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Firstly, on common search terms, there are sites bouning in and out of the first page of results.
Looking further, when I type my domain, one second it might say what you'd expect it to, and the next it'll say something to the effect that "There's no information available about this site." This only lasts for several minutes, but then it'll be gone again.
Anyone else seeing anything weird?
G.
I have a site I watch that competes in a very competitive space. In the past, during the updates, w2 and w3 would always preview what things would look like the following month. There would be a little bouncing around during the update, but after it was finished, the results did not budge at all until the following update.
That has been Google's pattern for as long as I can remember, but this month it change dramatically. The update may be over, but the results are in constant flux. Right now, we're #5 on 1, completely missing in 2, and #3 in 3. Throughout the day, those results rotate constantly. Yesterday, they would rotate in and out of w1 every fourth refresh. Sometimes we have a date stamp, sometimes we don't.
Another new twist is that I noticed brand new content (on a new domain name) that was spidered in the middle of the month was added to the database instantly. A day after the full crawl, I could find every page in the database. The pages didn't show up for any searches because their PR had not yet been calculated, but they were in the database.
That same site has also been crawled every day since I put it up on the 12th of May. There was no pause during the dance.
After having seen all this, If I didn't know any better, I'd think the update is still going on. But the reality is that for some sites, results are going to bounce around from day-to-day, if for no other reason, to make Gogole appear fresher.
That is a interesting post. Do you think that it could be Googles algo being changed and/or tested that causes this fluctuation?
I hate to jump the gun, but its like something "new" has arrived
It is a new site to Google, right?
Not really new. First got indexed 3 months ago and has been showing up in searches for 2 months/updates.
I'm going to agree with the rest of the gang here - something "new" is happening. That's why I described it as a "Dance Type Effect" and not a dance itself. ;)
My site is still appearing and dissapearing when I type the full domain. Kinda interesting. Another, possibly related note, is that the bot seems to have gotten finished with its crawl earlier this morning. (only about 5K pages is my best guess - last month was about 25K) I'm not seeing any cache updates, though - not even in the "odd" results.
Will keep you posted, as I am the only one so far that's seeing the whole domain vanish right now.
G.
For some reason, the most up to date information (and most favorable results) appear in google congo (www.google.cd).
Has anybody else noticed that google congo has dramatically different and more complete results than other google sites??
What does it all mean??
welcome to WMW
Welcome to WW. Come on! Don't leave us guessing - what have you got?
My Theory
It's very early, but I think Google may be applying some algorithm concepts that are used in AdWords.
If a site has the highest PageRank (or popularity?) it is more likely to appear in the #1 position. However, it may rotate to other nearby positions.
If a site is ,let's say #3 most of the time, it may occasionally change to #4 or #2.
Watching W2 and W3 for a few days has led me to believe this. But as I said...it is early.
Anybody agree/disagree?
I have seen some things change on ww3 and go right back an hour later.
In the past I've thought results have settled, and a few days later have been surprised by a slight aftershock where results shift, as though they've dialed in another factor. So by now I expect the shift... only I'm surprised that it keeps happening, and that it shifts back and forth. It does feel like the update is still going on... or, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, that something else is happening and I don't know what it is.
I will say this now. Look at the bot...it is different... GG said in the Google forum that the bot is new software. If it is what i think it is, it will be great for Google!!!
well, you shouldn't post that if you are not sure ;) I am going to put it down to the "usual reasons" for now.
Not seen enough action to substantiate any major change :)
So I guess this confirms that it is still a little unsettled.
could be a burp in the Google toolbar
And it didn't even say "excuse me" .. How rude! :)
This chef has been noticing several little changes. This is rather intresting, I have been optimizing my home page (pagerank 6) for one particular two word key phrase that is somewhat competative. I have ranked about 40th or something and today all of the sudden I was ranked #6 or 7 for about 5 minutes or so. I also ranked #3 for the most competative key word phrase in my theme.... then I was off the front page.
Strange.
Chef Brian
SERPS appear to be alternating between off topic rubbish and on-topic relevancy for a few of the terms I'm following.
Agree with brotherhood_of_lan - business as usual until "proved" otherwise :)
Here's a cool tool to use if any of you don't know it. If you register to have a Google search tool put on your site, the login page to modify your search parameters will tell you how many pages are currently indexed exactly at that moment you login. Kind of a cool thing to check.
I just did. Google can't count:
There are approximately 257 pages for (my domain here) in our index.
Odd, as my site has about 10 pages. ;)
If you have the google toolbar installed, you get different results than if you have it uninstalled. Creepy!
Even stranger? It doesn't matter if you search from the toolbar or if you search from the google URL. The result is always the same, so long as the toolbar is installed.
The only way to get the different result is to uninstall the toolbar (or search from another computer of course!)
What funny plans does Google have for us now? Perhaps they're watching what we do with the toolbar? Wouldn't it be easy to catch a SEO expert by scanning which keywords he searches for, and then checking which "cached" results he is checking? It sure beats trawling the results with some fancy algorithm. This is entrapment!
Check this out from the google toolbar privacy statement:
"Google may collect information about web pages that you are viewing when the advanced functionality is enabled. However, this advanced functionality is optional, and can be easily disabled and re-enabled at any time (by selecting "Privacy Information..." in the Toolbar's "Google" menu.)....."
