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When Google updated its search algorithm a few months back, many so-called content farms saw their search ranking take a big hit. One site that feels it was unfairly targeted is now claiming that by making a few changes (some of them very minor) they were able to claw back significant search traffic. In fact, HubPages says it has gotten back to its pre-update traffic levels.
The site was negatively affected due to the presence of the typical low-cost SEO content Google was going after. But HubPages also produced a fair amount of high-quality articles. CEO Paul Edmondson searched for ways to counteract the search update, but tactics like tightening editorial standards were mostly ineffective.
HubPages hit upon the idea of breaking the site into subdomains and bounced the idea off of Google. The Google spam-killer Matt Cutts told Edmondson he should go ahead with his plan, and offered a few more tips. By breaking each author’s content into its own subdomain, the Google index was able to sort the good from the bad without penalizing the whole site.
The effect was dramatic for those authors using subdomains. HubPages is now in the process of rolling out subdomains for all its authors. The site makes about $10 million annually, and that’s after paying 60% of ad revenue to the authors. Do you think Google’s anti-spam update went too far, or maybe not far enough?
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MattyMattMatt
July 13, 2011 at 8:18pm
I think this is fair. If you put up shitty spam contents, expect to be punished. If you can separate the shitty spam contents and push up the good contents, fair enough, do it.
Gezzer
July 13, 2011 at 3:41pm
Has it helped? Yes. Has it helped enough to go back after using Bing? No.
Google's biggest problem is they're the big fish. It's just like how malware writers mostly go after PCs. Well Google is the best target if you want to "game" the search system.
Gezzer
July 14, 2011 at 1:46am
I like it over all. It's got s few rough spots. But I can search for something and get only 3 pages of hits instead of the 100+ Google gives, and all 3 pages have information about what I wanted instead of a lot of BS I wasn't looking for.
