Were you affected by the EMD algo update?

[alex83]

My opinion is that it's definitely not an update focused only on EMD. Otherwise, why my non-emd domains got hit so hard? And why some of my emd sites haven't got hit at all.
My guess is that some backlinks(probably a lot of them) were devaluated do to some low-quality criteria.

[Test-ok]

Few are saying non EMD sites are also losing ranking.
Wondering if it's a result of a non EMD that had a bunch of links from a couple of EMD sites that no longer hold any weight.
just a guess

[Lb1878]

The site I'm working with also took a hit and is not an EMD. I have to go through some of the backlinks to see if your theory holds any water test-ok... And I just got some of their traffic back after a redesign...lol SMH

Edit to add: I looked back over the backlinks and there are a few quality links sprinkled in but there are a lot more crap links. I did not really see many EMD linking sites pointing to this site. I'm not quite sure how this site got caught up. There has to be more to this "minor weather report."

[Dr.Marie]

I think you're right that something else is going on. Personally I think Google goofed somehow and will roll back this update on Monday.

I've been spending hours looking at sites that people sent me to try to find a pattern, and comparing them with EMDs that still rank well and I am stumped.

I've looked at:

-keyword stuffing. (At first I thought that was it, but some that are still ranking are pretty keyword stuffed)
-backlink profile
-age of domain
-hosting
-whether or not whois data was complete
-presence of duplicate content
-abuse of <h> tags
-whether or not a site was an affiliate site
-presence of adsense
-w3 validation
-pr/da

And I can't find any patterns at all. Many of the sites that claim to have been affected look like quality sites to me. And many of the sites that still rank well look absolutely horrible as far as quality goes.

[drelly]

Yes I saw a drop for www.boats.co.nz

It was ranked #2/3 for "Boats" on Google New Zealand since January and now it's down around #20. I've also seen drops for a couple of other similar searches but oddly, the rank for "Boats for Sale" is still #3.

I've seen no drop in traffic though.

[Test-ok]

I didn't see that site in the first 10 pages for the term boats.

It almost sounds like Google devalued some of the EMD juice. Which is purely speculation.
Using the boat site as an example. Here's what I would think this filter achieved...The word boats in the url doesn't have the kick it use to have. Everything else is a side affect.

Drelly. IMO that site is optimized for "Boats for sale NZ" and not for "Boats". And it ranked high before this filter because of the EMD...Google's taken some kick away from EMD as far as the keyword kick it use to have, which explains why the one word went down and the other didn't.
nomesayn

[DeeperStill]

I suspect that just about anyone here could tell me if my site was affected by the EMD thing.

I surely have no clue what it is , why it is, or if my site was affected.

DS

[drelly]

I didn't see that site in the first 10 pages for the term boats.

It almost sounds like Google too some of the EMD juice.
Using the boat site as an example. Here's what I would think this filter achieved...The word boats in the url doesn't have the kick it use to have. Everything else is a side affect.

Drelly. IMO that site is optimized for "Boats for sale NZ" and not for "Boats". And it ranked high before this filter because of the EMD...Google's taken some kick away from EMD as far as the keyword kick it use to have, which explains why the one word went down and the other didn't.
nomesayn

Yeah you could be right about the difference. I also took lesser drops for "Boats NZ" and "Yachts for Sale"

[Test-ok]

I doubt you were hit, if you were ranking for gods fellowship you might not be ranking for that term any longer, but I don't think you were ranking for the words in your domain name anyway. And even if you did get hit I don't think you would have noticed anything.

[Lb1878]

I suspect that just about anyone here could tell me if my site was affected by the EMD thing.

I surely have no clue what it is , why it is, or if my site was affected.

DS

If you have Google Analytics, simply look at your site traffic for the last 7 days and if you see it drop off late Friday (9/28) or Saturday (9/29) you were affected.

[ssss]

Some of my sites and friends sites were hit badly, and werent what I would consider EMD's. They may have one word in the domain that could be considered relevant but many had been around since 2005 or 2008 and were getting stable traffic for years.

All had low (<50%) bounce rates, and high time on site (>5min)

One site has lost every single key word in google except the sitename itself. It has gone from ranking 2-10 for very competitive key words to not being in the top 150 on EVERY key word.

Really not happy.

[Jocelyn]

It's been a while a saw things shake like this...

[gazzahk]

Few are saying non EMD sites are also losing ranking.
Wondering if it's a result of a non EMD that had a bunch of links from a couple of EMD sites that no longer hold any weight.
just a guess

This should not be an issue. They are aiming to reduce the benefit of exact match names. This has nothing to do with juice. An EMD should not see any juice fall simply because the EMD in no onger helping them rank..

[gazzahk]

And I can't find any patterns at all. Many of the sites that claim to have been affected look like quality sites to me. And many of the sites that still rank well look absolutely horrible as far as quality goes.

What about exact match page titles?

[Test-ok]

This should not be an issue. They are aiming to reduce the benefit of exact match names. This has nothing to do with juice. An EMD should not see any juice fall simply because the EMD in no longer helping them rank..

Your probably right but wouldn't that have to do with how google implemented the filter?