Web 2.0 Awards Page Dropped From Google Results
This article has been published with Mr Fishkin of SEO Moz’s permission.
I was just reading Ciarans article about The Guardian:
Why Doesn’t The Guardian Like SEO?
I noticed Ciarans badge, saying that he is one of the judges for the SEOmoz web 2.0 awards, and for some reason I decided to check out if the awards page was doing any better, or worst on Google. It ranked between 8th and 12th on web 2.0 for a long time. But I could not find the page anywhere, and even when I typed in web 2.0 awards the page was nowhere to be seen.
I am not 100% sure why the page is not ranking, but it looks and feels like the page has been penalised or duped out. Why might Google have penalised the page? The only thing I can think of is that it might be something to do with them giving out badges to the winners that link to the awards page – this may have tripped some sort of filter.
The awards are highly successful and have generated many thousands of links back. The badges that the winners have on their sites can be found here:
If the page is properly penalised, it is a particularly harsh move by Google if you ask me. I mean people have ran awards and given out badges to the winners for years. I think this sort of marketing ads value to the web and I do not think it should be thrown in with pay day loan, text link widgetbait etc.
Also worth knowing: I am fairly sure that the awards page had a Google PageRank 7/10 not too long ago. For me it is showing up as a gray bar.
Update: SEOmoz have been in touch with Google and found out why the page has stopped ranking. In the following post Jane Copland explains what happened:
Unwritten Google Webmaster Guideline: Don’t End URLs in .0
Posted in SEO News By David Eaves, a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
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June 12th, 2008 12 Comments
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Google seem to be taking this way too far. Whether or not the intention of the awards is for link building should be irrelevant, all badges will be added by choice so surely they are natural links.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
It’s not merely harsh of Google. It also detracts from the relevency of its results. If I was searching for Web 2.0, a page of current categorised highly-regarded examples would be exactly what I was looking for.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
You, see it’s not a Google’s fault that that site is not ranking well. Web 2.0 is too general term, and i believe the sites that are ranking at this moment could be even better web 2.0 resources then the site you are mentioning. If you type web 2.0 award or web 2.0 awards then you can see the site you are looking for. Google is really good search engine!
June 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/short is a PR 6 which is the page google lists in the SERPs.
http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/short is unranked.
I do not think Google penalized anyone, I think you may have just been looking at the wrong page.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Looks like 2006, 2007 pages didn’t get the smack down and are still ranking for web 2.0 awards 2006/2007.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
hmm…this is an interesting post..It first time for me to read it or hear about it..^^ anyways thanks for sharing the info.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Yeah, the Guardian fails completely. Read the Times instead for SEO advice:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article3866889.ece
If this is a penalty not a mistake Google REALLY sucks. I can see it rank #1 for Web 2.0 awards but not in the Google cache.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Please don’t jump to the conclusion that we’re penalizing SEOmoz, because we weren’t. I just did a post about this issue: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dont-end-your-urls-with-exe/
June 13th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Hi Matt, I didn’t actually think that a person had done something, but reading the post it does come off a bit like that. I will try to make a few amendments.
June 14th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
That’s probably why SMF forums have problems then when their boards end in things like /index.php?board=17.0
*sigh*
June 16th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
How can we know that Google penalizes …
I would like to know more abt it …
Any one?
-sri-
February 27th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
This is a great reminder that we can only control ourselves, not others. So, while someone may give us harsh negative feedback, we still have the ability to be graceful in our response.