The update over the past couple weeks seems to have hit a lot of websites with “pet” content.
But these two sites – dogster.com and catster.com are seeing enormous gains.
As you can see, they weren’t really hit by the HCU (letter E) but hit much more heavily by the 9/22 Reviews update.
This is one of many examples of connections I am seeing between the 9/22 Reviews update and the core update rollout so far.
Also worth noting that the sites have an ecommerce component, says Lily Ray.
They do more than just content.
Someone:
Add to cart FTW.
Danny Sullivan (Google):
I wouldn’t recommend doing things just to “show Google” the quality of a site, leading to better rankings.
Instead, focus on creating a great site for your visitors.
Trying to game the system by adding elements like shopping carts you think Google wants to see is falling behind what our ranking systems are actually trying to reward.
I’ve seen so many sites with patterns like: claiming an “expert” reviewed the content, weird table-of-contents at the top, unnecessary updates to seem fresh, irrelevant FAQs, and content interrupted by things shoved in the middle.
These are all unsatisfying experiences.
Yes, you might find pages that still rank despite doing these things, but that’s because our ranking systems aren’t perfect.
We’ll keep working to improve them.
What Google wants is content that people want – helpful, satisfying content that pleases your readers and visitors.
That’s the foundation of your potential success with Google.
Any question about making content for Google comes back to this principle: “Is this content that my visitors would find satisfying?”
If the answer is yes, then do that, because that’s what Google wants.
Stop doing things you’ve heard are supposed to “show Google” something, and instead show your visitors a great, satisfying experience.
That’s how you demonstrate to Google’s ranking systems that you should do well.
I wouldn’t recommend adding carts just to “show Google” something.
Despite Google’s claims, they have hammered the affiliate sector before, and there’s a reason for it.
From Google’s perspective, as an affiliate site, you are basically a doorway – a large percentage of your pages exist solely to push traffic somewhere else.
When Google crawls your site, all they see is a bunch of pages filled with links to third parties, making you an intermediary in their eyes.
To address this issue, I suggest getting rid of the affiliate links and implementing a cart system instead.
While this will require some development work, cart pages are dynamic and can legitimately be blocked by bots.
You can then feed people to the destination when they view the cart.
However, keep in mind that this will not save you if your content is low-quality, visitors aren’t showing satisfaction, or if your content is largely duplicated or poorly spun.
This solution is for legitimate affiliates, not scum.
Remember, you’re doing business, and there are set things you should be doing.
You need product pages, guide pages, editorial review pages, comparison pages, and user reviews.
Use attributes and features to aid users in learning and making decisions.
If you’ve invested in proper product research and producing informative, helpful content that satisfies users, you shouldn’t have to fear Google or suffer massive losses to your business.
There are 3 options.
1. The “better” option, is you shift from Affiliate, to Drop Shipper/Brown boxing (You sell, on your site – then order from the supplier),
2. The middle option, is you take the details, then “post” to the supplier,
3. The last/least option, is you basically block the cart page, and insert a link to the supplier, in the product page (open in new window/tab).
The closer you are to a real store with real, user-focused content, the better.
