Did Google's Farmer Update Positively/Negatively Affect Your Search Traffic?
-
Oddly the handful of sites that I have which should have most probably been affected negatively actually saw boosts in traffic, CTR on ads and eCPM on ads. Not huge jumps.. but yeah.. I benefited which was odd. These domains are testbeds I set up a long time ago to find the upper limit of what you can "get away with" in google so I know where to draw the line.
Other interesting facts. I rand some tests over the weekend (may not be large enough to be statistically relevant yet) but it seems the farmer update has almost no impact on indexation of poor or duplicate content given enough raw link juice (no anchor, ip diversity or any other cool factors, just a flat link from a big ol' bucket of link juice) which I find disappointing. =/ I expected a bit of a challenge after all this hoopla. Even though I rock the greyhat Im still pretty anti dupe/crap content.
-
Awesome use of the new Q&A Rand!
One of my biggest content sites actually has seen an increase in traffic since the "farmer" update. The content on it is definitely a tick above content farmed crap, but it's also not 5-star.
For what it's worth, it's monetized with AdSense ads and there's really no branded traffic to speak of naturally.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is this a violation of Google guidelines and current industry best practices correct? Regarding Iran Facts
I have read Moz for a good deal of time but I have never been gotten involved, until now... While watching a YouTube video in the app on my smartphone an Advertisement came on Still screen shots located on my website www.dleichtweis.com This is a video of the advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCQFm7PjWb8 I have reason to believing this is a violation of numerous polices, procedures, conditions and or best practices. I value Moz as a communities opinion. Google has been contacted in regards to this https://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Ad-Approvals-and-Advertising/I-want-answers-to-issue-Re-3-8187000002180/m-p/278355#M14740 I value your response. D Leichtweis
Industry News | | dleichtweis0 -
How Google could quickly fix the whole Links problem...
A Thursday morning brainstorm that hopefully an important Google manager will see... Google could quickly end all the problems of link buying, spammy links, and negative SEO with one easy step: Only count the 100 best follow links to any domain. Ignore all the nofollows and everything beyond the 100 best. They can choose what "best" means. Suddenly links would be all about quality. Quantity would not matter. Fiverr links, comment links, and all the other mass-produced spam links would literally be ignored. Unless that's all a domain had, and then they would surely be stomped by any domain with 100 decent natural links. Would it be an improvement over today's situation?
Industry News | | GregB1230 -
100's of versions of the same page. Is rel=canonical the solution???
Hi, I am currently working with an eCommerce site that has a goofy set up for their contact form. Basically, their are hundreds of "contact us" pages that look exactly the same but have different URLs and are used to help the store owner determine which product the user contacted them about. So almost every product has it's own "contact us" URL. The obvious solution is to do away with this set up but if that is not an option, would a rel=canonical tag linked back to the actually "contact us" page be a possible solution? Or is the canonical tag only used to show the difference between www vs non-www? Thanks!
Industry News | | RossFruin0 -
What's a good host for wordpress?
I've been using A2Hosting.com for a few years and am looking for something more reliable and better tech support. I've looked at WP Engine, but would like something less expensive or someone to convince me that it's worth the cost I have 10 domains using Wordpress (clients sites) that need hosting. What are your recommendations, and what would be the ideal set up?
Industry News | | WilliamCarr0 -
I'm looking for a freelance SEO ninja who I can pull into client projects from time to time. Any advice?
My company helps health care providers with internet and social strategy and solutions. At times, my clients need SEO services and I need a trusted and skilled pro to turn to who I can collaborate with on behalf of my clients. I may even be interested in putting together an SEO package for my clients if I can find the right person/agency to work with. Thanks for any help/advice you can offer.
Industry News | | bgeyser0 -
Google Directory no longer available?
Now, we will forever not know what is in the Google Directory. I just clicked on the link..... and everything is dead and points you to DMOZ. What does this mean for us? Is DMOZ going to get more editor juice, so submissions are actually reviewed for once? The Yahoo! directory has also been glitching - new submissions have been disabled for over a week now. Any comments?
Industry News | | antidanis0 -
How do you value a site that generates no income before it's sold?
Hi, I'm currently creating a number of sites which target the wedding market. Each site is localized and specific to a niche within the wedding market. The intention is to create the site, rank it in the top position of Google and then sell it to a local business within that niche and area. The problem that i am having is that I don't know how to place a value on each site. I have factors taken from Google (using Market Samurai) so I know the broad and phrase match traffic details as well as the Google PPC average prices. My initial thought was to use the Google PPC price and multiply that by the number of organic visitors the site would receive if it was ranked #1 on Google. I appreciate that the PPC figures may be higher than what an advertiser would actually pay per click so I conservatively halved the Google PPC figure given in Market Samurai. Is this a good way of valuing the site or do I need to look at the value per customer to the business that I am trying to sell the site to and work from a conversion factor based on the number of visitors that the site would receive. If the site received 500 visitors per month and 5% of those became customers multiplied by the average profit per customer - that would give a monthly value of the website. I am very unsure as to what the best approach is here and look forward to hearing any advice and ideas from fellow members. Thanks, Michael
Industry News | | XSMedia0 -
Pagerank updates and expectations
My site (http://www.bluedotlandscaping.com) has recently been redone. Although I have been online for about 9 years, we have never before done SEO. My Google PR is 0. With a lot of work the last 3-5 months we have gotten a MozRank of 3.55. (DA 26 and MozTrust 4.36) What do you think are reasonable expectations? Does Google update often? Is a jump from a PR of 0 to 3 reasonable? If my site does go to a PR of 3, will I see a noticeable change in my keyword rankings? Thanks for your help. Rich
Industry News | | SCyardman0
