claus - 1:33 pm on Dec 9, 2003 (gmt 0)

>> something I've caught because it's so transparent and admittedly interesting

Marcia, that post puzzles me - not so much what you write as the fact that you do it. I understand that you don't want to mention specifics, and that's okay - algo's change and new things move into focus, that's just the way things are, no problem. (besides, other threads have already mentioned most new issues i think)

Still, let's say pre-Florida that you discovered that somebody had a lot of incoming links with the same anchor text that was indeed the targeted keywords of the site. There's a quite big "hole" there for people that are able to get a lot of links placed around the web in their chosen format. I can see that.

Otoh, targeted anchor text is common practice around the web in a lot of cases, it's even providing good usability. The only "risk" is that these "holes" will (in due time) become common knowledge, and perhaps even lead to lower quality. If this happens, then there are clearly patterns to it, and the advantages can be removed just as easily as they were established. I really see no problem here. (Apart form this, i see no significant change in "anchor text is king". Also the emphasis on descriptive anchor text in the SEO community is definitely not a "bad" for the internet as a whole, imho.)

So, my opinion is that these things you observe are not "holes" in the algo. They are things that Google quite consciously have decided to give some weight, and as such they are more likely to be part of the algo than holes in it. One might say that Google is working with incentives (as opposed to penalties), but i guess it will take some time for most people here to realize that (as i do see why some people are currently tempted to think otherwise).

>> 404, page for sale

As for the 404, Googlebot might not see a 404. I'm not suggesting cloaking, perhaps the server just doesn't send out the right headers. If they're not sending out the right headers, then this is one such case where you have to be human and "in the know" to see it. If it's cloaking, then you'll have to decide for yourself what to do.

Pages for sale, parked domains, highjacked domains, PPC ad-filled previously valuable pages... these are not "Florida" issues. They've been around for a long time and Google really should be able to get them if Gbot was able to properly identify specific patterns in content. It's getting better all the time, but we're still waiting for that. Humans see that kind of thing easily but bots don't.

I'd personally use that formula in cases where my search did not give me results that should be expected, considering the query i made. There are some things that a Search Engine just doesn't know; issues that you'll have to be an industry (as in "some keyword combo") insider to know about. These cases are the ones i have personally reported, they're neither abuse of the algo, nor spam, nor the algo not working properly, just things that are not as obvious to people that are not "in the know" (or bots that are not people). Personally, i'd think these were good examples to report, but feel free to disagree.

/claus