Penguin 2.0 Update - Just Hit - Google Messes up again, can anyone on SEOMOZ please tell me why or how some of these websites are ranking?

[MarketingOfAmerica]

I am getting a bit tired now writing all of this so please excuse grammar and spelling mistakes, I wanted to post this up quickly tonight so I could possibly get some feedback by morning.

So I feel I figured out some of the new update that just hit and I am sure the update will continue to keep coming and rankings will most likely change for a while, but I do have a few questions in the mean time if they stay.

Please look below, why would some of those sites be ranking?  Some sites utilize no onpage SEO, some no backlinks, one of the sites is a single page site and every page is a broken link even the contact us page and it's rank 1.....

I am not 100% sure that Google got this one right.  I see many instances below where other sites are much higher quality and have more authority.   It's as if Google took terrible sites and said here is a site for you, now deal with it and I hope it works out at the top.

I do see several sites that belong on the first page, but I see others that are very questionable.

This is how the following is written below.

Before the url is the anchor text density % for the site.  This indicates the percentage of the amount of times the anchor text was backlined versus other anchor texts they used.

Issues with the sites.

Most of these sites don't utilize onpage SEO and it's clearly not a factor for onpage density purposes, there is a site with 37% keyword density on it.

Some sites even have broken links.

Please note: I already know that there is a lot of data that is analyzed to determine rankings more than this, but PA/DA is suppose to be a major factor according to everyone that believes in SEOMOZ.org.  So I am taking in account for many of those factors being calculated due to this.

These are just some random keywords I picked, because I know you need to analyze other SEO firms after and update to figure out what lasted and what didn't.  All of my sites lasted due to ethical tactics, but I had some rankings move down and others go up, very odd.

Keyword Analyzed:  CHEAP SEO

Not Knowng http://searchengineland.com/the-hidden-cost-of-cheap-seo-social-labor-131585 92-DA 75-PA   -    A lot of content 4715 words on the page including comments.

not known http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-cheap-seo-or-link-building/45932/ 87DA 63 PA    Words on page 3673

Not known www.cheap-seo-solutions.com 26 DA -- 38 PA      1112 words on page

9.52% www.cheapseocompany.com 34 DA ---- 41 PA 10 + anchor texts but   623 words on page

10.26% seocheap.net 35 DA --- 45 PA 10 + anchor text  855 words on the page I am not 100% sure why this is ranking lol, the services page isn't even working it errors out.   The onpage SEO is sloppy and the writing looks forced.  Why is this even ranking?  The site also looks low quality.  The density is higher than SEOMOZ even and it has less words.  In this case DA + words carried this site up, not the anchor ratio being low.

6.17% http://www.cheapseo-services.com cheap seo Page Authority DA 28 -- PA 38    276 Words   No onpage, 35 duplicate pages, free template, etc.. etc..

10% www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-do-seo-cheap DA 94 --- PA 56 only 5 anchor texts used on this page.    8651 Words   I am willing to bet if you diversified this with about 5 more anchor texts this could be number 1 easy.  This only has 5 total diverse anchor text backlinks for this page.

Keyword Analyzed:  Affordable SEO Services

Rank 1  47% www.affordableseoservicesx.com/‎ 24DA PA36 New site It still has broken links all over the page The Contact us page doesn't even work lol. Great going Google on ranking such a high quality 1 page website.   471 words  How is this site ranking?  How could Google even rank this site?

Rank 2 The Term isn't mentioned at all accept in title and header

not known mbseoservice.com/‎ da 20 pa 32 PR 0  Just has affordable seo services in title anchor   Possible New Site  627 words

Rank 4 12.77% affordableseoservices.net 22 DA 35 DA  - Proof Exact match domains still work great with high diversity rates, low word amounts, bad DA, etc.....    348 words

Rank 5 4.24% www.howardsemgroup.com DA 39 PA 49   893 words.

Rank 6 2.49% www.i4.net/‎ 59 DA and 66 PA   588 words

Rank 7    4.71%  www.bluefrogseosolutions.com/‎ DA 31  PA 42   527  Words This site looks like it was created in 1998 and never updated.    Low quality site IMO

Rank 8 Not Known www.mainstreethost.com/ 76 DA 81 PA possible co occurrence added in with main domain name /url   281 Words  not 1 exact anchor text match

Rank 10   2.7% bestcheapseoservices.com/‎ 18 DA 29PA  This is just a blog site, come on Google...

4379 Words

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Hello Dave, read below. I have a site ranking for the cheap SEO term above and I am claiming it has low quality links to it, because I built them.  It's a rinse and repeat site to get some quick clients.  Maybe I should of put this before, but I thought others would have analyzed them quickly with some tools to see this.  Anyways read my last paragraph at the bottom of this page.

Annsmarty is also posting an article of mine on one of her sites very soon about this site and how it ranked with no onpage SEO, with terrible backlinks, with 35 pages of duplicate content, a free template, etc, etc, etc... The list keeps going on.  I did everything wrong that according to Google says you will get small penalties.

Anyways, I know for a fact that Google didn't update this correctly, because I have many sites I tested that should have failed, but are ranking great in the SERPS right now.   I was counting on them getting penalized to insure that these updates went through correctly, but they didn't .  I utilized the spammiest links I could get like blog comments, forum links, and many others.  I am ranking for some terms that get 20k + exact hits a month with those tactics still....  Something isn't right.  I guess I will take it though, even though they are dummy sites with no adsense setup etc.. They aren't even real sites, the contact us pages aren't working..

Maybe the update isn't done, or I hope it's not.

Also to add, I have cross analysis's for 440 sites now that we recorded before the updates happened.  We have new data now, we also have our own self built programs, not many, but we do have some that we have used in the past.  I can cross analyze the onpage SEO factors for 100 sites at once easily and get results on the average onpage SEO densites of keywords they are ranking for.  What we do is take the top 10 from 10 different keywords and enter them in, it will then spit out an average density of the terms.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Hello Karl,

Finally someone that has been staying up with the updates.  I don't think they got it above on what I was trying to say.  Forever now, Matt says EMD's aren't going to hold as much value, well above proves that they are still holding a lot. Matt also talked about payday loans, which like I said above I am ranking 2nd for and 3 for cash loans, the rankings never changed at all, not even 1 rank.

I thinking moving forward though, it's obvious that more text according to many other studies I have is very much needed.  I am noticing in many instance and other niches.  We have pulled 44 different niches now and all of the sites ranking in the top 3 have an average combined text of 1750 words on the page ranking in the top 3.  Not only that, but  the majority have under a 1% anchor text ratio with the exception of some sites like affordableseoservicesx with a 49% which is crazy, how does Google let someone build 49% of their backlinks to 1 keyword to low quality sites and still rank them up?

I like how Matt Cutts talked about  paraphrasing obviously, but " we are going to give extra credit for relevant authority sites when you backlink to them which we didn't in the past"  He also goes on to talk about how important authority is now etc...  Many of those sites I gave an example of have very low authority.

One of the SEO sites and I am not going to say which, but one of them participate in purchasing 100's of authority links from a very spammy site that I believe is owned by BMR now.   They purchased over 250 footer links - please Google how do you rank something like this up?

I am happy though, one of my sites is in the list above and it is doing well in the rankings, so at least I made it, however I myself don't feel that there is enough done to it or the quality to outrank some other sites that should be in their.  The site I have ranking is a rinse and repeat site with a free template, 35 duplicate pages, half the page titles are messed up, and  it utilizing some bad linking tactics due to rinse and repeat.  So I know for a fact there is no way Google is looking for the right spammy links and that is what is ranking right now, it's obvious since I know I have low quality links and I am still ranking on the first page lol.

[EvolveCreative]

In the end you're not going to figure it out by looking at a couple of sites. Code something like Ian did here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/machine-learning-and-link-spam-my-brush-with-insanity

and look at thousands of sites. Or, wait for someone else to do it. MicroSiteMasters figured out the last Penguin update within a week.

http://www.micrositemasters.com/blog/penguin-analysis-seo-isnt-dead-but-you-need-to-act-smarter-and-5-easy-ways-to-do-so/

[MarketingOfAmerica]

I feel bad for you guys if you don't do an analysis after an update.  This isn't as simple as what your saying above, I am 100% sure, because there is much more missing.  Did you take a look at any of the sites?  Many with broker pages? Many with onpage densities a 39% for the keywords they are ranking for?  Many with 30% + backlink anchor text ratios?

Like I explained above if you had above a 10% anchor text diversity ratio before on just a brand site and not an EMD, it was almost impossible to rank in the top 3.   How do you explain 49% or even many 30's these sites have.

Also, 6 out of the 10 sites are using very low quality and spam type link lol. Blog comments, forum posts, networks for blogging, one site even has a paid footer link, because there were 17 other sites at the bottom as well.

I am willing to bet no one really took a look at that list at all and just commented quickly.  Either that or none of you knew exactly what was ranking sites before this.

BTW, I am still holding rank 2 for  payday loans and cash loans.  They didn't do anything to the payday loan industry at all. 8 out of the 10 sites are 100% the same on the first page and many of them are using very unethical tactics.   One of them is utilizing heavy amount of purchasing domains that are irrelevant and putting 1 page up and a link at the bottom.  Kind of like affordableseoservicesx.com above.  They bought 100's of sites I just found out this morning and did just that, but yet Google awarded them number 1..

I am sorry, but I am going to have to disagree with you guys that the only update that happened was just to low quality spammy links, there is much more here that is overlooked like the top site for affordable SEO Services having only spam links and nothing good at all.

Have a great day.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

I am pretty sure you and the 2 under me are missing the point here.  If the update only did what you said, why are high diversity rates allowed?  I am not sure if you have been following on what has been working for the past 6 months, but sites had to have a 1.5 to 4% max anchor text ratio.  The higher you went the lower your keyword got.  I see sites at 49% which I am sure there is no way anyone looked at or I would be getting messages like this above.

The same site with 49% is using blog comments, forum links, a network for guest posting that I figured out on my own they own themselves.  How can't Google figure this out?

[KarlBantleman]

This is where Google gets it wrong in my opinion. The video that Matt Cutts did a few weeks ago said they were going to target key industries that are typically spammed like Payday loans but even companies on there seemed to have been missed. Also, EMD's should have been devalued but here is another example of companies dodging this.

I think the only thing to do when you operate in industries like this is to concentrate on your own website and make sure you are creating quality content to engage with customers online.

[EGOL]

See how simple the answer is?   Why spend time on analysis of other sites?

[EvolveCreative]

Exactly. Penguin isn't about improving search results. It's about punishing webmasters using spammy tactics. Panda is about improving search results.

[TakeshiYoung]

The Penguin update just targets low quality/spammy links, so unless these sites were engaging in shady link tactics they likely won't be affected.