Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Yelp (recrawl Google/Bing)
If Google and Bing show an older version of a site's Yelp rating in the search results, what options are there to help ensure Google and Bing recrawl the Yelp page? Additionally, it appears third-party sites such as MapQuest show Yelp ratings and appear in Google search results; is it possible to request MapQuest to recrawl Yelp and then ask Google to recrawl MapQuest? Any advice would be much appreciated!
Industry News | | Mack_1 -
How does nudity on a site affect search results?
One of my clients sells lingerie and with it being lingerie there are a fair few photos of bottoms and some exposed breasts. Gosh. Anyway I know how this affects Adwords campaigns - Google classifies the site as 'adult' and your ads don't show anywhere. I also know how it affects image searches. However how does it affect text seaches?? Are rankings demoted because of nudity? I've worked with a clothing site with some nudity on it before and this didn't affect it, but would love to hear from anyone with specific experience of thisThanks
Industry News | | neenor0 -
Difference between Organic and Natural Traffic?
This is a pretty basic question, but I'm wondering if there is any meaningful difference between the terms Organic and Natural traffic? My assumption is that Organic traffic refers to traffic that comes in through search engines, whereas Natural traffic would also include people directly entering a URL, coming in through social referrals, and through links on other sites in addition to organic search. Is this correct, or are there other definitions for what these terms mean?
Industry News | | ShawnHerrick0 -
Product Schema - Not supported if you don't actually sell the product online...
Based on this answer from Google, http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146750 you can't use the product schema if a customer has to make the purchase offline or at another retailer. Does anyone know why they set it up this way? Has anyone ever tried to use product markup on a website when the product is purchased offline? Also, is there another solution or another markup that would apply? Thanks!
Industry News | | EEE30 -
Picking a degree that will benefit SEO/IM career
I really had no idea where to place this question as there seemed to be no 'suitable' place. I do though feel that it is a viable question and would appreciate any responses that I receive. Essentially, I'm currently working full time doing digital marketing covering most general aspects as it is in-house and primarily local venturing to maybe 50-70 miles in the region of the local area. I'm doing SEO, PPC, Social Media etc. I'm certified in networking (I studied in Australia) and have my UK GCSEs along with a variety of other general certifications e.g. business. The college in the area where I work is offering a NVQ in digital marketing and social media so although I'm self taught I'm currently doing this once a month purely for the paper to recognize that I know what I'm doing. Anyway, getting to the point. I have the opportunity to pursue a degree long term with my employer. I've always had an interest in actually learning to code in a web development language (I can cope at the moment with PHP and do what I need to do) and I've also had an interest in developing iPhone apps etc. What degree would you recommend in aiding a career in SEO and Digital/Internet marketing in general?. To me it seems to boil down to either a marketing degree or a web development degree. Thank you in advance, I would love to hear your own experience and what you have a degree in. Thanks, Luke Hutchinson.
Industry News | | LukeHutchinson0 -
Will Google ever begin penalising bad English/grammar in regards to rankings and SEO?
Considering Google seem to be on a great crusade with all their algorithm updates to raise the overall "quality" of content on the Internet, i'm a bit concerned with their seeming lack of action towards penalising sites that contain terrible English. I'm sure you've all noticed this when you attempt to do some proper research via Google and come across an article that "looks" to be what you're after, then you click through and realise it's obviously been either put together in a rush by someone not paying attention or putting much effort in, or been outsourced for cheap labour to another country whose workers aren't (close to being) native speakers. It's getting really old trying to make sense of articles that have completely incorrect grammar, entirely missing words, verb tenses that don't make any sense, randomly over-extravagant adjectives thrown in just as padding, etc. etc. No offense to all those from non-native speaking countries who are attempting to make a few bucks online, but this for me is becoming by far more of an issue in terms of "quality" of information online as opposed to some of the other search issues that are being given higher priority, and it just seems strange that Google have been so blasé about it up to this point - especially given so many of these articles and pages are nothing more than outsourced filler for cheap traffic. I understand it's probably hard to code in something so advanced, but it would go a long way towards making the web a better place in my opinion. Anyone else feeling the same way? Thoughts?
Industry News | | ExperienceOz1 -
Searching for a keyword on html source code of a website via Google
Is such a thing possible? Can we google for a specific keyword that can be found on the source code of a website? Is there any search operator for this? Thanks in advance!
Industry News | | merkal20050 -
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