Is there an update going on?

[willybfriendly]

I see some pretty significant changes in the SERPs across a number of terms. Also note that the cache is showing pages I updated within the past week.

I have noted more than the usual shifting of pages in and out of the SERPs for the past week or so, and of course we have seen threads about updated backlinks (FWIW).

Anyone else seeing changes?

WBF

[willybfriendly]

Too add to my above post, I am seeing changes in the directory too. Most of the changes I noticed in the SERPs last night are still holding.

We have a site that went from #2 to #4 for widgets, and from #14 to #5 for widget in the singular, so there may be an adjustment taking place on the singular/plural knob, although I have also added a number of links with the singular version of the keyword.

More significant to me though is this. Living in a rural area, I ocassionally do searches on some rather obscure small towns (Pop. < 3k, some much less). Along with the usual bunch of DB driven datelines, lodging, real estate, and psuedo-portal sites, I am seeing many more high schools, local newspapers, restaurants and such.

Anyone else seeing these things?

WBF

[Lothar]

I'm not seeing too much change beyond the usual everflux in some commercial search terms.

I hope you are right though Willy as Google needs to update soon with MSN showing some strength in their preview and Yahoo beating down their door too.

[helleborine]

No, I'm not seeing these things in my little corner.

I can't wait for it to happen, and I hope you're right, because I expect good things in the next update!

[martinibuster]

jcoronella spotted strangeness on Thursday.
[webmasterworld.com...]

[AthlonInside]

i think it is completed.

[Marcia]

Interesting - just saw two pages from the same site that should have one of them indented, and it isn't - they're consecutive. And it's the "normal" default setting of 10 results per page.

[Powdork]

Marcia, i noticed this once a couple months ago.

They do both have the www, right?

[Marcia]

Sure they do - all www. I've noticed it on and off for a while starting about a year and a half ago, and I've wondered if it's got something to do with the directory structure.

[mack]

Following on from what Marcia said..

I have noticed quite a lot recently that searches are returning quite a few results from the same domain, not together.. maybee one on page one and one on page 2.. but this never used to happen. Google would simply indent one and offer "more from this site"

Mack.

[mcavill]

>>quite a few results from the same domain, not together

sorry for the me too - but me too, very weird.

[AthlonInside]

>quite a few results from the same domain, not together

I think this is because of datacenters.

Each datacenter can return drastic different of results, say top 10 in one datacenter and 20+ in another datacenter. So I suspect when you display the first page, it is fetched from the first datacenter, and when you reach page 3, it is fetched from another datacenter.

You can confirm this with some datacenter watch tool.

[coconutz]

>>Interesting - just saw two pages from the same site that should have one of them indented, and it isn't - they're consecutive.

Marcia - I've seen this happen when they are using the tracking urls. Once the tracking urls are removed, the results return to normal and the second page is indented again or it returns to its normal position if it was on a different page.

[BillyS]

Was the last update so subtle that we simply missed it?

[Hanu]

coconutz, what do the tracking urls look like? I desparately need an example.

[isitreal]

The tracking urls, if they are the same ones I've seen, look just like WebmasterWorld's, www.google.com/somepage.htm?link=http://thewebsite.com

something like that anyway, can't remember exactly. If you shut off google cookies you won't see that tracking url, or at least I never have.

[rfgdxm1]

>coconutz, what do the tracking urls look like? I desparately need an example.

Put your mouse over the link, and it'll be obvious that it is a tracking URL. Also, if your site is on the SERP, likely your browser will have it colored as a link you have never clicked. If I search on "widgets" to see how my site is doing, that the link to my site isn't differently colored means I know Google is using tracking URLs.

[Hanu]

isitreal, rfgdxm1

Thanks guys, I need the exact URL of such a link. I saw them once but unfortunately didn't write them down. I know that the real url is passed as a parameter to some Google page. But I don't know the page or the name of the parameter. I started another thread [webmasterworld.com] about it. Some people here must know it but maybe they think it's against the charter to post it, or someting. Anyway, if you see one of these creatures, maybe you'll think of me and drop me a line ;) ...

[Iguana]

checking Google.com right now I see

onmousedown="return clk(this,'res',6)"

and the clk function looks like it tracks through images. I thought this was the way Google has been tracking clicks for quite a while, rather than through urls

[Hanu]

Iguana, let's continue here [webmasterworld.com].

[Jon_King]

>>Is there an update going on?

I just noticed a pretty good shake up this morning on several of our large terms...

[zeus]

I also see some big changes in serps, but not for the better.

[Kennyh]

Apologies for the me too, but I've noticed some pretty radical changes in the past few hours. One of my pages has been in the top three for its most important keyword for the last few months, and for about nine months prior to Florida. For the last few days it's been fluctuating between one and three. It stuck at no. 1 for about 24 hours then started dropping like a stone. First it went to page 2, then page 3, now its not in the top 100.

I understand that Google is on a rolling update schedule these days, but that's ridiculous. How can anyone have faith in results that fluctuate so wildly?

[tomasz]

I see old data, just garbage

[dmedia]

As of around 11 am Pacific time, one of my sites that had been reincluded in G about 2 weeks ago, after being excluded for 6 weeks (prior to that, in G for years and years) .. anyway, now it's out of G altogether again. Just like that. As if someone just flipped a switch and turned off the lights.

Oh G, you slay me, what's a webmaster to do with you.

[zeus]

well my site has not been pushed around for years, but today I saw I was move to page 2, so that is big change, the bad thing those who have taken my place is some russian pages with alot of links, said.

[zeus]

any news why some pages has sliped in the seach today

[ulysee]

I just got a 45% increase in traffic in the last 3-4 hours. I hope it get's better and stays put for a while.

[slatz]

I am seeing googlebot (mozilla 5.0) going absoulutely ape on my site as we speak...gobble gobble...the old googlebot is still active too, saw him a couple hours ago... a big update may be in store who knows, we will wait and see...lost my index page for some unknown reason, hope this doesn't mean another Florida is on the horizon...

[zeus]

I do not get the new update, a site with a 3 word keyword name, PR5, 460 back links,2000 pages is just on page 3