Google Lost the Plot

**GreyWing** · 26-02-12, 04:19 PM

I have given up trying to figure out what is going on at Google. Just had another site banned / punished by them (EasyLoans.co.uk) so that now joins "QuickLoans.co.uk" in the sin bin. Both totally natural sites, little inbound links if any and content written by degree educated content writers. Compare that to xquickloans.co.uk who were second for over a month, now 5th, with little content and 250 inbound links from Russian porn sites.

Speaking with another member here today who has also had their sites banned, it appears Google are on some kind of power mission to piss off legitimate sites.

**Fish** · 26-02-12, 06:08 PM

I used to build aff sites like anything, set em up & forget them. Some were OK in goog, some took a hit. Overall however it was worth the quantity over quality approach.

This year so far I have spent more on article content for 3 new sites than I did for any of the old one's and guess what? they each are dropping from goog serps like there's no tomorrow... go figure.

Feed driven sites I think are a primary target and it would appear it is only a matter time (unless well established, good visitor numbers, backlinks etc) before your site bends over and takes a good shafting from ggle

**boxfish** · 27-02-12, 09:16 AM

I just had a scan at the quickloans site and I think it's fairly easy to see why it's not ranking.

Obviously paid links, nearly identical anchor text, every link is to the homepage, no external links to internal pages, no internal linking between pages, target term at start of majority of page titles.

Although you have decent links and decent content you've not constructed them into a legit looking site. I'm not saying paid links are bad, but such blatant paid links, on their own, all with the same anchor text, all pointing to the homepage is a big red flag to me.

**GreyWing** · 28-02-12, 12:13 AM

Cheers Ian, as per the reply via pm.

Just had a quick email with Google and they say there is no punishment currently hanging over Quickloans.co.uk, so I guess it has just dropped 100 places over night for no reason. I guess they do have a very tough job trying to fend off everyone trying to bypass their system. Very fustrating though......

**atlas** · 28-02-12, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by GreyWing

it appears Google are on some kind of power mission to piss off legitimate sites.

Nah, they just hate small webmasters and affiliate websites.

In the last year I think I've seen more websites get penalised in Google than I saw in the previous 10 years.

**GreyWing** · 28-02-12, 03:07 AM

Just reading the complaints thread on the Google forum, people laying off staff left right and centre because of Google changes. One guy has laid off 4 members of staff from his Press Release firm whilst the 8 sites above him are scraping his content and have adsense plastered all over them.

People also mentioning what you said about small sites having no chance in Google these days, just getting swamped by bug guys and those that have budgets with adwords and accounts with adsense.

What ever Google have done over the last year seem to be peeing legit sites off

**Chippy** · 28-02-12, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by GreyWing

Cheers Ian, as per the reply via pm.

Just had a quick email with Google and they say there is no punishment currently hanging over Quickloans.co.uk, so I guess it has just dropped 100 places over night for no reason. I guess they do have a very tough job trying to fend off everyone trying to bypass their system. Very fustrating though......

The same thing happened to me, lost all rankings, asked google and they said there was nothing worng, but could be to do with one of there thousands of updates, check your sites, another panda update has been released.
http://searchengineland.com/google-c...medium=twitter

**aZooZa** · 28-02-12, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Chippy

The same thing happened to me, lost all rankings, asked google and they said there was nothing worng, but could be to do with one of there thousands of updates, check your sites, another panda update has been released.
http://searchengineland.com/google-c...medium=twitter

Many thanks for that link. I follow that site when I have time - I've just seen that they have an RSS feed which I think might be useful here, so will test that out.