sit2510 - 6:43 am on Nov 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

Skier,

>>> For my sites, all home pages that used to respond one of:
location lodging
location accommodation
location hotels
location condos
etc..have dropped to useless low positions.

...Could it be that Google has specific plans for the travel sector? Is a future local search or location search feature a factor here?

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The situation you describe is more widespread beyond the travel sector, so it is unlikely that G is targeting this particular industry.

I have different tiers of websites with different layouts, different site structures as well as different linking campaigns...so this allows me to have some crude resources to base our observations on what is going on with this algo in relation to our industry.

IMHO, what seems to happen so far is that your keyphrases are "categorized" by G as popular and competitive term, which resulted in application of new algo. The strength that use to leverage your index page by incoming links has to be combined with other factors before it appear on the serp. In other words, only incoming links and PR may not be sufficient this time.

Most of our websites which are in the tier of "well focused on niched destination" and seeking normal link exchange to the homepage, as practiced by many of you, are the victim of this "missing index page". Only 5 remains and at the beginning we wonder why? After doing plenty of research, we nearly derive at a conclusion that it is because these 5 niche websites are "less competitive" and they are not "categorized" by G. These index pages are not missing from Google's front page as well as of our competitors. The rest in the same tiers (several dozens) suffer from being dropped drastically or dumped, but do also our competitors. Those that get dump are simply the "competitive" terms.

Another tier of mine with super-rich content sites is less affected. Only two sites of about 400 and 600 pages each dedicated for one particular city get drop in rank from 1st to 3rd & 4th page. An annoying part is that many spots on the 1st page is taken by mega sites with tons of pages with various destinations. Counting all the pages together, they are much bigger than mine of dedicated websites, but that section of their websites are *NOT* the experty in the field. Moreover I observe that many hotel's own branded sites gain great ground on G's 1st page. Although it looks good in providing variety in Google serp, endusers experience may not be so; most of these branded sites are famous and high percentage at luxury and expensive levels. How about those seeking for 3 or 4 star hotel to stay?

Another interesting observation is that a few days ago, my above two dedicated sites rise to page 2 at #14-15 for its competitive terms. In the past, we view those positions as lousy ones, but this time it brings in a lot of visitors as well as potential buyers.

The only conclusion that we can make of is that the Google's general users who are the potential buyers passed from Page 1 to Page 2 to find what they want. In the past we don't see this at a significant level as we do see during the past few days.