Posts by Dani

That is not considered duplicate content, Ezzaral. In fact, it is a huge boost to SEO to have duplication of many keywords throughout a site. It demonstrates to Google that the site is an "authority" on that keyword/topic.

"Duplicate content" refers to when multiple websites have the *exact* same content. i.e. the same article has been posted to multiple websites, or one website syndicates the RSS feeds of another, etc. Search engines frown upon this because if you do a search for something, and there ends up being a relevant article, you don't want the entire first page of Google results to be that exact same article (regardless of how great and relevant and useful it is) but hosted on a different domain. The main problem Google has with duplicate content is determining which source is the original and which website copied which. Publishers get frustrated with Google when they put money and resources into having writers put out great content. Then, some mashup website scrapes their content, reposts the article, and they show up in the Google results instead of the original publisher.

The main issue is that this algorithm change affects 'sites', not 'pages'. Therefore, it is not the case that poor quality pages simply rank less. Instead, Google's algorithm appears to have deemed the entire daniweb.com domain a useless "content farm", and therefore demoted our rank in the engines for every single keyword any page on the site ranked for. It's like taking an instant -20 off of an assignment before it even gets graded because the student has a bad track record. Let the individual assignment speak for itself.

Hello there. Welcome to DaniWeb :) I hope you have a good experience with your first programming forum. Also, thank you for choosing us to be your first ;)

Hi Fortinbra,

Thank you SO much for your support. Articles would be great!

And GoTo.com, who pioneered the concept of PPC.

> Peoples have contents only on those sites suffers the most.
And DaniWeb suffers!! :)

I hope you guys are right, and that it's going to turn around for us.

Register your .in domain with Google webmaster tools, and there is a section there to geotarget India. The thing is, it shouldn't be necessary because Google has already expressed that country-specific domains such as .in are already targeted to their individual countries. But it can't hurt.

It might also help to cross-link between your two sites, if you're not doing that already. I suppose that each domain would need its own individual set of backlinks, as well.

You should be able to see your own site's backlinks with Google Webmaster Tools (google.com/webmasters)

HUH???

Do a lot of pages on your site have similar content, use the same redirect script, etc? Google has declared every page of my site that is behind a login wall (content only available to logged in members; guests just see a login box) as Soft 404s.

The algorithm update was intended to affect these "content farm" sites such as ezinearticles.com, about.com, etc. DaniWeb somehow got caught up in the mix.

Huh??

The aim of such a provider is to get high search engine ranks for the niche and website of any company.

That's the purpose of an SEO. An ISP is an Internet Service Provider, aka the company you pay for Internet access.

There really isn't anyone to "complain" to. I've submitted a reconsideration request through Google Webmaster Tools, and I tried reaching out to some Googlers through twitter.

Now THIS is just absolutely ridiculous! This makes me mad ...

We used to rank #1 for "round robin algorithm" in Google for about five years straight. This is the page that Google sent people to: http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread1334.html

Now, I can completely understand being bumped down in favor of a Wikipedia article for 'round robin scheduling' that took over the #1 spot in the search results. I can kind of maybe even understand the wikipedia article for 'Round-robin tournament' taking over the #2 spot, even if I think it's in very bad taste for the same domain to hold two positions in a row in search results, especially spots #1 and #2.

But now c'mon ... this is just RIDICULOUS that our article was pushed below THIS thread for a Google spot we've held for 5 years: http://forums.devx.com/showthread.php?t=160880

Compare the DaniWeb thread that used to be #1 to THIS thread! Does this thread really deserve a higher position in the search results?! We have clearly just been flagged by something in this algorithm change to devalue the entire daniweb.com domain in one swoop.

Thank you for the support everyone. As mentioned, the absolute BEST WAY you can support DaniWeb right now is to post a lot, revisit often, and tell your friends.

I definitely agree, Google can't stay #1 forever when their ranking algorithm is exclusively based on backlinks and keyword density. That being said, however, is DaniWeb's content REALLY that bad that we deserved to lose over 70% of our traffic on Thursday?

I'm not so sure I agree with you. In my experience, Bing has bad search results and no one uses it. I am not so sure I see it as competition to Google. Not yet, anyways.

Hey guys,

I was able to figure it out. I was under the (false) assumption that SPH_SORT_TIME_SEGMENTS figured out the time based on what was set in the sql_date_column. However, it turns out that you have to manually pass in which field you want to use for time, when setting the SortMode.

I currently use Sphinx search, and am attempting to sort my results in time segments mode, which means time segments in descending order and then relevance in descending order.

Currently I use SPH_SORT_RELEVANCE, and it works fine. But every time I switch to time segments mode, it returns zero results. I am setting sql_date_column in my sphinx.conf file.

What am I doing wrong? Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Hey there,

I'm sorry this happened to you. An explanation for the spike right before the huge dip might be that in October you implemented an SEO technique that Google's algorithm favored. However, Google then manually changed their algorithm in such a way that the technique hurt you instead of helped you.

You're welcome. Thank you for marking the thread solved!

Because Google search results aren't based off of realtime. Google's spider crawls the web and indexes the content of web pages into its database. Then, when you do a search, you are searching Google's database. (Google recrawls the same webpage either daily, weekly, monthly, etc. depending on how often it feels the content will be updated.)

Therefore, the cached copy (the copy in the database that search results are based off of) is going to be a snapshot of the menu contents just at that one moment in time. Google will assume the webpage always has that content (aka that one menu).

I'm not sure. What do you mean you can't 'Like' pages? Why not? Is Facebook not working for you?

Your hosting company doesn't allow you to use php's mail() function? If you can't send mail from your server, you will have to use a third party (paid) service. Try something like ConstantContact.

From an SEO perspective, you would want different pages for the varying content. This way, each individual menu would rank in Google when searching for the particular food that it offers.

So I was thinking all last night and all morning about what exactly the algorithm update that happened on Thursday entailed. Word on the street is that they are targeting content farms, and sites with lower quality information. Content quality is all subjective, of course, as opposed to Google's history of mathematical formulas to determine PageRank, etc.

I believe that we were hit hard by the new algo because of the significant number of non-native English speakers here, leading posts to appear as "lower quality" because they are written in broken English. So that got me thinking. This is the first Google algorithm update that I can think of that focuses on natural-language content. So that got me thinking. What are the chances that Jeopardy's Watson natural-language robot, who understands natural-language speech, is behind this Google update?

No worries. But mind sharing so that you could help other members of the community?

He is probably using an automated retweet service such as twitterfeed.com, which tweets off of an RSS feed. I suppose he feels that DaniWeb relates to web development, as a whole, so he decided to set up twitterfeed to retweet all of our new threads with the #webdevelopment hash tag.

If you ask me, hash tag or not, I support anyone who wants to retweet our content for us. Especially with the plummet in Google traffic, traffic like this from Twitter is more than essential to keeping us afloat right now.

The Business Exchange category is entirely behind a login gate, so that won't affect anything.

Additionally, this appears to be ACROSS THE WEB. In checking with friends in the industry, nearly all forums are affected. Two of my friends who also own really huge developer-related websites have also been affected, and neither of their sites cater to hardware/software or marketing. They're both dev only.

I would have to definitely say that a Computer Science degree is much more prestigious than an IT degree. I, personally, associate a Comp Sci degree with someone with excellent math skills, logic skills, who is good at theoretical issues, thinking abstractly, and an excellent problem solver. I associate a Comp Sci degree with someone who has the fundamental mental tools to be an engineer, a programmer, etc.

When I think of IT, I think more of someone who is taught current computing technologies, architecture, and some modern programming. I associate an IT degree with either web development or something that is more business focused.

I graduated in 2005 with a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in Business Computer Information Systems (which my university renamed/simplified to Information Systems a year after graduated).

We had been averaging about 90,000 US-based pageviews per day from Google. This was incredibly consistent. On Thursday, we suddenly dropped to 50,000 pageviews per day. Friday just closed out at 20,000. At this rate, by morning, we will no longer receive any US-based traffic from Google. I am watching the site dwindle away before my eyes. There won't be anything left in a few hours. I'm afraid to sleep.

It's not tagged as #webdevelopment when I retweet that page. It's just a particular twitter user who is retweeting all articles on DaniWeb and adding that hash tag to them.

Maybe the results didn't propagate to whatever proxy you were using. When I google "starting java", DaniWeb doesn't appear AT ALL. codingforums.com do, however.

Sorry, not quite sure what you mean?

Hi chrishea,

According to your member profile, it shows you are in Canada. This google update has so far only affected US traffic (International traffic to follow soon). Therefore, if you are seeing DaniWeb in search results, it's because you aren't seeing the effects of the Google update (yet).

Yes, I know we are not ranked high in terms of response time, and that affects our ranking. James is already on this one!

As you say, it's all about content now. We have been working recently on our editorial section, but paying for content is not realistic or sustainable for us.

Currently exploring options ...

Yes, Google officially planned this algorithm change against content farms like answers.com and ehow.com, and "Made for AdSense" sites that just have billions of pages of crappy content.

Unfortunately, DaniWeb somehow got grouped into the same category. All of the search terms that we used to rank #1 for got replaced in the search results with sites like Wikipedia and other long, more elaborate, in depth analyses and articles.

Help us prove to Google that we aren't just full of low quality, broken English Indian students asking for free homework help! The best way you can help right now is to contribute great content to DaniWeb, tell your friends, and keep coming back.

Hi everyone,

I just found out (a few hours ago) that DaniWeb was *seriously* hurt by the new Google algorithm update that took place yesterday. The algorithm change was only rolled out to US visitors, and it reduced the amount of US-based traffic to DaniWeb by over 50%!

Google plans on rolling out the change to the rest of the world systematically, which means that by the time this update propagates worldwide, we will end up with HALF the amount of traffic we started out with.

I'm not sure what this means for DaniWeb's future ... As it stands right now, we won't be able to afford our carrying costs. I am petitioning you for your help ... All we can use right now is more traffic and great content. Please ... Revisit a lot. Tell your friends. Posts more. Contribute. Help us stay alive :)

A new google algorithm was released yesterday which has been targeted at content farms. According to the Google blog, it affects 11% of all search queries on the web, making it one MASSIVE update. We were *significantly* hit, losing about 50% of our traffic we normally get from Google. From what I understand, a lot of other forums were equally hit. Anyone out there have any status updates? Any other forum owners can confirm?

The links to the graphs are broken.

I agree that the more experienced programmers tend to rely less on forums than the newbies do. I also agree with doing other types of articles and tutorials geared towards the more experienced dev, which is why we have content such as this recent product review: http://www.daniweb.com/reviews/review349689.html

> Egad! Steady on.
You realize I was joking, right?

No, because it's nearly impossible to monetize Australian traffic. All the major ad agencies want to target either North America or the UK. Therefore, from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to put money and time and resources into those damn Aussies.

A lot of changes to my SEO and SEM strategies to heavily focus on US/UK/CAN developers in the 25-40 age bracket. Especially in the Web Dev section.

I've been on a mission lately to improve the quality of content, especially within the dev forums. This means more native English speakers, more professionals, fewer homework cheaters, etc. Is anyone starting to see any improvements?

Unfortunately, it's not possible. DaniWeb currently sends HTML email only. Perhaps this is something to change in the future.

(vBulletin, by default, actually offers only plain text email, and I altered it to send HTML email instead.)

How would you do it "manually"? You don't have access to the competitor's behind the scenes information, such as their Google Analytics account. Therefore, you need to rely on third-party tools to guestimate how much traffic they get, where they get it from, what types of promotion they are doing, what features they have, etc, so that you can stay competitive.

Check out Quantcast, Compete, Alexa, etc.

> SilverLight is coded in .NET, but it's not the full framework, it's only a subset of it.
Right, but as a subset, if you post in the .NET Forum, just about everyone who frequents there should be able to help with a Silverlight question, right?

SilverLight is coded with the .NET Framework, and we encourage programming related questions to be posted within our .NET Framework forum. We've been keeping an eye out, but for right now there is too much overlap here.

On the other hand, we also have a Graphics and Multimedia forum (http://www.daniweb.com/forums/forum28.html) which SilverLight currently shares with Adobe Flash.

We used to specifically have a Flash forum, but it was renamed to 'Multimedia' to accommodate Silverlight questions as well.