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gethan - 4:53 am on May 18, 2010 (gmt 0)
@Andylew @MacSeth
Re: site:example.com metrics.
For my site WMT is starting to slide down again 5 day gradual decrease - despite the sitemap page count increasing as the community adds new content.
Traffic is _UP_ - but there are a couple of complicating factors not related to mayday/jazz/caffeine - plus the index page is re-indexed every 10 minutes. I think the SERP layout changes (jazz) are helping my traffic - too many complicating factors to be certain.
I've added a couple of control sites over the last few days - I'm observing a similar fall in site: page counts.
Re: AI discussion
We could be seeing either; (or combinations of, plus synonyms etc)
AI training in progress - though how they establish what is a satisfied user (and how much weight is placed on Ad clicks as being good) - is something we cannot know, but with analytics/adsense/toolbar gathering so much information across the entire search/browsing experience.
Or the effects of mass personalization - making my results more like the results someone like me would like to see - regardless of if I am logged into google or not.
Either way - the days of a number 1 search results being something that remain consistent globally and for weeks at a time are gone.