[Tech] Google penalizza i webmaster troppo ''furbi''

Nel corso degli anni i webmaster hanno messo a punto metodi sempre più sofisticati per far sì che i propri siti venissero collocati nelle prime posizioni dei risultati delle ricerche effettuate sui motori di ricerca, primo fra tutti Google.



Alcuni anni fa un gruppo di artisti digitali, gli e-toy, per denunciare questo tipo di manipolazioni (e altre più gravi) avevano addirittura organizzato e portato a termine un mega "rapimento digitale".



Dopo avere "infiltrato", nel corso di alcune settimane, le classifiche di Google usando un particolare set di parole chiave, avevano fatto scattare la trappola: chi, partendo da Google, arrivava sul sito segnalato dal motore di ricerca, si ritrovava sul monitor una pagina contenente l'immagine di un tipo che, fucile alla mano, annunciava che quello era un cyber-rapimento, dopo di che "l'ostaggio" con un banale redirect automatico veniva "trasferito" sul sito di e-toy, dove il gruppo spiegava in dettaglio il senso dell'iniziativa.



Ora Google pare avere deciso di fare le grandi pulizie: da alcuni giorni i risultati delle ricerche sono cambiati drasticamente, e ora spostano regolarmente in posizioni più basse (a volte anche di molto) quei siti che usano i più diffusi metodi per "venire a galla" nel ranking.



Gli effetti di questo giro di vite nei confronti dei webmaster che esagerano nel fare i "furbi" non si sono fatti attendere, come illustra questo articolo del New York Times:

For many people, ordering a gift online goes something like this: type a few words into a search engine, click on a few of the top results and place an order.



For this reason, being among the first few links in a list of search results is critical for many online businesses. Falling off the first page of results can mean a sudden loss of customers. So companies have tried for years to manipulate search engines so they land in the top ranks.



But lately a new strategy has emerged that is raising questions about business ethics and the nature of online competition. Because search engines like Google give weight to sites that are linked to other sites, companies set up networks, creating or encouraging others to create large numbers of sites that sell the same products and then linking them together. If the strategy works, what the searcher sees is a list of links that lead back to the same product or company.



Is this just a sign of evolving competition among Internet retailers? Or is the consumer at risk of being ill served, or worse, deceived?



The practice has roiled the gift-basket industry, where several online shops have noticed in recent months that their rankings on Google have suddenly dropped. No longer do they show up in the top 10 listings. Instead, a company called Gift Services Inc. has taken their place.



"We cannot be found anymore," said Michelle Wiesel, president of Cesta Gift Baskets in Los Angeles (www.cesta.net). "We have not sold one fruit basket" in two months, she said, adding that before, when Cesta showed up in Google's top 10 results, her business was doing fine.

Anche Barry Lloyd, di Search Engine Guide, dice la sua in proposito, con un lungo e dettagliato articolo di cui riporto l'introduzione:

Starting on the 16th of November, a major shift in results was seen on Google. Veterans recognised that Google appeared to be doing a major update, not seen for many months, as reported first on WebMasterWorld who named it "Florida", continuing the tradition of naming updates rather like hurricanes. In this case it was a hurricane! As was usual with many updates, there were moans and groans as people complained about their sites falling. Many people were unaffected (including us) but the symptoms of the sites being dropped were not usual. No penalties, such as PR0, seem to have been applied against pages that had fallen - yet none of the pages targeted at specific key phrases, particularly index/home pages, appeared in the top results for these search terms. Indeed some had dropped hundreds of places and, in some cases reported, off the scale. Yet these pages did appear for obscure phrases and were obviously still in the index.



It appeared to us and to several other respected names (though hotly disputed by others) that some sort of over-SEOd filter had been applied to check if overt SEO had been done for that particular phrase. It was as if Google were checking to see if external links to the site included the phrase, on-page optimisation was being done for the phrase and even if the domain included the phrase. If the density of the optimisation, both on and off the page, appeared too artificial, then a filter was tripped and down went the page - solely for that phrase.



Google had never looked favourably on abuse of their systems and many established SEOs looked upon this algo tweak as a way of Google getting rid of the abuses of links and stopping the scrambling for getting (and sometimes buying) links including your required anchor text from other high PR, but probably irrelevant to your subject, sites. It seemed to make sense.



On Friday, 21st November, Google decided to tighten the "filter". All hell broke loose as tens of thousands of sites disappeared from positions they had held (in some cases) for years. We noticed some of our client sites plummeting for their major key phrase from being #1 to total invisibility. Yet this was only in highly competitive areas, not for their secondary phrases. These sites were, in most cases, not highly optimised, had not sought reciprocal links but had achieved their rankings through being on the web for 4 or 5 years. The bad news was that their company name and domain included the key phrase, sites (including directories) linking to those sites included the key phrase in their links and Google interpreted this as over-optimisation and down they plunged. In many areas all the top 20 ranking sites disappeared, including industry leaders, to be replaced by educational sites, news review sites, government sites, major shopping portals or directories....

Links:

• New York Times: "Retailers Rise in Google Rankings as Rivals Cry Foul";
• Search Engine Guide: Been Gazumped by Google? Trying to make Sense of the 'Florida' Update!