July Update?

[Heywood_J]

Is it me or does it look like a significant update is going on at google. I am noticing a number of SERP changes for a few of my sites and they've been fluctuating for the past few days.

Anyone else noticing any major changes?

[raptorix]

To be honest, i don't see any changes really.

[Teknorat]

Apart from having more pages indexed I don't see much difference.

[steveb]

Some of the datacenters are at odds, with some pages that have been say #6 for a year now showing at #3 on a few and #9 on a few others (and "normal" on the rest). The crappier results seem to be favoring anchor text or raw link numbers from forums. This is bad for obvious reasons, but also favors sites that get those deep, never-seen-by-humans pages crawled versus similar sites where those type of pages either aren't vrawled or have gone to URL only.

I don't see any compensating positives here. Recent subdomain crap still hasn't been culled out here like it normally is after a couple cycles.

[willybfriendly]

Main site went from 3 to 2 about a week ago, and now down to 4 on the main single keyword. SOme movement on other searchb terms, but pretty minor. Updates (if that is what this is) just aren't what they used to be.

WBF

[rfgdxm1]

>Main site went from 3 to 2 about a week ago, and now down to 4 on the main single keyword. SOme movement on other searchb terms, but pretty minor. Updates (if that is what this is) just aren't what they used to be.

Exactly. Basically, I think what is going on is that in the Google Dances of days gone by, Google all at once threw in the new page data, new backlinks, new anchor text, new algo etc. into the pot at once. So, the update was major. What we see in this update is likely just one of these new elements being rolled in.

[Marcia]

AFAIC this is not in any way an "update" in the traditional sense of the word, or even by recent criteria for calling something an update. I personally don't believe there's any such thing that'll ever happen again, not even when the backlinks and TPR "appear" to be updated. IMHO that's just showing something that's already happened, who_knows_when.

I also don't believe that sandboxing thing is a probationary dealie for new sites, in spite of the apparent delay. I think it's got more to do with some kind of off-line processing so that the processing effiency real-time can be more efficient than it otherwise would be.

Where in the world would I get such a hair-brained, half-baked theory? From reading Kleinberg - SETS for starters. :)

[mosschops]

Anyone else seeing the update cancel itself? Some change yesterday but back to old SERPS today.

[decaff]

It looks relatively stable in a couple of my sectors..
but then again lately I always view the SERPs with my eyes wide shut...

[LogicMan]

I've haven't been following the 'update' process much lately because I thought Google was using a continuous update not a monthly update.

What is the status? Continuous or Monthly?

[phpdude]

I'm seeing sites that have spent heavily on links from larger sites are being highly rewarded!

Guess it's time to break out the check book!

[Marcia]

There are no more updates. Once in a while they'll update the PR that's shown on the toolbar and the backlinks that are shown, but it's all already taken place.

[UK_Web_Guy]

As someone else commented, there are a couple of DC's that are out of line with the others - how much will probably vary on the terms you are looking at.

The DC talked of yesterday has now come into line with the rest - differences can now be seen on [216.239.57.98...]

Whether this is really relevant or means anything is unclear - it isn't an update, as people say those days are gone.

However, there will be update style changes still from time to time as algo changes are made - this may be a tweak of one that we are starting to see - it may be nothing.

Austin and Brandy were both algo changes - have we had third this year?

[willybfriendly]

Well, we may not have updates like the old days, but i am seeing significant changes in my niche today. Seems like a lot more than the day to day reshuffling to me. And it is clearly not simply the shuffling in of new sites, since I am seeing changes among older, well established sites. (There are a few "new" sites)

Frankly, the results I am seeing are of less quality than just a few days ago. Seeing an increase in AdSense spam pages, among other things.

WBF

[decaff]

There's also the idea that with different data centers showing different sets at the same time and then rotating those sets into the main index Google can do some quick and dirty click thru usability testing on different sets of results..and then settle on one for a bit....

[stevenmusumeche]

Has GoogleGuy ever confirmed that Google alters SERPS based on usability testing?

[steveb]

Several of the datacenters are similar, several are different, and those that are different are different from each other. The one linked a few messages above isn't special, but it does have some of the weakest results.

This is the new serp dance, such as it is.

[webhound]

Hey everyone I am relatively new to WW, and the one thing I'd like to ask, is why doesn't anyone every mention what category they are looking at when making a post? I think it would be really helpfull to know what area everyone is referring to in their posts, no?

As in this post's case, people are talking about seeing changes while others say they aren't. Be nice to know what cat's are being effected. :-)

PS. I have ADD and can't read through the charter or tos so please forgive me if this is stated as a no no there. Although if it is, perhaps this should be changed? :-)

[pmac]

>I have ADD and can't read through the charter or tos<

Focus [webmasterworld.com]

:)

[my3cents]

I have to say that I am amazed....

I see some more fluctuation and the only thing that is logical is the fact that msn and yahoo traffic keeps rising while G traffic falls. I am #1 for the best key phrase in my industry on G, but the rest of the results have deteriorated.

I made reference a few days ago about how irrelevant the results are in my sector and referred to searching for tires and finding hub caps.... now I check and it's worse.... similar to searching for "tires" and finding sites about lug nuts, jacks, valve stems and headlights...

sure, they are all part of a car, and I have to admit that my google conversion ratio is much higher due to my website being one of the few that pertain to the search terms.....

... but this bothers me...

I guess they sold out just in time... if the results stay this poor, people WILL go elsewhere. I am at the top on EVERY engine right now for the "money terms" so I am not worried, but I have also been a HUGE fan of google. Google has been my personal search engine of choice for a few years now and I really don't want to switch, but even searching for my own interests I am mostly unhappy.

I'm finding much fresher sites than anywhere else, but I keep seeing more and more results that are barely on topic.

Since I am #1 right now and benefiting greatly I shouldn't complain, but to tell you the truth, I would rather not see Y or B.G. step in and take market share away from my beloved G, but that's seems to be what's happening.

As a webmaster I guess I should be happy and shut up, as a "Joe Surfer" I am confused as to why they would do this? Half of what I search for returns 70%+ garbage results. On the other hand, I saw something similar last year in May and it was "fixed" within a few weeks. At that time, I took a big hit, made no changes, and returned to the top.

I'm glad I didn't buy stock...

[soapystar]

in common with others such a steveb i see a change for the worse imho. Yes a lot of changes seem to be positive for older sites that got hit with the recent filter changes and who relied on spammed links heavy with anchor text. Yes i see the re-emregence of previuosly culled sub-domains. Again on page content not being enough to overcome sites with no content of a subject at all but with the right link/anchor campaign. Very strange. Oh yes and do not see new sites being responsible for th chnages. Seems mostly older sites over 3 years that have some sort of bonus either just for age or for their links. Maybe the age of an inbound effects its effect?

[my3cents]

LOL....

I have been looking at the first page for a couple of days and scratching my head, wondering how google could think a few of these sites belong in the top ten, while formitable competitors have been banished...

I just looked at the second page and had a good laugh...

#12 & #15 are 1KB blatant redirects to pages so far off topic they do not pertainn AT ALL. #17 is similar to searching for "tires" and finding a site about how writing JavaScript makes you tired....

LOL

This is so wrong... I really can't beleive this is what they intended to do... maybe they just want to ruin their stock so they can buy all they shares people dump, and then return to being "The King"

[edited by: my3cents at 8:01 am (utc) on July 16, 2004]

[steveb]

Well, just to be clear, I think a few datacenters are better, while a few are worse, while the majority are basically unchanged from recently... and results recently have been very good.

The datacenters are just sort of all over the board now.

Personally I think comparing these results is quite interesting, but I don't think there is any way to conclude (at least in my main areas) if the basic changes are good or bad... both good/bad are showing on different datacenters.

[my3cents]

hey steveb?

how can you say:

"I think a few datacenters are better, while a few are worse"

and then say:

"I don't think there is any way to conclude... if the basic changes are good or bad"

maybe I am suffering from sleep deprivation?

according to my understanding:

better=good
worse=bad

[steveb]

"maybe I am suffering from sleep deprivation?"

Uh, maybe. What can you possibly not understand?

<okay, maybe you don't know what a datacenter is>

[wellzy]

steveb

I agree. Some good/bad here also for my terms looking at the different datacenters.

wellzy

[Spica]

Searching for my favorite keywords, "blue widgets", I see a slight reshuffling of the major players on the first page, with an enhanced Florida flavor, and two newcomers: an Amazon.com page (grrr!) and a page about "nonblue widgets". Not an improvement in my opinion!

I have often noticed these non-keyword1 pages showing up for keyword1 searches. I don't understand why Google doesn't have an algo to eliminate these obviously undesirable pages from the top results.

[karmov]

Well from my perspective this is the end of the second week of a wierd shuffle in one of my SERPS that's not very competitive. I find it easy to monitor changes here since nobody in that particular SERP is working very hard to reach #1 so when things shift around, it's usually because G has tweaked its algo.

The top 10 has been shuffled like a deck of cards every 12-24 hours for the last 2 weeks for me. Today the SERP looks pretty much exactly the way it looked like before the shuffle ever began.

I would deffinitely not call this an "update" so far but there's been a heck of a lot of shuffling going around around. I'd heard before that G was going to move more towards frequent incremental tweaks over massive updates so this is probably what we're seeing.

[my3cents]

steveb, I understand that this is an international forum and that English may not be your first language, so to assist you:

good= Being positive or desirable in nature; not bad or poor
[dictionary.reference.com...]

better= Being positive or desirable in nature; not bad or poor
[dictionary.reference.com...]

bad= More inferior, as in quality, condition, or effect
[dictionary.reference.com...]

worse= Not measuring up to recognized standards of excellence, as of behavior or conduct
[dictionary.reference.com...]

[soapystar]

my3cents going for a dollars worth..:-)

[steveb]

my3cents, either get some sleep or get coherent.

If you don't know what a datacenter is, just ask.

Wondering how one thing can be good, while a completely different thing is bad... well, gee, here on Earth different things are... different.