Um... is the Ultimate Disney Sitepocalypse Over?

Search Google right now for Ultimate Disney and dvdizzy.com is the first thing that comes up.

I believe that means the Google penalty is not in effect as of right now.

I heard. I 'm still using this forum as I like it better.

Can someone explain this "penalty" I keep hearing about? What, did Luke put a stink bomb in Google's mailbox or something? Why is the penalty happening and what is it?

As far as we knew, here's how the penalty works:

Google forces an automatic re-sorting of the results when you search them for "Ultimate Disney" and, I think "DVDizzy" (not sure about that one, but I'm sure about "Ultimate Disney"). Instead of showing up on Page 1, you'll have to look through 5 or 6 pages of results to get a direct link to the main page. This means that people searching for "Ultimate Disney" through Google won't find it unless they already know about it. Luke needs people who don't know about it to find it through Google whenever anyone types "Ultimate Disney" in the search. He needs the money he gets through people accessing DVDizzy.com through Google's search results. But no one is likely to click on it if they have to read through 5 or 6 pages of results. He gets revenue through Google from this and when they forced this penalty on him, he started losing money. The money he needed to continue paying to keep the site operational. (Several of these statements could be wrong, I'm not 100% sure- please anyone correct me where wrong, if wrong.)

Now, as for why it all happened- Google never explained. Luke E-mailed them and Twittered them and so did Michael (disneyboy20022) and several others. But nothing they did (that I know of) ever got through.

Basically, Google does algorithm changes hundreds of times a year in an attempt to improve their listings, and they have a set of standards they expect from websites. It covers three areas: design and content, technical, and quality. If I remember right it first affected UD back in February. The penalty itself is that Google bumps the site down the search engine results until the guidelines have been met, meaning that the site gets a lot less hits. And of course that means less money is earned from it, in turn threatening to close the site down since it's how Luke makes his living. It was up to Luke to figure out how the site was in violation of the guidelines so he could fix the issues.

More info on the guidelines themselves can be found here, and Luke's side of the story can be read here.

BTW, Luke has indeed confirmed the penalty has been lifted. I'm not sure what it means for the future of this forum as it was only intended to be a back-up in case UD was closed down.

TSC wrote:

I heard. I 'm still using this forum as I like it better.

You know what? I'll also continue to post here. I prefer this forum's atmosphere and I feel like it supplies more freedom than the opressive forum of UD, and guess what? Here, there's no CJ, and no Pink Renata.

I always knew DVDizzy/UD was not going down. I knew Google would bump it back in it's place.

Well I guess good for them for dodging the penalty. But boy that brought out their true colors, didn't it? Renata sure was acting like a bitch in those couple posts I saw blaming UDers for the site not doing as well. Pfft.

Personally, I thought a lot of the members were being beyond bitchy. I give the mods a lot of credit for having the patience just to not start handing out bans.

Disney's Divinity wrote:

Personally, I thought a lot of the members were being beyond bitchy. I give the mods a lot of credit for having the patience just to not start handing out bans.

They'd never do that, not over something like this. Even at the worst of times. They would simply lock the threads. If members attack each other, maybe.

One person did get actually get banned throughout this but it wasn't a regular; I'm guessing it was a result of the supposed advice he gave in the Sitepocalypse thread but it's not like anyone made a big deal about it.

Anyway, and this is just my personal opinion, many of the Sitepocalypse-related posts have changed the forum's atmosphere for the worse. I'm unlikely to leave as there's still a lot of great people there but seeing so much resentment and aggression is pretty disappointing.

I don't like that this forum is being used by multiple members to constantly bash UD and its mods/members. I don't care for it and I hope this place won't become an anti-UD forum. If it does, I'm outta here.

Xaryen wrote:

Renata sure was acting like a bitch in those couple posts I saw blaming UDers for the site not doing as well. Pfft.

Indeed; she was horrid. Although I think CJ seems rather nice, but her constant locking can get rather irritating. I don't think those operating UD are as bad as you believe, however.

enigmawing wrote:

One person did get actually get banned throughout this but it wasn't a regular; I'm guessing it was a result of the supposed advice he gave in the Sitepocalypse thread but it's not like anyone made a big deal about it.

Who?

Goliath wrote:

I don't like that this forum is being used by multiple members to constantly bash UD and its mods/members. I don't care for it and I hope this place won't become an anti-UD forum. If it does, I'm outta here.

The only people on UD who have been 'bashed' here are Pink Renata and CJ; Renata deserves it and besides, you were furious with her in the Sitepocalypse thread.

Dr Frankenollie wrote:

The only people on UD who have been 'bashed' here are Pink Renata and CJ; Renata deserves it and besides, you were furious with her in the Sitepocalypse thread.

yeah, but, you know... that wears off after, like, a day. So there's really little need to continue to bash her here. Besides, you can see it's being used against us on UD by holier-than-thou The_Iceflash.

I like this forum because it has better tags, better sig option, and a rep/neg system. LOL That's why I'm staying here.

I agree, I would hate for this to turn into a UD bashing party. It's okay to vent for a while, but we all need to move on.

Dr Frankenollie wrote:

enigmawing wrote:

One person did get actually get banned throughout this but it wasn't a regular; I'm guessing it was a result of the supposed advice he gave in the Sitepocalypse thread but it's not like anyone made a big deal about it.

Who?

That would be MacMurray, Fred. He claimed to have contact for Google chairs and said he'd like to line something up. Which seemed fine to me until he added a rather paranoid-sounding disclaimer to the end of his post. Luke posted a reply to say he emailed him back and gave a thanks. Next thing I knew, the dude was banned. Could have been over anything I suppose but the user's previous posts were made a full month earlier without issue.

* * *

Anyway, here's something I feel the need to point out yet again. Heartless's intent was to provide a back-up/safety-net for UD's community since Luke was clearly pessimistic about the site's survival. I must stress that it was never anyone's intention to allow this forum to divide the community, and that's exactly what's happening right now. It's unfortunate. I understand the need to vent but there's no reason to bash anyone, regardless of whether they are regular members or moderators, and regardless of whether they belong to DM or UD. I know we don't have any set rules or moderators yet but can we at least be civil here?

^ Agreed.