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We had the opportunity to discuss individual site issues and observations. I was involved in the 302 dscussions and it appears that many webmasters/sites suffer the same/similar problems.
It's been a great opportunity for those attending the WebmasterWorld conference and I think it's proved that Google is listening.
they are more like statisticians and speak a different language
They speak my language. I found people I can talk to and they understand me. I don't have to try to rephrase my words anymore(if I don't want to), it's okay, it's normal. I'm not the only one who has been working so hard.
I really tried to be strong, but I couldn't always. It was really hard. I found an easier way and I LOVE IT!
they are more like statisticians and speak a different language
The best conversation I had all night was with Paul. At one point I overheard him saying to someone "If you want to get a job working for Google, get a PhD in statistics, not computer science." There's an awful lot that can be read into that...
Google tries to tell which web sites people really like. There are too many web sites out there that simply try to game the system and are not focused on the end user. Google's job is to find the right statistics which separate the sites that end user finds useful from the ones that the end user doesn't find useful.
The less "noise" they have in their stats, the more accurate they can be in determining which sites should be ranked higher, and which sites should be ranked lower. This appears to be Google's goal, more so than simply finding "scraper sites" and de-indexing them or lowering their ranking.
I believe black-hat SEO is the art of trying to fall within that noise. The problem is, as G fine-tunes their methods of gathering their statistics, the noise band becomes narrower and these sites get dropped. Ideally webmaster would forget about the noise band and concentrate on creating the most obviously use sites.
Thats the statement I was referring to when I mentioned the Google Engineers speak a different language then we do. I came accross that several times, i'm describing an issue one way, they think of it another way and use different words.
The Google engineers were great with the biggest thing I feel I got from them was a better idea of how Google feels about certain situations. Interactive conversation really clears the air on just how they view their relationship with web builders.
Cheers for all the search engineers for coming along.
Conversation with g Engineer in the Bar:
IPO didn't change the tech-culture in the Plex - everyone still strongly feel, the show is run by Larry and Sergey.
Employees are having more holidays since IPO (the one's that got some cash, I guess) - one didn't return, too busy flying his plane.
They strongly feel their search engine is still the best by miles
Porn industry has a very short vocabulary
LSI - Not in the way we think about it - other statistical semantic analysis, yes.
Click-pop can't be used directly in the Algo, it's patented by others (DH I guess). But can be used for relevance checking and tweaking
People used more for cheking relevance
Still a bit hazy - so will comeback, when feeling better.
Afterwards, my partner described his impressions by saying that he thinks they are in the same place that he and I are in, but to a much greater scale: They seem to have a tiger by the tail, and have been much more successful than they had ever dreamed they would be. They are having an increasingly harder time trying to "ride herd" and keep all things in check, but it is apparent that they are having the times of their lives. In short, these guys are much like the rest of us, except with a much larger web site... (The Day of the Geek has arrived, Yeehaa!)
On a different note, seems to me the biggest revelations from that night have not appeared anywhere in WebmasterWorld... I can't imagine that I was the only one to hear them, but then again, maybe I was. I can keep a secret, can you?
they are not using that data in the ranking algo
True, caught the same thing, then asked why. The reason for this is that they can't at this time. Too many spammers would take advantage of this, or already try to... writing anything in their title tags just to get a click. Once the spammers are out(hopefully one day), CTR might come into play in organic SERPS.
There was a lot of talk about LSI at the conference; however, I don’t know if any of the engineers actually addressed it in detail.
The message I got was that Google is using a home-grown version of LSI. Most of the traditional methods for analyzing LSI that you read in the literature are patented, and they can't use them.
"The days of easy money and disposable domains are near the end. I think in the future affiliates may be able to make more money selling advertising than other peoples products".
My estimate:
Ecommerce on WWW in 2015:
USD 30 000 000 000 000 -
USD 50 000 000 000 000
Of this 40 % through affiliates.
KBleivik
Make it simple as simple as possible, but no simpler.
I'd like to hear more of what was said.
Yeah, so would others, I can't understand why no one is answering that. ;)
Had a great time, learned an incredible amount....
Learned just about everything I needed to know.
(Besides MetricsGuru, thank you for your info ;) ) Why isn't anyone elaborating on what was learned? Why have/are sites getting dumped during Bourbon that have no reason to get dumped? What can be done to prevent this in the future by us, AND by G? Why are non-relevant sites, and sites that violate G's own TOS turning up at the top of the G SERP's in so many niches where this was NOT the case pre-Bourbon? Did no one think to ask these basic questions? Please, anyone....information. ;)
Google tries to tell which web sites people really like. There are too many web sites out there that simply try to game the system and are not focused on the end user. Google's job is to find the right statistics which separate the sites that end user finds useful from the ones that the end user doesn't find useful.
It's a definitely a great and admirable goal, and SHOULD be what's happening, but it's a shame that is NOT what is occurring, the opposite seems to be happening. Is this effort still taking place? If Bourbon was supposed to address this, why has it backfired and had the opposite effect? Will it get better? We all realize that is G's goal, but this "Bourbon update" has made things worse in their SERP's in my specific field and countless others as well, and that is certainly not just the opinion of myself alone, but an absolute documented fact.
Apparently everyone had a great time and met some great people, and each other, that's great, I'm glad to see that, N.O. is fun....but the scope and these questions seems to have been lost in the "fun" according to this thread. If not, then can some of you please be kind enough to elaborate on these issues so everyone can learn something from them? If this thread is not for these issues then I apologize and I'll start another thread on this. Either way, these are things that should be addressed.
Thanks.
Look for an announcement about our next few conferences coming up on the conference page in a week or so.
