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The biggest thing is they move the toilet mid stream without a hint they are going to do it...(change the rules)
Googles a joke..
tired of their games..
off to support ANY other search engine..enough of this every month change the rules nonsense..good bye Google ..Good riddence..
without a hint they are going to do it...(change the rules)
I think this is the point.
Every month, some scrambling on the positions, even with not-changed sites.
What does it means?
It means, IMHO, trying to make impossible, for us webmaster/SEO, any fine-tuned 'valuable' understanding of how Google ranking works.
cminblues
See that is exactly it. A lot of the true seo people aren't the problem. They are actually trying to get sites to the top that actually belong there. The spammers and bullsh!ters are the people that ruin it. People who try all kinds of tricks with no real relevant content that are the issue. But when you go to the extent that you are displaying results that are totally irrelevant, this is when it becomes a bigger issue.
I guess it is a work in progress. Time to work on All the Web, I have a feeling they are the next big thing.
However, we should try to "diverisfy" away from this mad SERPent and explore other means of promotion.
Good luck!
explore other means of promotion
Hehe..
So, the AdWords algo works fine.. ;)
Google's penality literally took food out of my families mouth this year.
I said good riddence, too. We sure missed the traffic, though. Problem is, they hold so much power/leverage over the results in such a wide reaching scope. Nonetheless, it really is SO unfair.
Some examples and conclusions i have drawn:
1. GG in one post warned webmasters against engaging in SEO at all.
2. Google does not NEED SEO's. They are a hindrance rather than a help overall.
3. With continual changing between updates as well as more continually more complex algos that kick in monthly, Google wants to make their algos immune from reverse engineering or cracking. They are getting closer to that goal. That is why I am seeing, I think, heaps of Webmasters who have been optimizing for say a month or 3, devastated that "simple" rules that are based on theories from recent history have proved ineffective or even destructive. Whether the index has "settled" at this time is beyond the point. The message - focus on making a good site, and let Google focus on indexing good content.
4. GG says that "manipulating" Page Rank may well get you into deep manure.
5. GG has publically and enthusiatically encouraged Webmasters to focus on other engines. So he would be very happy that dauction is now following his advice!
6. (PS there are so many other brilliant hints from GG in the past relating to cross linking and all the major concerns that I can only suggest again that people do the Googleguy search on WebmasterWorld. i have only covered a couple)
At present, I cant see any reduction in relevance for Google in the terms I follow. In fact Im seeing it improve yet again given the current www.
There may well be big changes in casino/gambling, property, SEO, web hosting and other much more competitive areas. In fact Ive a working theory that most of the webmasters (but certainly not all) who think they have been hit in the last index may be from these sort of broad market, high-potential-revenue-generating areas. Ive said for a long time that Google's aim is to index and promote good "generally non-commercial" content. If the latest update is encouraging webmasters of these sites to find other avenues for promotion that is good - it only speeds up the inevitable.
7. so my number 7 tip is - for long term web exposure and promotion, if your are a commercial site, store or affiliate site, look elsehwere than Google and start getting used to paying for listings. Its what we do already in our commercial sites. Google is rewarding our informational sites quote nicely thankyou.
Sites that have been up the top for a while may well not have deserved to be, and a new filter has finally caught up with then, bring some unoptimized sites to the top. That is not a bad thing, nor does it mean the Google is 'orrible.
If Google "notified" webmasters of changes (and google has only given broad general guidelines ever that are as valid now as ever) it would cause major problems for providing relevance to their customers. As far as more specific "tricks and tips" for optimizing for Google, you could only have developed them from your own working theories, and chit chat on boards like this. They are theories only, google has never confirmed them, so what are the "changes" you want Google to notify? Changes to your personal theories?
Read what GoogleGuy actually says, and build on his clues, no matter how much you dislike them.
PS Any Search engine that is easily manuplulable will never provde good results. I dont suggest Alltheweb is a good place to start!
I remember several years back people saying the same thing of another market leading search engine - AV - that they would sue or that they have "broken them financially". What hogwash. Google ranking is a bonus. It's free. And it's ephemeral. It's no basis for making a living, though it can help. They give something back to webmasters if webmasters give something back to them to help them make a great service. If google went bust tomorrow where would you be?
I dont agree with others who say AV went belly up because they lost the faith of webmasters, or dropped/changed listings. They simply failed because they changed to be a portal rather tha concentrating on search exclusively (and that was driven by corporate group changes), and the quality of google just out-competed them.
II'd wait to see the reactions of Google's real customers to this update, rather than Webmasters, before I come to a conclusion on any change in quality of the Google index or whether it is "orrible" or not.
[edited by: chiyo at 6:07 am (utc) on Sep. 28, 2002]
They give what they feel is good results to their web surfers, SEO's can do for good and for bad, but do the search engines want all this clutter, is that what theyre web surfers want to see? So maybe you feel you didn't do anything wrong - its their search engine, their program. Maybe what they did stopped a lot of spam and the methods used just changed yer ranking. I hate to say it, but one of my sites is highly ranked on the search engines and shouldn't be. It was a test site - for research purposes to see if i could figure out how to gain #1, and well I did it. It shouldn't be there, its useless to people surfing who are looking for what they stumble upon but it shouldn't be there. So last month I changed the site and added the information websurfers wanted - im not #1 anymore but still more useful than before.
Can you handle google>? Or are you looking for a free ride - because that is something google doesnt offer. Play the rules right, figure out what you did wrong, what changed and learn from it. Get back up couz its not the end of the world unles you give up. :P
Google hasnt always been fair to me but I havnt given up, not on google not on AV or any of them. Rub their back and they'll rub yours.
If anything, it wised us up to NOT place too heavy of a reliance on any one source of traffic.
Most of us who complain aren't looking for a free ride, just a level playing field. We have been (unjustly we feel) snagged by a filter while bigger, better funded competitors continue to spam their way into the top ten...
Great post, chiyo. There are always exceptions but content continues to rule Google. People without good content look for shortcuts. Google merely looks at some things, like backward links, as evidence of value of the content of the site. Anyone who looks at backward links as something that Google will value has their head up their butt. They are missing the point by a mile.
The "rule" is, get good content that a searcher will look for. Google will tweak the ways it judges content as more people do things that make it appear that there is good content. There is nothing at all wrong with exchanging links with a semi-related site. It's not against the rules and it is a positive thing in itself, but in terms of good content it's trivial. Google, and more important searchers, don't want the top search result to be the one with the best linking(!) even if the top search result HAS good linking.
The one thing a bot-crawling Google can't do is recognize quality content compared to merely on-topic content. If a travel site says the best way to get from Chicago to New York is via Dallas, Google will never be able to recogize the non-quality of that advice. That's why there will always be some spam sites will do well, along with their cheating tricks they just spam out a volume of content that isn't very unique or quality, but it will be content. Report the spam and it will eventually go away.
Mistakes Google makes like overvaluing page titles, older sites and bigger sites is due to its effort to find content. It can get tricked into thinking that these on-topic titles, mildewy links, and reams of interlinked pages are representative of good content, but its an error of the best intentions, seeking good content.
I've never seen it before. This is a poor result (Goodness, this is an awful amateur web site) that makes the serp look shameful.
I will, however, wait until the dance is over before I start to foam at the mouth. These things usually look weird until they're settled.
If you take as a given that Google wants to give the best page to the user that it can, you're pretty far down that path. An SEO who can see things as a user ends up making a site that users like, and those sites tend to succeed on their own. The SEOs who are on the same wavelength as users tend to avoid shortcuts, and his or her sites attract a following (and rankings) more easily.
cminblues
Its just a little bit of a shake up, whether it was necessary I don't know, I was extremely happy with the Google SERPS before, and post update I'm finding myself having to search onto page 3 and 4 and 5 and even 6 before I get satisfactory results (or a site that is cross browser compatible).
But what obligation does Google have to us as webmasters, none.! It has an obligation to its users first and foremost.
I think Google is now using very subject and content specific algos, so there is not one algo in particular, not one magic formula - I think it almost has the ability to recognise the keywords you are trying to target and then apply penalties (not PR0) if you overplay the keyword, and this is probably going to be the only way forward for all engines not just Google.
Where do you get the most spammy sites? On the highest hitting keywords, IMO Google probably now uses technology similar to wordtracker, finds the highest hitting keywords and then goes harsh on the sites targeting those words that are verging on spammy. (Actually very clever)
[edited by: chowcat at 7:53 am (utc) on Sep. 28, 2002]
I've never seen such a heated and pain-filled response to an update. Understandable when you see income threatened. But, to be frank, just tough up and take your lumps. I would be surprised if most calls of 'foul' end up as anything more than 'my reading of what's needed worked just great for a while there - it doesn't now, and that's not fair'.
'Google have just attempted to improve their results, and they didn't notify me beforehand'? Wise up and start typing. Mat
a well designed, well respected and enriching site is ALL that ANYONE, Googlebot included, cares about
Googlebot doesn't know if a site is well designed and enriching.
Anyway, it's not true at all that there are not shortcuts.
[Look at the spammy sites of this update]
But, it's true that Google try to shortening their life ;)
cminblues
Part of a well designed site is its navigation. If a whizz-bang Javascript/DHTML/Flash interface is tricky for the user, chances are it'll be tricky for a Spider.
Ephemeral kinda means short-term. Short-cuts mean short-term. As in short-term visibility. As in, <>mallet to head</>, ALL that works LONG TERM is content, one site, no tricks. There's no need for tricks. A good site will float to the top. That other stuff tends to sink.
Finally, before I come out of speak-in-a-slow-voice pedant mode, an enriching site tends to be remembered, bookmarked, even linked to. Google(bot) knows this. What goes around comes around.
Mat
Also, I am sure Google can detect what it deems to be "tweaking" versus changing content. Changing content is a good thing (I think--as long as the theme is consistent) but "tweaking" such as a constantly changing title (to optimize keywords, etc) might be viewed as spammy. With more "minty freshness", it is probably tempting for many webmasters to "tweak" their titles, backlinks, etc. to see what the result might be. Perhaps there is something to be said for a certain amount of consistency (e.g., a title that hasn't changed in 6 months or so, consistent use of keywords in backlinks, and consistent content).
C
[edited by: crobb305 at 8:27 am (utc) on Sep. 28, 2002]
Sasquatch:
----------
I think that the real issue is not being spammy/notspammy, GoogleLaws-obedient/not.
I think the real issue is elsewhere.
Only my opinion he.
cminblues
I worked very hard to exchange links with over 50 quality sites themed to me, and requested anchor text which is not in any way deceptive or spammy (usually just my site name plus a word or two). I also do not use any SEO techniques in anyway, other than to build many seperate pages filled with unique content, have it load fast, easy to navigate, etc. But this is not SEO, it is WSO (web surfer optimisation). Consequently, my ranking has shot up through the roof. These sites linking to me have a small links page, (not 50 pages of thousands of recip. links), and they descriminate about who they put in and what the link text is. These are not powerhouse link pages, just PR3-6.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google is trying to distinguish between sites with PR6-9 and tons of links with little content and PR3-6 smaller-guy type sites with tons of content that link out of goodwill with modest linkage and consider their anchor text to be honest representations of the site being linked to. If I was Google, that's what I would do.
Google is the king of link analysis, if they think you're doing something unnatural in obtaining links, they have probably put you in some sort of a penalty.
I don't agree that Google is Horrible, they had some serious thinking to do with the whole SEO, SE manipulising and PR for Sale issue. And they have achieved a short term goal, at the expensive of their long term goal, otherwise known as good quality SERPs.
I have a serious love hate thing going on with them at the moment and I'm sorry, but I'm seeing Altavista 1996 SERPS now.
I can not find 1 decent, easy to navigate, cross browser compatible, well designed, good looking, content rich site, for any big hitting popular keywords?
I'm not talking as a disgruntled webmaster with sour grapes, but as an everyday surfer.
I encounterd A compettitor that actually copied my optimized html source that redirects to main index including all the keywords, and he put the optimized html below his page without the redirect to my page. (of course)
I wish i could put the url in here so we could have a good laugh.
Ever since I have been coming to WW I have read about sites being unfairly penalized by Google. I felt sorry for those guys and gals, but I thought at least it would not happen to me - I keep my nose squeaky clean. <snip>
[edited by: NFFC at 11:26 am (utc) on Sep. 28, 2002]
[edit reason] Rudeness is not welcome [/edit]
It has been my observation that when someone does something that innocently hurts other people for their own gain, they must find a way to somehow justify it in their mind so that they can sleep at night. Google's way of justifying it seem's to be to give out advice that webmasters should diversify their methods of obtaining visitors. This is sophistry at its worst. Would they actually give out this advice if it meant losing actual dollars? They can afford to say this (so they can sleep at night), all the while toying with their algo so even innocent people are hurt, either financially or otherwise.
