August Core Update Released

[newcustomeroffer]

Starting to see the Independent resurfacing on some gambling search terms, generally not in as strong positions as before the site reputation policy began but certainly more visible.

Looks to me like they've now attributed the content to specific Independent authors/journalists - perhaps that's enough to appease google.

Example: 'best online casino' where they sit at the top of page 2 on UK serps right now.

[bingoreviews]

yeah noticed that a few days ago, strangely, the mirror still hosting oddschecker content and unhit

[baldidiot]

Starting to see the Independent resurfacing on some gambling search terms, generally not in as strong positions as before the site reputation policy began but certainly more visible.

Looks to me like they've now attributed the content to specific Independent authors/journalists - perhaps that's enough to appease google.

Example: 'best online casino' where they sit at the top of page 2 on UK serps right now.

They've changed their URLs. The manual removal applied to a sub folder so now they've put it in the main editorial sports folder:

httpx://www.independent.co.uk/sport/betting-sites-b2584371.html

The telegraph did something similar:

httpx://www.telegraph.co.uk/%2Fbetting%2Ffree-bets%2F

To me this seems like a dangerous game for them to be playing. Google have manually said "we don't want to rank this content" and they've stuck two fingers up at them and just found a workaround.

Maybe google just needs to dump the whole domain

[casionmark]

They're all over slots terms with this page:

hxxps://www.independent.co.uk/games/new-slots-b2604559.html

Using a /games/ folder.

Be interesting to see what, if anything Google does about it. I notice they have now dropped their plans to deal with this stuff algorithmically. I guess they could block the /games/ folder, and everything else in it. But i doubt they will. Independent have dropped the 'in partnership' with. Probably enough.

[baldidiot]

Be interesting to see what, if anything Google does about it. I notice they have now dropped their plans to deal with this stuff algorithmically. I guess they could block the /games/ folder, and everything else in it. But i doubt they will. Independent have dropped the 'in partnership' with. Probably enough.

Google news (which I think runs separately from the main search) said they might start removing publications that include parasite seo stuff in the normal news feed.

I can't find the specific recent reference to it (because the current google serps are terrible for finding specific info, we basically have fuzzy search mode turned on), but this is something they said a while back that I've posted in another parasite seo thread:

"The Google News team recently published on their blog and said that, if you don’t provide adequate disclosure of paid content, whether it be native advertising, advertorials, whatever, whenever there’s money changing hands, if users don’t realize that sufficiently, because there’s not adequate disclosure, the Google News team mentioned that they might not only remove the paid content, but we’re willing to go up to and including removing the publication from Google News."

[casionmark]

Interesting. But what does it mean by, 'disclosure of paid content'. I mean the top of that page Independent have the usual affiliate disclosure. Isn't that enough? I mean does this still count as parasite SEO if the big affiliate company appears to be out of the picture (though maybe still working content behind the scenes)?

I notice Talksport's betting section survived. Thats not sponsored as far as I know. Though they don't rank as well as they were doing.

[newcustomeroffer]

I mean does this still count as parasite SEO if the big affiliate company appears to be out of the picture (though maybe still working content behind the scenes)?

Was having the exact same conversation here earlier.

For all intents and purposes if they make the pages look like regular affiliate content and it's authored by one of their own staff, regardless of whether they've actually struck their own affiliate deal or it's still in partnership in the background then google more than likely let it stay.

[casionmark]

Seems. that way. Though have to wait and see. It's extraordinary how quickly those pages rank. They've gone from nowhere to nestling in the top 5, taking featured snippets etc. all in the space of less than a week.

[wonderpunter]

Starting to see the Independent resurfacing on some gambling search terms, generally not in as strong positions as before the site reputation policy began but certainly more visible.

Looks to me like they've now attributed the content to specific Independent authors/journalists - perhaps that's enough to appease google.

Example: 'best online casino' where they sit at the top of page 2 on UK serps right now.

My theory is that most of these sites wont recover as before becuase the link profile now is much weaker than before. 75% of the sites did not recover but perhaps it will improve in future updates.

[wonderpunter]

They're all over slots terms with this page:

hxxps://ps://www.independent.co.uk/games/new-slots-b2604559.html

Using a /games/ folder.

Be interesting to see what, if anything Google does about it. I notice they have now dropped their plans to deal with this stuff algorithmically. I guess they could block the /games/ folder, and everything else in it. But i doubt they will. Independent have dropped the 'in partnership' with. Probably enough.

What a junk piece of content, 90 second AI slap together and google will still rank it top

[gm2891]

That's a pretty decent article on Independent..

Check this crapola out, it ranks #3:

ngcfi org.uk/top-rated-online-casinos-uk

[newcustomeroffer]

Google updated their documentation around the spam policy with relation to site reputation abuse (parasite) last week:

“Close oversight or involvement is when the first-party hosting site is directly producing or generating unique content (for example, via staff directly employed by the first-party, or freelancers working for staff of the first-party site). It is not working with third-party services (such as “white-label” or “turnkey”) that focus on redistributing content with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings.”

Would suggest that those who've made the tweaks noted on this thread could now be the right side of the policy ongoing.