Sites are Coming back.

[markus007]

Check www2 missing sites are back again!

[superscript]

GG,

What really puzzles me are the SERPs relating to particular searches. Imagine my site sells Blue Furry Widgets, and I am based in the UK, PR 7.

(For 'nowhere', please read: it is definitely somewhere in the results, but I'm unlikely to live long enough to find it!)

Blue furry widgets - nowhere
Blue furry red dwarf widgets - No 1
(a more precise search, as recommended)

Blue furry red dwarf widgets UK - nowhere
(even more precise)

But bizarrely,

Widgets UK - No 1
(the least precise, but back at the top)

This is the major puzzle for me GG - there doesn't appear to be much logic to it at the moment.

[edited by: superscript at 11:19 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]

[c1bernaught]

Still seeing HUGE directory sites taking places that focused sites should get...

Have sent in several spam reports with -filey- in them.

GG, you guys really thinking of dumping all free ecommerce serps?

[claus]

jack1960xx .... shhhh... quiet please... we hear you nicely all around the globe...it's past midnight here...

So, here we go again, but only on "-in" sofar, or? Well, i'll get some sleep... please keep the noise down...

---

Added: Welcome to WebmasterWorld jack1960xx :)

[edited by: claus at 11:24 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]

[steveb]

Just sent a brief report. Pretty good example when looking at 100 sites on a page.

[Terrier]

Google Guy
I am trying hard to be unbiased here,

Let me try - in the serps I watch yes top are some good info sites bit boring but they do merit top - do you mean to give these sites double listings?

Then a very strange site sort of on topic but really nothing to do with the subject in any depth other than mentioning the keyword in passing.

Then it begins to improve.

Non commercial

Funny really I see a site that is probably the only real authority on a subject being beaten by a site that has ripped of some of the copyright material.

As for –in it is better than raw Florida now this is the tough one I do worse with –in but I have to say it is better than www. But If would be even better if you got rid of double listings for the same sites in the results.

OK that’s my take.

What do you want to see?

Which do you think is better?

[superscript]

jack1960xx. Jack, I can see you're wound up - but we've all been with this for weeks. I've been told off myself for getting out of hand! Take it easy. No one is having a go.

[edited by: superscript at 11:29 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]

[pmac]

Rare for me to jump in on one of these massive threads, but I can't help myself.

The results on -in are the weakest serps I have ever seen Google produce. For some spaces I monitor, "atrocious" is not to strong a word to describe them.

[edited by: pmac at 11:46 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]

[tictoc]

Just to clarify.. Is "www-in" a preview of what is to come? If so, the serps are not specific for what the end user searches for..

[theman]

turn the clock back to 2 months ago

[jack1960xx]

ok, i can't stand it any more .... will someone PLEASE tell me what the -in thing is ... i realize you folks have your own language here but that is not in the GLOSSARY ... maybe the moderator would like to add that?

[Stefan]

maybe you ought top READ THE TOS

Man... now look what I've started, sorry... :-)

On-topic: -in seems to like what I'm doing. Maybe I know why, maybe I'm just lucky. My theory, the definition of link-farming has been extended; the anchor text thing was a red-herring. Pure speculation, of course, and probably wrong.

[superscript]

Ref: search for "k1 k2 k3"

This brings up a dedicated 'k1 k2 k3' site here in the UK at No 1 - the most relevant shopping result I've seen for ages. I'm not contradicting you mate - what are you seeing? Could be good news!

(Mods - if I'm off topic again please delete)

[edited by: heini at 11:56 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]
[edit reason] no specifics here, please / thanks! [/edit]

[jack1960xx]

Stefan

**********

I am sure from our experience that they are changing how they value the links .... but are you suggesting there may be a penalty for the existence of links, aside from for example not counting them? If so, do you have any clues on what they may be penalizing?

[pmac]

>what the -in thing is

www-in.google.com

One of the google data centers.

btw. Welcome to WebmasterWorld jack1960xx.

[crobb305]

I would like to suggest to the mods that they break part of this discussion off to one about www-in since Googleguy has chimed in some, and has requested feedback.

[Terrier]

Pmac

Are these for you even worse than Florida?

I see a bit of an improvement on Florida but I do agree that results have been weak ever since this debacle started, in the serps I watch only a couple of sites are left, the competition have gone and they were good.

What for me is better about the –in is that at least the directories or at least most of them are gone.

[Stefan]

jack, I'm not sure, I shouldn't have speculated, too many people have gone off on wild goose chases, on too many theories, since Nov 15.

That said, I still think it might be dodgy recip-link schemes that have done a lot of damage to people. I don't know that recip-links are valued as they once were.

In my case, I seem to be being rewarded for outgoing links to external pages that don't link back. I also seem to be being rewarded for incoming links from sites that I don't link to.

This is pure speculation.

[jack1960xx]

re PMAC

******

thanks for the scoop ... in the first few terms i looked at on this -in, the results remind me of INFOSEEK .... does anyone remember them ....
BTW ...on one term i searched i found 5 links to the DMOZ/Google dirtectory in the top 20 .... that is 25% ... man that is really helpful for the users ....

personally ... i hope this -in does get published .... it will surely do google in for good .... everyone will be using alta vista soon ....

has anyone used alta vista lately ... it is much improved ...

[SlyOldDog]

Hey Googleguy - I wrote a spam report and then decided not to send it. After all, however good I think it is, I am obviously biased, so you might think my site is spam :) and the last thing I need now is more bad luck!

I think the comments above say most of it. -In contains lots of generic sites which cover a lot of topics. These listings dominate the SERPs. Obviously niche sites cover their ground more thoroughly than these, and the beauty of the internet is that the small niche sites are possible to find. If I want to read preprocessed dross I can look on page 10 of the SERPs right? So why serve it up at the top of the menu?

Obviously I am only thinking about the money, so maybe you'd better take someone else's word for it :)

[jack1960xx]

re steffan

*********

we believe that google is basically cancelling out recriprocal links in SOME cases ... and we have a test in place to conclusively determine that in a few days, what we do not know is the definition of WHICH cases, and i am also very suspicious that they may be going further and penalizing a site for some links ... rather than just forget them .... so that is why i am really curious if you see any indication of that ..

it is difficult to set up a test to isolate that penalty factor possibility

does anyone happen to know if it would be legal for google to use the whois database for purposes of evaluating links?

[c1bernaught]

<< -In contains lots of generic sites which cover a lot of topics and they dominate the SERPs. Obviously niche sites cover their ground more thoroughly than these, and the beauty of the internet is that the small niche sites are possible to find.>>

Well said...

[pmac]

>worse than Florida?<<

The fact that Google is asking the members of this forum for feedback on -in is incredulous.

[edited by: pmac at 12:17 am (utc) on Dec. 10, 2003]

[GoogleGuy]

pmac/tictoc, if the results at www-in.google.com are significantly different than at data centers, and you have interesting feedback about the differences, I'd be curious to hear specifics via email to webmaster [at] google.com..

[hazardtomyself]

<< -In contains lots of generic sites which cover a lot of topics and they dominate the SERPs. Obviously niche sites cover their ground more thoroughly than these, and the beauty of the internet is that the small niche sites are possible to find.>>

>>Well said...

Agreed. Regarding niche sites, seemingly all niche sites in my industry have vanished completely. Not just on page 5-20. Gone completely. That's what I really don't get. In many cases *the* most relevant sites are gone not to be found.?

[edited by: hazardtomyself at 12:24 am (utc) on Dec. 10, 2003]

[jack1960xx]

re -in

***********

more review of this -in shows an increase in the kind of spam which is trhiving with the new google ... example

this page ranks in the top 15 on a 6 million page search ...

the entire page has 49 words on it

8 of those words were the keyword itself ... nothing but the keywork for a title and no metatags for discription or keywords ...

this is what google wants ... so if you want to rank at the top again, you need to get rid of all your useful content and get a page with less than 50 words on it and make sure 25% is your keyword ...

also, lots of links to the "popularity" affiliate sites (aka spam directory sites) ... these are link farms in their purest sense, i can't see why google can't get that picture ....

for those of you guys in the know about such things ... does this -in migrate to google or is it some beta thing they just let yall look at?

[SlyOldDog]

It's definately not a link swap penalty. Our top site (I mean best site) doesn't do that and it is eradicated from -in, but I am ashamed to say our top performer (not our best site) gets its top positions purely from link swapping. It has got even stronger in the -in index.

Hey GoogleGuy, let's make a plea bargain. We'll drop all our trashy sites in exchange for you letting us keep our one top site at the top for ever! Wouldn't that just save EVERYONE so much work. We could concentrate on building a great site and Google could call off the dogs!

[BrewCrue]

Here's the Interesting Part. A man who works for a national corporation had this comment, "For two years, our two brand sites were number one on Google for the key phrases we were targetting. After the recent Google update our listings were dropped. Our sales rep called Google and was told the company's brand sites were dropped because they were cross-linked to our main corporate site due to duplicate content." To me, that's not satisfying.

Are .govs and .edus ranked higher? Yes. Craig Silverstein, one of the original Google developers, says, "Google leans towards .edu and .gov sites, because it was developed by college students, and is therefore non-profit centric." That's definitely something to keep in mind..

Here is a post i just ran across...

[Marcia]

Nice discussion, let's just all stay on course and discuss the results on -in calmly and objectively. This means a lot to all of us and it's great that we've got the opportunity.

[duckhunter]

-in is definitely much worse for the searcher in my industry. There were 3 directory links and 2 PDF's in the first 10 now there are 3 directories 2 PDF's, 1 .gov, 3 .uk and just about all relevant content is now gone for a KW1 KW2 search.

If this goes to www, my customers will have to use other search engines to find the products they want to buy.

[FillDeCube]

it seems like the only way to get my page in www-in is by searching mydomainname.com

At the same time, my competitor sites (affiliate sites) who has been removed during florida update has back into search result at high ranking.

I am depress..