Major Google Changes

Significant movements in rankings.

[Imaster]

Hi,

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]

[jimpoo]

One year ago, Google was my friend, but now, I must to say 'What-A-Evil', we help grow him, but he finally take our cake.

Just the same day one year ago, my merchant sent me a basket as Chrismas gift for my excellent affiliate performance, now, I'm on the hell.

I was using many hosting servers and different IPs for my 100 sites, I can not afford the hosting fees anymore, I just killed 50% of my domains and move the rest to one server with one IP address.

You may advise to use AdWord, no way!
The total 'money clicks' are the same, so the cake is still the cake, but more and more rats coming to share the cake.

[jimpoo]

I am not in the game anymore, you know, google can easily kill you.

[seolancer]

my all pages disappear from google...so bad.....Google Can be....

[eyezshine]

I'm switching to MSN beta until google can get it right. So far i have found everything I want with MSN beta and they index all my sites and rank them fine. What more could you ask for?

[Critter]

Oh no! My spammy, no-content, uber-linked website isn't ranking well! Google's going to go bankrupt without me!

:)

[MLHmptn]

Seems critter works for Google!

:>~

[suggy]

"Seems critter works for Google!"

Nope, he's probably just bored of the whinging.

Question: Is the purpose of this board...

A) To share relevant information and advice about ranking well on Google, or

B) To have a good old moan about all the 'terrible', heartless things google has done to us?

Suggy

[RawAlex]

Based on what I am seeing so far for terms I look at:

More spammy sites, more doorways, more cloaked (ie: asked google not to store a cached copy) sites, and significantly less valid results.

(no poor me but as example) I personally had two domains lose a combined 4000+ unique product pages, 100% completely GONE from the index (although googlebot has been agressively snooping around). The serps in many of those areas have turned very sour indeed, with many keyword crammed auto-redirecting pages taking the top 10 spots.

For the first time in a long time, today I was unable to help a friend find "something somethingelse" with a valid not spam site in the first 30 for info for a school project.

Based on the results I am seeing so far, this is quite possibly one of the worst "adjustments" so far.

[adfree]

I'm switching to MSN beta until google can get it right. So far i have found everything I want with MSN beta and they index all my sites and rank them fine. What more could you ask for?

The user to think like a webmaster that happens to rank well in one SE.

Wake up folks, make the users fans of your sites, that's the only answer I am having these days (and way before them actually).

[djgreg]

adfree: this is the way it works, but unfortunately it is much more difficult to generate fans for your site as to rank well in google.

I don't see any of these major changes mentioned above. My sites rank very well, some go up, some fell down a bit. Nothing big for me.

greg

[Hanu]

suggy, critter, adfree

Let them be! Sometimes it's nice to get some comfort in hearing other people's stories. I'm not being sarcastic! There's a thread for everyone on this board.

[soapystar]

A) To share relevant information and advice about ranking well on Google, or

B) To have a good old moan about all the 'terrible', heartless things google has done to us?

answer: A+B

[suggy]

Well, that's interesting Soapystar, because in the two or so years I've been coming here, I've had few GENUINE occasions to moan about Google.

I've always figured quit moaning; start learning.

It seems that for every person pronouncing the death of SEO or making money from SEM, there's at least another one boasting about their new yacht!

[foxtunes]

"....Based on what I am seeing so far for terms I look at: More spammy sites, more doorways, more cloaked (ie: asked google not to store a cached copy) sites, and significantly less valid results....."

Not for the keywords I monitor. I've seen a ton of content scrapers washed away the last few days.

[Marval]

rfgdxm1 - wasnt referring to anyone ranking above me - heck I learned long ago to have lots of sites that are doing quite well (even learned it here LOL)
What I was referring to (and this addresses Zeus's reasoning as well) is that there is a problem with something that they have done in this algo version that has caused a corruption in some data - while to me it seems rampant based on posts Im seeing in industry specific boards, I guess that was a little presumptious of me to apply globally.
I am not seeing the site scraper/redirect problem that has been occuring for the last few months with the cgi/php redirecting links - this is something completely different.
As I posted before, two totally unrelated domains, owned by two different people in two different countries that are not even in the same type of business, and Google is somehow applying a directory structure to his domain that doesnt exist - however if you look at the cache page they list on his domain, it is from my site, including the "where it was retrieved from" and is the wrong page for that directory structure, as well as being shown for his domain.
That combined with the loss of 320 million serps just for one keyword that I follow doesnt seem to make sense (I would complain but Im doing quite well)
I was just bringing it up as something I noticed and not as a "moan"

[flex55]

To me, the traffic decline started on the 13th, slowly getting less and less visitors from google, and on the 16th it became really bad- loosing more and more visitors.
I just saw that yesterday I had a 90% decline comparing to usual Sundays.
All in all- the decline hasn't seemed to stop yet. It's still declining.

[wellzy]

I don't feel bad anymore for webmaster that don't diversify. it's been preached long and loud that you should not depend on the organic SERPs for 100% of your income. You are just setting yourself up for a fall. I know this sounds arrogant, but it just makes sense. Google should never make or break you.

wellzy

[seolancer]

we just have to keep going with changes..and also we should chage... accordingly.....

[dupac]

For me the holidays are ruined now. Traffic went down like 75%. Very bad move by google. Well I am sure there is a explanation to whats going on and I tried to discuss but i guess most of us are here complaning as to what happened instead of why it happened.
My findings are as follows:
1) Same anchor text from links coming from outsite.
2) Outgoing links from the page are valued more.

If anyone agrees to this and see the same results let me know. Also what you'll think might be the cause of this outrage by google. Will appreciate results (discussion)

[leoo24]

it's pretty much all still in the air, result quantity changes every other second, and indexed page count also changes every other second.
I'm off to beirut tomorrow so i've just put it all behind me, hopefully in two weeks it will have sorted itself out.

I was looking for something unrelated to my sites this morning and the 1st page results were gastly, the pages merely had references to my search term, i had to go 3 pages deep to actually find a page about my search term!

[twebdonny]

I don't see anything still in the air, and changing. It looks very solid and stable to me for the past day. Unless G, decides to abandon this index, and revert back to an older one, I think what you now see is what we shall
have to deal with until the next update.

[Nikke]

Someone else said that if it hadn't been for this thread he wouldn't have noticed an update. And that's what I'm feeling as well. I just don't get it.

None of the keywords I'm watching are showing any significant changes. Most of the number one positions we am holdning are still there, and the sites that are struggeling to gain positions still aren't very visible.

The changes I see are in fact very small, and Google-traffic is stable, only better for seasonal topics.

I do see changes on that vile IP address posted above, but not very big changes, only the ones I get if I try a search from say google.fr instead of google.com or gooogle.se (the latter always showing better results for me since my servers are located in Sweden). But I just can't see any changes on any live servers.

The keywords and sites I'm watching are both in English and i Swedish.

[RawAlex]

I did some more research this morning, looking at server stats and whatnot, and I am seeing a bunch of googlebot activity in domains / sites that lost many pages.

I am feeling that EVERYTHING that was added between about August and today has been removed, and is being re-indexed from scratch. The old lists are being used as a basis of where to send the bots, but all fo those pages (and changes) seem to have been removed.

I am seeing freshie dates of 18th and 19th on many listings today.

Google really does need to teach the bot about redirects. I am seeing pages that even the CACHE redirects. That tells me that they are not keeping up with the "technology" that is redirecting their surfers.

The SERPS in general still are pretty poor. I can only hope that I am on the right track with my comments, and that all those missing pages will get added back in over the next few days.

Alex

[OptiRex]

Our results are the same as Nikke except for a few listings which were not at #1 have mostly now risen to the top.

Traffic's down a little as normal for this time of year considering, in the UK, many companies closed Friday night. Visitor statistics coming in from other regions look exactly as expected.

It'll be interesting to see how the figures stack up this afternoon and evening when the USA switches on but already that looks totally normal which, to be honest, suprises us considering the amount of comments in this thread.

Meanwhile, wait until January 4th when the Christian world gets back to work full time and see what occurs.

[WebFusion]

I am not in the game anymore, you know, google can easily kill you.

If your only source of income was free traffic from google - you killed yourself.

Blaming google for the failure of your business model is like saying "I've been playing russian roulette all these years and I've never shot myself. This year, I shot myself in the head - damn that gun is evil!"

[Kirby]

I'm switching to MSN beta until google can get it right. So far i have found everything I want with MSN beta and they index all my sites and rank them fine. What more could you ask for?

Traffic. Just because you switched doesnt mean everyone else has or will.

[Dynamoo]

Some folks have forgotten just HOW LONG a Google Dance can take. Don't expect the results to settle down just yet.

But EVERY time this happens the same old conspiracy theories come out.. that Google is deliberately crippling the results to boost AdSense revenues.

My arse.

Google's key asset is the quality of its SERPs. People come to Google because the results are relevant and better than the competition. Remember AltaVista? That used to have the best results, but Google was better and basically ate AltaVista's lunch. Google is aimed at VISITORS and not webmasters - so Google's aim is to provide relevant and reasonably high quality search results for the visitor. Period. Everything else is a sideline.

Now, in order to keep the results spam free, Google will tweak the algo from time to time. From a visitor's point of view the results are as good or better. Unfortunately, a lot of webmasters get caught up in the collateral damage. If you've been running sites for a while, this is bound to have happened to you in some sense and.. shucks yeah.. it's awfully unfair and unpleasant when it happens. But Google is trying to protect the quality of its results.. it's not deliberately being evil. The SERPs will probably look just fine without your site or my site. Dammit.

[OptiRex]

>If your only source of income was free traffic from google - you killed yourself.

Totally agree with WebFusion...even though we are the #1 widget authority web site, we still participate in all types of promotional work since our potential clients expect to actually meet us and get to know us better.

Ok, this model does not necessarily work for the on-line shops but for many industries it should do and especially so if it is not just for "one-off" purchases.

What we can firmly state is that we no longer advertise in trade magazines since all such promotional work is done via the web sites and direct mailing our database. This is all backed-up by attending international widget trade fairs and even with regular personal visits even if they are seemingly not required.

We do not purchase from anyone we have never, ever met or visited their production facilities, furthermore if you do not believe that many other companies are not working in this manner then you are deluding yourself.

NB Before anyone jumps down my throat this all applies to real industry and not the holiday, airline, video, music, book, etc. type of on-line store which is totally different.

[GodLikeLotus]

<Dynamoo> "Google's key asset is the quality of its SERPs. People come to Google because the results are relevant and better than the competition."

I would differ and say its very similiar to the Browser Issue, people use Google because they are very familiar with it now. Google were just allowed to run away with it all over the last few years. I am not disputing that Google's results and technology WAS superior to anything else available at the time, however, today seems to be a very different matter with many problems being reported on forums and a very silient Googleguy of late.

[Mentat]

My traffic is comming back :)

i've gained 10 000 visitors today

Come 2 daddy!

I think we are seeing the normalizing part of this dance.