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Axandra
news archive: 15 January 2008
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| Welcome
to the latest issue of the Search
Engine Facts newsletter.
This week, we're taking a look
at Google's new position 6 penalty
filter. Has it been applied
to your website?
In the news: Google releases
Checkout Trends, Microsoft buys
Fast and more.
Table of contents:
We hope that
you enjoy this newsletter
and that it helps you to get
more out of your website.
Please pass this newsletter
on to your friends.
Best regards,
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| 1.
Google's new position 6 penalty |
A discussion in
an online webmaster forum indicates
that Google might have invented
a new ranking penalty for websites
that rank well for popular search
terms.
What has happened?
During the last few weeks,
some webmasters noticed that
some of their long term position
1 or position 2 rankings in
Google suddenly ranked at
position 6.
The problem affected well
established websites with
a long history. The dropped
web pages had long time rankings
for popular search terms,
usually on position 1.
Why has Google done
this?
It is not exactly clear yet
which factors cause that ranking
drop in Google's results.
There are two theories:
- Google now considers
usage data when calculating
the rankings.
- Google now has a better
understanding of word and
phrase relationships.
If different usage data is
the reason for the change
then web pages with a higher
click-through rate would get
higher positions. However,
some webmasters reported that
even web pages with high click
through rates have been downranked.
The penalty also seems to
affect web pages that are
listed with an appealing title
and a description that is
very relevant to the search
term so it might be that the
click-rate is not taken into
account.
 We
think that it's more likely
that the word and phrase relationships
are the reason for the ranking
drops. It seems that web pages
with too many inbound links
using exactly the searched
keyword as the anchor text
were affected by the filter.
If the link to a special
web page always uses exactly
the same anchor text then
the word variety is probably
extremely low compared to
the competing websites in
the top results. That indicates
a manipulation of the anchor
texts and Google applies the
filter.
What can you do to
avoid that filter?
When you build links to your
website, make sure that you
use different but related
keywords for the links to
your site. If you overuse
the same link text, Google
might discover a manipulation.
If you use different but related
keywords, then ranking algorithms
will consider your web page
relevant to a special topic.
Use IBP's inbound
link analyzer to get further
information about the inbound
link structure that leads to
top 10 rankings.
Back
to table of contents - Visit
Axandra.com
|
| 2.
Search engine news of the week |
Google
releases Checkout Trends
Google Checkout Trends reveals
the sales data of merchants
in Google's Checkout sales
network. Google Checkout Trends
helps webmasters to get an
idea about the success of
products.
Microsoft
to buy Fast
"This morning (central
European time) it was announced
that Microsoft wants to buy
the Norway based enterprise
search company Fast Search
and Transfer. [...]
Fast once had one of the
best web search engines on
the planet. AlltheWeb was
first bought by Overture,
and then Overture was bought
by Yahoo!"
Google
AdSense has the power to lower
your stock price
"Israeli email marketer
IncrediMail apparently relies
so much on AdSense that, when
it told investors early this
morning that Google was barring
it and disabling its ads,
the company’s stock
price opened 40 percent down."
Search engine newslets
- Google sees surge in
iPhone traffic.
- Search is no longer the main feature
of Google Desktop.
- Yahoo to benefit from
ad demand.
- Parked domain traffic: does
it convert?
- Why call centers & live
chat are killing paid search
conversions.
- MicroHoo? YaBay? No
Deal!
- ASCII art in
Google AdWords.
- The search party.
|
Google's
Eric Schmidt: "What kills
a company is not competition
but arrogance. We control our
fate."
"There has never been
a company whose influence
extended so far over the media
landscape, and which had the
ability to disrupt so many
existing business models.
And its competitors share
a vague worry that Google
is more or less out to rule
the world."
I'm
not ranking in Live Search, what
can I do?
"These factors include
web page content, the number
and quality of websites that
link to your pages, and the
relevance of your website’s
content to query terms. So
let’s work through the
possible issues and what you
can do."
Editor's
note: You can also use IBP's Top
10 Optimizer to optimize
your web pages for Live.com.
Of course, the optimizer also
works with Google, Yahoo and
other major search engines.
You'll get specific advice
for each search engine and
each keyword.
Trying
to fine-tune Yahoo
"Yahoo’s audience
it still growing. But its
lead in important areas has
eroded. With 136 million people
in the United States visiting
its sites in November, Yahoo
remains the most popular property
on the Web."
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Axandra.com
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