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September 2002 Google Update

It's Official

         

nell

11:37 am on Sep 26, 2002 (gmt 0)

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7:15 est I see different results on WWW, WW2, and WW3 in Florida

zeus

10:32 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Andrew Thomas I dont think you have anything to worry about, but you could look at your logs and see if there sometimes come a visit from Google, sometimes the new sites just pop in on www and out again.

zeus

wait 1-2 day more

Andrew Thomas

10:39 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Zeus, im not yet in www. but i presumed that if i got listed in www2 or www3 i would go into www.google.com, or am i mistaken?

creative craig

10:39 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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On my main keyword I came in at a healthy number one earlier today, but now I am not even on the first page!

Hope this isnt over yet :(

nvision

10:42 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Thanks Sebastian - I know PR has its mood swings at such times :) but I'm more worried about not showing up with my keywords, or is this something I hadn't noticed before during updates? thnx.

Tor

10:42 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Zeus, im not yet in www. but i presumed that if i got listed in www2 or www3 i would go into www.google.com, or am i mistaken?

That`s correct.

jtoddv

10:46 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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From what I am seeing there is going to be a lot of shuffling going on here. This isn't even close to being done.

Not just because I am not even being found but for the mere fact that the results from any of my searches actually suck on 2 and 3. They are not even relevant results.

Sebastian

10:50 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I'm more worried about not showing up with my keywords, or is this something I hadn't noticed before during updates

Once again, that's normal behavior. Like you, today my site completely dropped out of Google, oh, for say about a minute, and then reappeared.

So while you mainly read about slight results fluctuations in these forums, there can also be complete drop-outs (you probably had them at your school) and grey tool bars for short periods.

sw8296

10:57 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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This is my first time (am I doing it right?) so I could be completely wrong, but what I've gathered from reading on here is that the results on www2 and www3 will fluctuate a lot while the algorithm does its thing on a few billion pages before finally coming to a settled set of results after a few days.

There is also some speculation/observation that page rank is not factored until the end of the process. If that's the case, then I think people will be seeing good sites fall in the early stages before rising back up when page rank becomes involved. Further, it would also explain why "spammy" sites are near the top, as the pagerank punishments dished out by Google won't be taking effect yet.

Anyone else think the same?

nutsandbolts

11:07 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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sw8296 - I believe the same to a point. Certainly, you can never be sure of your positions until the index is stable on WWW. I think it's safe to assume Google certainly does apply something as one of my sites was dropped on the WWW3 index last month - but once it moved over to the main WWW it re-appeared.

zeus

11:07 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I am beginng now to make some changes to my page because of the reduced weight of content in the rankings.

zeus

rfgdxm1

11:26 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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>Half of linking pages are PR7-8, others lower.

And, it should surprise you such a page would do well with the key difference in the Google algo from other SEs being Google has that PageRank element? Lot of high PR pages linking to one other page on the Net means "this page is important". The Google algo was designed with the notion that pages by other sites democratically determine what other pages are important by linking to them.

Beachboy

11:27 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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sw8296:

If Google has begun doing a final adjustment of positioning based on PR, then this will be a new phenomenon. I haven't seen this sort of behavior before. At this point, in my view, the idea of a shakeout based on PR is just speculation. My own experience has been that what you see when the update begins is pretty much the way it shakes out by update's end.

sw8296

11:29 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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beachboy:

i really didn't know to be honest - that was just something i'd seen mentioned a few times around these parts.

i guess we'll just have to wait until it all finishes.

rfgdxm1

11:46 am on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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>At this point, in my view, the idea of a shakeout based on PR is just speculation. My own experience has been that what you see when the update begins is pretty much the way it shakes out by update's end.

I've seen *some* shakeout at the end that only seems explainable by PR. However, you are right it usually isn't something that totally rearranges things in the end. More a "fine tuning".

SlyOldDog

12:14 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Hey guys. I can assure you, page rank is NOT yet in the results, UNLESS our competitor has had a penalty removed.

He has pagerank 2 and is the number 2 site. He's beating out pagerank 6 sites which are well optimised.

Of course his penalty could have been removed, but somehow, to coincide with all this confusion?.... I think Google still has not factored in Pagerank. Maybe they won't....ever :)

argusdesigns

12:26 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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Curios question along these lines, since in all the dances I have not seen this behavior. It seems as if page rank defineately is not factored yet... but

It is very strange that I have seen other sites get the fresh set of back links, and ours are not (same as last month). I know we have quite a few new inbound links. I know this is a silly question, but it is possible these are the link results for us from a month ago? Has never happened like this before. I am also curious, does anyone eles' directory links from yahoo show up in your backlinks?

I think what I need to do is go on a long hike during the dance from now on..lol..You get acustomed to certain dance behavior and when process changes, it puts you on edge.

jtoddv

12:32 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I agree with you guys it has always been what you see at the beginning is what you get in the end +- 1 or 2 sites.

However, this time around is looking real bad. I am talking from a results standpoint. Go to www2 and type in a keyphrase of 2 or 3 words. Then look at the results. They aren't even close to being appropriate to past results. Something huge is happening this update.

I believe the <title> got smacked way down in importance. And something I am missing on all of my sites gain a whole lot of importance. These observations based on prior standing that what you see on www2 at the beginning usually is the way it ends.

SlyOldDog

12:45 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I know this is a silly question, but it is possible these are the link results for us from a month ago

Not silly at all. Actually I think you are right. We added a lot of links in the last update but they are all gone again. We also had some of our site cross linked and removed those cross-links. Now they are back again. I also expected to have an important new link this month but it's not there. It seems that the back links might be old.

lazyz

1:03 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I'm seeing no links lost on many sites, yet the sites have dropped 20+ in the index. I'm also seeing the "title" as not having much weight in the index.

rfgdxm1

1:09 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>Hey guys. I can assure you, page rank is NOT yet in the results, UNLESS our competitor has had a penalty removed.

However, if it is not factored in at *all* yet, I am scratching head a bit why at this moment in the dance I have shot up from #5 to #1 on one of my main keywords? This makes sense if it is based on PR. My home page has a higher PR than the pages that were above me, and is respectably optimized by traditional SEO considerations of keyword in page title, decent keyword density for it on the page, etc. Nothing at all shady in the traditional SEO sense. If my page is about "widgets", having "widgets" in the page title, this keyword prominently appearing high in the text of the page, and with decent keyword density just makes sense. Like I'd name the home page of my site about widgets "purple bunnies", and not use "widgets" anywhere on the page?

However, my main site domain name WRT this keyword is in the form of keyword.TLD, and also this keyword is in the page title, and well represented on the page. As is the norm based on traditional SEO for SEs in general. It may be that this is enough now with Google to grab the #1 spot without PR being a consideration. Yes, I can now stomp pages on the same topic based just on PR. In the latest update, Google now is recognizing my Yahoo! directory link for the first time, in addition to my ODP/Google link. This keyword in question is not at all very competitive (for those who really want to analyze it, a peek at my profile here should quickly reveal this), and perhaps I am at the point that just traditional criteria used by SEs is why Google now has me as #1, and PR is just icing on the cake.

My previous analysis was that the only reason these other sites were beating mine is because of text in anchor links. In terms of inbound links, my site is doing well. The mere fact my site is the only one that has *both* ODP and Yahoo! directory links, along with inbound links from most all the sites worth mentioning on the topic is relevant. My problem has been that *everyone* else linking to me in anchor text uses, instead of keyword1 which I am now #1 on, keyword2 which is an acronym mostly used by those with scientific knowledge enough to know it. The sites that used to be higher than me were heavily linked to using keyword2. Based on this, I'm wondering if Google now is giving a far lower weight to anchor text, and just considering the fact these other sites decided to link to me, and letting my site's own homepage determine the keywords that are important? Could this perhaps be a new change to neutralize the "Googlebomb", where links based on irrelevant keyword were considered important?

creative craig

1:14 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I didnt bother checking yesterday but google-bot has been back to one of my sites yesterday and requested robots.txt and then hit the index page!

I am getting more confused :(

chris_w

1:24 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Its still got some way to go yet ... I'm in the UK - this is what w w2 and w3 says about cache and similar pages just now

"Im Archiv - Ähnliche Seiten"

not terribly relevant for Brits...

Also we had a PR7 front page with 172 inbound external links. This month after we changed the querystring and link structure (4 params to 2 max) we have > 1300 links mostly internal. No PR change seems apparent yet - but not really sure whether to expect it.

google.co.uk has just gone German too

HollyHats

12:55 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

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I just check my site along with several other in www2/3 Mine just went in www and it looks like things are starting to move.

zeus

2:04 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I see alot og IIII on google search no guides about news and the other navigation.

zeus

Cache is also replaced with III

QNetwork

2:06 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am noticing Gbot is coming to my site in the first week of every month for several days. The URLs picked up during this spidering shows up just as URL (without any snippets)after monthly dance. During the dance, there was no crawl at all. Can anyone please explain this situation. Why GBot does not show up during the dance? when I search with website name, more than hundreds entries show up. But nothing shows up as backlink. I verified some sites referring to my home page has PR7 and PR6.

Gurus, please help. GoogleGuy, can you help?

bobmark

2:32 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



"I agree with you guys it has always been what you see at the beginning is what you get in the end +- 1 or 2 sites.
However, this time around is looking real bad. I am talking from a results standpoint. Go to www2 and type in a keyphrase of 2 or 3 words. Then look at the results. They aren't even close to being appropriate to past results. Something huge is happening this update.

I believe the <title> got smacked way down in importance. And something I am missing on all of my sites gain a whole lot of importance. These observations based on prior standing that what you see on www2 at the beginning usually is the way it ends."

This has been my experience too. I gather from the range of opinion that it may be somewhat "sector specific" as some people seem to report little change in their area.
In my case, myself and some very heavyweight sites dropped like stones from the top 10 on the major 3 word keyphrase. Other than 1 good penalized site that returned to the top 10 after a month's banishment, the usurpers are all of less relevance. They include a link farm and several mom and pop sites (and I am talking about like Betty and Bill's B&B (hypothetical) knocking off Holiday Inn on a search for "<hotels sometown>".
So whatever is happening is major and - at least in my area - NOT an improvement in search quality.

[edited by: ciml at 3:23 pm (utc) on Sep. 27, 2002]
[edit reason] Generalised [/edit]

skibum

2:34 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Just a guess based on a sampling of client sites, but so far it seems like pages with a good title and header text are maintining good positioning but anchor text both in the page itself and pointing to it has been devalued somewhat.

[edited by: skibum at 2:34 pm (utc) on Sep. 27, 2002]

jtoddv

2:34 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think Google went back to the algo they used 4 years ago to celebrate their birthday!

After today, the results will start to look like the 2002 algo.

Just a guess.

bobmark

2:59 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



One thing that DEFINITELY has happened with me is none of the "minty fresh" pages that Google added since last crawl are there now (and this includes pages that were top 10 after being added mid month).
I don't know if this is the Google plan (i.e. do the update as normal including only results from the normal "big crawl" that takes place 15 to 30 days before update) or if this a temporary problem they encountered having, through accident or inability, not implemented retaining fresh pages into the update.
It will be interesting to see if sites like mine that get crawled frequently make a quick comeback to the top 10 as Google freshens pages and adds them to the index (assuming, of course, Google continues its minty fresh policy...who knows?)

mykel

3:20 pm on Sep 27, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Coming back to the yahoo links: they went down to 5.000 from 600.000. Links to other big sites, like MS or CNN have stayed in the hundreds of thousands, though. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence ;)

edited: I see they now appear as links to www.yahoo.com and not yahoo.com. There goes my conspiracy theory.

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