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It seems that a major google update is under way. I just checked www.google.com with the normal set of keywords that I generally use to monitor any changes and found what I believe is a major update. Now its back to original results. Its kinda on and off.
One of my site had a 50% increase in the number of pages crawled.
I hadn't much chance to check out whether the update spells good news or not, so lets keep our fingers crossed.
<Imaster adds>
The changes are visible on 216.239.39.104
[edited by: ciml at 2:15 pm (utc) on Dec. 16, 2004]
[edit reason] Addition [/edit]
It has been that way for some month, they have troubles with some script links and redirets, then some real domain gets a bane, while the site that is redireting is getting listed like it was the real domain.
Its sad to see a search engine like Google, loosing grip of there algo, but we must admit that Google have a lot of problems with the search results here lately - redireting/hijackers/other se results and much more and if you search for a product, dont use Google, that time is over.
Dictionary.com will tell you that it's a problem that's rearing on the left hind leg with the forelegs elevated, the right above the left, and usually with the head in profile.
NOW I'm scared!
DerekH
Very surprised, I used Internet Explorer to run the same search and got something very different: higher position and serps pulled from a larger total.
I understand the part about updates and datacenters causing fluctuations in website positioning in serps, but why would different browswers pull different results?
but why would different browswers pull different results?
Maybe because they each have their own Google cookie?
That's the sound of my traffic, income and adsense income going away virtually all at once. The scarier sound is a little voice that says, go buy more Adwords.....but no, I will resist that. I wonder how big of a bump Adwords is seeing this weekend, giving them more of a reason to provide crappy results to point you to an ad. But my site doesn't get to show their ads many times, so that's a nasty cycle as well.
Have to work more on what I was trying to do already, get away from relying on Google for survival.
Other sites now rank higher than mine? Of course in any update about 50% of all sites have this problem. ;)
Have to work more on what I was trying to do already, get away from relying on Google for survival.
A process we started about 24 months ago. It's been a long, time consuming ordeal, but has paid off in spades in the last 6 months or so....not to mention allowing me to sleep much better at night in comparision to the major updates as little as 18 months ago. I still remember the stress these things used to cause -now I couldn't care less. There are planty of ways to generate targeted traffic without using a single search engine, it just takes a bit of imagination.
On the other hand, if this is indeed an "update", it looks to be pretty mild to me.
No major issue I can see with typical, non-commercial searches. Likely the average searcher will notice no meaningful changes.
Looks like it is finally time to focus on that!
Marcs, that must have been it. I cleared the firefox browser cache and ran the search again. This time the results were identical to internet explorer.
Marcs, that must have been it. I cleared the firefox browser cache and ran the search again. This time the results were identical to internet explorer.
Was having the same issue, and when I cleared caches and cookies, the results started to jibe.... BUT
Did the same on my *nix box, and getting way different results over there. Not only the rank of pages for keyword search, but also to total # of results. Variance of roughly 7.5% in total results.
Anyone else seeing this? It looks like two entirely different sets of serps.
But for the sheer size of this thread catching my attention, I wouldn't have known of the changes this month.
That's exactly what I said at the last Florida update!
I have variants of different techniques across several sites to keep an eye on what's popular with Google month to month. Out of twenty test sites, nineteen dropped over 50% in traffic over the past three days. Only one survived dropping only 10(ish)% in traffic which is normal for an update for me and usually corrects itself. Unfortunately, the techniques/practices/coding/linking structure I used on that site scares me at what Google is doing. I'll give it a week before applying those techniques to my major money-sites - surely they can't be thinking what I think they're thinking?
One major thing which I think we all expected is the loss of sites with H1 tags. I can't seem to find any anymore (though my cache/ip/timing may have affected the results I saw).
This update seems to be total anti-seo, unfortunately, it's anti-GOOD-seo which means that all I'm seeing is bad-seo pages. (i.e. adsense stuffed doorway pages and pages stuffed with irrelevant keyword strings at the bottom!)
Have to work more on what I was trying to do already, get away from relying on Google for survival.
Not only from a webmaster point of view, but as a user, I'm ready for something else. If I were MSN, this is exactly when I'd release my search engine! Ready or not, their beta version is a million times better for searching in both commercial and non-commercial areas. Come on Bill! Smell the blood! I know you can .....
Mild update? YGBSM
This update smells like stink on .... and it's holding
now too. Hits down 400%...
Google...u get coal for XMAS this year.
BADDDD SANTA
Google doesn't care about its SERP's nor do they care about you, me or the people using their search engine day in and day out! All they care about is MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! Course I do too, but... ;>~
Google doesn't even need a Florida update anymore to pi*s us off! They just clutter their SERP's with sites hosting their own adsense and WALLA! This update should be called the AdSense update!
Bring the heat MSN & Yahoo!
[edited by: MLHmptn at 12:56 am (utc) on Dec. 20, 2004]
cabbie:
"The Google Guys have created a monster that's taken a mind of its own and hundreds of PHD's are frantically trying to reign it back in."
roll on the floor laughing out loud... that's a good one, I can see it now. Add to this though, compromises made to boost income are making it increasingly difficult to do an overall fix. Who's in charge today, the engineers or the stock guys?
Who's in charge today, the engineers or the stock guys?
I don't believe any of us have to second guess that question!
I dont personaly have any product site, but jesus here the late 6 month its hard to find a good result in that area to, with time the user will notice this and will shift.
About MSN I still think they have alot of work to do, but they are close to google now, but I want it to be google like results like they had about a year ago.
As a webmaster many ask me where to make search or where to looke for this and that, I must admit I have not recomended Google for a long time.
Ok when longhorn comes we have no more worries about Google anymore, because I think they will go down at least 50% of useres, so prepare for MSN.
My cached page was always from the day before now it is from 6 months ago. Hmm, a few minutes after I typed this I searched again and clicked on cached page again, but now see it has updated to yesterday again.
So looks like something is going on. It appears sites that uses commas and - for my same keyword are getting higher ranking.
I am not sure if this is all due to this update or because some ahole using only my domain name in his title/description a few weeks back.
There will come a time SOON when they will have to justify the stock price to their stockholders.
I play in a band and our first single is getting played on the radio now and tracking the DJ playlists I need fresh results. The freshest I have found is MSN beta.
I can find the playlists indexed within 2-3 days from the time the DJ's/Program directors post their playlists.
Yahoo comes in 2nd at about a week later.
And google? What a joke! at least 3 weeks to a month behind?
Of course google used to be better but they are bad now. At least compared to MSN beta and Yahoo. I never thought I would be complaning about google's results?
So now I simply use MSN beta for fresh results.
I used to think Yahoo and MSN just didn't get it!
Now I have done a complete flip flop. ;)
One major thing which I think we all expected is the loss of sites with H1 tags. I can't seem to find any anymore
Nope. All my sites (none of which have taken a hit) use H1 tags. Why abandon good html stucture just for google - Yahoo and MSN don't seem to mind a properly formatted page.
Ok when longhorn comes we have no more worries about Google anymore, because I think they will go down at least 50% of useres, so prepare for MSN.
Longhorn is at least 2 years away (if they can even hit that date), so I would work on an alternate marketing strategy.
It always amazes me how little buying direct advertising on individual (relevant) websites get's mentioned when people talk about losing traffic because of some hiccup at google. You can buy some REALLY cheap ad space these days (and I'm NOT talking about buying links for the sake of PR) on some sites. Heck, one site I spend just $30 a month and it produces over $2000 in sales!
A little imagination goes a long way ;-)
What I'm wondering, is what G does with all that spidered content from newer sites.
I see one site that were grabbed and converted to completely unrelated spam portals.
Not one keyword applies. Another is dead as a doornail, totally down, domain expired ..
Its like the Mummy's Revenge .. pages coming back from the dead.
I suppose their 'afterlife' depends entirely on backlinks,
but even those are old, stale, dwindling ..
It should be easy to spot sites that have NOTHING to do with their keywords,
and sites totally dead for a good year or more ..
- Larry
Keep plugging away at your IPO Google and watch your user base and IPO become zilch!
