There’s been a lot of buzz on search forums and even Google’s discussion board about these drops. The whispers of the new upcoming penalty are getting louder. Others are hinting that is might just be a simple case of Google getting touch on scam sites. This time it’s actually something quite different.

It seems Google has had a little technical glitch that categorized normal domains as parked domains. A parked domain is one that is used exclusively to house ads without any other relevant content. It’s Google’s policy to lower the rank of these types of sites. If your site was accidently caught up in this net, then you may have seen a drop in your Google search engine rankings.

What happened is that Google accidently had an issue with their classifier for parked domains. It was taking information from a few empty files. This information told the classifier that the sites were parked domains when in fact they were not.

Google has since determined the issues that caused the mistake and are currently working on taking steps ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.

When it comes to the penalties for designing a site with an abundance of SEO and how that will or will not affect your search engine ranking on Google and what the possible fall out will be is still a matter, for now, of waiting and seeing.

Google has now taken it one giant step forward.  With Google SPYW, your own personal experiences and those of your friends and associates in your circles will rank higher in search results than websites with more authority and links.

Google + results include Google + profiles and Google People and Pages which in turn steals prime top of the page result spots.  Why might this change affect you?  Ninety million users have signed on and are using Google + to date.

Google is giving very little option to users on whether or not they want these search results.  Currently anyone signing up for a new Gmail account, YouTube account and so on, are required to sign up for a Google +  account.  When logged in to Google + the SPYW is the default search option.  It can be changed, but the button to do so is small and it is not obvious as to what it is for.  Also, the search option changes back to Google + even after you have changed it, each time you log out.

Another issue is that even when not logged into Google + you will find that Goggle People and Places show up in search results.  There is no way to turn this option off.  Some critics say that Google SPYW forfeits relevant search results for social media resulting in a Hodge-podge that lack any authority or relevant content.

Whether you are friend or foe of the new Google + it is going to be even more important to produce keyword rich content that provides useable information that can be shared with others in your circle and beyond.  Speaking of circles, just how many are you in?  Increasing your exposure by growing your circles, (you can’t add yourself to a circle, someone must add you), will enhance the opportunity for your content to be seen not only in Google + but also in search engines in general.

For those that still aren’t seeing the new results page consistently (a lot of people still, according to SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin), Google’s Matt Cutts posted this blog, talking about how he’d used the new feature.

It comes as no surprise that social is becoming more heavily a part of search, but for many (this party included), the new results appear to be making Google function much more like a social network’s proprietary search box than the type of neutral, organic search engine spidering that people have grown to love from Google. For many, Larry Page’s recent appointment as company CEO has been leaving a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths, so much in fact that popular blogger headlines in the past week have included titles such as “Google Just Killed Its Search Engine” and “Google Just Made Bing the Best Search Engine”.

All of this said, Search, Plus Your World is still a very new feature, and it’s difficult to predict where it will go for certain. Some retooling to include the other social networks without prejudice, and creating a new name while the marketing department doesn’t have the day off, could certainly be a game changer.

Multiple IP hosting offers webmasters the opportunity to host across multiple IP ranges to achieve better search engine optimization.  The basic concept behind multiple, or SEO hosting, is that search engines give better rankings to related sites that link to one another from differing IP ranges.  By expanding across various domain names on multiple IPs, webmasters have the ability to increase their online search results.  This new IP allocation is the equivalent of a ‘Class B’ of IP space, and should provide customers with plenty of room to expand to meet their SEO hosting needs.

Director of Business Development for Ahosting, Inc., Daniel Page comments, “We are really excited about this expansion.  This huge addition to our IP address space complements our tremendous line of SEO web hosting products and offers our valued customers even more options, providing them with the opportunity to further boost their search engine rankings and achieve greater web traffic.”

This addition to ASEOHosting’s available IP allocation is just one of several expansions that are expected to be announced over the coming months.   The company also plans to introduce a new product offering called “SEO domains,” through which clients can purchase turnkey websites and domain names that have existing page rank at competitive pricing.

Existing clients of ASEOHosting who would like to take advantage of this new class C IP offering can do so by logging into their account at https://billing.aseohosting.com.   For more information on the variety of IP hosting packages offered by ASEOHosting visit http://www.aseohosting.com/ip-hosting.html, or contact the ASEOHosting sales team directly.

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About ASEOHosting:

ASEOHosting is a Hudson, Florida-based web hosting company owned and operated by Ahosting, Inc.  ASEOHosting provides multiple IP web hosting services in an environment considered to be ideal for SEO professionals.  Clients of ASEOHosting can subscribe to SEO hosting services across 400+ U.S. and 150+ European IP Class C’s, and rest assured that their provider is paying relentless attention towards other server-side factors that contribute directly to the success of their SEO campaigns.  For more information, visit http://www.aseohosting.com.

This follows anther recent announcement that Google Algorithm updates would also be re-hashed on this wonderful blog that’s kept by the Google Search Team.  While a welcome change of pace from Panda and Caffeine update notes, the ability to instantly graph functions falls right in-line with a mission that Google has talked about since their inception:  to eventually make search engine results so smart that you only get one answer; the one you wanted.

In the meantime, any Google user obviously knows that we still have a very long way to go in making all search queries this smart, even if it is the end intent, and SEO’s certainly need not be threatened.  In the words of Bruce Clay at this year’s SES Chicago:  ”How many tools appear when you search for the word hammer?  Besides MC Hammer, not one.”

ASEOHosting has already been providing SEO hosting services for customers throughout Europe and those who prefer to host their websites on various GEO locations with different private name servers and Class C IP’s. They company has now expanded their European product and service offerings to include dedicated SEO servers. These servers allow clients to better manage larger networks as they are accompanied by a variety of Class C IP addresses from different nations.

Director of Business Development, Daniel Page says, “These servers are perfect for organizations that perform work with international SEO in mind, particularly since Google shows significant preference for sites that are hosted in the nation in which user searches are being conducted. They also contribute to an enhanced user experience because of the low latency they provide to European nations. What this means is a higher level of importance placed on our clients’ sites by the major search engines in terms of SEO.”

ASEOHosting’s dedicated server packages include root level access, 24/7 technical support, port monitoring and 99.99% network uptime SLA and are compatible with a number of operating systems. Clients also receive the benefit of being able to manage and control all of their hosting needs under a single server. This latest announcement comes on the heels of their recent addition of a web-based IP picker, further enhancing the extensive line of services they provide to their valued clients across the globe.

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About ASEOHosting:

ASEOHosting is a Hudson, Florida-based web hosting company owned and operated by Ahosting, Inc.  ASEOHosting provides multiple IP web hosting services in an environment considered to be ideal for SEO professionals.  Clients of ASEOHosting can subscribe to SEO hosting services across 400+ U.S. and 150+ European IP Class C’s, and rest assured that their provider is paying relentless attention towards other server-side factors that contribute directly to the success of their SEO campaigns.  For more information, visit http://www.aseohosting.com.

What Searches Are Impacted?
Google’s algorithm changes will be implemented in an effort to weed out stale search results by returning results that are more up-to-date. The official Google announcement says the following types of searches will be impacted by the update:

• Hot Topics – Topics that are currently trending will be given greater priority than before. The goal is to bring news on the current trends that is less than one minute old.
• Recent Events – Recent events will be given priority in much the same way as hot topics.
• Recurring Events – Events that recur on a regular basis will be impacted. Higher placement will be given to results for the most recent event rather than past occurrences of an event.
• Frequently Updated Information – Newly updated results will be given higher priority on topics that frequently change, such as product reviews and “best of” listings.

Freshness Ranking Not New
Google was quick to point out that freshness ranking was first introduced in 2007. The difference is that, now, content can be searched and ranked more quickly than ever before, so freshness ranking deserves an update and a higher priority than it had in the past.

Possible Spam
Some Internet search experts are worried that the new ranking system will invite spam based on fresh information. This spam may lead to less relevant results. Google responds to this by saying that freshness is not the single-most determining factor in results. Google did mention, however, that freshness results are to be based on new web pages and not simply on web pages that have been changed or updated.

Changed, Not Improved
It is important to note that change does not equal improvement. The 35 percent change does not mean results will be 35 percent improved. Website owners and SEO hosting companies should remember this distinction.

ASEOHosting offers multiple Class C IP’s for SEO webmasters to host their own network of sites.  Webmasters across the globe use multiple IP hosting for faster link indexing and as an additional back linking strategy for their targeted website by creating a network of related websites on different Class C IPs, and linking them back to their target website.  Being able to host a network of sites on different class C IP addresses allows the user to leverage their more powerful sites and create additional links to other sites within network, helping them achieve a higher ranking more quickly.  ASEOHosting has developed a WHM IP Changer plug-in which clients can use to change their site’s IPs with a simple click of a button.

“We recently began to offer an IP Changer as a WHM plugin that allows clients to change their account IPs via WHM.  This is a custom script that we applied and only ASEO clients can access. We have worked hard to make this happen as we knew that it would make things much easier for clients.  We’re proud to offer a tool that very few other companies can offer,” commented Daniel Page, Director of Business Development for Ahosting, Inc.

Existing ASEO clients can take advantage of this new tool by logging in to their WHM and clicking on the “Change Site IP Address” link at left navigation menu under “Plugin”.   Accounts will appear on left window and IPs on the right.  Simply choose the desired account and the IP and then click “Change IP”.

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About ASEOHosting:

ASEOHosting is a Hudson, Florida-based web hosting company owned and operated by Ahosting, Inc. ASEOHosting provides multiple IP web hosting services in an environment considered to be ideal for SEO professionals.  Clients of ASEOHosting can subscribe to SEO hosting services across 400+ U.S. and 150+ European IP Class C’s, and rest assured that their provider is paying relentless attention towards other server-side factors that contribute directly to the success of their SEO campaigns. For more information, visit http://www.aseohosting.com.

Who did well

Corporate media clearly seemed to benefit from this update, especially News Corporation properties Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.   More significantly, perhaps, we can see a clear trend in improved performance by sites that contain a lot of video and audio (tv.com, ign.com, youtube.com), which even includes the previously mentioned mainstream media.  Take a look.

Who didn’t do well

Easily user-driven content such as cheap press release marketing and independent media did not appear to do well.  Plain article marketing was clearly a loser with this one.  

The Road to Recovery

Here are 3 things that we believe that you should take a hard look at if you were harmed by Google Panda 2.5.

1.) Content Bounce Rate

Remember, the Panda algorithm is still focused on analyzing the difference between high quality content vs. low quality. Greywolf recommends doing regular site quality audits, looking at your bounce rate, and I think he has the right idea. Increasingly, SEO’s cite bounce rate as a likely Google Ranking Factor.  As easy this is for Google to measure, and as prominent as this number is in Google Analytics, we believe it would be foolish to ignore.

2.) Rich media

The site lists above clearly favor sites that have video and audio in line with their plain text. Consider using more video, and potentially audio, with your content. That might mean embedding a video from YouTube, or some music from GrooveShark. Accept that it’s no longer the 90′s – hacked up text sites made in Frontpage 95 are not going to cut it anymore; it’s time to embrace rich media.

3.) Complain a lot

Hey, it seemed to work for Daniweb this time around. While in all seriousness, it may not work for you as well as it did for Dani, the Google Webmaster Forums are always a great place to look for advice when you’ve run out of ideas for your content.  And, since this update is focused on content quality, that is exactly where you should be looking.

How was your site impacted? Leave a comment below and let us know how you’re recovering.  We’d love to hear it.