The New Google and Link Building Strategies

[HHI Golf Guy]

By now most of you have heard that Google has begun to de-index what they consider junk pages - including links pages. And if Google drops your links pages and all of those other sites that have link pages pointing to your site, well, you lose backlinks. And less links could lead to a drop in your search engine rankings. It's as simple as that.

While I still believe that mini-article exchanges from a sub domain of your web site are the best way to build links, I also realize that this is way too much work for 99.99% of web site owners. They want a quick fix. And since my client sites need links, I still need at least a few links from these site owners.

If you want to know my take on how to replace some of the links that you may lose from de-indexing, you can read my real estate SEO blog (http://www.blog.thekosloffgroup.com/).

It's important to note that this de-indexing still appears to be ongoing, and from what I have seen the impact on SERP's appears to be minor. HOWEVER, this may be temporary. Google may be finishing their de-indexing and then roll out a big SERP change.

Some people have said that they have seen some of their link pages dropped from the index, then re-appear a week or two later. That may be the case, but the only way to tell if that is really what is happening is if you checked all of your pages across all of Google's datacenters. If you're only checking Google.com you may be getting one of the DC's that has been updated with the new de-indexing routine, and when you check tomorrow you may be seeing a datacenter that has not been updated.

Anyway, feel free to let me know your comments or questions.

[HHI Golf Guy]

BTW, if you do read my blog post you may come to the conclusion that my answer to the Google de-indexing/link building problem is rather simple. You're right - it is simple. But so is a lot of SEO.

Too many people try to read too much into every single nuance of search engines. That's a good way to drive yourself crazy.

[Ralph]

HHI Golf Guy,

Am I getting cynical or is this a way to drive people to your blog? Comes with age.

[HHI Golf Guy]

HHI Golf Guy,

Am I getting cynical or is this a way to drive people to your blog? Comes with age.

Your cynical :) I could care less if my blog gets 5 visits a day or 500 visits a day.

The truth is that I am a moderator on a number of forums, and participate in a few others. Rather than type the same thing over and over again or put an 1,000 word post on a forum it's just easier to point people to my blog pages.

Also, I get hundreds of web site visitors every day, and not many of them visit these forums. Posting this info on my blog gives them access to recent news and information.

[Ralph]

Your artical in your blog is great. Are you hearing of changes in SERP's with the changes in indexing? So far we have not seen any differences. We have one client site which we have lost the indexing of the link pages but they still have PR's. We have seen our SERP do +/- 2 positions in the last month, but that is normal. It is a large worldwide vacation rental site, and is similar to the competitors above us. We generally stay on page 2 and have only ventured on to page one a couple times. Keep loosing sleep thinking that one of the links has a link to a secret porn site that takes over your computer and all that stuff.

Keep writing, your thoughts are thought provoking.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Your artical in your blog is great. Are you hearing of changes in SERP's with the changes in indexing?

Thanks, Ralph.

You bring up a great point here. Even with all of the millions of pages that appear to be dropped in the index there have been no huge changes in the SERP's. You would think that with all of those links suddenly "gone" we would see large changes in rankings, but that's not the case. Like you, I have seen some normal fluctuations - even on a single datacenter.

Could it be that all of these dropped links pages were merely suppressed from the viewable index, but were still used in SERP calculations? That certainly would appear to be the case. But I'm just guessing on that part.

Right now I think that Google is screwed up. For example, take a look at this from one of our client web sites:

When I go to Google (64.233.179.104 was the DC that G is sending me to now) and type in site:www.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com to list all of the pages, the description on the home page is the DMOZ title. But when I search for Hilton Head real estate the site comes up at #2 with the correct title tag.

It looks like we can all speculate and all sit and wait to see what happens next. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to be proactive in my link building efforts. I know that Google needs to combat link spam. So I am creating mini-article exchange pages on sub domains for my clients and I will do some site wide linking. In the end, even if these things don't make a huge impact in SERP's, I know that if done right they are not "tricky" or "black hat" methods that will hurt the sites.

Everyone should keep checking their own sites for pages indexed and SERP's. Just remember that when you check the data, always make a note of which data center you are looking at. This way you are comparing apples to apples.

For those that don't know which datacenter you are viewing at a given time, after you query Google move your cursor over the "cached" link on any result. In the bottom left of your web browser you will see the IP address of the datacenter.

[Chief Tutor]

I am torn. We have always kept our link exchanges limited to a few sites we can trust and who meet our guidelines...custom site, indexed etc...

As a result, these pages could be the considered to offer value to a website. In the end though, I think that they will get dumped just like the link bombing pages created by others.

Your mini article pages are a great idea, however as we all know, there are very few clients who will put in the effort to make that happen.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone listened to our advise :rolleyes:.....Our lives would be so much easier.

[Linsey]

What do you think about links embedded in the articles themselves? For example, instead of a couple of links placed after an article (for more information, go here, etc), you'd put a link within the article text. For example, I've always liked the design of Harvard homes <-- link. The difference I can see is that you'll have to tailor your mini-article to match your links, but do you think it'd make any difference SEO wise?

[HHI Golf Guy]

What do you think about links embedded in the articles themselves?

That's what the mini article concept is all about.

[Ralph]

Linsey,

I think G sees a link as a link. We put it in a format for our clients to see and maybe find useful. I get the feeling that the bot just see other URL's and can compare backlinks, but does not spend time looking at the slight variations we with our ego develope. We change the verbage in our links between weekly and monthly, but I really question if the bot is compairing each word from last weeks. I think we may give a lot more cognative functions to the bot then it deserves. Think of the amount of time it spends on a site, what it is reviewing and what it has to store when looking for duplication, etc.

We have been getting scanned at least weekly on all our sites. Two of the sites are huge. I may be living in the dark ages, but if G is doing that for every site that can come up on every search, the data tracking could be cumbersome. I think there genus is more in what they can do while in my machines than what they do compairing your machine to mine and what we have done together. Their filters may flag a porn site or notice I wrote an article that I sent out to a group last month and resent it to another group today. As long as I have been in business, I see the success coming from the KISS method over complexity.:confused:

[HHI Golf Guy]

I think G sees a link as a link.

You're right - a link is a link. But links are not what has changed with the Big Daddy update. Changes in link strategy are a bi-product of G's recent changes.

Remember, Big Daddy was not an algorithm update. G's algorithm has stayed the same. What did change with Big Daddy was the infrastructure of the Google search platform.

So now, a link is a link, but a page is not a page. You can gather all of the links that you want, but if G considers the page that they are on a junk page they won't place that page in their index. When that happens to a site that has a link to you, your link is non-existent as far as the ranking algo is concerned.

Of course, you can build all of the content driven, link resources that you want on your own pages and sub domains and it won't do you any good in your own rankings. You need to convince other site owners to do the same.

[Ralph]

Hii Golf Guy,
I would agree with you 100% if things with G were normal, ie last summer. If the deindexing means the links on those pages have dissapeared as back links to the reciprocal link, their SERP should take a hit. This has been going on for weeks now and I do not see any SEO's looking for tall building to jump off of..., yet. The problem is also so widespread from low to high SERP sites, low to high PR's that it defiles logic. I am more and more leaning towards this being a G problem. Matt C made comments about what was happening with their changes a few weeks ago. Then he left for vacation and decided to become a book reviewer. We have been cache at least 3 times on all our sites since the heavy deindexing started. Everything works as normal except on one site, where our level 3 links pages were deindexed. Therefore, you can not search and find our level 3 pages of links. I would think that you normally would end up with higher SERP pages on a search. That makes sence, if I am looking for a vacation rental in Orlando, I really do not want to end up on someone's Florida vacation rental links page. As long as no other problems arrise from the change, I have no problem with them not indexing the links pages.

I run onnnnnn.

[Linsey]

Oh, I see -- I wasn't quite sure whether the mini-articles had the links /in/ them or just after them. I misread the example.

I think I'm going to keep an eye on Google for a while -- and what it does with my link pages. (None of them have more than five links on a page, mind, but they certainly aren't content heavy.)

[Ralph]

Linsey,

I agree, we just sit tight and let things go were they go.

HHI Golf Guy,

"Remember, Big Daddy was not an algorithm update. G's algorithm has stayed the same. What did change with Big Daddy was the infrastructure of the Google search platform."

You really know how to keep a person awake at night. If G has determined that my links pages are "Junk" (I prefer irrelevant, I have to much time invested in these sites), and the indexes were as they were, I think you agree, we should see major changes in SERPs of the HP. I spent some of yesterday looking at the SERPs of our competition and see no changes. Some have the same deindexing problem we do. I was under the impression that links help develope your PR which worked through in some way with many other objects to develope your SERP. So far the deindexing seams to be unto itself. It eliminates 100000's maybe 1000000's of pages that no longer have to be scanned. Let my bonus be based on the computer time saved. Eliminates the moral gambling and meds problem. Big advertising budgets. Let my next bonus be based on the new add sales.

Brings me to the question. Are not your mini-articles long link descriptions? Are we working towards another round of one upsmanship. Seems to me I remember a theory about time and things becoming more chaotic. Just so it keeps us employed. Have you tried to have a mini-article published?