Google New Site Penalty

[PotentMix]

I made the mistake in February of launching some new sites and assuming Google would index them and rank them along with what I'd come to expect from such SEO skills as I possess. I've done pretty well in the past.


BIG MISTAKE!. Google now penalizes new sites. Take a look at http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum78/4722.htm


While new sites are indexed, it seems its impossible to get a new site to rank well.smileys/smiley6.gif


So, I've taken simply to adding to existing sites until this is cleared up. Seems there's no problem obtaining ranking when adding pages to sites that had ranking before the first of this year.


This shouldcut outnewbies from being a much of a factor in our market, given the fact that Google will dump adwords for pharmacy sites after mid May. Then the only competition from advertising will be from Drugstore.Com and their ilk. Those established with decent SEO from older sites may well benefit.


Thoughts anyone?

[Ponomo]

I wish I could read the article, but I'm not a subscriber.

[phonehome]

BIG MISTAKE!. Google now penalizes new sites.


That's certainly been the pattern. However, Google isn't the only game in town.

[PotentMix]

Not the only game. Just one of the biggest.

[iggy]

No new sites scoring in Google at all. Sites get fully indexed but don't rank for sh$t. Overall, this hurts all ambitious webmasters, new or old, IMO.

[phonehome]

Just one of the biggest.


Agreed, but their competitors havemore search traffic combined.

[tml89]

So when does a site go from being "new" to getting rankings ?? Is this all sites or just affiliate/pharmacy ?

[iggy]

but their competitors have more search traffic combined.

Nah. Actually Google and it's distribution partners make up a larger percentage than all the others combined.

Google and AOL alone make up around 55% of all search traffic according to Nielsen. Other research shows up to 75%.

http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451

[PotentMix]

All sites.

[phonehome]

Google and AOL alone make up around 55% of all search traffic according to Nielsen.


Fair enough. My point is the the others have enough visitors to be worthwhile.

[ChesterCoperpot]

Care to share some more details? I dont have a WMW subscription yet..

Thanks

[insanity]

Care to share some more details? I dont have a WMW subscription yet..

Thanks


Upshot is since about Dec last year it appears new sites get crawled and indexed but won't rank - for any/nearly anyterms ijnckluding pretty non-competitive ones. Seems to be taking up to 3 months to see any results. Older sites that pages are added to don't have the same problems suggesting some sort of penalty/filter/flag on new sites.


HTH.

[redex]

Google and AOL alone make up around 55% of all search traffic according to Nielsen.


Fair enough. My point is the the others have enough visitors to be worthwhile.





But MSN traffic converts the best. People that hang out at MSN all hhave Amex gold cards and aren't pinched for pocket change.

[iggy]

I won't disagree with you redex. Msn traffic does convert well. We have had the chance to measure it on a top 10 Internet company (used our software) and msn came out tops percentage wise for buys. OTOH, Google was soooo far above the rest in "raw buys" due to their massive traffic.

Back to the topic of the thread. Across several industries, and several different types of sites, the new site "quarantine" is strong. NO new sites are raniking for anything remotely competetive.

[PotentMix]

This has produced widespread frustration in the webmaster community. Even sites that have incoming dmoz, .edu &.orglinks, etc. are not ranking.


Question is whether to put new site development on hold, or continue in the hope that the penalty will be lifted in the forseeable future.

[scottdaman]

Honestly, I expected something like this to happen long ago.


Before google, any new site had a struggle to get ranked in engines. It required months to get it links, full deep crawl, etc. Then, out of nowhere, three months later, wham! #1.


I always found it weird that google crawls a site for the first time and then ranks the page in the top 20. Even with only 1 or 2 lowly PR3 links. Then, the site would vanish (multiple dataenters, makes sense), and then once the deepbot came through, usually your site would then dropdown until you added links and better SEO.


Now it seems that a site willbe forced to start low and work its way up. To me,although I don't like it, this makes complete sense.


Even if a site is 1-2 months old and has dmoz links etc., google doesn't refresh the dmoz index a lot. I waited 4 months for it to catch one of my new sites. Then I ended up #20 for a seriously competitive term not related to this market.


PotentMix, never, ever, allow an engine to sway you into not making new sites. From one month to the next, google changes that algo. Next month, the penalty may not be as severe or even removed. At which point, if your site is in their hands, it may bounce up. I was in your shoes with other google updates and now I wish I never slowed down. A few sites I had vanish came back 2 months later with a #1-#10 position!


Cheer up people! smileys/smiley1.gif

[PotentMix]

Yeah, on balance, I'll keep putting up new sites. I just won't flesh them out fully until they get some ranking. Best to get a position at the starting gate, regardless.


Also, SEO is going to become more critical when Adwords drops OPs, IMO.

[dpillz]

Hey !

I do not know if i should share it ... not because I am mean, I am just not sure it's true ...


To have a site indexed FAST, either pay for a ppc that puts your site on 100s of sites ...

To have your site indexed immediately, put adsense ....



On the other hand I can see that my new sites are NOWHERE !
Even if they are PR2-3 traffic is almost 0 ...


not talking about some sites almost disappearing from the first page/position form one day to an other ... even from the first 100 places .... ...

[scottdaman]

Both invalid theories in my book.



To have a site indexed FAST, either pay for a ppc that puts your site on 100s of sites ...


When using PPCs, the link they use is encoded to go back to the PPC's servers than that server forwards the clicker to your site. Therefore, there is no reward or benefit to a PPC ad when it comes to getting ranked and link popularity.



To have your site indexed immediately, put adsense .... Adsense has their own bot. I doubt that it would trigger googlebot to visit you.


Thing is, if you add even one good reciprocal link to your domain, googlebot will come within days. Therefore, I'm wondering if webmasters submit the domain for approval, get said approval, and launch adsense. That takes a few days. It also takes googlebot a few days to show up with a good link. See a coincidence?

[redex]

I have some travel related sites circa 1997-1998 and they have been in Google since there was a Google - five to ten listings in Yahoo directory and Dmoz, etc. If one falls off, a simple tweak generally puts it back up in the rankings.


Seniority does have it's perks. The older a domain is in the index, the more relevance it should have.


Question, then, why should your site that is brand new rank higher than mine? smileys/smiley5.gif


Gawd, I just remembered, domain registration was $100 a year back then. LOL

[dpillz]

Both invalid theories in my book.



To have a site indexed FAST, either pay for a ppc that puts your site on 100s of sites ...


When using PPCs, the link they use is encoded to go back to the PPC's servers than that server forwards the clicker to your site. Therefore, there is no reward or benefit to a PPC ad when it comes to getting ranked and link popularity.



To have your site indexed immediately, put adsense .... Adsense has their own bot. I doubt that it would trigger googlebot to visit you.


Thing is, if you add even one good reciprocal link to your domain, googlebot will come within days. Therefore, I'm wondering if webmasters submit the domain for approval, get said approval, and launch adsense. That takes a few days. It also takes googlebot a few days to show up with a good link. See a coincidence?

#1no, it does not affect pagerank, but googlebot finds you faster without a direct submission! Yes they are encoded, however I found instances, when googlebot interpreted them as DIRECT LINKS (might be some javascript magic, where googlebot sees www.url.com (with a link to www.url.com) , and browsers see www.url.com with a link advertiser?ppc=www.url.com&otherstuff=yaddayadda

#2 adsense sites are checked for relevancy and ALL guidelines, and are immediately visited by :

that friend:
- - [22/Apr/2004:14:48:37 -0500] "GET /Wired-Plastic-electronic_credit-card.html HTTP/1.0" 200 19409 "-" "Mediapartners-Google/2.1
(+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)"

and let's face it: google wants traffic to any site where there is googleads/adsense ...

this is just a speculation, but since no one knows what's exactly inside google (except Sergei) ... everything else is just specualation
smileys/smiley3.gif

ahm just had to attach this:
I am pretty new to affiliate/SEO business (about 6 months) so I might be completely wrong, but that's something I see ....
2 major sites of mine got almost completely wiped from google for reasons I have no explanations for ....

the above mentioned 2 tricks had all my sites indexed/visited by googlebot within one week ... so that must work at least up to a certain success level ....

nah ... gotta go for now smileys/smiley19.gif

[NewbiusMaximus]

I don't know. I just finished a site yesterday, designed for SEO. I haven't submitted to google and added adsense just today. Say hello to google bot in the attached image..


http://www.treatacnenow.com/images/snap.jpg

[insanity]

Seniority does have it's perks. The older a domain is in the index, the more relevance it should have.


Agreed. I see this all the time.



Question, then, why should your site that is brand new rank higher than mine? smileys/smiley5.gif


If it's better/more relavantit should.Problem is everyone thinks their site is better than the other 10 million siteson the subject. smileys/smiley5.gif

[insanity]

I don't know. I just finished a site yesterday, designed for SEO. I haven't submitted to google and added adsense just today. Say hello to google bot in the attached image..


It's not that Googlebot doesn't visit or even that you don't get indexed. It's just you don't rank.

[PotentMix]

While Google has repeatedly denied it, I firmly believe age is a significantly weighted factor in the algorythm.

[rxworld]

I think that post is only a scam to prevent new competitors.


my sites created on 2004-feb also get some hits from google, and u?