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Anyone else noticing any major changes?
My theory is that Google has overhauled their backlink/anchor text index in an effort to purge spam. I don't know if it is a real-time purge, or if the entire backlink index was rearranged in "precomputed" fashion, like they used to calculate PageRank, or if what we're seeing is a combination of the two. The fact that the link command changed so drastically suggests that a good portion of it was precomputed.
Here's what it looks like to me:
1) Most people do not put three words into the search box. If you organize a purge of backlink anchor-text "juice" for links that contain at least three words, then most people will not notice any significant change in the results for their search terms.
2) Do a word frequency count for all anchor text in all backlinks.
3) Look at all anchor text that has three or more words, and multiply the frequencies for each word. Establish a threshold for further investigation.
4) Examine the the link targets for anchors that exceed the threshold. Determine how focused the targets are. In other words, how many total pages or sites do they link to? If the focus is narrow, then assume that this is a case of anchor-text over-optimization.
5) Zap these links. Don't take the pages out of the index, but deny those links on those pages the capacity to add ranking juice to their targets.
I don't have any proof, but in the thread mentioned above, the link command for Google's target page, using the old and new link command, shows how my Google bomb may have been destroyed. The old link command in Google showed 9 links from my sites with the anchor text "out-of-touch executives." The new link command shows 2 of my links. The reason I believe that three or more words are needed before this new anchor-text algo kicks in, is because my bomb behaves normally if I substitute a different word for the word "executives." The juice is still there, but not for my particular combination of keywords in my anchor text.
The whole phenomenon might even be a lot simpler than what I describe above. How about if you downgrade anchor-text linking juice for all links with more than two words of anchor text? Would this explain what we are seeing with the new link command results?
That is an interesting thought. What I continue to be looking at is the command; allinurl:www.widgets.com I used to use this command to see how many pages were indexed in Google for a particular site. Now it shows every place in the web that url is on. Whether it be your pages, discussion boards, links pages, anything, anywhere.
Maybe a change in the way "anchor text" is being viewed.
I have come to rely on WebmasterWorld to alert me to updates 'cus I never see any ranking change month in month out.
Sure, the number of backlinks goes up and down a bit, and the PR climbs slowly upwards (when I check it -- like about once every 6 months or so). Other than that I never see any other changes.
I have come to rely on WebmasterWorld to alert me to updates 'cus I never see any ranking change month in month out.
I see very slight changes for the keywords and keyphrases that I track, and lately some of the pages that I don't track seem to be creeping up in the SERPs (to judge by recent increases in Google referrals). The "organic" content and SEO approach has worked well for me, and it's certainly less stressful than wondering what surprises the next tweak of the algorithm will bring.
If this was an update, then I missed it.
I love updates where I don't notice any change.:)
Yep. If it hadn't been for this forum at WW, I wouldn't have been aware of it.
As far as I can see, nothing has changed except some wonky backlink stuff, which comes and goes. Using Firefox on .com I only get the bizzaro link:www.example.org occasionally, and then they'll go away if you click repeat the search with the omitted results included.
Call this update the bizzaro backlink update, because that's all it is.
Same here. All I see that's different is what they're allowing webmasters & SEOs to see.
Yes, same here, but what they are showing is pretty interesting.
You sure about that? What about "personal injury attorney"? "travel discount deals"? "golf vacation packages"? "group tour rates"? "low price computers"? I see all kinds of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 word phrases in my web stats. And there have to be literally thousands of three word phrases that are used as anchor text simply because the phrase is fairly or even succintly descriptive of what a user might be looking for. "real estate agent" "high definition television" "portable dvd player". I seriously don't see google doing something that dumb.
I'm looking for evidence that the destruction of my Google bomb was associated with a general algorithm change. But if no one is noticing any significant change in the SERPs despite the change in the backlink reporting, then I must be barking up the wrong tree.
And if that's the case, it would suggest that Google went out of their way to nail my bomb specifically. Because something sure wiped it out. The destruction was total and sudden, after sailing on top of the SERPs for four months.
