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Exact Match Domain Update – Get Your Site’s Ranking Back, Forget About EMD’s Attack

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Google is at it again.    exact match domain update

No matter what you feel about the EMD update, you can’t sue Google for doing their business.

But you can press the right buttons to get right on track and secure your rankings again.

I’ll show you few tips that’s been working for me since 2011, even before the ugly updates got their appointment letters.

The Exact match domain update is officially live.

Google Amiable Engineer Matt Cutts in one of his recent videos have this to say:

“We have looked at the rankings and weights that we give to keyword domains and some people have complained that we’re giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. And so we have been thinking about adjusting that mix a little bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm so that given two different domains, it wouldn’t necessarily help you as much to have a domain with a bunch of keywords in it.”

Note that the EMD is quite different from Panda, which targeted low quality sites, and Penguin, which addressed over optimized sites and anchor texts issues.

If your site has been affected by the EMD Google update, I know how you feel. I’ve a bunch of exact match domain names in the health niche.

Two of my niche sites lost 56% and 71% organic traffic daily, respectively. But fortunately, my business blog (the one you’re reading now) wasn’t affected by the Panda, the Penguin and this weird EMD update.

Why the Panda and Penguin came first

Have you ever wondered why the Panda and Penguin updates were the first to kick-off? I asked myself this question several times until I learned about it the hard way. Anchor texts are vital elements for link building.

And because Google is doing all they can to weed out websites and blog pages that doesn’t appeal to her audience, the anchor text has been given a top priority in search engine ranking criteria.

And it was pretty difficult for Google to determine high quality sites from the garbage out there.

I got to know that anchor texts are like snowballs. When you link to your site for instance, with a keyword-rich anchor text, the page you linked to would be monitored for relevance and engagement.

These two elements are the fundamentals of every SEO friendly practice.

The Panda and Penguin came first because the quality and value you provide in your blog/site is much more important than the domain name.

Exact Match Domain – Nothing bad, really

EMD Google update

I see a lot of website owners who think that exact match domain names are bad. To me, they’re not really bad. In fact, as long as we continue to do business online – build niche blogs and drive traffic, we’d continually register domain names that align to a particular keyword.

In the past, people who registered EMDs focused on quality content. They knew that creating a form of engagement was the key point.

I know how much love Google had for EMD in the past. If you doubt this, ask those who built niche sites that were less than 20 pages and they would tell you how much targeted traffic Google sent them, and consequently the income they generated.

But as time goes by, people like me and you, who want to make quick money, were starting to trick Google through the back door.

They started registering exact match domain name, not because they want to solve a particular problem, but simply because they want to rank on Google #1 or #2 and just sell products.

I still know a lot of EMDs that are ranking highly on Google, even now that the update is 94% hot.

So, the problem isn’t exact match domain names that you registered, but the motive and action behind it. When I say action, I’m really talking about the value you provide on a daily basis.

As bloggers, we tend to neglect this very essence. Most bloggers don’t even care if their first time reader comes back again.

Why Google Rolled out EMDs update

Yes, you can call this penalty – and I agree with you. But you may be wondering, why on earth would Google release this type of update, when so many website owners are still recovering from Panda and Penguin?

Before I answer this question, I need you to understand that Google wants to balance the playing ground.

Everyone who has something unique and valuable to say through her site is entitled to good spots in Google homepage, but you must act accordingly and be consistent.

Google rolled out the EMD update partly because people are now placing so much emphasis on exact match domain anchor link.

In other words, people are becoming lazy when it comes to writing epic content. If you had registered Amazonnewkindle.net and you start building links with the exact domain terms “Amazon new kindle,” you may be penalized.

The Penguin and EMD are connected

Earlier, I told you that the Panda, the Penguin and the EMDs updates are different, but that doesn’t make them independent of one another.

If you flash your mind back, the Penguin was rolled out because Google discovered over-optimization in the World Wide Web. Site owners have neglected the first purpose of building a website.

The content you publish on your blog is like a magnet. If the North Pole of a magnet is connected the North pole of anther magnet, they’ll never attract.

But the moment you change the horizon and use the South Pole against the North Pole, attracted will immediately take place. Is your content attracting fresh readers, retaining them or blatantly chasing readers away?

If you were hit by EMD update, it means that most of the links you built to your web pages aren’t natural and relevant – it seems you’d used exact match keywords for the hyperlinks.

And it’s pretty easy to get links with an exact match domain than a generic one. And when this happens, the purpose of being relevant is denied.

For instance, many bloggers can publish your guest post and link to your “hotelinnewyork.com” with the exact match domain name (hotel in New York). But if your site is “bueostrategicforce.org,” tell me who is going to hyperlink that?

Maybe a few intelligent site owners in your niche – alternate your keywords when building links. Also, make some anchor texts abstract (e.g. visit website, click here now, and learn more.)

The abuse of anchor texts in link building has given rise to another quirky update – the EMD which has drowned a lot of sites and I even experienced it.

As a normal human being, do you feel comfortable seeing best-wedding-cake-for-birthday-celebration.com? I don’t know if that phrase is an exact match domain name, but I’m trying to give you an idea, why Google is rolling out this update.

People are now using double, even triple dashes on a domain name, just because the domain name they’re looking for isn’t available.

Good EMD sites dashed, why?

It’s pathetic, but the truth is that so many quality EMDs sites were penalized. I can imagine the ooze in your face right now – considering the fact that you’ve worked so hard to build quality links, publish exceptional articles and still solves problem for your audience.

But there is a problem, somewhere and if you permit me, I can tell you what you’re doing wrong. First and foremost, quality content isn’t enough in this new era. You need to combine good and readable content with social reach.

In other words, it’s not really what you say or call quality that is. On the internet, the public determines who gets publicity. What you think or classify as good, may not be exactly what the people (your audience) thinks.

If any of your sites were penalized, you’re leaving some vital social spots unturned. You need to get out there and convince people to like you, trust you and begin to brand you.

Brand Building Is All That Counts

Yes, people should be able to memorize, spell and type your domain name in the browser, than knowing your personal name.

Except you used your name as the domain name. Google isn’t through with updates yet, I’m sure some heart-quirking search engine tweaks are around the corner.

You need to stand out from the teaming crowd. The reason why a lot of sites suffered in this EMD update is because their sites looks exactly like everyone else.

If you run a blog or website, let your brand stand out or you’d be dashed every time Google rolls out their algorithm updates.

How To Get Your Google Ranking Position Back

I can’t guarantee anything, if you follow the steps below, you’d increase your chances of getting back on track – because you can’t possibly do away with SEO.

At every given point in your internet marketing career, organic traffic is needed. So, let’s talk about ways to make the exact match domain name update work for you.

First, I understand that so many bloggers, website owners and internet entrepreneurs were affected. A friend of mine actually lost 95% of his traffic. He’s an SEO guy, and one of the ways he’s built a successful internet empire is through organic traffic and social media.

The last time I spoke with him, he was sad. He is still dejected and I hope he finds this post helpful. To make your web page more SEO-friendly, and withstand any future update, here is what you must do:

# Action point: Cultivate positive engagement

High bounce rate is a negative engagement metric – you need to reduce it. A great way to start pleasing Google again (even if you’ve given up in the past or recently), is to cultivate positive engagement.

Start by reducing your bounce rate. Sure, you might have an exact match domain name and think that all hope is gone, but cheer up, Google can change anything. They’ve the power to bring you back to your position if you do what they’ve been asking every website owner to do.

If your content is compelling enough, people will spend more time in your blog, reading and answering questions.

This all boils down to the quality of blog posts, articles and case studies you write. Better yet, adjust your navigation and link to popular posts in your blog. This can lead to multiple pageviews, which is a strong metric that Google uses to favor sites.

Your brand signal is equally vital. Use Google alerts to track your brand name, so that whenever a particular site mentions your name or drops your name, you can comment or leave a feedback with the same brand name (your domain name).

We’re trying to merge what people said about you, and what your response would be.

# Action point: Play by the old rules (same rules)

Nothing is new in the SEO world. Trust me, Google didn’t start to advocate quality content today, or last month.

They started a long time ago. The question is, what have you been doing with this rule? “Write quality content” has almost become a cliché, and that’s because it’s the same old rule you need to build a successful website.

It’s still effective and if you continually write quality content, you’ll succeed over time.

But you can’t be right all the time. It’s Google’s world. Most of the time, you may be overwhelmed that Google still penalized you, even when all your content is high quality, well-optimized and easy to read.

In playing by the rules, take quality content to the next level and breed engagement. If people can contribute, share and become a part of your blog, the EMD update can turn around for your good.

If you’re an EMD owner, don’t rush anything right now. The update is still fresh, and taking a leap forward might bring more harm than good. Keep your hand crossed and watch how this drama turns out.

# Action point: Don’t try to rank for exact match keywords

Yes, you got me right there. If you’re an EMD owner, optimizing your exact match keywords might be a wrong idea. Instead, look for alternative keywords and make sure the number of words is less than 4 for a .com extension.

If your domain name is .net, .biz and .info, and you want to link to it – try and incorporate abstract terms to make it natural.

Do everything with the intent of helping people, not necessarily because you want to build a high ranking site that generates 6 figures monthly income. Those would automatically happen gradually, without a push or pull from you.

Did EMD update hit your site?

Were you hit by the latest exact match domain update from Google? I’d like to know how you feel right now and what you’re doing to get right back. Please make your comment clear – I’m waiting to reply you.

See you at the top!

Photo Credit: takile | emrank

103 thoughts on “Exact Match Domain Update – Get Your Site’s Ranking Back, Forget About EMD’s Attack”

  1. Having keyword in Domain name is really booster of website. I am not sure that much about EMD as I am learning SEO but i have noticed website when they particular keywork then they are leading.

    Even, when I create a blog I normally see that url should have keyword.

  2. Thanks for your informative article. My website was hit by the EMD update last year, since then I didn’t bother to do any thing about it. Now am ready to work on it, can I still be able to recover the website after a long time? I want to also rank for another keyword aside my main keyword, would I need to recover my website first before I can rank for other keywords?

  3. Hi Michael,

    thanks for your article, yet I don’t believe that Google did anything near a good job with the way they implemented the EMD-Update. From what I’ve read on many blogs (and especially in the comments) way to many really good, no evil doing or even thinking, websites got crushed. My Website lost about 70% total traffic and 95% of it’s Google traffic… so other sources of traffic seem to make up some of the google losses. I take that as a strong signal that my site and it’s content is still worth a visit. (For now I do have more returning visitors via direct access than via Google search). But thanks to the EMD update dozends of crappy websites rank way above my website, and that’s just because it’s domainname describes exactly what the visitor will find on the site. (and that’s probably true for thousands of sites) That can’t be right!

    I’m seriously thinking about moving my complete site and content to another domain (which would really break my heart as I own this site and domain longer than google exists). Now, would it be smart or stupid to redirect the incoming links I’ve collected over the last 16 years to that new domain, or do I have to start from scratch, hoping to be able to reach at least some of the linking webmasters to update those links?

    • Since your domain name is pretty old and has a lot of backlinks, I don’t think it’s a nice step to move all the content and links to a new domain name. Find alternative means to reinstate your rankings.

  4. Hello Michael,
    You have an excellent professional skill as I can imagine from your blog’s top alexa ranking. Actually I don’t have deep knowledge of SEO and frankly speaking what search engine is expecting from every website owner or blog writer that they must know micro SEO rules and must keep themselves updated with every change Google or other search engine makes with their indexing or algorithmic rules, understandably they are right but it is too tough for individual site or blog owner especially when they are not knowing anything about SEO or advance techniques to rank well in SERP. My primary or core focus is on Indian stock market technical analysis which has several products or services like leading Indian stock market indices analysis such as Nifty, Sensex and BankNifty. Now this information is useful for traders, investors and stock market professionals who deals in Indian markets. Now services which is based on this technical analysis is trading calls and intraday tips for Nifty, miniNifty and BankNifty Futures and Options which falls under derivative contracts trading. Other than this indian stock markets are having three leading stock exchanges which are NSE, BSE and MCX. I do provide stock tips on BSE shares which is again derived using technical analysis. Michael, I had an excellent view at premarket on Nifty index which I shared on Google+ well before actual trading started on very crucial event day i.e. derivative expiry day of April-2013 and that analysis has created sensation. Any one who deals with stock market can understand what my analysis meant for Indian stock market on that day. But unfortunately you can understand as your competitors are not likely to share or like your discussion. They are certainly interested in reading or getting your information but not giving it any publicity by share and like press. My own set up group was having 790 and more members as only I was the leading contributor to my groups activity and I am the only moderator there also. And not only my posts were liked in the past on my groups but also got liked on other professional groups also. My individual professional profile on LinkedIn has got one work and 33 professional skills endorsement. And all these endorsement came from people who did not know me personally. They are influenced by my excellent quality of work and that’s why they endorsed me and I haven’t endorsed any on LinkedIn as of now. May be in future I will also but this is why I am telling you because there is no manipulation at all in any form. Although I also felt disappointed when you have very good profile and you need nothing to speak about your work when it is already showing by your discussion posts and have live proof when it comes to accuracy of technical analysis then also there is not much response from professional community in terms or business or job offering. I had posted with proof that my technical views are being reproduced by leading stock market advisory company in India through their content and blog writers. I had displayed it on my group on LinkedIn I just wanted to focus attention of search engine by doing this on importance of my stock market analysis work when blog writers associated with such big advisory company is stealing and reproducing my contents exactly the same way as I posted it, as their own work. I don’t have enough budget to spend on better marketing efforts to promote my website. And you can imagine when you deal with subject which is based on prediction and probability you are not likely to get sustainable business. That’s why I was aiming at giving free premarket information on Indian shares expecting to drive lots of traffic and then getting better revenue generation through adsense earnings. I feel very ugly to quote that my present earning from Google adsense is on average just $30 to $35 per month. I am getting payment at every three months as I am not earning minimum $100 for pay out. For hard work of day and night of almost 9-10 hours if you have dismal earnings then you will certainly don’t feel great about your work. But if any one check my work and had to give honest opinion then it must come out to be positive. Even I have good review on mouthshut.com from different users to whom i don’t know

  5. Hello Michael,
    Search engine and especially Google is now having more emphasis on brand name and want the site owners to create brand value through displaying good contents and information on their sites. Michael my primary domain name is takemyview and it is not an EMD when you consider my niche which is related to stock market information, stock tips and technical analysis of Indian share markets. Now this domain is almost 3 years old and my concept was to tell the visitors through my domain name that they can take my view on Indian share markets. It was not an EMD but I choose to convey the users rather than search engine what they can expect from my domain. Michael, I was greatly disappointed after producing great results through my technical views. I am very much active on social and professional networking sites. I had my own group on LinkedIn with over 790 members in just three years. But I have seen declining revenue and declining traffic after every good piece of information shared over internet. I am much disappointed now. Don’t take it as promotional comment. I am really interested to know the right way to promote my website. I am really confused what search engine really wants because when your right strategies won’t show effect then by over doing you may generate an impression of doing wrong work. I asked this on google webmasters forum but I think there very peculiar answers are many times you get which don’t show you real way to do right things and identify the committed mistakes.

    • Hey Friend, thank you so much for your great questions. I quite understood how you feel about Google and your traffic declining. As a matter of fact, I got the same question about a week ago from one of my clients whose blogs I managed in 2011. The truth is, Google really does have a strict rule for ranking website.

      Like you rightly pointed out, you need to build a brand around your niche. But let me ask you this question: Have you defined your niche and do you stick to it? I mean, what kind of content do you consistently produce for your blog? Is it related to India stock and that alone? This is vital because if you confuse search engine spider, then they can’t send you traffic that much, and the people you’re writing for would be confused because your niche isn’t narrowed yet.

      Before you can build a brand that sticks and befriends Google, you’ve to identify your core niche and keep producing content that matches the taste of the people. Social signal also is vital, but when it looks fake or manipulated, it may not produce good results. Having over 790 members on LinkedIn group doesn’t make any difference if the members don’t like your content enough to share it on their own – without you asking them to do so.

      If you benefited from my answer, let me know. In any case, I want to read your views on this. Please reply. Thanks A bunch.

  6. After the Panda update the number of visitors increased but after the EMD update the number of visitors slightly decreased. Is my website hit by the update?

  7. I have quality content and 4 months old site and all contents has been written by me and ther is no duplicates with other sites and no exact match domain and a branded name.My site indexed within 3 days but not ranked in google even after 4 months.There is no issues in my webmaster tools and there is a medium competeion in my niches and I have no idea what to do now.

  8. My question is if google is ever going to run a refresh of the EMD update? My site is partially recovered, but my home URL still doesn’t rank for any terms. That’s how I know the algorithm is still penalizing it. I’m on the first page for some keyword phrases, but my homepage appears on the 25th or 50th page for a lot of terms.

    Will google ever update the EMD algorithm? Or do they not believe any of the EMD owners are going to bother following the rules and upgrading their websiteS? If I had know it would take this long, I would have invested in nuking the old domain and starting from scratch. I could’ve been back in the game by now (6 months later)

  9. Thank you for you post very useful. And I agree, I also did al these things six months ago.

    I’ve been struck on several websites starting september last year. No improvement since. Traffing has been increasing for a few sites now, lots of FB likes and shares, … But Google is not picking this up.

    I have about 8 EMD’s all in the same business (online games). But they all had a link to each other in the footer at the time of the EMD strike. So I think this also caused them to be penalized (is considerd link networking). I’ve got one other EMD who was not in the link network, and he’s still scoring #2 for the keyword, no more authority than the other 7… So I guess my link network was not the best idea… 🙂 But sadly 6 months later, nothing changed for me.

    But in webmaster tools I still see the links from my other sites on each site. Is this normal after they have been removed 6 months ago? Or is this because all these sites are penalized and Google is simply not updating these links? I’m considering using the “disavow” tool, but this seems quite stupid since they are my own sites…

    Or should I wait 6 more months? I would love to get some insights on this from anyone here.

  10. HI,
    Thanks for your great content. Was very easy to read it and understand.
    I think you pointed right that the most important thing is the quality of the content that rules.
    Someone struggling to build links to an bad written page will be detected very fast by Google and like you said above…no matter EMD or not…..things will go bad anyway.

  11. Thanks for the detailed report. My emd keyword lost its ranking when an update came last January 2013, that keyword ranking from #3 to not be found in top 100. I don’t receive any letter or notifications from Google but I am wondering why my site is dancing tremendously. This March, my site goes to page #2 but am still wanting to get back on my #3 spot position.

    But anyway, will apply some of your tips. Thanks for the share mate! Worth reading!

  12. Hi,

    Much detail explanation, thanks for it. I have a question on EMD. If my website is purely built on emd and their targeted keywords are exact match and suddenly the rankings has gone. The content of the web site pages are not exact match. What re the possible ways to recover the rankings. any idea.

  13. Thanks for the recovery tips Michael. I especially like the “don’t try to rank for” I had an EMD which I link built to only using related words except for where a company name would be put (ex. high power directories) and it’s doing great!

  14. EMD hit me,
    myblog’s name is workingof.com and i think its an exact match domain, when i try to search workingof.com in google, it shows showing workingolf.com instead of workingof.com,
    workingolf.com has only 3 dofollow back link and very less no. of articles.
    apart from this my blog has more than 3 thousand links in different sites. its a new blog i have done a a lot for it in very few days.
    plz sujjest me a way to recover from EMD. 🙂

  15. Many people have suffered because of this. Once this hunt was started by Google few months back almost every site on the web, even with greatest unique content was effected adversely. I understand that good content criteria cannot be fixed and every writer thinks that he / she has written one of the best article which may not be the case.

  16. Hello, After Google last update my website is hidden from Google almost. I read your blog its very interesting so can u give me some steps in one line or words how may i recover my EMD attack website

  17. My site is hit hard by EMD update. My homepage is not found in Google search for my keyword. Instead of that, my other pages is listed there for my keyword anti snoring mouthpiece reviews in page 9. I just really don’t know what to do now. What I do now is to dilute my overuse anchor backlinks with naked url. I hope this will help to recover my homepage

  18. I am very happy that EMD has not affected my site. It was a keyword related domain and started last year with less than 10 Pages. It was home services related website. To avoid EMD updates follow this things..

    1. Makes Site Load Fast
    2. Use Good Content
    3. Create Effective Images
    4. Good Optimization
    5. No Broken Links

    If you have this things, You can recover from the EMD Updates.

    Thanks
    Dev

  19. I had 4 sites that ranked on the first page of Google. I would look for niche keywords that got a
    decent amount of traffic that had low competition and make a site with them. I used my keywords
    in the domains. One was a MIDI site that had 5000 MIDI. That site had a lot of content and on
    each of the band pages I would link to the main site. That site got PR3. I then started a girls
    flash game site. I added about a 1000 games and link to it from my MIDI site. That site also
    reached PR3. I then started a Celebrity Babe Wallpaper site and added 25,000 wallpapers
    to that site. I linked them all together and that site got PR3. I then started a Mario flash games
    site, added 500 games, linked all my other sites to it. It got PR2. all these sites ranked on the
    first page of Google. They all lost ranking about the end of September. Then I started reading
    about the EMD. I don’t think you can rank these domains again. What you have to do now is
    build a brand. So, scarp your old EMD (Well, keep it around till you build your brand). Come
    up with some simple, original, easy to remember brand name. Like say if you had a video site
    call it viseoer.com. Then build a bunch of original content pages and link it to the main domain.
    This will build your PR. You can optimize for your keywords on your pages. Not your domain.
    Add a FB and Google+ share buttons on the content pages to hopeful;ly get those pages
    shared. Try to get back links with varied anchor text to the branded domain. But the best thing
    to do is provide them with content that you will hope they return for. Google wont penalize
    you for building your own brand.

  20. I have two EMD websites destroyed by Google algorithm change from September last year. I still read different, articles trying to recover my websites.
    – Building new links on the same keywords does not work.
    – Changing the text but aiming at the same keywords does not work either.

    It seems that the only good idea is to add new content on completely different themes. A blog could be useful. I have another EMD website unaffected that has a blog.

  22. Yeah, my sites got hit really bad by the latest update, and some had exquisite content and I was really pleased about their position. It’s a shame that the Big G changed the rules of the game during the game, and left us in the dark, although we had great websites. Not all EMDs where shady… Well, that’s life. I will continue to write quality content and hope that someday I will be rewarded with that 1st page position…

    • I am a domainer as well as a web developer and for me this kind of news aren’t that encouraging one. I still do believe that users will remember the Exact match domain name and associate it with the website in their memory. So everything is not lost afterall.

  23. I’ve been building ONLY quaility links from PR6,7 and 8 and updated all my pages content and that didn;t help much. However, I noticed some other blogs mentioning 301 redirect to a new domain but there were no responses about success.. Have anyone heard or tested that method?

  24. EMD update was a total surprise to me. One of my blogs were affected. I’m kind of discouraged, but after reading this post, I’m going to continue. Thanks a bunch.

  26. I don’t think EMD’s are useless now because many were not affected so certainly shouldn’t chuck them out the window just because your site lost some traffic from google. With all the changes that regularly go on with google, it would be wasting one’s time trying to overanalyze and keep up with them all. I think too the old SEO still works and just concentrate more on improving your site with quality content. The key point here is don’t put all your eggs in one basket by counting on traffic solely from google.

  29. Hiya
    Very interesting read.

    My site warcraft-video.com was really badly hit. I went from 3200 Google analytics hits per day on the 28th to only 200 on the next day. The site dropped to 90 hits per day in the following week but has now recovered to 200 visits a day, most of which are from yahoo and bing where it still ranks well. Basically the site was devastated and now gets about 1% of its old Google visits per day.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated. You can contact me on [email protected].

    Cheers

    Pete

  30. My blog was also affected by Google’s EMD Update – vacancies-online.blogspot.com is my blog. on Sept 28, 2012 the above mentioned blog was affected and the visitor count drastically reduced by 70 to 80 % . I tried several things for regain the rank but nothing is happening. Now I am very cautios in adding contents to my site. As the whole posts said CONTENT IS THE KING!

  31. Hey bro my blog is also affected so much by EMD. I am doing my efforts to recover from it and now i will follow the points you have mentioned above to regain the traffic. Thanks a lot…….

  32. Thanks for the post I have learned a lot from it. I was one of those who got hit by emd update. I will probably add more content that will be shareable.

  33. Not a good time for us either – caught us right in the middle of a site overhaul too. Concentrating on creating good quality content and some reader engagement and hopefully will steer us towards a recovery sometime soon.

  34. Yes we got hit – no idea why really as content all good and valuable original articles. Plenty of other content using different keywords and social engagement. Just sitting tight for now adding more content and waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks.

  36. Hi, my website also got hit by the EMD update. I would like to share some info with you all just so we can maybe work together and get this resolved from that nightmare. I lost my ranking on five main keywords, dropped from number 1 to number 4 on some. I notices the about site blog ranking 1st in my place (about blog and yellow pages) and other competitor.

    I have been building and building links for a month, up until today, but still no success. I could not narrow down the issue to this open problem. So here is what I have been doing for the past month. I built PR5 and up authority web directories with anchor keywords, EDU sites and profiles, recently rewrote my site;s contents and descriptions, wrote articles and blog commenting. and nothing have been changed, I;m still on the same spot. I accidentally noticed something unusual with my site, If I copied a some paragraphs, (before updating my content) and searching on google, my site does NOT come up.. I find this a little odd.. I have some paragraphs which rank my site.

    I am open for any other suggestion.

  40. Another action plan could be Bing & Yahoo. They still give lots of priority for EMDs and I know many EMD websites which rank #1 while they are not even in first ten pages on Google. The number of backlinks and quality is very important for these search engines. For Google, I think recovery needs too much efforts.

    • I couldn’t agree more Kevin. Website owners should give attention and write compelling content. No matter what happens, rich content would always make website owners smile. Thank you for coming over to my blog. I’m grateful to you.

  44. This is really great information that you have been shared. I am glad that I have visited this website.

  45. Hi Michael,

    My niche site was affected by EMD.. it drop about 80% visitors… thanks for this post.\\

    As you have mentioned, quality easy to read article is the key as well as engagement.

    I have no doubt I will be able to recover the losses.

    thanks once again for the very helpful insight.

    -Richard

  46. Great post and full of information Michael, my blog is not affected by this update and I hope it will stay that way.

    Can we expect to see end of this or is it just the tip of the iceberg?

    thanks for sharing

  47. Good post. But I must say in my niche there is some serious garbage in top 20. I did edit all posts.pages and took density for keyword to 1 to 2 % ( I wasnt much above 2% on any content I wrote, and it was quality. It may help, but no one knows what Big G is up to. I also am sticking to forum and blog posting, I think they are targeted wiki links, web 2.0 etc, just my theory.

      • I think you are right. Of course diversity is a must. My earlier post I said lots of junk in top 20 now in my niche. Lets hope it shifts back to decent results, Big G may tweak themselves out of biz. Regular searchers get tired of looking at trash all day, may move to Bing

        • You can say that again my dear. So many say Google may tweak themselves out of biz. But I think they’re trying to weed out junk sites from their index. Of course, it’s a gradual process, but if you continue producing quality content, I’m sure you’d get your rankings back and drive more targeted organic traffic. That’s my take. Thanks for your comment.

  48. Hi Michael,

    I haven’t affected by EMD things so far (I don’t want to get affected anyway). I have seen my traffic grows positively and I shared it through my monthly reports to my readers. What I do?

    As you said, I focus on creating valuable content, sharing in social media (measures on what work best on you), blog commenting and guest blogging. These methods seems to be powerful enough and not affected by any search engine algorithm.

    Thanks for the post

  49. You have some valid points in here but basically your whole article is based on BS. You and everyone else talks about low quility EMD beeing hit… only my low quality sites survived.

    This means that many of my EMD site that has less than 6 pages survived. my authority sites with low bounce rated more han 200 organinc likes / tweets etc. Time on site spent more then 4 minutes. Got slapped.

    I have never baught links – spun articles – or did anything close to black hat or grey hat.

    Sorry Michael you have no idea how the EMD end Panda update hit sites.

    • I know how you feel Peter. Yep, I agree that sometimes, Google has done some things that are outside of what the update stipulated. Please don’t take it personal – apply the tips to your blog, create more engagement and focus on quality content. You’d surely get right back on track. Thank you for coming to my blog and leaving a comment.

  50. Your blog is truly informative and useful for all EMD affected website and blog owners.

    I have one question regarding EMD issue.

    What if I am in total different industry, but having domain name of any popular authority’s product? We both in various industry unfortunately my website affected with this EMD update. Now what can I do?

    I have tried to contact Google by webmaster tool, but they are replying there is no issue with my website. But still they not display my website back on organic results.

    • I don’t think contacting Google webmaster tool would bring your site back to its original position. However, what you should do is to focus on quality content. Optimize your content to suit readers – not spiders. If you can create engagement on your website whereby readers can write comments and share your post, you’d definitely bounce back, sooner or later. Avoid keyword stuffing and most importantly, minimize EMD anchor links. For instance, instead of linking to “best electronic review,” with that same anchor text, you should use an abstract term that looks natural. Such as “read about electronic review.”

      This way, your pages would appear natural, even though you still have EMD as your blog. If you’ve any other question, please ask me.

      • What if my website is product related? Not an informative blog so I cannot allow users to make a comment.

        • Hey Kevin, if your blog is product related, you can add a blog to it. That way, people can read what you’ve written for them, share it and leave comments where appropriate. Once your blog traffic increases, channel the traffic to your product page and you’d make sales. Thank you for leaving a comment.

  51. My site newsarkarijobs.com got hit by Google EMD update and my traffic dropped to 90%. tell me how to recover from emd effect? . please check my blog.

  53. Very interesting blog! Our website though has way top quality, 100% unique content, low bounce rate, 20% and it is all about what it describes! nothing shady about it, all legit and clear…we were all very surpised to see it off the radar.
    Is it possible that this EMD update is not yet finalized, and still dancing around since it is a completely new thing? Maybe the update is not 100% applied yet and the good quality websites get their rankings back?

    thanks in advance!

    • I strongly believe that the EMD update isn’t yet finalized. So many quality sites, thought EMD were penalized. So, let’s keep our hands crossed and wait for Google to conclude the entire process. BTW: Your bounce rate is way too low, I hope there is no mix up somewhere?

      • You are right…Bounce rate is between 38% – 46%…We have not seen any recover in our rankings yet…18 days after the update took place, I can only think that the EMD is complete and all we can do is wait for the next one to come. Hope I am wrong!

        • Yes, bounce rate is one of the core reasons authority sites were affected by EMD update. Because I know some EMD sites that weren’t penalized – their bounce rate is lower than 50%. I hope your site gets back on track. Thanks for your comment Tinos.

  54. Please can you give some time to evaluate this blog because it is affected 29 SEP 2012 and i request to to google for reconsideration site they said no manual action taken to your blog. i lost all my traffic and no keyword found in serps.
    url needforspeedfreedownload.blogspot.com

  56. Having tens of EMD websites, I have seen huge negative impact on most of them. But, I know now at least how to recover them and hopefully will see the positive results on next update.

  57. Hi, I am also a fan of exact match domain , I select a domain based on the keyword. But now, The Google is quite strict while it put a pressure on low quality niche site that has the domain keyword . I think the solution is just publishing unique content ad build manual backlink, not auto manufactured links as befored updates .

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