Google set to target overly SEO'd sites

[FirstPageResults]

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-over-seo-update-14887.html

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced as a side note during his panel at SXSW that Google is releasing an algorithm update specifically to target sites over doing their SEO.
Matt Cutts said this is Google's attempt to "level the playing field" between webmasters that build quality content versus webmasters who are just really aggressive SEOs.

Something to worry about or Matt Cutts scare tactics?

 

[James]

I think what they are going to do is target sites with low quality content a huge amount of in coming links a very low content pages, the problem is if you have say 2 lines of content and 200 in coming links to the page it is deemed to be a low content but high SEOed page. Ive also read they said they will do the same for a page which is just a line of content and a video and it is over SEO'd.

I think this is more the type of thing they will target, sure if you have pages with high quality content and links I do not think you have to worry.

Overall I think Matt Cutts brings out a lot of these updates and only tells you a very small amount of information so it is very annoying for every one where they don't tell you the full story about the update in which they are taking on board.

 

[payattention]

Just another tactic to move people towards Adwords.

 

[James]

Just another tactic to move people towards Adwords.

Very true, I think they try and scare webmasters into thinking SEO is not a wise move, then all of a sudden they start calling businesses and sending out loads of free advertising material.

I have been doing SEO for around 7-8 years now I have driven easily over 50 million+ targeted unique visitors to websites (clients sites and my own sites), I think I have probably spent in the same amount of time $x,xxx on PPC, I mean I know how to do PPC, Account management ect but it is too repetiative and once you experience extreme traffic for free you kind of don't want to pay for it, even if clients money, I would rather a cost effective method that benefits all.

 

[payattention]

I didn't mean to suggest it would scare people into thinking SEO isn't a wise move but to give those already practicing it no other choice but to begin using Adwords when their traffic takes a dive.

It's fair to say that those who already do SEO understand how it grows their business while having no impact on those that don't do any SEO.

I use to love Google but that has changed over the past 18-24 months. The changes they make are no longer to benefit searchers - it's all about squeezing the margins now that growth has slowed.

 

[snoopy]

I know how to do PPC, Account management ect but it is too repetiative and once you experience extreme traffic for free you kind of don't want to pay for it, even if clients money, I would rather a cost effective method that benefits all.

If PPC isn't cost effective then their is something wrong with the site/product or the ad campaign in my view. For people not in the paid section that is costing them sales and holding back their business.

 

[snoopy]

I use to love Google but that has changed over the past 18-24 months. The changes they make are no longer to benefit searchers - it's all about squeezing the margins now that growth has slowed.

Google is a business. None of the people trying to get sites ranked are doing it for the benefit of searchers. (well not many)

 

[dave]

This is easily the best insight on Google that I have read in recent times – Why I LeFt Google?

The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

Honestly I'm surprised it took this long for them to start squeezing every last drop out of the SERPs. Public companies base their decisions on increasing growth and profit to shareholders.

 

[CyberClick]

Noticed some of the larger, adwords paying websites moving up the natural rankings recently. Also, the url Google shows in the results is a folder, not the actual url. This may be old news but one of our websites has dropped to #2 so it's caught my eye.