Google's Panda Update 2.0 And Domain Ranking Weight

[Seraphim]

The early reports across the webmaster world are that the Google Panda 2.0 update (April 11, 9:00am PST) has indeed turned down the domain based keyword ranking weight in the search results (for .com, .net, and .org). I'm seeing this in effect. Others I'm talking to behind the scenes are seeing this in effect as well. Google hasn't confimed this one way or another, but I would expect some sort of confirmation once the dust settles.

In the run up to this recent update was a mid-March YouTube video published by Google's spam-Czar Matt Cutts. Towards the end of the video he seems to subtly attempt to equate exact keyword match domain names with something less than clean, i.e. the "Viagra" example he uses. In light of this update it would seem that exact match keyword domains are now the new search spam, or the new dirty SEO technique. This guy just declared war on the domain industry. Soft subtle hints followed by the iron fist is how Google rolls, I hope you weren't expecting a more direct mode of communication from these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI

It's shocking that while this is taking place all you can hear in the domain industry is crickets... This latest turn of events could very well turn out to have the largest impact on the domain aftermarket in the history of the domain aftermarket. The corporations that showed up late to the domain game seem to have finally been able to pressure Google into leveraging their quirky domain based brands over your exact keyword match domains.

If you consider yourself a domainer, if this is how you make a living, then I would strongly advise you to take a close look at this newly unfolding situation. Sadly the domainer blogger world doesn't even seem to have caught on yet (not surprising though). This is big news folks.

 

[stock_post]

When the big money and big G get together you can not do much.

 

[Seraphim]

When the big money and big G get together you can not do much.

I always knew that the lesser competitive search niches would continue to get more corporatized and that it would become harder and harder to compete for free search traffic. 6 years ago I saw a microcosm of corporate keyword take-over back when I was ranked #5 for the keyword "jewelry" (something I wouldn't have a chance in hell of achieving in this day and age). I did not however expect Google to directly attack keyword domains, I simply thought that small publishers would get naturally squeezed out without having to be that draconian. I once again underestimated Google's ruthlessness.

 

[stock_post]

I once again underestimated Google's ruthlessness.

No one really understand that..

When a street view camera can tap info from private networks.. it is beyond any once imagination.. What google is doing with the data they have.

 

[Theo]

I found this discussion - 13 pages and counting.

 

[Seraphim]

I found this discussion - 13 pages and counting.

I never thought I'd live to see the day that WebmasterWorld members starting dissing Google. In my humble opinion they have been the most pro-Google forum on the web. Times are changing though and I'm happy to see it.

 

[clasione]

There was some talk about this back in December where google stated that 'bluewidget' domains shouldn't necessary always rank for 'blue widgets' and they will be looking closer at this in the future... Looks as though Panda included these efforts.

Keyword domains always made good sense to me.
Keyword Keyword .com will in most cases be primarily about "Keyword Keyword".

I hate the idea of this as it badly undermines the domain industry.......
It reduces the value of domain assets.... Just a strange thing to do over spam.
Mostly I agree with changes from Google but this is unwise in my opinion - just get better at fighting spam......

It is interesting to see that the domain industry hasn't reacted much at all to this....
They have just lowered the value of domainers assets because they are having difficulty measuring them.

 

[Mark Talbot]

What google is doing with the data they have.

I think you just made their point.

 

[Seraphim]

In my own experience as a search user most spam is not hosted on keyword domains, and especially not on high value .coms. It's too bad that Matt Cutts isn't willing to clarify "who" is complaining about domain keyword weight.

The spam sources that I keep encountering over and over again year after year mostly seem to come by way of free blogspot.com or wordpress domains. Many times the search spam source is Wikipedia itself. Other times it's eHow, mahalo.com, ezineartciles.com, or about.com. Many of these corporate content farms will steal your content, drop a nofollow authorship link buried somewhere near the bottom of the page, and then outrank you for your own content.

 

[stock_post]

eHow.com is still very strong - i just checked some of my good sites and eHow.ocm out ranks me.

 

[Theo]

Here are some metrics and charts.

 

[Seraphim]

Here are some metrics and charts.

What's not in those stats is that Wikipedia is now enjoying an 8,000% increase in daily visits.

Joking aside, I'm not seeing any noticeable rankings loss for eHow.com, though I am accessing Google.com from Poland (perhaps my results are way different, or perhaps the changes still haven't gone fully international).

 

[stock_post]

Joking aside, I'm not seeing any noticeable rankings loss for eHow.com, though I am accessing Google.com .

I checked from US on Google.com -- eHow is coming up for keywords that they don't have good info..

In some cases more than one listing in top 10
(unless they used to have four listings in the 1st page - I am not sure eHow lost any ranking..

 

[south]

Here are some metrics and charts.

wise geek down 74%

Good. Always annoys me when they can outrank me on some of my keywords, and yet they have 1 page articles splattered with adsense way above and beyond the TOS for the rest of us.

 

[Aleksandar]

wise geek down 74%

Good. Always annoys me when they can outrank me on some of my keywords, and yet they have 1 page articles splattered with adsense way above and beyond the TOS for the rest of us.

As well as it should be.

I'm also very annoyed by them. I found them for a lot of different terms that I'm targeting. They are outranking me for a spot or two usually.

I figured the index (page) age and overall domain/site authority has a lot to do with it, but still. Enough is enough.

 

[David G]

The numbers do not make sense since the losers far outnumber the winners but overall internet traffic would likely be the same.

It's possible wikipedia and .gov sites are getting much of the traffc lost by the others.

 

[tetrapak]

I saw the effect go live yesterday. I lost first position on a 60k exact match keyword (1.5k uniques per day just from that), BUT as I have 2k+ unique written (not generated) pages on the site, they all gained a little, which still puts it in a good position and actually gained traffic. The very annoying part is that the domain I chose for the project was still based on the exact match bonus, which was the only way to beat the no 1. site for the keyword as they had 3 years of advantage (think of backlinks). I think it's a very radical change and in many cases absolutely not fair. Especially people like me who bought these exact match .com's for premium prices.

 

[Theo]

I think we need some actual domain examples to gauge the results. Maybe list them with some symbol characters in-between to protect them from big, evil Google itself.

 

[Seraphim]

Looking at some of the serps that I'm partially familiar with, I'm seeing Travel.com bumped down 2 spots for "travel". Jewelry.com is now #2 for "jewelry" and I'm certain they were #1 pre-Panda. Forex.com still holds the #1 spot for "forex". Lawyer.com seems to have dropped 2 spaces for "lawyer" since last I checked. A lot of city and country geo .coms seem to have dropped 1 - 3 spots. I could have sworn that palmsprings.com was #1 for "palm springs", now it's #3 in my datacenter.

I have no idea how widely my Google.com results vary from what you guys are seeing.

 

[Theo]

Ok, so PalmSprings.com is at #7 for me.
Travel.com is at #12 and onto page 2!
Jewelry.com is at #7.
Forex.com is at #1.
Lawyer.com is at #5.