Google June 2003 : Update Esmeralda

Confirmed

[Brett_Tabke]

We are seeing significant changes in Serps, back link numbers, fresh dates, and indexes at a couple of data centers.

This might mean a possible update.

WebmasterWorld Google Update Changes:

The problem: Chit chat noise in update threads.

Last month we hand several thousand messages posted about the update. The volume level was intense and people couldn't find the info that was appropriate. Many senior members complained about the "me too" chit chat messages being left.

We are not going to do that this month. If you don't have anything new to add to a thread thing please kick back and read. Additionally, we are going to be proactive in keeping those threads clean. Again, the volume is so high this time of month that informing everyone of any thread tidying is near impossible.

We would appreciate your continued latitude, cooperation (thanks), and patience as we head into this months update.

Thanks.
For the Team,
Brett Tabke

Google Update FAQ:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Messages in this thread do not count towards user message totals.

Understanding Dominic: (the previous update):
[webmasterworld.com...]

[mrguy]

If what is showing is the index, and I think it is. This is worse than dominic.

This one competely wiped us out.

Months worth of work getting links, gone, SERPs gone, yet fresh doorway pages spam their way to the top.

If this is the new Google, I want the old Google back.

This sucks big time.

[Seattle_SEM]

Some win, and some lose....Last time I got screwed, but with my most important client, Google added close to 1,000 new pages of content.

Where's my money? Oh yeah, Esmeralda's holding onto it for me.

;- )

[GoogleGuy]

needinfo, let me just repeat that you shouldn't compare link counts pre-Dominic to post-Dominic because they're apples and oranges. You can compare Dominic link counts to Esmeralda link counts, and it sounds like you improved. I usually can't help with ranking questions, but it sounds like you've got the basic materials in terms of links to make sure that your sites get crawled. I didn't catch whether you don't have any pages indexed, or you're just not ranking the way you expect?

[markus007]

Googleguy did you get a chance to look at my site? Am i imagining things or is something wrong?

[edited by: markus007 at 11:01 pm (utc) on June 15, 2003]

[netnerd]

Fantastic!

This new update has been very very very kind to my sites.

My hard work has paid off. Sorry to boast, but im ready for a good month!

[dbahn]

GG,
My site went from #321 to #4 (happy about that!), but it still shows PR0 and no backlinks, even though I know I have links from quite a few PR5 or greater sites.
Will that change?

Dave

[crankin]

I'm in the same boat as dbahn. 800+ pages in the index, but still PR0 and 0 backlinks. And some of those links are PR7, too... :(

[Stefan]

You're not seeing the final PR yet. Even using -fi you'll still be mostly getting the PR from an old database (I think).

[GoogleGuy]

dbahn and crankin, I'm gonna go with the same thing I advised for reneewood and WebWalla. If you're ranking well and/or got pages indexed, then you can assume that we saw links to you and handled them correctly. I wouldn't worry about whether you can see backlinks, or whether you see a PR0. It would be some time before I would assume that you're seeing PR from the right index.

[edited by: GoogleGuy at 11:06 pm (utc) on June 15, 2003]

[allanp73]

I hope that the backlinks are not accurate because I've noticed a big drop. I work with over 60 sites and noticed the same pattern. Last month's update my backlinks went drop (one site went from 500+ to 250 and now are showing only 120 and the othe show similar pattern).
Two sites are still missing from the index though they both show pr. How do I do a reinclusion request?
Help!

[Helpmebe1]

Does anyone know what data center we should be looking at for the new results that will most likely carry over to the www?

Sorry.. with the mess google has been creating latley been out of the loop... been totally ignoring google actually as it has not been kind to me lately...

[skipfactor]

wahoo, www2 & www3 have the backlinks, moving right along.

[netnerd]

fi

[Helpmebe1]

Ohh sorry.. almost forgot.. has anyone noticed google not really picking up their deeper pages? I have noticed with this whole mess lately that google is picking up section pages but not the deeper pages, something it always had done and I always had a nice rank on google for the last year or so... so am confused on this.. anyone else notice this too?

Thanks,
Chris

<edit> Thanks netnerd! </edit>

[NexDog]

Thank god for Esmeralda. We are back on page #1 for our most important term - even if it is ninth place as opposed to third before the big changes happened. I'm a little concerned that not all pages are indexed though. Including our forum, our site weighs 16,500 pages but I'm only seeing 1,300.

I can't understand the correct protocal for checking backlinks. Is it:

link:domain.com
link: domain.com

Notice the space, or:

link:http://domain.com
link: [domain.com...]

All produce different results on fi.

[GoogleGuy]

allanp73, I'll start the Esmeralda mini-FAQ. :)

Q: Can I compare link counts from the Esmeralda index to pre-Dominic link counts?
A: No, it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Q: Can I compare link counts from Dominic to this Esmeralda update?
A: Yes. That's comparing apples to apples. :)

Q: Is the PageRank showing for my site my final PageRank?
A: Probably not. Unless you're really familiar with hosts files, toolbarqueries.google.com, and DNS, your toolbar might be talking to the older index. If you feel adventurous about these subjects, feel free to hotwire your DNS entries, but I'd recommend that most people wait for the index to settle down more and just check their PR then.

Q: I have 500 pages indexed, but I don't see my backlinks. Should I worry?
A: No. We don't show backlinks below a certain PR threshold. The fact that we crawled and indexed pages from your site is eveidence that we found and handled those links correctly though.

Maybe I'll add to it if other people have related questions. :)

[crankin]

"If you're ranking well and/or got pages indexed, then you can assume that we saw links to you and handled them correctly."

Thanks GG, but that does not make me feel better, as I'm now actually ranking much worse in almost all my keywords. I'm in a tight little niche, and my competitors aren't doing anything to improve their rankings nor are they particularly more relevant, in fact, at least two of them are considerably LESS relevant, so there's no real reason for me to suddenly drop to the bottom of the barrel.

This crapshoot blows.

[TheAutarch]

Greetings Googleguy. I'm wondering if you could shed some light on this: A TON of backlinks that weren't counted before are finally showing up for me in -FI on several sites, yet these sites aren't showing up in any SERPs, not even when using the site names. The only way I can get them to show up in SERPs is to do a long query with quotes. Does this mean lights out for these sites for this update? Or are some sites (like mine) not yet fully integrated into the database? I thought backlinks were last, so I'm confused.

I'm thinking there's got to be a few others here experiencing this. Thanks.

[edited by: TheAutarch at 11:26 pm (utc) on June 15, 2003]

[allanp73]

I noticed that fi-google is missing index pages. One of my clients index pages was ranked #1 for a major term but now is gone. I checked other pages from the same site are showing in the index though. Is it likely that the index pages will re-appear?

[skipfactor]

Hi NexDog,

Try Advanced Google Search Operators [google.com]

[GoogleGuy]

Helpmebe1, interesting that you're seeing that behavior. Other people have seen more deep pages shown rather than index pages. I guess it all comes out in the wash. :)

NexDog, no space after the "link:"--that will search for the word link. I normally do link:www.domain.com or link:domain.com if the first one didn't seem to work.

[Clark]

GG, thanks for pushing the button. I had a feeling it was finally coming any minute when you talked about red and green buttons. And congrats on fixing your little problem with not enough space in the dB field to handle 4 billion webpages ;)

[Bio4ce]

So we should see -fi move to the other datacenters over the next week? Or is it going to be a more lengthy process?

[skipfactor]

It's already on www2 & www3 Bio4c.

[GoogleGuy]

allanp73/TheAutarch/crankin, you can get estimates for how many pages we crawled from a domain with something like
site:mydomainname.com -qwerrew

I couldn't really say why one site was doing better or worse in rankings. If a site is missing entirely from the index using the command above, and you know there hasn't been any hidden text/links or tricks like that, feel free to do a spam report and use the phrase "esmeralda missingsite" in the comments. In general, if people have feedback on the new index, I would use the word "esmeralda" in spam reports to let us check out specific searches or sites. Hope that helps--I'd be interested to hear feedback about searches that are doing well or poorly in the new index, so that we can make sure we're doing the best job possible.

[edited by: GoogleGuy at 11:30 pm (utc) on June 15, 2003]

[needinfo]

Thanks for the reply to my previous question Googleguy but i think you may have missed my point slightly.

2 sites in same industry one blue one red widgets. both had 82 backlinks during Dominic and ranked roughly the same.

Now on the fi server one site has 6 backlinks and ranks #1 for 3 major search terms whilst the other site has 99 backlinks and ranks on the 4th or 5th page!

[SlyOldDog]

3 things I've noticed with the new update:

1) The toolbar seems not to guess pagerank any more (at least not on the fi index). Unindexed pages on existing sites (like this page here) get PR0

2) Backlinks show up on Pagerank 4 pages.

3) MSN is now number 1 for "worst search engine" ;)

[edited by: SlyOldDog at 11:33 pm (utc) on June 15, 2003]

[strategies]

same here. on www2 and www3.

[bluemi]

I know, this has been disussed in length before, but there are again signs that something is seriously wrong with Google, imho. Today for some of my important keywords several sites made in into the SERPs again which have been dead since months. For one or two of them I had even submitted removal requests long ago. Now why do they come up again?

[strategies]

yahoo is different on www www2 and www3 as well