September 2002 Google Update

It's Official

[nell]

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

[stuntdubl]

It seems that the major consensus is that link text is playing less of a role than previous updates. My sites were getting a majority of their link pop from onsite keyword filled linking. They're taking a major hit. A lot of them are no where to be seen for phrases I was top 20 for before. I'm a little disappointed since I just optimized a new site with the same technique.

I agree with gopi though, that the more 'offsite variables' that you reduce, the easier it is to manipulate serps. I think it was suggested earlier that this may be google's attempt to thwart PR for sale. The pages I have checked, proximity seems to be more of a factor as well. The power of link pop has dramatically suffered I do believe. I guess this is G's response to 'google bombing' as well.

I think the simple fact is that their will always be SOME spam, and G is just tweaking variables to see which technique will be most effective. I guess I am probably biased (based on this month's results), but it seems to me that things won't turn out as good as they had hoped. Guess it's time to start hackin' away for next month:)

[edited by: stuntdubl at 6:10 pm (utc) on Sep. 26, 2002]

[chowcat]

A huge algo change, which is looking like its going to require a complete site redesign (or content rethink), especially in terms of how many times your keywords are repeated in the body of the page.

[bether2]

Beachboy, Mat,

My experience is the same as yours. Whatever I see on www2 at the beginning of the dance is pretty much what I see when the dance has "settled."

Beth

[mykel]

I noticed that there are now differences between the PR shown on the googlebar and that shown in the directory. Mostly lower in the directory for me :(
Anyone else noticed that, too?

[bobmark]

I think there is something in what you say rfgdxm1.
What I see is a total disappearnace on ONE keyword in a key phrase. This was a main keyword as well as my site classification and it is now as if it does not exist for my site or as if it is spam (it had high density but nowhere near spam levels).
Of interest the www3 results show an improvement for searches with related keyowrds. Example:
If I was "Canada Working Dogs" I am gone on searches for that keyphrase but way up on "Canada Working Canines" and the word "canines" only appears once on my home page.
It is like the magic keyword density number to pass the spam threshhold has changed.

[lavapies]

Bobmark,.. I concur .. my experience so far is almost exactly as you have described above. 1 tageted keyword has dissapeared from the SERPs entirely, but hopefully that will change over the next few days.

[coconutz]

I'm seeing the new results on www already. If the current SERP's hold, I'll be happy!

Is anyone else seeing more pages with exact matches in the title text? I lost position on a few kw phrases on my PR6 page due to the exact match in the title of some other pages with only PR3. Glad they're not my primary kw's.

[SlyOldDog]

I don't see any major reduction in popularity of double-barrel URLs. Just a random search on strong keywords. Check it yourself:

"London Hotels"

A bunch of double-barrel URLS drop, and another bunch take their place. There's more to this than URL name

[stuntdubl]

>It is like the magic keyword density number to pass the spam threshhold has changed.

That may be a very good observation. It explains my downfall anyhow......

Ms. G is a harsh mistress.

[born2drv]

Not sure why people think back links or anchor text are not a factor. I have been working very hard to get inbound links with keyword rich anchor text for the past 2 months, and it seems to have paid off big time. I also have h1 tags for my titles and good internal keyword linkage.

For my SERPS, I see much less spam, but then again, maybe I just see it that way since I'm in the top 10 :) The site also has a PR5 last update and I'm hopeful it will get PR6 after this update.

[gopi]

PR is the one which maintained the relevency of Google SERPS....I accept that PR and anchor text is manipulatable but the Pain , dificulty and cost in getting high PR links forced the webmasters to optimize only for keywords relevent to them ...

So blue widget company got links with only blue widget. Thats the power of PR. Users dont care if company ABC ranked #1 by optimising ...as long as ABC's site sell or describe blue widgets.

But if you throw PR out , its very very easy to manipulate onpage creteria and its very very easy to optimise for " UNRELATED TERMS ".
You will begin to see the dark age of porn sites optimising for highly searched terms relevent or not, just to gain more traffic

[mat]

Yep - seeing exact same results on www - it's live for now - that'll do me for tonight. Happy reverse-engineering the algo everyone! Mat

[chopsticks]

H 0 0 0 0 0 L Y S H I Z N I T!

I'm going to pinch myself and just keep chanting, "there's no place like home" while I click my heels. 'Cause the google gods could NOT have smiled upon me THIS much. (I'll wait 'til the dance stops.. but at this point I'm a little bit too )(#@)* happy!)

Almost makes up for google crapping on me for the last 4 months! (Almost!)

****

Here's what I'm seeing (have been seeing it for 3 hours already, on the primary [www], www2, and www3) --

some of my NEW sites that still have a PR0 (yes, a WHITE bar in the toolbar, NOT greyed out!) are now ranking #1.

The TITLE tag seems to be the most important thing for my current (albeit temporary) rankings! My page rank is non-existant! Every page on the site shows up as PR0... yet almost every page consistently shows up in the top 3-4 places in google (and when that fails they're at least in the top 10!)

Now I'll sit quitely for the other google shoe to drop on my head.

Care to dance anyone?!?

[infodigger]

What if the anchor value change and let's say too many indentical anchors are considered as spam instead of increasing popularity/PR?

[geckoz]

What about adding a poll when dance starts, where seo can vote "satisfied with this month results" or "disappointed", it would give a quick view of the overall results... especially as many of us read and apply what is discussed in this forum, we are all supposed to see improvement, which is not the case obviously this month!

[moomelman]

My site is not looking good at all - I was ranking top10 with popular keywording - now Im 3 - 5 pages back

I hope these results dont hold

[macd17]

the keyword density theory might be true - i was always a little too dense (ha) but maybe they lowered the threshold.

[deltakits]

Unfortunately, on mine, it looks like all competitors have stayed pretty much the same, only with little old me dropping like a rock. All keywords,including company name...

:(

<sobbing in the corner>

[HollyHats]

This is my first time being picked up by google. I am in www2/3
In between the last crawl and dance, I updated my site. I added some links and changed the title slightly. Will these changes be picked up quickly or do you have to wait for the monthly crawl?
Also, what if you submitted more than once within a couple of days and there are title changes. Will the crawl pick up both and if so, how do the determine which one gets listed?

[timtom]

! this should fix the meaning that Link-Text was dropped down (or not applied):

Search for: go to hell

on www.google.com: yahoo is on 5
on www2.google.com: yahoo is not under the first 40

this phrase (go to hell) is only in links to yahoo

Furthermore in my opinion PR is not applied

[HollyHats]

I guess what I mean is if you apply with the same url several times in a month. Some with different titles, links etc. Will they post the first one submitted...and then you wait another month for the second...and so on?

[mykel]

In the keywords I check, the sites that are on top are totally spammed out - keyword density sometimes 60 or 80%. My sites that are holding on have high density, the ones nicely tuned to have around 10% have disappeared.

[QNetwork]

My site is 4-months old. Googlebot visited the site last time on 9/4. Bot did not pay me a visit yet during this dance. Is the bot going to avoid me this time? Or there is still a chance?

In www2 and www3, I can find about 81 URLs of my site when searched with website (as in www.website.com). No description. Most of these URLs are new and do not show up in www.google.com. There are over 100 other sites which also show in all google sites when searched with "website". Why does not any description show up for my URLs?

Please help.

[edited by: QNetwork at 6:46 pm (utc) on Sep. 26, 2002]

[onebaldguy]

We have tried to get links from other sites that are related to our content and have been successful in doing so. However, I have noticed in this update, that that seems to be paying less of a role. Our competitor only has 3 links. But 2 are from a PR8 site, which has NOTHING to do with the content or keywords. It is from a University Vet School page. This is about as far from being related content as possible. It seems like the anchor text is all that is taken into account, not the actual content of the linking page.

[chopsticks]

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser!

Check this out:

* my site that is ranking VERY VERY well (at the moment) doesn't have META description tags NOR META keywords!

* only titles

* anchor text (hyperlinks) within the site are not even all text based! (massive navigation is done via images, with ALT text on the images).

----

Seems the google algorithm is getting a bit more in-depth when it comes to actually parsing the page itself... not reading what META tasg I CLAIM to be about (or external third-party links in, as my PR is still 0), and the keyword stuffed domains seemed to have dropped quite a bit (but are still there).

[squared]

onebaldguy,

I wish that were the case. I'd be sitting pretty if it was.

-squared

[zeus]

QNetwork I have made a new site and I also have a few sites when I do a site: search that only show the URL I dont know why sorry.

zeus

[rfgdxm1]

onebaldguy, this is typical. Get links from PR8 pages, and one can be sitting pretty for all but the most competitive keywords.

[squared]

gopi,

I agree with what you're saying. I feel that straight link popularity is more popular this time around...

-squared.

[teeceo]

Hi all. last month I had 0 backlinks show up only (containts the term) and now I am seeing 25 backlinks to my site on www3,and www2, but not yet www, and also my PR has not changed yet, this is all part of the dance right?

teeceo.