UPDATE! Google Feb/March 2003 - The Boston Update!

Official - Confirmed - Real - Name: Boston

[rfgdxm1]

YES......................................

[mfishy]

Wow, all the searches on my terms have changes drastically on www3 and2 from just a few minutes ago. I mean 8 out of the top ten on three different terms have all dissappeared.

I realize that the update just started but I have never seen this before. They must have run some sort of filter immidiately.

[mosley700]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, GG. I better go to the hospital now and get my wrists sown up.

;)

[kingcong]

I'm about to cry - unless I'm understanding this wrong

I'm #36 with my old cached site,
but on www3 with my newer version I'm #83

Does this mean I will become #83 on the regular google, or are rankings mid-dance not relevant? AAAAH!?

[chrisnrae]

I do not use any spam tactics in my sites and all I can say is, please be real, please be real, please be real. :)

Rae

[mfishy]

On the first glance at www2 and 3 I was seeing what looked like a relevant index, anow all the sites are junk and geocities, etc..

I hope this doesn't stick

[danielm]

So, _during_ the update process, what can be expected to change? I see the site I look after has jumped up 4 spots for a particular search term, I see quite a few more backlinks, and I see that it will be in the Google Directory post-update.

I guess a simple way to pose my question is: between what I'm observing now on www2 and www3 and what I will observe on www in 3-4 days, what will change?

[robertito62]

i think this has been asked before but i am getting lost in this fast growing thread...

Is it a common experience for Google to drop backlinks?

I have added about twice the amount of original pages to my site and also got many new link exchanges. All new content and all new links legit.

Is this a penalty?

[WebMistress]

This is really odd...I lost 110 backlinks but moved way up for all of the keywords I target. New backlinks filter possibly?...If anything I gained links, not lost them...weird! Anyone else notice anything like this?

[globay]

I had used ; in some of my urls. Google does not like this and they are not indexed ;(

[Hollywood]

Hs the Wall Street Journal posted yet? I really think that they should make a comment in the paper... time folks, only time.

This is after all the start of the future in marketing for the entire planet, this is no joke, and Googleguy you deserve the mention by the way.

So where are those Wallstreet'ers at?

This site deserves a write up and it shocks me that I have not seen one yet in the Journal.

All best!

Go Google Bots!

~HOLLYWOOD

[NickCoons]

WebMistress,

I noticed this during the January update. Even though all of those pages were still linking to me, they didn't show as backlinks. I checked into them, and many of them had lost PR. This is a natural thing as the internet grows and more pages are indexed by Google.

It doesn't mean the backlinks aren't still indexed by Google, and it doesn't mean that they don't pass PR.

[diddlydazz]

WebMistress and robertito62

googleguy has a post earlier in the thread about backlinks message no:#145

"my rule of thumb is not to worry about backlinks/toolbar display during an update"

hope this helps

Dazz

[Buckley]

Can someone please answer post 215 from kingcong. I asked a similar question earlier in the post but it didn't get answered. I'm sure a lot of people would like to hear the answer from someone who knows from experience.

Thnaks

[NickCoons]

Buckley,

I generally don't consider the index "stable" until the end of the update because it will most likely continue to change throughout the update. If, in 3-4 days, your site dropped from a high rank to a low rank, then you can panic :-).

[kingcong]

Thanks Buck!

[zan_d]

wembistress "new backlinks algo" was my first thought, i'm seeing large jumps up in rank but big drops in links, tho i have found some dubious links on competitor sites which i've never noticed before (they may have been there just lower in the rankings)

[Buckley]

Thanks Nick......a lot of people just went, phew!

[tfelice]

Agreed Nick, especially with this update being delayed so long and the addition of the ODP RDF

[dcheney]

I realize its early in the update process, but for my main site there seems to be a major reduction in the number of internal backlinks listed. (Which I actually like - much easier to see "real" backlinks!)

Anyone else notice something similar?

[johnraphone]

sick that google indexed my a few of my php errors, heh oh well

[GoogleGuy]

dcheney, check what Nick just wrote. I wouldn't worry about it.

[NickCoons]

tfelice,

Several things happened this month that were different. Freshbot went buck-wild through my site almost all month long, the update was way late, and probably a greater number of things than usual were changed on Google's side. Who knows what kind of changes we'll see at the end of this update; but they usually take a few days, not a few hours. I'd be surprised if the results on www2 and www3 right now are the ones that will stick on www for the next month.

[mfishy]

Definitely a major change in the way Google is counting backlinks. Theya re picking them up, but somehow not really counting them the same way in ranking.

Again, I hope they see that the quality has gone way down because of this move

[gramski]

Is it too soon to panic? My one page pr2 site has dropped hundreds of positions on www2 and 3 from what it has been. Is this how its going to stay or will it come good again? I've only done the slightest of changes since the last update (changed the page title from a plural to a singular word) It was 1 on the plural keyword and about 16 on the singular and now its way down to over 300 and 200.

[annej]

dcheney,

I noticed less internal backlinks listed too.
I'm guessing my drop in backlinks is mostly less internal backlinks.

[NickCoons]

mfishy,

<Definitely a major change in the way Google is counting backlinks. Theya re picking them up, but somehow not really counting them the same way in ranking.>

What are you observing that indicates this?

<Again, I hope they see that the quality has gone way down because of this move>

How so?

[mfishy]

Like I said earlier, when I first viewed the www2 and www3 it was a completely different index then now. Many sites with huge number of backlinks and anchor text ranking high. Now, the 15 out of the top 20 on 3 major terms from me are now gone and the sites were not linked together.

The seems poor because of this new way they seem to be counting links because homepage type sites with 25 links are now dominating the SERPS

[mfishy]

BTW,

to those who are asking, it is common to say that much will change between now and then , but I find that little will change by tomorow till the new index- from past experience

[figment88]

mfishy, the amount the SERP's change between initial dance and settling down, IMHO has to do with how competitve the keywords are.

Most of the people here deal with very competitive keywords, so their site and their competitors change a lot between indexes and take a lot of time to settle down.

For one of my sites, I'm mostly competing with other sites that are 4 and 5 years old and they don't get many new links or change their structure much. For these keywords, the inital dance is always very close to the final new index.

[tsdpsg]

mfishy, I've found that too. For the things I check on, once the dance starts, nothing changes on www2 and www3 thorughout the dance. Weird because I see people stating things change all the time during the dance, but I never see changes during it after the intial startup/change.