PhilC - 4:54 pm on Nov 15, 2003 (gmt 0)

GoogleGuy seems to be making out that what's happening right now is just a normal update with improvements to the algo. But it isn't. There's no way that it can be normal for Google to simply drop so many perfectly good index pages. If they'd dropped black hat pages, fair enough, but they've dropped white hat pages and they surely didn't intend to do that - at least not as permanent measure.

I've seen white hat index pages that have been solidly in the top 3 positions for particular searchterms since Google began. They've been that relevant for that long. Today they are not in the top 100 and probably not in the results at all. Weren't they relevant before and now Google has just realised it? Of course they were relevant, and they still are. Those pages aren't even in the race today - they are not being considered for the rankings.

Something has gone wrong, or Google is doing/trying something temporary. I'm sorry GoogleGuy, but there's nothing normal about it.