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Well for the past several weeks, the results for my 2 word money phrase have been really wierd and was wondering if anyone else is seeing the same. Every day I come into work and the first thing I do is check the SERPS to see where we are today and every day I get a different result. Today, I am #15. Yesterday, I was #5. last week on any given day the returns showed anywhere from #1 to #20. It seem to be fluctuating all the time.
Now maybe Austin is not done yet, and that is the reason. But I believe these results are being alternated intentionally. This would give the G the upper hand in keeping the new algo/filter from being figured out.
Any Thoughts?
I think they are definitely alternating.
Maybe they realized that the top site isn't always the best and decided to give everyone more of a shot.
I don't know if the Google toolbar could play a role in this as well. If they alternate they can sample a large variety of sites. Afterward they can see the average number of page views per domain with the toolbar. More page views = more relevant. This way people are unknowingly ranking the results and Google gets rid of the spam.
Whether or not they are doing anything like this, every time I check out my sites I always turn the toolbar on first, just in case.
Maybe the only fair SERPS are ones that constantly change.
Here is another thing I am going to throw into the mix. It seems for the past 2 weeks I actually rank lower at night then I do during the day. Screwy, I know, but when I check the site after 10 p.m., it typically ranks lower on average of 10 placements.
The late searches are done at home with a dial-up (same datacenters, no google toolbar, random IP).
Then I got a REALLY scary thought. What if the toolbar at work was being used to manipulate my SERPs. I mean, maybe the toolbar knows what I am looking for by my constantly using the same keyword phrases.
Toolbar says."Here is that guy, searching for 'custom widgets' again."
I say, "Oh goody! I am still on the first page! I think I will click and see if the changes I did last night are okay."
Toolbar says, "Aaaaahhhh, another successful search. He clicked and that is GOOD! I will have to remember that this guy was satisfied with the results."
One hour later.....
Toolbar says."Here is that guy, searching for 'custom widgets' again."
I say, "Oh goody! I am still on the first page! I think I will click and see if the new art is okay."
Toolbar says, "Aaaaahhhh, another successful search. He clicked and that is GOOD! I will have to remember that this guy was satisfied with the results."
Anyway. Just a thought.
:-DDDDDDDD
My site for a certain Keyword will go from #1 to #12 in less than a minute. If 2 people in the office search for it at the exact same time, they sometimes get results that differ by 10. Whats up with that, and is it permanent?
Toolbar says, "Aaaaahhhh, another successful search. He clicked and that is GOOD! I will have to remember that this guy was satisfied with the results."
Interesting ... I wonder if Google is using that system which Altavista used a while back which see which results are most often clicked for a given search term and then ranks them higher. That would probably be a good way to eliminate spam too because people can usually see crappy results inthe serps and they never click on them!
just my thoughts,
Adword rankings are based partially on clickthroughs. Why not organic listings?
Because the organic results usually do not have tracking urls attached to them. (Yes, I know sometimes they do, but not most of the time.)
It is more than just ranking in the SERPS, in fact, your ranking in the SERPS will not give you nearly as clear a picture since it is possible to maintain very stable rankings.
If you monitor something like backlinks, you will get a better idea of the "randomness" of the output google sends. It changes from minute to minute, or at least that is what it's telling you.
Here's a graph I made for one of the past updates (it was to show the drop in backlinks out of google), but notice how the graph almost always fluctuates?
[edited by: Marcia at 6:00 pm (utc) on Feb. 10, 2004]
It's beginning to look like the stock market. HEY! Wait a minute, it IS following the stock market. Yesterday, the DJI went down, I went to #16. Day before DJI went up, I went to #4. Wow, this must be some sophisticated algo the G has going. I might have to start a new thread!
:-)
sorry, I couldn't help it
I have been watching my site go anywhere from #1 to #34. I also noticed that there is a main group of sites that generally form the top10. What wonder what range of serps are alternating?
I have noticed the same thing. In my case, the top 3 are always the same but the rest seem to get shuffled around periodically. Some will move just a sew spots, some will moe up to 20.
Very interesting. Seems to be a normal thing going on unless there are still adjustments being made daily, which I doubt. But I could be wrong here.
They are still rotating in fresh listings.
I'm amazed that the SERP's are still rotating. I can't believe they can do this for much longer without creating a sense of confusion with their users. A lot of people (most as far as I know) rely on the search engines to find sites more than one time. I do, and most I know do. When you rotate them, people can't find results they saw earlier in the day, or yesterday. It's a bad test setup IMO, they should at a minimum cookie users and send them the same SERPS (even though it would make our job harder).
However, I watching other move drastically.
I'm also seeing strange stuff in the SERPs for a very specific hard to spell KW.
Result #1 is a HTTP 404 error
Result #2 is a message board
Result #3 is another message board
Yet, the sites that are optomized (by old standards) have no rankings in the top 10.
Bizzare.
JP
Did a few tweaks several days ago and got immediate results. Popped up to #1, stayed there for a day, then back to #16.
Now, during the evening hours, the site ranks #1, but around 5am to 6am it pops back to #16. Very strange. This has happened the past 3 days, back and forth and timed as well. I am in the US Central time zone and not certain if this has anything to do with anything. I just find it very interesting - this yoyo thing.
greg
From a users point of view none of these two sets seem very comfortable, in fact the difference is very little, except some sites are back which have vansihed during Ausitn, however they are not on the positions held by them before Austin.
Hi,
How often are you seeing this and where in the World are you?
A few of us noticed a rogue datacentre at one point which was back with results that we liked for obvious reasons. It would be very conforting to think that this is the new test DC which will eventualy be rolled out in the next week or so.
I wrote to Google last week as requested by GoogleGuy and received what I thought was a boilerplate reply but rather than the usual stuff paraphrased here "this is the normal movement of results as we improve our algo" I got a reply which admited that they have got a problem with the DMOZ directory. My email was not realy about DMOZ I was describing some poor SERPs and highlighted that one day I added a link on my home page to the DMOZ cat. that it is listed in and as a result that DMOZ cat got into the top 5 in SERPs (could have just been a coincidence but there were no changes to the cat). The email said that their engineers are currently working on the problem.
I wonder if the solution is the new results that you are occasionally seeing?
Best wishes
Sid
PS I assume that you (GoogleGuy) didn't get my email as I've had no acknowledgement.
As of last night one of the other SERPS has taken over as the predominant one (I rank MUCH better in this SERP).
Has anybody else noticed anything similar.
greg
Only my index page were dropped back between 80-100 (I'm shifting in this section back and forth), but my internal pages are ranked nearly untouched. Cold comfort..
as i get older, my short-term memory loss increases. now, google is giving me short-term happiness. luckily, i'll forget those 10 minutes of happiness fairly quickly.
On the 216.239.37.98 datacentre we were seeing 2-3 SERPS being returned for the past 3-4 weeks witht one set of SERPS being the predominant one (approx. 90% of the time), this predominant SERP was the same set of SERPs being served to WWW.
Hi,
This is not the DC that is being fed to Google.com in the UK.
If anyone from Google is listening the current SERPs on 216.239.37.98 for many of the terms I follow look like the best of pre Florida coupled with the best of post Florida in my niche.
Interestingly all of my results have returned about 4-6 places below what they were pre Florida except my main 3 word term which went with Austin. Still I'd give up that in exchange for the rest.
Please Google! give me the index on 216.239.37.98 on .com and .co.uk served to the UK.
Thank you in advance ;o)
Sid
