joeking - 10:10 am on Feb 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

Like everyone, I've been trying to make sense of the latest update - some of my sites have gained, others lost out.

Today though one of our sites has disappeared entirely from the search rankings, although it is still indexed. PR4, two years old, no dodgy SEO whatsoever. Yesterday and previously it ranked number one (not difficult as you'll soon see!).

Okay, so other sites have suffered the same, but this site is a little different as it is dedicated to a litttle used slang word - with that word being the domain name too. If you search Google for this word less than 600 results are returned so you can see how little it is used. No other site is dedicated to this word - they just mention it.

I've checked every result of the 600 and this site isn't there. And yet it shows up if you search for www.WIDGET.com.

For me this tells me that no matter how much head scratching I do I won't find the answers to why Google does this or does that. Or why some sites rank well and others don't.

There is no big picture, just countless little ones.