“Jagger” update and the real estate industry

[Breckenridge Real Estate]

I have been reading quite a bit on other SEO sites about how the recent update, being called Jagger, may have had some algo changes specifically targeting real estate sites and seriously hurting those sites which had good rankings based on recips.

This has not been my direct experience.

Prior to my starting a linking campaign, my site was nowhere to be found for any of my primary key phrases. Since then, my site has acquired hundreds of recips and my top 5 rankings for the 6 key phrases that I track barely changed with this update. The one exception was a slight increase in my ranking for the one key phrase that I have been linking with during the past couple of weeks.

Most of the page one sites for these key phrases seem to be pretty much the same as well.

Also, my PR4 index page went to PR5. Most of my PR3 internal pages went to PR4. And all of my link directory pages are now PR3 whereas some had been PR2.

[webmaster]

We do recips on all our sites and none were negetively effected (That I have seen yet) from this update. What we did notice, is that our sites that ranked well with internal pages that we didnt build links for, lost some ground (Some cases a lot) - what this tells me is that overall site authority is not a strong as it was before - solution we will build links to the internal pages that dropped and see what happens

[randfish]

Morgan,

Have you noticed many larger, "authority" sites ranking in the SERPs in place of smaller, targeted niche sites for local agents? Or is your experience in the other direction?

[mikebastin]

Administrator,

I came to the same conclusion as you: minimal loss for top 10 keywords of the homepage, all internal pages which didn't have they own BL lost ground. Also, big loss for random words, I mean words or expressions that I was not really targetting in link campaign but which were just ranking well due to "on site" optimization.

randfish,

I notice a lot of large sites having more top positions than before, I also see quality links page ranking before sites that they link to.

This jagger update was a big deception. My customers who only look at the serps for their main expressions didn't notice much, but overall traffic has dropped 40 to 60% for a week since Jagger and those who are more interested in the amount of leads get nervous and want explanations...

[wadowiczanka]

I've been kicked by Google from #3 to 5th - 4th page. I've no clue what should I do - so far I re-arranged my links, moving the low-ranking recips back into lower positions (second or third click). I removed some ARA content that I still had, but how is Google to know which is my own content if someone steals it?

I have been updating my website daily, and my visitors loved it, but now seem to have been punished for it, because websites that were not regularly updated are now ranking higher...

And I was alwasy reluctant to let anyone optimise my site, worrying about them using some short-term tricks...

Anyone has any ideas?

[SEO Jason]

I have been updating my website daily, and my visitors loved it, but now seem to have been punished for it, because websites that were not regularly updated are now ranking higher...

I have not seen any evidence to really support that Google isn't interested in new content as much as it used to be. From what I've seen Google still seems to be spidering frequently updated sites more regularly.

And I was alwasy reluctant to let anyone optimise my site, worrying about them using some short-term tricks...

Anyone has any ideas?

My idea would of course be to hire us, but besides that, my suggestion would be to read the different forums on SEO companies and see which have been around for a long time, which have good reputations and when you narrow it down, maybe ask some of the clients for these companies and see what there experience has been like with them.

Cheers
Jason

[SEO Jason]

Morgan,

Have you noticed many larger, "authority" sites ranking in the SERPs in place of smaller, targeted niche sites for local agents? Or is your experience in the other direction?

Randfish,

Since I go through a lot of SERPs on a daily basis I have always noticed that authority sites generally rank higher than targeted niche sites. Of course, generally speaking, most targeted niche sites aren't optimized well enough to be higher in the SERPs than they are. Optimized targeted niche sites usually do rank higher than authority sites unless the authority site specifically targets that niche as well. An authority site that optimizes for a niche market and creates backlinks to there internal page for that niche market will generally be higher in the SERPs that a specific optimized targeted niche site.

For example if you have a California real estate site with an internal page for orange county and that internal page for orange county has proper on-site optimization with content and it has 100 backlinks to that internal page, it will generaly outrank an Orange County specific site that also has 100 backlinks. In my opinion I don't think that the internal page on the authority site actually has to have as many backlinks as the niche site to outrank it. With that, however, I will say that with the "Jagger" update and what it looks like it is doing, it might be trying to make the internal page on the authority site and the main page for the niche site be on the same level.

[wadowiczanka]

I am also curious why when I check the cached snapshot of my index page, it now shows the image from October 18th, while previously it was showing October 23rd image? Why would it go back in time to an old image? Anyone knows?

I have several domains that I had sitting on the server where I get my website, and they had them pointing to my main site. I guess this might be one of the reasons my site dropped? Been treated as mirror sites? I didn't give it any thought, assumed they know what they are doing (I guess never assume), but I'm planning to take them out, build small HTML sites with various content and link them to my main site. I hope this is a good idea. I am scared to make things worse though...

Jason, thanks for your reply. Do you think I could get paid advice on what I should be doing? I am pretty good in doing, if I only know what...

[kyle422]

I've been kicked by Google from #3 to 5th - 4th page. I've no clue what should I do - so far I re-arranged my links, moving the low-ranking recips back into lower positions (second or third click). I removed some ARA content that I still had, but how is Google to know which is my own content if someone steals it?

I have been updating my website daily, and my visitors loved it, but now seem to have been punished for it, because websites that were not regularly updated are now ranking higher...

And I was alwasy reluctant to let anyone optimise my site, worrying about them using some short-term tricks...

Anyone has any ideas?

I looked at your site. You don't have any text on there that isn't a link. Your page is bloated with code and javascript, and I couldn't find one instance of you using header tags. <H1>Toronto Real Estate</H1>
I know that you used to do well with your competitive phrases, but with more and more people properly doing on page optimization, your site will have a hard time competing.

[judyo]

I didn't give it any thought, assumed they know what they are doing (I guess never assume), but I'm planning to take them out, build small HTML sites with various content and link them to my main site. I hope this is a good idea.

I thought I've read that interlinking between sites is not a good idea. I have 4 sites & I do a tiny bit of interlinking (one link from site A to B, one link from site C to B) and that's it. No interlinking from A, C & D.

Someone chime in if I'm wrong.