Ocassional strange results!

For my category keyword.

[sachac]

Ocassionally, I am seeing some strange results for my category keyword. On all the DC's and on www2 and www3, my site is ranked #3 for this keyword, in 4,700,000 results. Sometimes however it is ranked #10 in 2,000,000 results. I find this very strange since the results for this keyword are usually around 5 million. All my other keyword-keywords are unaffected. Anyone else seeing this?

[sachac]

Really, is anyone else seeing this? Could this be an algo test for major categories?

[Stefan]

Just guessing:

Maybe there is another dc out there that we don't know about yet and you're occasionally getting those serps. Otherwise, I don't know. Sometimes you'll get everflux rippling through different dc's but it doesn't sound like it if you're checking all the known ones...

I doubt if it has anything to do with another algo change, but you never know.

[netguy]

sachac, yes, I've noticed about a half-dozen categories doing major drops in total results, then back up.

It seems like it is restricted to the more competitive terms, but it was across multiple DCs that I spot checked. Since Friday I've noticed 9mil results to 5mil, 6mil to 3.7mil, etc. - iterating at least three times - before settling back to the higher total results this morning.

While most of my post-Florida problems have been commerce sites, I also just lost two news/information sites over the weekend. [same symptoms - index is gone with their primary search terms, but linked articles still come up on top in as much as 3.9mil total results].

-The good news is that such a dramatic shift would indicate G is still not finished.

<update> The total results just dropped again on www. Right now, it appears to be coming from -in and -gv. </update>

[sachac]

Stefan

When I began seeing these results, I started regularly checking all the known DC's and we were still #3 in all of them. What concerns me is that these results are now appearing with greater frequency. Since this is a major category keyword, this could be a very omnious development.

[Jakpot]

"very omnious development"

I see it in some of my categories. What's coming?

[allanp73]

I am seeing these differences. What widget categories are being affected?

[vbjaeger]

I have been seeing this for about a week now. there appear to be two sets of serps for the results i pay attention to. They have been switching between the two and then spreading across the DCs. one moment I am there on some DCs, and then they get switched again only to return a few hours later.

[sachac]

For the category keyword I am tracking, Google usually displays 4.5 million results and I have been #3 for several months. One week ago, I began seeing that my site ocassionally ranked #9 in 500,000 results. Today I am #10 in 2,000,000 results, 50% of the time I have searched. The situation is definately getting worse.

The strange thing is, on all the DC's my site is still #3. All the sub-categories I am monitoring have remained unaffected. This has me totally stumped.

[vbjaeger]

We are seeing the same thing. In set of results we are #37 and in the other are #7. Kind of crazy. Hopefully they are just gathering data and give it a rest soon.