"Google May 2020 Core Update" affecting your xF Forum?
- Thread starter rdn
- Start date
djbaxter
in memoriam 1947-2022
Yeah, good strategy... because so many people are using Bing and DuckDuckGo trying to find you
Search Engine Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats
This graph shows the market share of search engines worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.
gs.statcounter.com
2024 Search Market Share: 5 Hard Truths About Today's Market
The 2024 search market share: what does it look like and what does it mean? Find out in this in-depth blog post on the 2024 search engine market share!
www.webfx.com
Walter
Well-known member
I know that you know that he was trying to make a point about his rankings and not about marketshare.
rickhz
Well-known member
When people are trying to fix their truck they don't care if the information is 20 years old. Thanks to Google's May 4th update a whole lot less people will find the info they need to fix their Ford Explorers.
I have been helping the Ford Explorer community for 25 years. Back "in the day'' my site was listed directly under FOMOCO's own site. Now I have lost half of my search engine traffic since the beginning of the year.
It's funny too, when Google first came online they had a deal where you could put up a text link to the Google search engine and earn 25 cents per click. These days they are against sites which place paid links on their sites.
djbaxter
in memoriam 1947-2022
Google Search is basically looking at the following (not an exhaustive list) to determine which pages to return for any specific search query:
searchengineland.com
support.google.com
If you use systems like Vigilink or similar services that link content to your affiliate accounts, pay attention to the second to last item on that list.
- how accurate is the information on your page?
- how relevant is it to the search query?
- is it the best match to answer the question posed in the search query (20 year old information almost certainly isn't)?
- how original is the content on your page? forums may discuss to death an analysis of a certain issue (just like this thread) but if someone is searching for specific information is it the best information to address the query? For most forums, the answer is probably not.
- does the information on your page reflect established evidence-based factual information? or just user-generated opinion and anecdotal "evidence"?
- is the information on your page regurgitating information originally posted elsewhere? if so, why would Google want to hiughlight your page instead of the source?
- etc., etc., etc.
Google webspam report: Cracking down on renegade linking practices, auto-generated content
“More than 25 billion pages we discover each day are spammy,” the company revealed.
searchengineland.com
Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers
The Google Search Essentials make up the core parts of what makes your web-based content (web pages, images, videos, or other publicly-available material that Google finds on the web) eligible to appear and perform well on Google Search.
support.google.com
If you use tags on your forum, carefully consider the last item in that list.
If you use systems like Vigilink or similar services that link content to your affiliate accounts, pay attention to the second to last item on that list.
rickhz
Well-known member
Google Search is basically looking at the following (not an exhaustive list) to determine which pages to return for any specific search query:
- how accurate is the information on your page?
- how relevant is it to the search query?
- is it the best match to answer the question posed in the search query (20 year old information almost certainly isn't)?
- how original is the content on your page? forums may discuss to death an analysis of a certain issue (just like this thread) but if someone is searching for specific information is it the best information to address the query? For most forums, the answer is probably not.
- does the information on your page reflect established evidence-based factual information? or just user-generated opinion and anecdotal "evidence"?
- is the information on your page regurgitating information originally posted elsewhere? if so, why would Google want to hiughlight your page instead of the source?
- etc., etc., etc.
Google webspam report: Cracking down on renegade linking practices, auto-generated content
“More than 25 billion pages we discover each day are spammy,” the company revealed.
Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers
The Google Search Essentials make up the core parts of what makes your web-based content (web pages, images, videos, or other publicly-available material that Google finds on the web) eligible to appear and perform well on Google Search.
If you use tags on your forum, carefully consider the last item in that list.
If you use systems like Vigilink or similar services that link content to your affiliate accounts, pay attention to the second to last item on that list.
How much does G pay you to advocate for them? It sure seems like it's your job.
djbaxter
in memoriam 1947-2022
That's a very ignorant, insulting, and disrespectful accusation.
I don't work for Google and they don't pay me anything. However, it is important for me in my work to keep up with Google's algorithm changes. I am trying to help people in this thread understand why their forums may have been affected and what they can and cannot do to try to mitigate the impact.
rickhz
Well-known member
It appears throughout this thread that you do not see a problem with what G has been doing to well established communities.
IMO what is happening is that G is venting it's frustration at not being able to get a foothold in social media via G+ which they invested so much money into.
IMO what is happening is that G is venting it's frustration at not being able to get a foothold in social media via G+ which they invested so much money into.
Anatoliy
Well-known member
Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.
When one describes the world he describes himself. (c)
Masetrix
Well-known member
Google often appears to hover "something" above the clouds. I have looked at all of this and we are fulfilling all of the requirements. What we obviously cannot do is hire a programmer who constantly adapts the forum software and sets links from users to "noindex" or "nofollow" until the check ". We avoid Spamming as good as we can.
So I don't understand why we've lost almost 40% since March.
So I don't understand why we've lost almost 40% since March.
Anatoliy
Well-known member
by the way do we have an ability to manually mark "follow" approved links in posts?
XF 2.2 will allow more control over nofollow, but not on a per link basis
XF 2.2 - Search forums, SEO improvements and dev team news
A new way to surface content Forums are usually devoted to a single subject matter and the threads they contain relate to that subject matter, unless it's all gone wrong and your users are wandering off topic. Threads belong to their parent forums, so if your board separates posts about kittens...
xenforo.com
Anatoliy
Well-known member
well that'll give us an option to set links as follow for a usergroup which is good
rickhz
Well-known member
Been running a forum for 25 years. Been using Adsense since the beginning and finally, after many years quit my regular job about 5 years ago to make a full time commitment to my forum. Two years ago I earned about 150K from Adsense alone. That dropped slightly last year. This year I am on track to earn much less. Yes COVID has a lot to do with that, but the May 4 update has shown to be just as significant a factor.
During the time I have been with Adsense I have removed some of the sites most popular threads because Google didn't like them. What kind of threads? Threads with photos of clothed women with cars, and humor threads. Threads which made the forum more of a community, the kind of stuff that forum's were once known for, and what drew people to stay on the site.
Now we have practically nothing, but tech articles. Google has always said that their publishers should create great content. My site has done just that.
With their latest big change on May 4, it's as if Google has decided that forum's are no longer "authoritative" sites. That's BS. They are a hell of a lot more "authoritative" than a Facebook group.
What really bothers me is that G has become a scrapper site. They find what they believe is the best answer for a search query, pull it from a private website, and put that result at the top of their SERP without any compensation for the site it was taken from. Yes they provide a link to the original content, but who needs to click on the link if all they need is right there on the SERP? That is not "creating great content" that is hijacking great content.
During the time I have been with Adsense I have removed some of the sites most popular threads because Google didn't like them. What kind of threads? Threads with photos of clothed women with cars, and humor threads. Threads which made the forum more of a community, the kind of stuff that forum's were once known for, and what drew people to stay on the site.
Now we have practically nothing, but tech articles. Google has always said that their publishers should create great content. My site has done just that.
With their latest big change on May 4, it's as if Google has decided that forum's are no longer "authoritative" sites. That's BS. They are a hell of a lot more "authoritative" than a Facebook group.
What really bothers me is that G has become a scrapper site. They find what they believe is the best answer for a search query, pull it from a private website, and put that result at the top of their SERP without any compensation for the site it was taken from. Yes they provide a link to the original content, but who needs to click on the link if all they need is right there on the SERP? That is not "creating great content" that is hijacking great content.
AzzidReign
Well-known member
This is the sad truth for those of us who have guides/tutorials or definitions on our sites.
diretur
Active member
I don't agree with that. I own 3 sites with big forums, all related to cycling, and they have been booming in the last month (see attachment, it's the mountain bike one). The nice makes the difference, and what people are searching for. It's always been like that with google, and that's why we never cared much about seo. If you care about seo (speaking for a content website, not an e-commerce one) you loose the focus of why you have an internet presence.
I think cycling is a perfetct example in the Covid-19 times, because people want to commute and practice without staying close to other people, and that's the reason why they are searching for bikes and cycling related information.
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