fear, Uncertainty and Despair right throughout the SEO and IM Community.

It will do so and succeed through the misguided panic reactions of the majority of Link Builders and SEO Practitioners who by their own ignorance will fall into the hands of Google and do their work for them.

On that ground alone it has been designed and executed to perfection with a degree of sneaky brilliance that we have not seen Google come out with for a long time.

For the past few years we’ve seen Google repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot (whilst quite often opening their mouths to change those same feet if you don’t mind me splitting several metaphors) but here they’ve executed the big one.

And executed it to perfection.

It’s not the immediate effect that is the danger, it’s not the actual act of entering in and processing the initial “disavow” Data that is going to do the damage. It will be the ramifications of how Google process all this data (and you can bet they have oodles of data processing power to eat this all up) and the incredible potential for collateral damage the like of which we have not seen for years.

Briefly for example, take the following scenario.

Site A has a Back Links Profile that involves Blue Chip content and by and large Blue Chip links from so called Blue Chip sources but in a way that looked at carefully could be construed as Link Building contrary to Google’s T&C’s in that the Links are bought and paid for despite their quality and therefore contrary to Google’s Best Practice Policies. But, due to care and attention to date have hitherto slipped under the radar.

The only problem is that these same link Sources have also been used by Site B who have been slightly less ethical/more aggressive in their Link Building with other sources and they’ve been caught up in the Google trap and been issued with a Warning Letter that tells them to remove their so called “bad links” which due to the way they acquired them they are unable to do.

The way round this is quite simple according to Google (such lovely kind fellows), simple apply the Disavow attribute/submission and Google will process the said links and discount them but they would need all the data and information on these links and their sources and origin first.

Aren’t we so lucky to have such nice wonderful friends in good old Uncle Google?

Hmnn not quite and here’s why.

Google will process the data from Site B and it will analyse ALL of the Links Landscape from Site B, of this you can be 100% GUARANTEED. It will assume that not everyone tells the truth 100% of the time (shucks) and as such will take the view that if the promoters of Site B have been so unethical as to undertake a Link Building Campaign contrary to Google’s T&C’S then surely the logic will be; what about the seemingly perfect immaculate Links coming in from the so called Blue Chip Links and hang on…….all with perfect matching Anchor Phrases and structure.

Wait a minute these couldn’t possibly be contrary to Google’s T&C’S as well could they?

Surely not? They look too good and too respectable…in fact a bit too respectable and bit too good….oh heck problem on the horizon, lets discount these Link Sources as well as they come from seeming unrelated Blogs with funnily enough…..High Page Rank?

Let’s discount the effect of all them.

Knock on effect for this is that Site A who has hitherto escaped Google’s inspection now gets their Links downgraded as a result because they share the same sources albeit unwittingly.

Looks and sounds like collateral damage to me.

Now anyone who thinks that this is all a bizarre trip and flight of unrelated Conspiracy Theory based Fantasy due to yours truly having been exposed to too much sun over the weekend better go back and analyse ALL of Google’s actions over the last few years and consider them in “the round”.

This is the Company who brought us “Personalised Search” but never told us and thereby ended the concept known as the definitive Google No1 – after all No 1 where? Which Data Centre and which territory worldwide?

This is the same Company that told us via Webmaster tools that they couldn’t provide referral data on visits from surfers when they weren’t logged into their Google Accounts due to Data Protection issues. Hang on, this  is the same company that were found a few days afterwards selling this Data to premium Adwords Clients. Hmmnn so much for Data Protection?

Google Disavow is nothing more than a shameless “Snitches Charter”.

It is couched in “cyber altruism of the utmost degree” alongside such other notably inglorious chapters in their history such as when they provided Webmasters, with a button within Webmaster tools that they could use to “rat and grass up” other webmasters if they felt they were doing anything that Google ought to think suspicious.

What a lovely organisation and given last week’s stock market debacle that resulted in the world’s largest one day share price crash of $15 bn – couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of fellows.

Anyway the upshot to us is that this now means that Link Diversity and the Power of Press Releases now becomes even more vital and even more useful.

It’s how SEO Practitioners and Webmaster deal with the Google situation that matters and so far no one is talking about the real potential for damage because no one has thought it through properly yet.

It is in certain quarters but unlikely to be widely available for some time due to the fact that most are unaware of the potential damage.

This is our opportunity. As with all things, these situations can be dealt with as long as you understand the “situation” fully.

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Now conventional wisdom states that currently Google have circa 66% of the US Search Market and arguably much greater worldwide. Yahoo and Bing lag well behind in 2^nd and 3^rd place with approximately 27% between them while Ask and AOL are almost nonexistent (they will of course deny this strongly but then to paraphrase a well known Politico/Journalist quote – “they would say that wouldn’t they”) whilst the new kids on the block, Yandex and Baidu look good outside bets but still have yet to penetrate outside of their own domestic market places in any meaningful manner.

So if we take the above almost as Gospel then you would normally assume that when you get wiped out by Google then traffic, business, in fact any form of meaningful interaction online disappears overnight?

You would certainly think so?

However in one case we had control of earlier this year this was not necessarily the case.

The site in question was caught up as collateral damage in the “Great Penguin Attack of April 2012.”

But, interestingly enough, though turnover was hit it didn’t drop to the same degree or level that the Google Referral traffic did. The reason for this, looking back and analysing the data was that actually there is a huge difference between traffic and surfers visiting from the various Search Engines and this can have a marked effect on your turnover.

If you think of it this way, when you search via the Google Search Portal, you are met with a very minimalist Search Form that subconsciously puts you into the mindset “Research”. It is designed thus, always has been and that was its very early appeal and there is nothing wrong with that.

Conversely, if you look at the Yahoo Portal you are met with so much going on that it screams “interaction” and so by and large you are “in the mood” for clicking and interacting almost from the get go.

With Bing, it is slightly different and this almost is a hangover from the days when Bing (or MSN as it once was) was the Search Engine of default when IE was bolted on as a necessity with all installations of Windows OS. Now due to deregulation, Microsoft can no longer bolt on IE with Windows, the levels have dropped but historically the surfers who visited via MSN were always the most active of the lot.

Anyway to sum up, there is life after Google and that’s before you start to think about some of the other more socially oriented sites out there such as FaceBook or Pinterest.

If someone gave me the choice, lose traffic from Google or Yahoo / Bing?

To be honest with you, we’ve proved a site can survive with damn all Google love, if we lost Yahoo and Bing then that could / would have much more of a financial implication on the bottom line.

Moral of the story after the latest Google putsch?

Spend as much time with your web analytics as you can and find out where the main traffic that’s coming from Yahoo and Bing originates from and concentrate on that in the short term while Google recovers from its latest bout of anti social behaviour.

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However, my one piece of advice at this stage is this. Google updates are always pretty brutal and savage at the outset i.e. the worst is always at the start and things actually get better and better as they realise what gaffs they’ve made and the implications of their screw ups.

It’s a particularly shoddy way of doing business in my mind and they seem to have no concept of the downside in terms of collateral damage of their actions which does tend to make me wonder about the Corporate Ethos at Mountain View in California.

You would have thought that with the so called collection of supposedly “superior cerebral matter” in their company that these updates and their implications would be better thought out but sadly that never appears to be the case.

But back to the initial carnage. This update appears to be more targeted towards low grade EMD Domains (Exact Match Domains such as www.campingsuppliesbelfast.com if ever such a domain were said to exist) with damn all in the way of content and loaded with Adsense or some other form of CPA / CPC Media.

Now no doubt the moment I have sent this Newsletter out, I will be beset with correspondence from folks all claiming that their collections of similar sites have remained OK but for the majority of folks with these types of sites in their Portfolio it is now looking more and more like a disaster.

I was reading on one bulletin board of one Webmaster who used to have approximately 50 such sites and as of this morning had lost 45.

Ouch.

So what is the upside?

Well sadly there is no upside but the only thing that can be said is that in most cases the damage is always at it’s more severe in the first few days (we’re approximately in Day3 of the rollout) and then things start to improve as the Search Engineers slowly start to tweak and adjust the algorithm. The side effects of this being that sites that have not totally been wiped out but only devalued should then start to see some drift back up towards where they were if you go back to basics.

We had one major client site really hit badly by the Penguin and lost a phenomenal amount of Google love but since then we’ve seen a 30% month on month growth of Google activity and interest and though we’re still not where we should have been we are certainly a good way down the road to claiming back our traffic levels and SERPS.

So the moral of the story?

Don’t panic – it’s too late to panic anyway as the damage if any, is already done so the best you can do if you’ve been hit is take the phone off the hook, tell your secretary that you’re in a meeting and front up to the situation. If your client sites have been hit then for god’s sake deal with it positively and don’t try and hide the fact. The clients will know and will certainly think an awful lot less of you if all you do is an impression of an online Ostrich.

Gather all your relative details and tell them you are working on it and then as I said, take the phone off the hook and get researching. It is absolutely imperative that you know the very worst of the damage even if the client is only partially aware.

Now is the time when we “SEO Practitioners” really start to “earn our corn” and I’d wager that all situations are usually reversible it just depends upon how you go about it.

It’s a pain, a complete and utter “pain in the proverbials” but that’s life when you deal with the big G.

As I said earlier, I loathe them for the shoddy way they do business and perhaps in the long term this long awaited tie up between Microsoft’s Bing / Yahoo partnership and either Yandex or Baidu might force Google to start to behave a little bit more responsibly.

One can but hope.

Any questions then fire away and as usual, here at Leveraging Central, we always love to hear your comments.

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Boys and Girls…stop concentrating on exactly what Google are doing because they specialize in several things. Firstly doing things when they are least expected and secondly screwing up whatever it is that they are/were planning to do.

The only absolute you can be assured of with Google is that there are going to be loads of collateral damage with lives ruined across the board. That’s the way they work because they can’t be bothered to either test things properly or think things through properly either.

Sorry to be the bearer of such gloomy tidings but I trust Google about a far as I can throw them.

We’ve got a couple of webinars coming up shortly where we are going to explain and examine diversification so that when the next Google update hits you’ll be in a position to sit back and just stick two fingers up at them (if you are not from the UK, that’s a very rude sign and they deserve it).

Concentrate on your own activities and keep your head down, that’s all you can do with Google because if they are going to hit you either by design or otherwise there is nothing you can do about it, till it’s happened and then you work on it to repair the damage.

All we can pray for is that either Yahoo / Microsoft get their act together or Yandex or Baidu finally make a break through to give Google the message that they can’t just run around like a 900lb Gorilla with a bad dose of Haemorrhoids.

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The video blog can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx3DdsDUC0A

Any queries about the packets / packages then email me and we can get you sorted.

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Well first up, I get asked regularly about has SLS and its network been affected by the Penguin Update and the answer it would appear (touch wood he says) is that we seem to be OK at the moment as we do appear to have maintained our “low key” below the radar status.

I ran a test for a client last week on one particular keyword phrase and after the Press Releases had appeared in the top 5 slots in Google (well 4 out of the top 5), positions 7-10 were occupied by our Bookmark Directories.

Also I spoke to one of our longer standing SLS members the other evening and we were talking about SEO and Promotion in general and how sites were starting to come back post penguin and I mentioned that in our case we hadn’t changed anything in terms of promotions Post Penguin and that the one site we did have that had been affected was now showing a month on month increase in Google traffic by about 15% for the past 4 months.

The moral of the story it would appear was that yes you couldn’t deny the Penguin Update had had an effect but that by just keeping on with the basics, we had managed to survive without buying the plethora of “shiny new toys” or reports that always seem to appear post a Google Update. One wonders whether in fact what some folks would do if there never were any Google updates at all.

Ok, another question that came in recently was “what the heck is Back Links Heaven all about”?

Simple, loads of places (probably more than any other source) where you can put your own back links.

I recorded a brief video guide about Back Links Heaven here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP7KlGdiqK8

We still have a few packages of the first six Volumes of Back Links Heaven available at $45, which effectively prices them at $7.50 per volume for 2.5K Links.

The platforms covered in the first six volumes ranged included:

AEForums

UseBB

PunBB

ESyndicat

phpDug

MoinMoin (wiki Platform)

Also as a quick Weekend Promo for SLS users and Members we have the following happening.

A few JV partners have approached us to see if we could put together a brief mini-series of Back Links Heaven and we have and it’s comprised of the following.

Volume 1 will contain links from 10 different Platforms and the OTO that will be on offer only to those who have bought the deal will offer 30 Urls from each of the 10 Platforms for $35. These will all be links from Sites with a minimum Home Page Rank of 4. The sites will include the following platforms:

PunBB

VBulletin (Blogs here not forums)

MoinMoin,

Elgg

ExpressionEngine,

TikiWiki

DokuWiki

JomSocial,

SMF,

phpFox.

There are some nice unusual Software Platforms there as we are expanding rapidly our range of Platforms on offer in Back Links Heaven

These packets will only be available as a OTO or to members of Simple Leveraging so anyone who wants some links from some nice PR4+ sites (mix and match of NoFollow and Dofollow) then send over the $35 via PayPal to info@simpleleveraging.com and we’ll get you sorted.

For those who wish a bit more coverage and want to go for the Proper Volumes of Back Links Heaven and want the half price offer then send over the $45 to info@simpleleveraging.com and we’ll get you sorted.

In the meantime have a great weekend.

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First up were a few questions about some of the software platforms that we covered namely ESyndicat, the wiki platforms Moinmoin, TikiWiki and Docuwiki and then the Social Platform JomSocial.

First up ESyndicat. ESyndicat powers by and large by far and above the largest number of web Directories around and from a Link Builders perspective is actually extremely useful as long as you know where these Directories are. By and large they prove dofollow links and therefore should be part of every Link Builders armoury. The thing that you of course have to remember is that is unless you include them as part of an overall Campaign as a tier and make that supported then it can be sometimes a struggle to get links indexed. That having been said however, as we discussed a few months ago if you take the Urls that your links are on and either ping those Urls or ( as I prefer) compile them into an RSS Feed and then feed them through Yahoo Pipes and Google Feed reader then you’ll get them indexed quite easily. For those who want to investigate ways of getting articles and links submitted fairly quickly then there are a number of submitters around that will do this for you.

The most important thing to remember is that these Directories (along with other directories) are superb for diluting any potential concentration issues you might have inherited or been exposed to via the Penguin Update. As a tier within your overall Campaigns they are great as long as they are supported and this is obviously where our little ‘ol network at SLS comes into its own. The other thing about ESyndicat is that there are enough of them around (if you know where to look) with reasonable Home Page PR to make them extremely useful for our purposes.

Ok, next question was about the three wiki platforms, Moinmoin, TikiWiki and Docuwiki. Now these Wiki Platforms are not found to the same degree as MediaWiki which is very much the “Industry Standard” (or certainly the most common). Now unlike MediaWiki which provides virtually 100% nofollow links by default, there are some Moinmoin wikis which are dofollow, a much greater percentage of TikiWiki and virtually all Docuwiki are dofollow.

Because of the fact that these platforms have not had as much exposure as MediaWiki to the wiles of Link Builders (euphemism for Spammers) they are (at present) much more useful for our purposes at the moment and now is the time to get in now “under the radar”, get your accounts set up and then develop carefully.

Basically it’s the same deal as with Media Wiki in terms of usage and development but much more valuable because of the rarity value i.e. 25K potential Media Wikis and only 1.5 K DocuWikis etc.

Lastly, JomSocial. Well JomSocial is the social network application that runs on the Joomla CMS Platform. So the upshot of this is if you are running Joomla as a CMS Platform (Joomla for those who don’t know is effectively the grown up version of Mambo) which is one of the free Open Source php applications then you can use this as your software to set up and run your own versions of either a Social Network or Blog. It’s a great application and allows users to post dofollow links.

OK perhaps not as wide spread as other set ups but with the added advantage that as it runs on Joomla as its source engine, the upshot of this is that a lot of the sites it powers have very good Page Rank. Approximately 20% of the installations we have tracked down run on a Home Page Rank of over 3.

So there you have it. Five newish platforms (OK 4 but with added awareness of ESyndicat) and as per a request from a JV Partner to put some information out, we have put together some packs of a very exclusive deal together exclusively for SLS Readers.

Because of the exclusive nature of the three wiki platforms and also JomSocial, we are only making 10 copies of this deal available. This package contains over 650 very exclusive Urls containing some nice EDU and Academic Domains where you can place more dofollow links than you can nofollow.

This deal is available for $50 each and is available on a first come first served basis.

So to sum up, 650 Domain urls from some very rare and hitherto under exposed software platform / Sites now available for the first 10 takers.

Those interested, send the $50 via PayPal to info@simpleleveraging.com and we’ll get you sorted out with the Urls. These Urls are rare and are difficult to source.

Usual deal gang, any questions feel free to ask away and we’ll get as much info through to you as we possibly can.

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We’ve also just put live this Month’s free High PR Authority Forums list into the Premium Downloads area as well. This contains 50 EDU, Academic and Gov Forums where you can place and manage your own inbound links. The Home Page PR on these ranges from PR7 to PR 2.

Let’s all try and use these as responsibly as we can.

We’ll also be putting live some AA Blog Urls for Comments that have just been sent to us. These involve some EDU and Gov Urls as well. As soon as we’ve processed these they will also go live in the Premium Downloads area.

As with the Forum Urls, these are free of charge to members with current live subscriptions. It’s our way of saying Thank You for being members.

The members Premium Download area can be found here:

http://simpleleveraging.com/slschat/index.php/board,55.0.html

We’ve also been updating various scripts on the Forum so any problems accessing these downloads then get in touch and we’ll sort you out asap.

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