caveman - 9:42 pm on Aug 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

mfishy/pmac, since you see what look like added hand edits (presumably in the same cat's where the other hand edits already exist), can you elaborate on why you think they're hand edits? No one is arguing that they don't do it. The question is, are these newly appearing, seemingly hand edited sites really there by hand, and if so, how are they there by hand?

Reason I ask about the apparently new hand edits is that in some of our cat's, what appear to be new hand edits (by virture of not deserving to be there algorythmically), are, I think, sites that are getting there because they've either been artifically boosted in an overall sense (not by search term, but more like a PR bonus), or are getting more weight algorythmically than what they should be getting because the link analysis ain't working particularly well yet with this new algo.

The thing is, many of these sites are showing up in *lots* of places.

It's possible that we're talking about two different sets of sites...or even three issues: 1) hand edits by search term; 2) manually assigned lifts in overall 'importance' on a site by site basis (manual yes, but not by search term); 3) haywire link analysis.

I, like many, am seeing tons of new appearances for Ab*ut.com, Busin*ss.com, IYP's, some .gov's, and various other similar kinds of sites. Some of this is, IMHO, almost certainly not hand editing by category but one of two other things:

1) They've manually assigned higher status to a select group of sites (manual, yes, but again, more like a PR boost that might help the site on any given search) and that is causing those sites to do better on a whole range of searches.

2) They've got the algo way wrong and some mega sites are getting way more importance - including on unrelated searches - than they should. A few of us just the other day at SES were looking at an example where a prominent .gov site was ranking on the first page of results for a two-word term not at all related to that site. The page being shown contained both search words, but never side by side, and was not in any way related to the search. Lots of that going on right now, and it is definitely not a hand edit of the site for that search term.

So in at least some of these cases, they are either goosing some mega sites in some broad way not specific to given searches, or it's an algo issue having to do with auth sites. That does not exclude of course the possibility that they are also doing more hand editing.

it is not algo related BTW, or else the results would look similar for terms like "widget" and "online widget" or "widget information"

The point is well taken but right now I don't buy it. Reason: I see tons of examples where NO hand editing is taking place yet sites are ranking well for one or two but not all of these sorts of similar searches. Currently Y's algo is too messed up for this to be a reliable test. But in fact, it's not a reliable test in G right now either, mainly owing, I think, to overzealous dup and backlink filters. If for example an 'online widgets' site has too many backlinks saying 'online widgets', it may, in both G and Y, rank for 'widgets' and 'widget information' but not for 'online widgets'. Seeing a lot of that in Y's current SERP's right now. :/

[edited by: martinibuster at 9:45 pm (utc) on Aug. 10, 2005]
[edit reason] clarification [/edit]