SERIOUS Google update algo analysis thread (Dominic)

NO whining or cheering about how your site is doing in this one.

[rfgdxm1]

This is a continuation of an idea for a thread that I started a few updates back. The topicality is listed below, and the expectation is that this thread will be restricted to just that. In the case of this Dominic update, GG has stated that other aspects of the update will be rolled out as the update develops. Thus, for this update it is possible that the observations made early on will not hold true by the end of the update. This is OK, because if patterns like this hold true for later updates, members here can use the search feature to find this thread and see how past updates developed.

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I'm starting this thread because another member suggested such would be a good idea because the main Google update thread is cluttered with posts like "OMG, I've been dropped in the new index!" and "Yippee, I'm now #1 on a key SERP". This thread is ONLY for serious, generic discussion of changes that you are observing with the new algo in this update. As in things like "Looks to me like PR is less important this month, and anchor text of inbound links counts more.", etc. How your site is doing has no relevance here unless you can explain why you think so in terms of a general algo update.

[xy123]

I fail to see any benefit to trying to 2nd guess what they're doing whilst it passes through this transient phase. Other than what seems likely from a couple of comments from the more reliable posters around here, to which GG replied, no one's going to come to any reliable conclusions. This thread is just turning into all the other Dominic update threads.

Wait for this update to settle down, and in the interim, get on with other things! Like real work...

[amazed]

real work? this is more fun...

just to add to the amusement:

anybody analysing what's going on at www-fi.google.com?

It is different...

cheers

[AthlonInside]

Please do not CONFUSE on the NEW vs OLD index anymore.

--->

The index is NEW if you look at your pages, and all others sites pages. All of them are the pages crawled in deep crawl last month. No Doubt. Lots of people has mentioned new pages created last month is appearing. You can't challenge this fact.

But why people keep saying it is an old index? Because google has choose to calculate the PR and backlinks base on the OLD index (maybe 2 months ago) instead of the new index. So the algo depends on the OLD index when calculating back links and PR. The algo depends on the NEW index when come to on-page algorithm (title, keywords ...).

--->

So don't be confuse again. What you see in the SERPs is NEW index, what you see in backlinks is OLD index. Google algo uses both NEW and OLD index in this SPECIAL month. Hope this clear everything up.

[Napoleon]

Correct AthloneInside. That assessment is entirely compatible with what GoogleGuy has been saying in the other thread.

[mipapage]

[Athloninside: GoogleGuy has confirmed that thia is an old index with some fresh-results...]

I guess there is something that we can glean from this experiment:

Going from what GoogleGuy says, these SERPS are:

1. From an old deep-crawl
2. include some fresh results
3. have backlinks greatly reduced across the board
4. have no spam filters applied

So now, I can go through my relevante serps, and see just who places where for the on page elements that google finds important, without considering PageRank, Spam filters etc.

Is this useful?
You bet it is!

Now you have an idea of where you need to improve wrt these elements (albeit using results from an old deep crawl) - ie, if the TOS didn't exist. If all you have is spam above you, be thankful for the TOS, if you are beating some spammers, give yourself a pat on the back.

[mipapage]

AthlonInside:

Sorry, I get what you are saying. Well put.

[jady]

My strange observation on the backlinks:

We have (or shall I say HAD) 1200+. Of the 1200, now only 384 show. We have paid listings on a very high ranking very high traffic directory for our field of work. This site has a PR7 and has a banner ad and text link to our site on every page. All of these links are gone but ONE! Even such in our case we were not doing this for PR but for leads, I think Google got smart and said "HEY - ONLY ONE LINK PER SITE COUNTS DUDE".

But then I look deeper and find maybe 2 links from one site somewhere else.. No method that I can point to, just sparatic.

But I will tell you one thing, I am not going to do ANYTHING marketing wise this month to our sites. I'm going to ride the wave and see what happens next update. Maybe this new Algo wont stick?

Also I am curious to see what is going to happen to our PR's. Meaning will we still have a 6 and will Joe Blow down the street maintain his PR or will we have a WORLDWIDE DROP?

P.S. MIPAPAGE - Our competition (spamming with hidden text and links farming) jumped to position 1 with these results. And guess what else beat us out of our #2 spot? A site using a auto re-direct (cloaking)!

[fathom]

Just thought I would throw this out.

Having at least one web site with 38 backlinks from DMOZ, thus 38 backlinks from Google Directory provides a very unique perspective.

All but the long standing DMOZ (two years+) and no Google Directory ones, along with all the usually seen (higher quality) clones which I don't quite remember the number but at least 20 - 30... are not showing.

Googleguy hinted at this in two previous posts, and the resync over time.

When I factor this in the backlink count of this particular site, 38 x 22 (being Google, DMOZ and a rough estimate on clone) + the unique externals still recorded and internals still recorded - this site is in the ball-park of the previous update > if not more.

Anyone else not showing DMOZ/Google (with exception to old ones)?

[tigger]

>I think Google got smart and said "HEY - ONLY ONE LINK PER SITE COUNTS DUDE".

Nope not the case, I've just checked and one site it's linking to me on 6 pages all are showing

Sorry back to the drawing board

[Napoleon]

Ditto Fathom. It looks to me that they have used a very old DMOZ, but I can't work out how old. I would guess that the same applies to many other directories/link-sources as well.

This does align with AthlonInside's definition above.

[Bobby_Davro]

Backlinks are significantly up for two of my sites, so I am not sure whether this means that there are some spammy sites linking to them that will get culled later or not.

I just thought that it was worth pointing out that not every site has less recorded back links at the moment.

[netnerd]

I agree - reduced backlinks count, old index with some fresh site data in it.

Do you guys think that google will add more backlinks in, or has it imposed some sort of backlink filter on say low PR sites?

[mipapage]

It looks to me that they have used a very old DMOZ, but I can't work out how old.

For some perspective, we only got in to Dmoz in late January, and that link is showing as our only backlink.

[Napoleon]

>> Do you guys think that google will add more backlinks in <<

Yes - already confirmed in another thread.

[fathom]

For some perspective, we only got in to Dmoz in late January, and that link is showing as our only backlink.

hmmm... back to the drawing board... just a DMOZ spammer now!

[HitProf]

I think it's too early to say something definite because -fi end -sj are very different, but here I go:

- Page title seems to have become more important again.

- April deepcrawl has not yet been included.

- Freshbotted pages are 1 day fresher on www

[edited by: HitProf at 1:18 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]

[JudgeJeffries]

Could this reduction in backlinks have anything to do with guestbooks ie ignore anything under say PR2 which would catch almost all the guestbooks and make the serps reliant on links from more authoritive sites.

[jon80]

I only see the more recent backlinks missing, including PR5 and above.
I doubt if it has anything to do with guestbooks, not based on a PR2+ filter at any rate.

[Marval]

I dont think looking at backlinks means anything right now...the backlinks Im showing on a site are from at least 2-3 mos old, as 40 pages from one site linking to me dont even exist any more(and didnt during the most recent crawls)

Speculation on what will happen during the update, when a real update gets started, is a little early. I do see the -sj results in the normal www results, but it looks like they havent moved it to any datacenters other than -sj...almost like they just let the sj center handle all requests for now

[AthlonInside]

I want to add something to my previous post.

I want to stress that it is not an OLD index with fressness. There are 2 copy of index - NEW and OLD with OLD being used as backlink calculation. NEW pages in SERPs is not result from the fresh crawl, they are what deep crawl has grapped last month.

I have lots of new pages crawled by deep bot last month and most of them has never meet FRESH bot before. And they are all appearing when I search allinurl:mysite.com. The new index is NEW from deep bot, not new from the fresh bot.

For those who still wondering why backlinks has reduce, it is because the backlinks is calculated from the OLD index. New links added last 2 months have been ignored, even if you have seen them before in the last 2 updates. I have many links which I have added last 2/3 months diminished. But links that is older then 2/3 months are still there.

[jady]

People are saying in here that "G" is going to add backlinks and this was confirmed. But if they add the backlinks, will the ranks change accordingly on this index before it goes "live"?

A site with a mere 100 backlinks is beating our site, less keyword density, no anchor text, etc. We (had) 1200+ good non-spam links, but now show only 300+.

Thoughts?

[mfishy]

GG said that the order will most likely be sj becomes new index as is than add new links. This is the confusing part for many here.

I would imagine the new links will change the index dramatically. I just hope that they get them in there pretty quickly because the new index hurts my eyes :)

[trillianjedi]

I want to stress that it is not an OLD index with fressness. There are 2 copy of index - NEW and OLD with OLD being used as backlink calculation. NEW pages in SERPs is not result from the fresh crawl, they are what deep crawl has grapped last month.

I'm not convinced of that from what I've seen.

We had two sites extensively crawled in April, and none of those pages are showing.

However, all of our freshbotted pages are in there.

To me (judging from my own sites) this looks like an old index with freshbot additions.

It may be that they haven't ported in all the new data yet.

TJ

[AthlonInside]

Can someone show me the thread and post # for which GG mention about new links will be added? I miss that. Thank You.

[jon80]

Check GoogleGuy's recent posts and you should find the info. you are looking for.

[pardo]

I can confirm pages in both -sj and -fi that are definitely from the latest - mid April - deepcrawl and were not indexed before and are definitely no freshbot results. Strange though there are only about 10-15 pages showing where 100+ pages have been catched...

[Napoleon]

Try: [webmasterworld.com...]

I still think you are broadly right.

[trillianjedi]

I can confirm pages in both -sj and -fi that are definitely from the latest - mid April - deepcrawl

Well I don't think that you're just making that up, but I can confirm the opposite from the sites I've looked at!

So I guess it's 50/50 and the SJ results have not yet been fully incorporated with the April deep crawl results.

TJ

[SEO_Guy]

I may have another explanation for the apparent drop in the number of backlinks appearing ... Google may be discounting reciprocal links.

I've checked many sites that I'm very familiar with, and those hit hardest so far utilize reciprocal links the most. Those that do not utilize reciprocal links appear affected the least. This may also help to explain the drop in internal backlinks, since many of these will again be reciprocal links.

Thoughts?

IntheNo

[HitProf]

AthlonInside,

You are talking about new pages being included from a deepcrawl, I'talking about existing static pages that have been updated and deepcrawled in April. The new index is still showing the old pages. These pages have never been freshbotted.

In such cases deepbot normally picks up the changes and freshbot comes back after the update to check for more changes.