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The panic is settling down, the whine of worry is receding to a steady hum in the back of my head, and several recovery plans are forming...
I lost my index page entirely, due to lazy keyword stuffing. My fault! Unfortunately, mine is a very small business: no listing = no food (let alone xmas).
I was planning on overhauling the website anyway, and I've given myself until 1/1/04 before I accept an opening with another business and abandon my own. The question now is: overhaul the index page and resubmit to Google immediately, overhaul the entire website and resubmit the whole thing in a few weeks, overhaul the website (starting with the index page of course) and wait for Googlebot. Time is most definitely a factor.
...are any of these plans likely to restore my index page to the directory before I have to throw in the towel in January?
There are also longer range options of starting over with a new website and closing the old.
Mahalo Nui Loa! (Thank you very much!)
Glad to see -in follow and not lead.
Man, I sympathize with all the webmasters running commercial sites who are having problems right now, but we all know of the SEO techniques that have to be used in that field to get to the top of the heap. It's an ongoing battle between Google and commercial webmasters... Google trying to clean out keyword spamming, subdomain spamming, link spamming, cloaking, hidden text etc, and legitimate internet businesses trying to not be buried by the spammers, and so fighting back.
Commercial internet, it's the law of the jungle.... my advice, find a product that no one else sells and it will naturally rise to the top of the serps and make you muchos dineros. You want to sell hotel rooms in New York City... fuggedaboutit.
1. PageRank is not showing the same on all DCs.
2. Seeing very different results still for some searches across DCs.
3. Has anyone else noticed the list of categories at the foot of the SERPS, illustrating which Google Dir Categories the results are taken from? Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a new additional feature which has/will be introduced this update, and which is not showing on any DCs now, but was earlier..
On one very competative keyword three URLs show up on the first and second pages!
What the heck is going on!?
Anyone else seeing this on the keywords you watch?
I bet the majority of people here that are happy with the update either manage information sites or sites in very uncompetitive areas.
<added>
I say that because if you were ranking well in competitive areas pre this update, you would of had to have been applying tactics that are now being penalised in order to be number 1,2,3 in the first place</added>
[edited by: subway at 12:09 am (utc) on Nov. 20, 2003]
All datacenters match, the dance may be over.
Not for me. -ex, -sj, and -zu are down, and -cw and -fi are missing some results when I search for my domain.
Dude! I am having a very tough time following you... did you just say "Which will always be the case because of the fact people have a limited amount of money to spend on e-commerce."... yep... that was you...
I think you are misguided in this statement. Billions of dollars are spent online each year. I understand that not all of that is through search engines, or even through Google, but I would be willing to bet that hundreds of millions of dollars a year are spent though Google. That trend will GROW not diminish...
Why do you think Google is in the business... surely you don't think Google is in it for the fun?
Ecommerce is more readily accepted each year... it's estimated to double over the next few years...
Dude! Pleaaase.....
I don't know if anyone's noticed but google.de seems to be serving up results which are pretty close to those from the good old days. My 500 visitor a day keyphrase is number 2 there instead of the new improved results which have it at 45.
I'm seeing no anchor text/index page bug on google.de for my searches.
Billions of dollars are spent online each year --- c1bernaught
Try Trillions! - ok. maybe I'm getting a little excited!
The problem with this theory it that it isnt true. I see lots of commercial sites maintain their ranking. The confusion for me is why same sites that have ranked well for various kws are still #1 for some and absolutely nuked for others. If it is specific blackhat penalties, then why aren't they gone across the board?
I am starting to lean toward the theory that overly optimized (super consistent) anchor text may be an issue.
Then where is your citation of where user searches were analyzed that shows the vast majority was not for e-commerce searches?
Think of the "perfect search engine", what would it be?
It would steer information/content site only seekers to the left side of the SERPS page. There is little reason or motivation to spam there. (if they dont sell anything).
It would steer commercial site seekers (buyers) to the right side of the SERPS. No way to spam there!
The problem with that scenario now- is with adsense, you see fewer and fewer non-commercial only sites.)
Yep. If Google were broken, then a search about cat diseases would be showing sites about the US Civil War, the Beatles, and all sorts of irrelevant things. I just don't see material problems on non-commercial searches.
[edited by: rfgdxm1 at 12:23 am (utc) on Nov. 20, 2003]
see lots of commercial sites maintain their ranking
Yeah, I see lots of the "big" optimised sites maintain their rankings. The hardest hit, from what I can see are the smaller themed sites (with the higher overall site keyword density).
e.g.
Site selling widgets all over the world and is heavilly SEO'd e.g -
yourtown.cheapwidgets.com
has maintained a better position than the site selling widgets in a specific town, country, e.g.
yourtownwidgets.com
Since Google is now in the business of selling adwords, it is even more important for commercial searches to be relevant, otherwise they have a conflict of interest.
I think you are missing my point here...
Google loves ecommerce.... Google NEEDS the ecommerce sites in its index. It needs them to to be found and for people to spend money. That money is used to fuel the Google machine...
see where I'm going with this......
This means that Google does care about non-commercial searches.... Which in turn means that commercial searches that are poor are a concern for Google and are therefore completely relevent to the point I was making originally... which was that the serps are poor for several vertical markets....
Is that clear enough?
So what? Do you think the user that searches for digital widgets or widgets to live in or widgets to drive cares that Google is better when searching about the height of Abe Lincoln's stovepipe hat or the number of widgets you can place on the head of a pin?
Those letting google off the hook keep saying that only webmasters care, but in reality, only webmasters distinguish between com and non-com. Everyone else is like my assistant, who uses google like it was 411. She would notice if the operator came on the line and said only residential numbers were guaranteed to be accurate.
In that case, consider whether it is a profitable decision to throw lots of money at improving commercial search relevancy when this will tend to decrease clicking on Adwords? Think here that while totally irrelevant commercial SERPs might turn away people, the optimal profit level for Google may be that commercial SERPs be just marginally relevant. I should rephrase that to say that while commercial SERPs are not irrelevant, improving them is a low priority in the Google budget. Google is in business. The business of selling Adwords.
Looking for a particular GPS receiver that I use, the company that makes it is #1.
Looking for climbing helmets, most sites on the first page are pertinent.
Hiking boots, all good...
I don't know, man.... like I said, you want to try to sell the exact same thing as a million other people, you might have problems.
And your evidence that the Average Joe out there currently is dissatisfied with what is on page 1 of commercial SERPs? Which includes the fact a search for "buy digital watches" has lot of relevant Adwords? Hmm...I actually just ran "buy digital watches" through Google. 10 out of 10 on the page 1 SERP are relevant to that search. Your assistant would not be displeased. And, checking other buy digital "widget" searches I could think of, all on page 1 had sellers of these. Random commercial SERPs I am trying are looking pretty relevant to me.
Added: Echoing what Stefan wrote. Maybe if you are selling something a million other people are, I dunno. However, ordinary commercial searches on balance look reasonable to me.
[edited by: rfgdxm1 at 12:48 am (utc) on Nov. 20, 2003]
In that case, consider whether it is a profitable decision to throw lots of money at improving commercial search relevancy when this will tend to decrease clicking on Adwords?
That's the problem. G want the have their cake and eat it. It was relevant commercial and non commercial results that put them in a position in the first place to be able to make huge amounts of money through keywords.
Let's face it, the only thing wrong with commercial results before the update was the fact that people were making money off G for free. It was never an issue of SPAMMY SEO'd sites upsetting the users, and with just a short time before G sell out for $15 billion or whatever it is they need to show the poor bas**ds that will be investors that they are making big money.
Oh my god I got drawn into the adwords conspiracy theory.
Think here that while totally irrelevant commercial SERPs might turn away people
I think you are debating separate but overlapping issues.
As for relevant adwords, I'm not sure about her, but I only look at adwords after I look at the first 10 results (also why I don't stress about being #1 or #2). Which thus brings us back to your point about Google making money.
Oh, before you ask - YES, it came back from nowhere.
What has happened to my site is that the keywords I was number one at, have dropped to 30 something, 80 something, etc. When I put in a particular keyword I was number one for, I come up 30 something but it is ONLY my index page that comes up rather than the actual page that this particular keyword applies to. Used to be it would show my index page, then under it would show the relevant page. I really cannot understand what is going on here. We are a small mom and pop retail store that was looking forward to the biggest selling season of the year and now, we are losing money, losing hits, everything. I know I am not the only one who has been hit hard but it is difficult to understand WHY sites like tripod and about and dealtime, etc come up way before my legitimate site. Please don't take offence anyone if you happen to have a tripod site, etc. It just does not make any sense.
Thanks for listening!
I make this comment based on the fact that I use Google all day long to do research for my other job right now. Searching seems to be going a little worse in terms of relevancy than it was before this update.
A lot of my researching "blue widget factory" (unquoted) turn up results that are more about blue, widgets, and factories, than blue widget factoy, which is the specificity I require. I have had to use other engines to find the info I needed for the first time in a long time.
My own sites have tanked. And many of the visitors I am getting are from similar search mismatches as I described above.
Only got 12 Google visitors so far today to one of my main sites, and of those 12 only 7 were appropriate results, the other 5 were looking for something that they weren't going to find on my pages--my site is far more general than what they wanted--very much like the problems I am having as a researcher.
Sit back and wait, yes. We'll see.
In the meantime I would say the results are terrible for me as webmaster, somewhat bad for me as a researcher, and slightly worse for the average user.
as I found out whilst searching for: flights to florida from london
Best get over to pubcon after all.
