Controversy so far, opinions please

[steve128]

I do not intend to start a new thread going over old ground, what I would like in this thread is reasons why google has decided to put new results live, taken from old data
Come on people there must be a reason, google is not stupid

I, amongst others am not interested in your sites fall from grace in this thread, but your analogy of the situation as whole.

So has google screwed up, or
a master plan

[taos47]

"let’s disclose our algorithm to the Webmaster that whines the most in a given month."

Again the point was missed.
I don't care about about trade secret alogrithms.
I care about sharing a actual helpful information on what is really to be expected.
How about "by May 30th, our retooling will be finished. However it looks after that is your problem"...that would be fine with me.

And I am in no way knocking Googleguy. He only can say what the powers that be tell him is OK.

All of the google apologist here seem to smack of brown-nosers reminding the teacher that they haven't assigned any homework. Google isn't going to rank you any hire for kissing b*tt.

As long as there is a vacuum of information there will be discontent and miles of posts filling the vacuum with theories and rants. Those that want to end it should support better disclosure from google.

Thanks to John. I appreciate the honest support.

[deanril]

Of course not Big Dave because you have your oppinion, and guess what I have mine.

[edited by: deanril at 4:12 am (utc) on May 21, 2003]

[edited by: rcjordan at 4:14 am (utc) on May 21, 2003]
[edit reason] Per the charter: no specific references to search terms. [/edit]

[rfgdxm1]

I don't consider you arrogant GG. However, at the moment cryptic to the point nothing you say has much meaning. Such as the part about missing links and anchor text being brought into the index in a period more than days, and less than months. Since a month is the normal time between updates, that could be interpreted as you acknowledging that this index is just botched, and next index things will be back to normal.

[robertito62]

I also agree completely with taos47.

I value the participation of Google's employees as much as I value anyones', but posts such as 'organic links' and codes that only 3 people who have just joined can understand, add to the confusion.

Yes, we are grown ups and some may have built a business model around Google's traffic for good or for bad.

It will be best to be pointed in the right direction instead of making us play a guessing game.

If there are problems, that is fine. Many, including myself, had to start from scratch in more than one ocassion. If it happens again, I'll take that. It's just life, comes with the package.

Vague posts, more than humorous, can be damaging.

[BigDave]

Uh, Deanril, I realize you were using it as a hypothetical example, but did you actually do a search on "pencils"?

Looks incredibly clean and on topic. not a big mac in sight.

[Stefan]

I don't know how many apologists there are, less than there were anyway, (you should read some of my past posts if you're including me with the brown-nosers), but the discussion only accomplishes something if we stay focussed on figuring the stuff out.

I'm going to sleep and with any luck I might still be in Google in the morning; if not so it goes.

[littlecloud]

One of the great things about the internet is the ability for anyone with small amount of resources or money , but willing to put in hours of hard work can compete with big companies. Free search engine rankings are one of a few ways to do this, but unfortunately one engine has the traffic and power now to make or break. Maybe now that Yahoo may drop google for inktomi there might be a second major source of free traffic. Some people on this forum say "you should have diversified and have other advertising and marketing" well I don't think everyone starting out has the money to buy PPC at $2.00 a click. On the other hand for every whiner or complainer on here, someone else is on top and very happy with the serps as they are. For those who have fallen, there is nothing you can do about it . I would not suggest working on your sites for google anyway ,until the changes are final, you could be wasting your time. Then you go back to the drawing board and study the serps and linking structures. I am working on inktomi for now so I will be ready if Yahoo makes the switch.

[NovaW]

All of the google apologist here seem to smack of brown-nosers reminding the teacher that they haven't assigned any homework. Google isn't going to rank you any hire for kissing b*tt.

It's ok to be worked up for a while - when you see your previously well ranked site fall to oblivion - but you got to get over it. The common sense approach of realizing that google isn't going to share the crown jewels here in an open forum, and of reading what GG has already said....(wait - the spam filters & backlinks will be rolled in) doesn't make anybody a butt kissing brown noser. All you can do is wait. Imagine this same situation without any feedback at all - now that would be a time to go crazy.

Man - that webmaster fantasy has still got me cracked up laughing.

[europeforvisitors]

All of the google apologist here seem to smack of brown-nosers reminding the teacher that they haven't assigned any homework.

Some of us are adults who haven't used the term "brown-nosers" or received homework assignments in years. :-)

[panicbutton]

Hey Taos, Why should Google have “better disclosure”? Google has no obligation to you or anyone else to disclose ANYTHING. It’s their business and how they run that business is entirely up to them. How you run your business is entirely up to you. If you want to rely on Google to put food on your table then caveat emptor.

[marin]

Web gurus like Danny Sullivan from searchenginewatch.com and others, ignore this crazy google update. What do you think?

[ILLstyle]

we should ignore until things solidify. its obviously taking time so chill.
Or maybe we should start another useless thread.

[marin]

be my guest, my English is to poor for this.

[Shadoze]

>>>>You have no control over it, didn't pay for it, were never promised anything, and chose to depend on it anyway.

True, but the same applies to Google, they didn't pay to use of any of the material in their huge profitable index and their entire business depends on being able to continue to do this.

Google providing free indexing to web sites is not just beneficial to the site owners.. Google needs sites in their index to make money... I would say there is a fair trade off here,

Google indexes web sites for free, web sites make money,

Web sites allow google to index their sites freely, Google makes money.

This is not a one way street.

[Stefan]

It's hard to tell from the thousands of posts, in all the threads, what the known facts are on the change... If some enterprising mod could gather the statements of fact together and present them it would help (maybe already done and lost in the crowd).

What I know from my own site is:

The problems are all based on old deepcrawl data being used and not much recent freshbot activity

The pages that were lost all went up since the Feb deepcrawl but some pages from early March are there

ADDED: The backlinks are those of Feb

My PR is now the same as it was in Feb, PR6 for the main page and 5 for most others, but grey-barred for the lost pages

The links page is still PR5

Doesn't the situation look like it could be corrected by a deepcrawl and update? Have entire sites been lost to the index that were up prior to Feb? I'm still confused about what exactly has happened.

[trillianjedi]

I like the "pencils" example.

Also, from another thread where I spotted this:-

chitin off its pedipalps

and didn't understand what he was talking about (although in fairness to my own intelligence I did guess it was spider related) - I put "chitin off its pedipalps" into google and got 95% relevant content in the top 20 pages.

TJ

[taos47]

"Why should Google have “better disclosure”? "

It's good business.

Keeping industry people, as those in this forum, in the dark and causing unnecessary anxiety just isn’t the smartest way to go.

Shadoze is right. It’s “not a one way street”. Giving a better picture of what to expect and for how long would be considered a professional courtesy. Goodwill can go a long way in business.

Google didn’t become #1 because the mass public liked the name. Industry professionals appreciated the non-commercial index application and word-of-mouth did more for Google’s popularity than anything.

I’ve stated before it has little to do with the change and more to do with how they are keeping colleagues informed or should I say not informed. I frankly can’t understand why some would make excuses for Google as if they were indebted to them.

[Rhadamanthus]

I don't think it's at all likely that Google simply screwed up. The first rule of enterprise level computing is redundancy. Google is one of the biggest enterprise level systems in the world, so I'm sure they're familiar with that. The kind of error that it would take to hose up their entire index like this is so massively huge (we're talking dozens of people making human error or hundreds of machines failing) that it's just outside the realm of statistical liklihood. Possible, I'll grant you. But not likely. For my money, they're in the midst of a massive change, not a mistake. And I agree with what some others have said here, the kind of transition they're doing would likely be very painful no matter how they did it, and it probably will eventually result in better SERPs.

As a webmaster, I think I have to agree with the general trend that Google has no obligation whatsoever to provide me with any information about what's going on with their index, what algorithms they use, what I should do, or they reasons behind any of it. In fact, contrary to what some people have posted here already, if I were in Google's shoes, I'd be just as tight lipped about all of that as they are. It serves there users better.

And that's where I do have my problem with the current update. It seems to me that Google is in the midst of a serious change in how they do their indexes, and that during this transitionary period the index is pretty hosed. It was one thing when my web site (fairly new, PR-3 before this update) dropped to a PR-0. I was upset, but I understood the transition and got on with life. But I've also seen more bizarre stuff, such as a popular gaming site that was a PR-8 now showing a PR-0. That's just wrong. And I've seen really screwy stuff in the SERPS.

Now, I'm probably only noticing much of this because of the time I've spent at Webmaster World. However, I'm upset at Google for not telling me, as a user that there would be a turbulent time in their results. In some places, their results are just horrible compared to what they used to be, from a user's perspective, not a webmaster's perspective.

I understand perfectly why Google hasn't said anything. They don't want to lose searches during the turbulent time. But as a user, I feel like I've been treated dishonestly by the company because they haven't told me their in the middle of a transitionary period. A simple "hey, we're in the middle of a transition, it'll take approximately xxx amount of time, and then you'll be so blown away by our new system that it'll be worth the pain!" somewhere on the main page would've been nice.

[shawn]

After reading this thread and a few others- I am under the impression that I might get back those back links I am now missing?

Would that be accurate? I dropped just about half of my my backlinks(external) but my PR did not change and I went up in the SERPS for almost all of my targeted keywords.

Shawn

[Rhadamanthus]

One more point, to flesh out a little what I said above:

I probably would never have noticed the odd results on Google if I hadn't been reading these forums so much. But rather than being an excuse, I think this actually adds double shame on Google. They're counting on the general user's ignorance to mask what they're doing, so that nobody will notice that they haven't told us users what's going on, and I think that's just sleazy.

[trillianjedi]

I dropped just about half of my my backlinks(external) but my PR did not change and I went up in the SERPS for almost all of my targeted keywords.

So who cares about the backlinks!

There's other threads dealing with this halving of backlinks - a search on here should reveal them.

TJ

[Fiver_321]

will someone tell me whats odd please about the new index?

everything for me is the same - (many many domains)

whats changed? I am really struggling to see anything new to be honest!

My sites are still in, links fluctuating as per usual.

Ok - the dance took longer, but wheres the significant difference in the serps?

I am totally happy with this update, and am looking foreward to see what the next will bring.

All I have noted/been able to note from my reading here is
a) Guestbook spamming is not picked up.
b) Link pages have been devalued (mine included)

but what else has happened to make everyone so upset?

[x_m]

Fiver_321 thanks, I thought I am the only one who thinks the same! I don't see anything revolutionary in my area. Regardless of 1 million or dozen thousands keyword phrases I see only very subtle changes in listings which is usual for any other update. Except this one taking a bit longer time.
Yes there seems to be some slightly improved duplicate content filter on subpages but I can't see anything else THAT dramatical.

XM

[taos47]

Try this thread to see what others are concerned about:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[stevegpan2]

hey,

I do see two of my sites' PR up by 1.

No backlinks added at all.

Actually no links other than from google and dmoz.

So backlinks are no longer important?

So what made my 2 sites PR up?

I am happy.

[JudgeJeffries]

I don't think Google have screwed up and I don't think they have misjudged anything. They are ahead of the game at the moment and, having given the past which is littered with failed SE's much consideration have decided to stay in front by major advances that could only be carried out by trashing the past. We've all done this before with businesses, websites, relationships etc Ditch the bitch and start again hopefully to improve on what went before. I suspect that what is happening is a cool, calm, calculated commercial change that has been months in the planning and is designed to keep ahead of the looming ink/yahoo threat and to counter the sabre rattling from MS.
Patience boys and girls!

[ogletree]

My PR actually went up. Of course it goes up and down a point every ten minutes or so.

As a user of Google I have noticed many times if I am really looking for something it takes a while. Only webmasters know where their sites should be. Everyone here watches his or her keywords. We see a bunch of completely off topic results on the first page for every single search. Google should listen to people at Webmasterworld. We can help them get good results. I can't tell you how many times I have done a search and got back junk. The description is the worst part of Google. It is rare to see a description that makes any sense. Google is not using the description tag or I have just not seen a result that had a description from the meta tag. Google should reward people that have well thought out descriptions that have a good mix of keywords and sentence structure. Maybe they should run a grammar checker on descriptions and list ones higher that have good grammar. Yes Google contains a lot of results but how many of them are worthless. It is rare for anybody to go more than 3 pages deep. If a page does not have a title or a title with less than 2 words in it then it should be sent way lower in the results. If there is no description then it should go lower in the results. If a web page does not have a title and description then the content probably stinks anyhow because the author does not know what they are doing. I would like to see pretty results not a big mess. Also has anyone ever seen a useful backlink result all that does is clutter things up? I use Yahoo for my Google results so I don’t have to see those cluttered results I get from Google.com. I am sure Google is great for some results. It does work well sometimes but it is very common for it to not work.

This may be way off target but just been wanting to say this and it came out now.

[Spica]

stevegpan2

The PR of many sites went down by 1 last month. If that was the case for your sites, that's why you are now seeing higher PR, because the toolbar is now showing PR as it was a couple months ago.

There is no evidence that they have recalculated PR. The only difference is that now they show PR0 or gray for pages that are not in the "new" index (like this page for example).

[stevegpan2]

thanks all for reply.

ogletree, but I see Chinese character site show up in top 10 for an english phrase search.
the page does have english words, but more chinese.
How grammer works for this?

[ogletree]

Google should return only english results unles you go to advanced or a specific language Google. That would be considered junk if it has any other language in it. When Google returns forign language for a normal search they are just not even trying to have decent results.