Bourbon seems to have caused Google to penalise me over 100 places in the
listings for keywords. For over a week I have been most unhappy failing to
find a reason. But last night the likeliest explanation was given to me so I
will report it.
It seems that Google has brought in an undocumented rule that any page must
consist of at least 12% original material. As I run basically a literary
site I have files which are selections from other files. So I have been
caught out. My initial reaction was to think of replacing my files by PDFs
then I remembered that Google can read PDFs. So, assuming the cause of the
problem has been found, it is now a matter of providing links to the
original material rather than copying it. I have had my Cat Poems pamphlet
up on the Web for ten years now with readership running into the tens of
thousands but I will be forced to remove it and supply an interface of links
to the original books. The readers wont like that and will stop coming.
[censored] Google.
Throughout I am talking about text within a website. If Google tried this
between websites there would be pandemonium.
It will mean a massive amount of work for me to make the alterations and if
the expert is wrong it will all have been a waste of time. I seem to recall
AltaVista having a similar rule in the old days but they didnt have the
technology to enforce it. But anyway I am in no hurry to start editing. I
thought I would let people know what is happening.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
|