“Dewey” Update May Simply Be An Improved Detection of Bad Linking
After several sleepness nights of trying to understand the big algorithm change, I realized that we may have been running around in circles, flooding the webmasterworld forums with questions, when all along, the answer may be just right under our noses.
A quick summary of the so-called Dewey update (for the sake of those non-SEOs who find themselves on this site because they’re searching for a pink gadget or something, blpht) :
- Drastic Google SERP movements were noticed starting late February to early March.
- Rankings and indexed pages across data centers have been fluctuating.
- Various affected sites dropped their rankings (from 1st page to 6th page)
- Some have got their traffic and ranking back, some haven’t.
- While Matt Cutts asked for feedback and offered to answer inquiries, there was not a word of confirmation or denial that the was indeed an algo update.
- Forums are endless, until now.
Turns out, this whole thing may simply be a case of penalizing bad linking patterns. The case study in Google Webmaster Help Forum (which started Feb 22) showed the same symptoms — all rankings dropped to about 6 pages down, causing traffic and revenue drop. Apparently, the diagnosis for that one particular case study — and let me just say it helped a lot that Matt Cutts came out to give his two cents — revolved mostly around the bad network of paid links, reciprocal links, and links from non-related sites (in this case, porn sites).
To make the long story short (lesson learned, definitely), Google may be simply improving their way of detecting bad linking patterns (not like we’re not aware of that little detail.) Hence, the tactics that used to work for you may not work anymore. So if you’ve been hit by what you thought was a “mean” algorithm update, then you may be doing something wrong — consciously or unconsciously. Are you buying links perhaps? Or relying too much on similar sources for links? Or sponsoring Wordpress themes?
Time to clean up those link profiles. And don’t you wait to be penalized before doing something. Prevention is, after all, still always better than cure.
As for “Dewey”, I think we better put that keyword to rest for now, before innocent people start reading about a Google algorithm change when they’re looking for dewey decimal systems.
ate riz, pano po gumawa ng website?
i-email niyo na lang po yung sagot niyo sa e-mail add ko.
darwinfr11@yahoo.com
Yeah, I felt Dewey hard! LOL
Hi Riz,
I love your blog. I am planning to put up my own blog soon but I am still learning the basics before I fully plunge myself in. I would like to know about getting my blog hosted from one of the hosting services in the net. I am eyeing Dreamhost as my hosting service. They have a package of $9.95 per month. I would like to ask your expertise if this $9.95/month hosting services thing do not have any hidden charges, like I might get additional charges of something every month on top of the monthly package. Your input would help me a lot.
I’ll keep visiting from now on. Love your blog theme.
Vic – a mom
Mama Rhiz, what’s with sponsoring Wordpress themes? Should that be considered a black hat tactic?
So Dewey Update pla ang name ng algo update ngayun ng google thanks sa info ^_^ ung mga music site ko di naman affected mas gumanda nga bigla ang rank nya sa SERP and tumaas ang pagerank nya. un nga lang yung ibang niche especially yung mga blog ko biglang nag decreased yung traffic.
btw ate riz, ako ung owner ng makulit.net tanda mo pa ako?
well down na po kasi yung makulit.net eh. pwede po bang paki palitan na lang ung url ng http://www.himig.net ? or link exchange po tayo sa bago kong site na panay christian song ang content http://christian-song.info ^_^ thanks po. ganda pa din ng lay-out ng blog mo.
Hi Vic,
Just a word of caution, I used to have dreamhost as my hosting provider but some issue with the level of service forced me to move on to another hosting provider.
Ms Riz,
Regarding the sponsored themes thing. I just need to clarify, what if the sites that use the themes are related to your site?
Hi Noel,
Then maybe good for you. There are professional sites that offer paid themes, and because the themes are paid, there’s some form of control. The thing with open-source is, anyone can use your stuff without your control. If you’re offering your themes for free, I think you have to make sure you monitor which sites are using your theme, and if their content is not in any way illegal to search engines.
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