Comments on: A Tale of a Tornado…and a Penguin https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/ Thu, 20 Apr 2017 17:35:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.4 By: Nasdaq7 https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-20053 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-20053 My heart bleeds when I read about Penguin. Google has destroyed the SEO business. How would I know, I still rank #1 for thousands of keywords and I am not making real money. The situation is hopeless. Every week I check if Google hasn’t closed some of my last remaining SEO tricks. We are doomed. If it is any consolation, the businesses that are really doing well are those that have returning visitors. Now building a website that good takes months and a lot of money. I’m happy to know that Google has destroyed SEO. Unless you can get returning visitors you are doomed. Why returning visitors? Because even if you do get some going through, chances are they won’t buy at the first visit. So you need an excellent website, which for some markets, just isn’t possible.

]]> By: Jason Hefley https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-20052 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-20052 I like what you are saying about the anchor text theory and all of the other theories out there. My theory is that they have searched out the blogs that link building companies were using and unlisted them in google. Using my backlink tracker, my site’s PR rating went from 3 to 1 and all backlinks have disappeared. I have made my sites look more natural and lowered the keyword density. For my key words it is weird what has happend. I went from having my sales page drop off the rankings and two other pages now occupy in the top 10. My traffic to the site has went down, but has not gone away. In summary, I went from having one page in the top 10 and now have two, unfoertunatly they are not generating the revenue as my other page was. Other sites I have really benefited as now they are in the top 10 when previously not listed.

I primarily used linkvana for link development and thought this was a good way to get backlinks, but it looks like the Penguin update was targeting companies like linkvana. I am going to war, attempting to get me traffic by other means you have suggested. I appreciate your insight. Thank you as always.

]]> By: Brian Farley https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-20010 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-20010 Brilliant post in the wake of unfortunate domestic circumstances. This is the best post I have researched on Penguin – and I have researched A LOT! Great comments and true instances. I have suffered a great drop in rankings (although still there but pages down) in a lot of my sites all mainly dropping off severely on 25th April. Interesting that some of my subpages with very little content and no backlinks are now ranking higher than the main page! Agree that search results from G are rubbish at present and cannot help thinking it’s either to get all who have suffered to start paying for Adwords, or that G’s revenue from Advertising in the wake of competition from Facebook Ads has declined so much that it does not want to pay out to publishers so it’s ranking them down.

Any thoughts on this?

]]> By: Mike https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-19962 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-19962 I have been all over the place since January this year. I’m literally on and off the SERP’s daily. One day, 2K views from Google, the next day 100. I am just concentrating on building my site for those who visit it, and will let whatever happens with Google – happen…

]]> By: Kristian | SEOtext https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-19528 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-19528 Hey Jennifer! Hope all is going effectively, seems like it is! What a scary celebration for being caught up in the tornado, and also a wonderful direct in for this article.

Wonderful publish! Iā€™m inspired.

]]> By: Rich https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-19267 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-19267 Wow, that was quite a post ! I left the shores of the Jersey Shore 5 years ago and went to the great state of Atlanta. Bigger fishing pond, bigger fish..follow the money and find my true love and marry her. I knew the road was going to be tough but never dreamed that a huge tree would fall over and crush my home in Smryna, GA or that I would survive a stroke virtually unscathed. I had just bought my first computer, well second if you count the 2k me and my cohorts at RE/Max in Beach Haven, NJ had each kicked in to but that 28lb portable Compaq. Some how I found you found this PotPieGirl and started trying to follow her advice. How hard can this be I thought ! You just explained what happened the last few months. Thought I finally had a plan that was working and poof everything just stopped. Pesky Penguins! Computer in the shop and no money go fetch it, I took time to relax and ponder what happened and what should I do next. I can tell you it won’t have anything to do with hammers, saws or paintbrushes. It will involve pushing buttons and posting blogs, putting video’s on youtube, writing articles on WordPress and Squidoo, tweeting, hooting, fb, G+ and a bunch of other things. The thing that amazes me is how fast my following is growing. I have fans! Soon there will products for them to buy. Still a lot of things to figure out but I want to thank you for all your great help and advice. Rich aka NewLife4Rich@gmail.com

]]> By: Henrygold https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-19042 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-19042 The good thing about this stupid update is i learn to build a brandable site that doent need google as a middle man.

]]> By: penny https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17620 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17620 Great opportunities to spring clean and get great content out there – yes thats true
(Un)fortunately the days of half-hashed rubbish websites are long gone – even if Google is in disarray right now – we can all see where it is headed.
PPG, you won’t have any problems as obviously you are already used to providing top-notch content – I am very interested in your w-i-p… whatever your theory is about! Hurry up with that….

]]> By: Jane https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17619 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17619 To simply sum up how I feel about the Google “tornados” and pandas and penguins etc., I find it such a mentally exhausting drain constantly worried about what is happening next, and sweating over everything I write. I really do. Certainly I will keep keywords in mind…they are important, but I’m just going to concentrate on writing what I want to and however I want to. I’m certainly aware of the “proper?” things to do in terms of SEO, but the irony of that is, it changes from one day to the next it seems. I’ll just stick to what I’m doing, and whatever happens happens.

]]> By: Tony New https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17399 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17399 Wow. I originally found your website through a post on Squidoo. Eeekkk…you have a link to your website! Oh, wait, you said you take links as a compliment. — *grin* That’s good. So do I. šŸ™‚

The main thing that struck me as I read your article is just how MUCH I have to learn about this new venture I’ve started. *SIGH* I just *thought* that going from “unemployed out of shape librarian” to “fit, healthy, in shape Writer and Professional Dance Instructor” was going to be easy. Becoming writer and making money online was looked like it was going to be the straight forward half of the plan. Alas, I’m quickly learning how much I have to learn!

But with articles and websites like yours full of information, I’m sure that it will come to pass. Thank you for the entertaining article even if you did make my “to do / to read” list grow longer. šŸ˜‰

I’m glad that you, your family and your neighbors all survived the storm. Cheers and thanks again!

]]> By: MaryAnne https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17317 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17317 In reply to GJC.

I did. Sites which didn’t have any obvious drops on the 24th or 27th were slapped down a week or two later. Penguin? Panda? I don’t know which black/white animal to blame!

]]> By: MaryAnne https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17315 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17315 Refreshing to read a post from someone who’s talking about the big honkin’ elephant in the room and not just parroting the Google party line :)!

I’m totally baffled by the apparent randomness with which my own sites were affected and the gawdawful mess which is supposedly their “improved” results…

]]> By: Judi https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17266 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17266 PPG…. I was waiting for *your* POV on this and can’t wait to read more down the road! You always seem to bring a breath of fresh air to a topic when everyone else seems like they are all spewing the same talking points.

Perfect analogy and wonderful advice! As one of the small sole props you described we got whacked and all I can do is read, learn and try new things. Doing business online is not for the weak of heart, right?

Thanks for keeping it real! šŸ˜‰

]]> By: Aims https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17258 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17258 Hi Jennifer. Great article. Well worth the read! As always.

You mentioned that there’s opportunity right now and that we should be part of the “cleanup Team”. How do you propose to do this when nobody knows (yet) how to rank sites right now after the storm? Or should we rank/backlink them in exactly the same way we used to? Cheers

]]> By: Chetan https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17209 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17209 Hello Jennifer- This was one of the greatest posts written within the entire SEO Industry…. I have stopped my subscription to Seo Moz & others (instead subscribed to your blog). It seems that those big SEO guys (Rand & others) are not doing SEO anymore… they are just protecting their brand with Google. These big blogs never seem to talk about the concerns of affiliates or how to rank their sites. They just got big clients (no affiliate sites) that they keep promoting/marketing with big budgets. They should stop calling themselves SEO’s… I have never read a single article that actually helps affiliate sites.

I truly appreciate your honesty about this whole algo mess.

One more thing, can you reflect a bit more on the “hunch” thingie? That’s the only part/sentence I didn’t quite understood (You are either the one people are talking to and talking about, or—–). Is that something you will post about in the future?

Look forward to reading more…

Consciously,

Chetan

]]> By: HardbassTV https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17206 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17206 That’s what I call a “motivational post”. All those one-man/woman-show webmasters are only crying and commiting suicuides, they are yelling “No, I want it BACK”. But this is the life god damn it. This is how everything works. There are tornados and there are shiny bright moments. And we need to learn to deal with both of them.

Of course it sucks what is happening, of course it’s bad for a lot of people. But seriously, who cares? Google doesn’t. And rest of the universe doesn’t care either.

]]> By: Stephen Byrne https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17169 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17169 Great post Jennifer, but for crying out loud I feel sorry for newbies to Internet Business and regular Businesses with all this malarkey going on, very scary, I am in the process of starting a new site and feel like staying well clear of backlinks.

]]> By: steve https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17162 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17162 Most of my sites have gotten through this recent tornado untouched although I lost about 30 with the first Panda update. Things are messed up and it is hard to figure out what is going on. Google ran Penguin on the 24th but they also ran Panda on the 27th so it is hard to sort. Near as I can tell Penguin hit sites with unnatural linking patterns. Cant say they did not warn us though. I don’t think it has anything to do with content at all which is why some very good sites got hit. I think all we can do at this point is roll with the punches and not make any drastic changes until things sort themselves out. Oh yeah and watch out for “experts” that pray on peoples fears, claim they know what is going on and can fix things.

]]> By: Robert https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17148 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17148 Jennifer – this was an outstanding post. I read every post you email about an I always come away with something.
This post inspired me to take some action on some of my sites that were hammered by Penguin. Sure, why not get a new domain – I know a lot about the niches and keywords, etc. I’m not sure about using the same content or maybe spun content but at least I will be moving on.

How can you tell if a site is guilty of keyword stuffing?

]]> By: PotPieGirl https://www.potpiegirl.com/a-tale-of-a-tornado-and-a-penguin/#comment-17124 http://www.potpiegirl.com/?p=2754#comment-17124 In reply to Adelle.

Oh, I hear ya, Adelle!

Want a good laugh at Google’s expense?

Check out this post I did which shows some HYSTERICAL pages ranking on Page 1 for a certain keyword…

http://www.potpiegirl.com/2012/05/omg-look-at-these-search-results/

However, we have to keep in mind that this might mean things are about to shake up again.

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