A.V update - same algo.

[pete]

Pages with the same profile creeping up.

[Brett_Tabke]

Howdy Pete; sure you aren' just seeing the normal age factor at work? That and the slow removal of 404's?
I've not noticed any major movement.

[seth_wilde]

I just noticed it this morning. They have definitely preformed some kind of update, it's just a little different than usual.

I was doing some follow up research on IDF pull in consideration with the location of the words in the search phrase (front, back etc..) And searches that I did on July 31 have now completely changed.

On the 31st I tested 2 versions of the same search phrase

"fruit and pomegranates"
"pomegranates and fruit"

With each of these searches the results focused heavily on the first word of the search phrase.

Now when I perform the same two searches (only 4 days later), The two different phrases return identical results.

I've gotten the same results with some other phrases that used to return different results.
"denver real estate" and "real estate denver" = identical results

The wierd part is that you can't do this to all phrases.
if you try phrases like "real estate law" and "law real estate" you'll still get two completely different sets of results.

Any thoughts?

[NFFC]

>Any thoughts?

Can't help you on fruit, not my area. ;)

As for the real estate phrases it's a matter of competitiveness.

As I understand it the number of "pages found" by AV is a measure of all pages that contain any, some or all of the words, on competitive phrases AV defaults to searching for the *exact* string.

For example:

autos 3,069,375
used 17,508,186

apples 301,900
pigs 259,330

used autos 5,464
apples pigs 560,830

apples+autos=apples autos

used+autos="used autos"

The easiest way to check if AV considers a phrase competitive is to search with and without the quotation marks, if the number of pages returned are the same then you need to put your price up. ;)

[seth_wilde]

"The easiest way to check if AV considers a phrase competitive is to search with and without the quotation marks"

I don't think that this is having any effect on the phrases that I used. I tested both with and without quotes and they both got different #'s of pages with and without quotes

[pete]

Brett, I think you are on the money. I hold my head in shame! I have done this twice now - jumped the gun before actually checking what has really happened. If anything, its been a clean out but not just 404's. Some high performing doorways gone - sort of spam elimination.

Other pages which have remained have moved up (Age factor!).

Seth, I have noticed this for some time. For some of the keywords I position, these combinations on AV which return identical results provide constant traffic. (positioned the client for one combo, he wanted the other and hey presto - same results for each!). But it only appears to occur on less competitive strings.

[seth_wilde]

"I have noticed this for some time" This just changed for both the phrases that I gave examples of. It seems to follow the scoring methods given in the vector database research papers. I wonder if this is just AV further integrating into the new system. We'll have to keep our eyes open to see if it starts happening for more and more searches.

[rcjordan]

>I wonder if this is just AV further integrating into the new system

SOMETHING is up, which is why I'm over here in the AV forum --looking for clues. One of my sites which is framed and dynamic (how's that for SE-friendly? it does have a deep noframes section) has just had a string of referrals from AV. This site IS heavily themed, and also pretty popular and has static links from a few high traffic 3rd-party sites. I'm thinking/hoping that the algo has zeroed in on its target a little better.