Marcia - 8:26 pm on Oct 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

ciml, could it be your #1 and #3 combined? And time needed for testing?

Remember a while back someone saying that Google's new algos and indexes are thoroughly tested for quality before they're released for public consumption? It would make sense then, particularly if as some believe there's more than a one step process going on.

Because Google have some new ranking/theming/quality system that takes a few months to run? (Months? Seems odd.)

That one, if there's a new system or ordering, might take considerably more testing time. Just pure conjecture on my part of course, but there's too much otherwise unexplainable and there's been too much reason not to expect a somewhat different type of scheme eventually.

[edited by: Marcia at 8:30 pm (utc) on Oct. 1, 2004]