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I just checked all 9 datacenters. Only -sj and -fi have the new index.
I can confirm that Yahoo is being given something other than -sj or -fi.
My site is only about 3 months old, and i've been deep crawled already. I was baffled when my site first appeared 2 weeks after submission but then disappeared in a few days... but i'm learning now!
Anyway, a competitor of mine and I started around the same time, and i know that my site is MUCH more extensive then theirs (200+ pages vs 10 pages), although neither of us have many links. Their site does NOT appear at all in www, -sj, -fi, or any of the other datacenters for the keywords i'm checking, and puts us in the first or second page at -sj and -fi. (EDIT: they are now in www and datacenters other than -sj and -fi). When i try the same searches on Yahoo, our site is no where to be found, and their site is on the first page!
So there is definately a difference between what google is showing at -sj and -fi and what they're sending to Yahoo (and AOL?)
I'm hoping that their listing is just a result of freshbot and will soon disappear, or at the very least they all revert to -sj or -fi... but i'm perplexed as to how the results can be so different at Yahoo and the Google datacenters.
[edited by: thereuare at 2:06 pm (utc) on May 14, 2003]
Its more likely a full blown content switching system that dynamically switches your query to the datacenter experiencing the least load at the instant you execute your query, combined with other geographical and reachability paramaters.
Highly likely, I agree 100%. "Round Robin" DNS, even if not strictly accurate, is a simple way of looking at it. It's not meant to be patronising.
@ Amazed:-
Because GoogleGuy has stated about 4 times now that is the case. And until I see some evidence to the contrary, then I'm inclined to take his word for it. If you have some evidence to the contrary, please enlighten us.
@ John5:-
That won't work. You're looking at either -sj or -fi. It has been continuous for 2-3 hours for you because (my best guess) your DNS cache (either your end or at your ISP) has not yet been flushed. I have not had stable results from www for 2-3 hours. It is still bouncing around the various datacentres as it does. I have no DNS cache (manually disabled).
TJ
Yes. I've been pointing out that -sj and -fi not the same, though they keep getting mentioned as though they were. GG kept talking about -sj as the lead horse, but for the last day it appeared to be -fi mainly. I'll assume however that -sj perhaps lagged a day or so and that now that the caches are in there, it will start seeing the light of day...
It also appears to us that Yahoo and AOL were not getting the same rotation of data centers over last 24 hours. Even rotation is not the norm with load balancing...but we have mainly seen the older (pre-update) SERP's on Yahoo!, versus old plus -fi on AOL, but again we're just one observer and everyone else might be seeing different results. We keep clearing browser caches and hitting from different access points, but who knows.
NEWS FLASH: What do you know! We're starting to see the -sj SERP's on AOL for the first time. Now I'm really wondering...were they there all along and we just happenend to miss them despite our hundreds of look-see's, or has -sj just been opened up into the rotation...
I know this because my site is nowhere to be found in -fi and in -sj it has rankings I only once dreamed about.
There is a HUGE difference between -sj and -fi from my perspective.
I wouldn't put my life on it, but I'm *pretty* certain that I saw a flash of -sj results on aol last night.
For the keywords that I check the difference between sj and fi is actually quite subtle (I know it's radically different with others). At the time I put it down to everflux (and maybe some more backlinks coming in to fi) but after thinking about it for a while, and looking at sj I concluded it was SJ.
What I'm not clear on, and haven't had time to check out for myself, is if the load-balancing (maybe it's clearer to people if we talk in those terms?) includes the other indexes? Or has aol *only* been using -fi and possibly -sj?
If the latter, to handle that kind of loading, would google not have had to upgrade those two datacentres substantially?
TJ
Hi welcome to the board.
When looking at Yahoo results you have to be careful when comparing it to other datacentres - Yahoo apply different filters from Google and this can makes some difference to the results.
So it is likely that Yahoo is receiving FI/SJ or WWW and they dont match with what you are seeing on the Google sites as Yahoo may have applied a different filter.
One more question open to anyone...
On -sj and -fi i rank 11 and 12 for one of the keyword searches i do, should my next step be to add more of these keywords to my site so that i'll <hopefully> move to the first page in spots 1-10?
I've already done some other optomizing for the site in general, but is this how you optomize for specific keywords, by adding more of those words to your site?
That doesn't mean it's always so for everyone. We were seeing boucing around on AOL yesterday when these results first started going to the partner sites, then AOL seemed to settle in to -fi, as you say.
But I promise, I'm looking at -sj on AOL, right now, so it IS finding its way in.
<There is a HUGE difference between -sj and -fi from my perspective.>
We went slightly up in one, down in the other, but our up move is a bit better than the loss in the down move. Still I agree that there's real difference, and have been commenting on the poorer quality of -fi. Apparently from some posts, there are those who think that if I trash -fi, -fi must not be treating me well, but not the case. I just see more spam and some obvious #1 sites (not ours) that have dropped in -fi, whereas -sj seems more well rounded.
Then there's the fact that GG keeps reminding us that the SERP's for -sj AND -fi are likely to shift, as more backlinks, filters, etc. are brought in...so all we can do for now is give GG the input and hope that it helps them maintain their generally very high quality over time.
I think we've seen some bouncing around too. No idea if it was just part of the update. Mainly though we were seeing -fi on AOL and the older SERP's on Yahoo!...until just an hour or so ago.
<What I'm not clear on, and haven't had time to check out for myself, is if the load-balancing (maybe it's clearer to people if we talk in those terms?) includes the other indexes? Or has aol *only* been using -fi and possibly -sj? If the latter, to handle that kind of loading, would google not have had to upgrade those two datacentres substantially?>
Good question. Actually, I had assumed that each new index was fed to Yahoo/AOL with each update, similar to the way G imports ODP data for their directory. But maybe that doesn't make sense now that you mention it. I know that with Adwords, the updates are not real time, but the lag is minutes or hours only.
And, if G is moving to ongoing/rolling updates rather than the monthly thing, then the feed would be a necessity. For all we know, part of this new testing G is doing could be that they HAVE upgraded certain data centers, precisely for the reason you point out, and the slow roll out is designed in stages to QC the whole thing.
Man, I have better things to do. This damn forum is killing me. I've got to get back to work. ;-)
And, if G is moving to ongoing/rolling updates rather than the monthly thing, then the feed would be a necessity. For all we know, part of this new testing G is doing could be that they HAVE upgraded certain data centers, precisely for the reason you point out, and the slow roll out is designed in stages to QC the whole thing.
Could be, yes. But I don't really know enough about the inner workings of aol to really comment on that. Would it not be possible though, for example, for aol to keep their own datacentre "copy" index on their own machines, which gets the rolling update in the same way as the googleplex is aiming to get a rolling update?
I was actually guessing that aol was simply pointing its searches at -fi (and possibly -sj). But you seem to think they had (at least in the past) their own datacentre.
I really don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure we'll all know in a week or two.
Now get back to work!
TJ
Regarding Keyword Density and getting to the front page.
It is a combination of factors:-
Keyword Density.
Keyword in links to your site.
Page Rank.
Number of links to your site.
etc etc
TJ - I take it back...makes more sense for Y and A to just access the entire G data center network, don't you think? (Guess I didn't get back to work completely
Crossed in the post.....
To me, yes it makes more sense for aol to use google's datacentres rather than having to get involved in the update process each time.
The fact that we (maybe) have seen instances of -sj results on aol indicates that is the case. But I really don't know for sure.
If they do use googles datacentres - and only use one or possibly two of them, I'd be surprised if google have not upgraded those datacentres on a big scale. That would indicate big changes in the pipeline would it not? Maybe different algo's for different partners too.
Out of interest, does anyone know if -fi is new or been around a while?
TJ
There do seem to be huge distinctions between sj and fi, at least in the results.
TJ
according to efactory -fi went online in May 2003
I think it must be older than that?
If not, that is *very* interesting..... new datacentre that just happens to be supplying aol all on it's own?
TJ
Thanks
The reason people are making distinctions is because the SERPs differ in -sj and -fi.
are they pointing to them?
Looks like SJ data to me :¦
