Search Engine Journal

Loren’s reference to our quotes in the article by Bambi Francisco is the reason for my post. Bambi interviewed us in reference to our retail clients’ ranking loss after the Florida update on November 21st. Our retail clients lost 5% of their organic rankings in Google. None of our clients used link schemes, or participated in doorways, cloaking, or spam-worthy or over-optimized methodologies. The only terms they seemed to lose were highly trafficked terms, or terms that cost the most using AdWords. Basically, they had the highest commercial value to our clients, and therefore potentially to Google. There may be no tie, and this may be a mere coincidence. However, our rankings are not due to link spam. Sites like Boardgames.com, Boardgamesexpress.com and AreYouGame.com all lost organic rankings due to Google’s Florida Update. Do any of these sites deserve a first page organic ranking in Google? You be the judge. Note that most of these sites are now directory sites, educational sites, and few are commercial. I might add that most of these game sites lost rankings completely a week before Thanksgiving shopping season. All of these sites are beginning to regain these rankings, post Christmas 2003. This may not stay this way for long. We have talked to many people who lost commercial rankings if their terms were highly trafficked, recently or currently advertised, or terms that might have advertising potential. The algorithms in our experience have continued to deliver highly relevant results, just a few less commercial sites. Froogle could have nice timing, as those commercial listings could deliver content that is better controlled by Google through the use of data feeds that are reviewed by Google before posting live at the top of SERPs.