I checked that “make money online” search today Jennifer and others noticed. It’s not on Page One anymore. It’s rankings have dropped… to the first result on Page 2. Big woop. It’s still a totally empty site with over a billion competitors for that keyword. What’s going on – really?

@richardmclaughlin Do you have your Google tracking turned off? When Google’s new privacy policy came out (well the day before it started), I turned off its tracking capabilities attached to my account. I haven’t searched lately at home for anything so I’m not sure about the local results. Love the interesting note about the pitcher plants. I always liked venus fly traps

@atlantarobin My parents have broken off from part of Google by using another search engine – Duck Duck Go. I’m not wild about all that they’re doing but have given in for now…

@kc_kreative Duck Duck Go? Lol, I’ll be sure to check that out. Sounds like the place to hide from Google, fer sher!

@richardmclaughlin Mac, I’m wondering what the heckledoodles is going on with all the empty websites on page one, though. I mean what kind of algo would create those kinds of results, rewarding ZERO content, the complete opposite of what they say is their new algo?

@deairby

Basically, Google as set up a high stakes chess game without end. And most every company and entrepreneur in the world has been forced to bet on the game to survive. (Sounds like the Mafia, eh)? When certain players start winning too much, Panda steps in to change the rules of the game, which affects everyone one way or another. New winners, new losers, and mass fear… maybe next time you’ll lose, too. Losers think maybe next time they’ll win. People who watch and analyze the game get just as addicted as the players. Hence the reason for former addict PotPieGirl’s vow to break up with Google.

Panda is just the name given to a formula update that changed the way Google calculated and determined which website pages appeared at the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages). The Farmer Update was another one that happened earlier. For whatever reason, these updates end up with cutesy names. The stated goal is always to make the results better and giving readers/viewers what they want most when typing in a particular search term. 

Most people assume that if a business was knocked out of the SERPs after an algo update that that business must have been doing something wrong like keyword spamming, belonging to a paid backlink network, or violating some other term of service. But for any algo update to be followed by a rash of totally empty websites with first page results, well, that’s definitely not an improvement. That’s just weird… and it let’s you know that the stated intent of providing better content results cannot possibly be accurate. No content is not better than bad content. There must be some other goal, targeting something other than just “bad” or “spammy” results. Google’s computers cannot read content. It can only analyze content with some type of formula programmed by humans. What kind of formula would choose “no” content?

Google watchers have been watching this for some time. The feds have been watching how search results are chosen, too. (Remember the 50′s fixed game show scandals)? I mentioned that several months ago that I thought they’d do something soon, shaking off their dusty RICO laws to start shaking some trees. Looks like that will happen sooner than later, whether that’s just in retaliation for not getting internet laws passed through Congress or not. By the way, I loved The Daily Show’s take on the Government vs Google. (The link was in PotPieGirl’s article or the previous article she referenced). 

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the stock market part of this will unfold… especially if any of these things finally begin to unravel. I mean, let’s face it. Has any other business in the world ever had this much control over almost ALL other businesses in the world? 

Worldwide, most everyone fought back when they felt threatened by our little government trying to enact a couple of laws regarding internet usage. Where’s the outrage over the Online Mafia taking monopolistic and extortionistic control of everyone’s business? Determining willy-nilly who can get found online and who cannot or even who they will allow to do business online and who they will not. It’s called a shakedown. And it’s happening daily in the SERPs. 

So would you rather be subject to a Big Brother attack from your government or from a private company over which your government has zero control? Or will internet users finally rise up and say no to Big Brother no matter who it is?

And the plot thickens…

@atlantarobin  That was a great article! That domain that she talks about  for “making money online” is 13years old and had solid content for at least 11years. What I don’t understand is that why Google isn’t clearing out their cache and looking at the content that is actually on the site. What does that say that your older content benefits your site the most? It’s just interesting because I’ve seen html sites that haven’t been changed for years have no rankings and WordPress sites that I’ve haven’t done anything with for 18 month have a raise in their P/R and Alexa rating. Very odd ….

@atlantarobin That was a great post! I particularly like her analogy  of her blog’s traffic sources to “ownership” of her blog/business. I never thought of it that way.
But trying to be weaned from Google is not so easy. Two of my sites are specifically designed for search traffic. I know it would take a lot of work to lower the percentage of visitors coming via search and instead bring in visitors from elsewhere. It’s work I don’t have time for, and I imagine that many other people are in the same boat. 
So for now, I’ll just keep paddling and hope I don’t get capsized. 

@atlantarobin  By “list” I assume you mean a subscriber list. What you said may be true. But, in the case of the two sites mentioned above, my income is generated by Adsense, as well as outside advertisers/referrals. A subscriber list doesn’t really fit here (at least I don’t think it does- does it?), and it’s my new visitors to these sites,  the ones looking for an answer to their questions, that generate the real income.

I use Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Sketchup, Google Earth and probably a few more.  I prefer Google Search over any other search engine.  90% of those people finding my website, come there through Google.  Over 50 % are Google’s organic search.  Am I going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  NO.  Yes there are things I don’t like about what Google is doing (you have to have a google account) to share photos on Picasa).  But there are more pluses on Google than minuses.  It isn’t all black and white……there are many shades of grey.  

Do you submit your Sitemap.xml on a periodic basis?  Do you have your search terms in the body of your website?  Do you have good descriptions for your pictures? 

Page rank isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  What about your results?  One of our keywords is JDLINK.  We’re on the first page organic search because we’re one of the only ones who has a webpage for JDLINK other than John Deere who’s product it is.  We sell potato parts all across the country because there are very few vendors in that area.  But If I were to use the keywords Tractors…..you’d never find us because there are hundreds of page.  Even John Deere tractors won’t get you there.  

Stepping off my soapbox now.Trudy