October 2002 Google Update

Official

[liamgt]

Definately getting different results on backward links for yahoo. www showing 657k and www2 and www3 showing 654k. Results for CNN are also different. Looks like the real deal.

Liam

[edited by: liamgt at 10:06 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2002]

[dauction]

You're learning djgreg,

They all cheat..you have to learn to cheat better ..
by that I mean be able to hide the methods that you use to cheat..

I wont play the stupid games any more...I just build my sites without the worry any more..
I think thats the best advise I can give you..just ignore Google ..

Build your sites the way you want to.. you want javascrpts ,you think Flash is cool ...go for it..and by all means use your guestbook..the very idea that you would use a guestbook because Google is flawed is incomprehensible to me..

Traffic is easy .. lots of other searchengines, set up your guestboook as an opt in email database ..

What you see going on here is NOT seo..it is GEO..

which might even be OK..except you never know what is and isn't acceptable until AFTER the fact...

[robby13]

no reason for yahoo, dmoz and other directory and strong links to vanish...

What about google trying to flush out the arbitrary/monopolistic nature of dmoz? Other directories? It seems to be a “who you know” directory that google tended to give high weight value to.
Maybe that’s changing…

Just a thought.

[kfander]

I wish Google would ignore guestbook entries altogether. On what is essentially my personal homepage, although I host a number of other topics there, I've removed my guestbook because of the increasing number of spam entries from people who have obviously never even scanned the site but who wanted to capitalize on its PR7 ranking with Google.

I wasn't so much worried about my Google ranking as with the mess that these entries were making out of my guestbook.

[vitaplease]

kfander,

If Google would show and value the individual guestbook pages with a PR2 [webmasterworld.com] you would be able to host a clean guestbook which could serve its normal purpose.

[djgreg]

thanks dauction
good advice. But Google dominates the web and it is annoying not to be in Google.

[thunderpaste]

Could someone point me to the thread where Googleguy says he is taking on personal requests? I didn't even realize he was here in an official capacity from Google.

Everyone seems to be asking GG questions. What ever happened to asking questions on the forum and gathering feedback from all the members. Many are very experienced and in a few cases have even questioned GoogleGuy's correctness on certain issues.

I am not trying to burn anybodys butt but it seems like Googleguys posts used to be welcome additions to the forum and now half of the forum is question/requests for individual reviews of sites by GoogleGuy.

Googleguy, if I am wrong please sticky me for a list of SERPs I would like a permanent number 1 on, if you get a moment:)

[NFFC]

What thunderpaste said.

[djgreg]

Maybe you would think i another way about that if you had a penalized site and asking GoogleGuy maybe the only chance for you to hope the penalty to be ended.

[ciml]

What NFFC said.

kfander:
> I wish Google would ignore guestbook entries altogether

For about a month in the Spring of this year, Google did ignore links from guestbooks (the guestbook would get PR, but couldn't pass it on). This was one of the two cases I've seen of the ODP (and even the Google Directory!) getting penalised. It didn't seem to make any real difference (most guestbooks have minimal PR anyway).

rfgdxm1:
> I'll guess being a moderator here doesn't prevent Google from mysteriously dropping your site

Prevent? Ha! :)

Maybe I should should start a hidden text, cloaked, heavily cross-linked, expired domain network and see how long it takes to get caught.

Brett might give away a mousemat to the closest guess. I'd bet on the next day.

[quotations]

Dante_Maure:

Most of the links I know about to the first site are PR4 and above. On the second site, most are .edu links so they get a major PR bump just because of that. That site will cease to exist on November 30th anyway (after more than 8 years) so I guess it no longer matters for them.

[nutsandbolts]

Everyone seems to be asking GG questions

What djgreg said ;)

I wonder why? Could it be that he resolves many problems for people? I agree that it's important not to forget that many people here know heaps of information but sometimes it's vital to get an absolute answer on certain issues such as Guestbook links, Keyword Domains, Re-Writing "Safe" URL's etc etc...Just search!

Edit: But I didn't mean do individual site requests (hehe...sorry...I have still got this nasty Conference flu and my head is sore...)

[edited by: nutsandbolts at 4:44 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2002]

[djgreg]

nutsandbolts:
You wrote in your profile that your site has had a PR0 penalty. How long did it last until your site had the normal PR back? Did you do something for it?

[nutsandbolts]

Penalty in Jan (from cross-linking...) till the April update. Then moved to Pagerank 2 then 5 (although it has the classic Pagerank 0 on the internal pages) I actually think it's in a strange position at the moment. It's recovered and is in the Serps but it doesn't have the "Similar Pages" link next to it nor does it have the Dmoz category listed in the new index (As Dmoz was down when Googlebot crawled no doubt..)

[GoogleGuy]

What all those other people said. :) I want to be helpful, so I end up answering whatever questions people ask, but it's more useful to the average webmaster if I answer general questions instead of ones about specific sites.

[Powdork]

Its funny i just posted about a search I wasn't happy with. I'm currently only responsible for five sites but I really did like the update. In fact, the fact that i just had the one complaint about one keyword search for one site should say something. I think that may be why there are so many complaints here. Webmasters with lots of sites will do well in most cases and lose big for one client (so theres some splainin' to do) and they want answers (or just info). Simply put, if you've got enough baskets of eggs, as we all should hope to, then some are bound to break and it is our duty to find out why if we don't know. YOU MUST LEARN!

[kfander]

I have a few sites. One lost one point in PR (from PR6 to PR5), and the others remained the same. I haven't done much lately with the one that lost PR, so I have no complaints about that. Another site climbed a few important places in search results, while the others remained essentially the same. I'm not thrilled, but I am satisified.

I'm not so sure that it's done with us, though. My personal site is still jumping back and forth between PR6 and PR7. Hopefully, it'll settle at PR7, where it was before.

[john316]

Best advice I've heard about PR0:

Spend 8.95 on a new domain.

Move penalized content to new server.

Re-arrange the structure a bit.

See how your old site ranks at FAST.

Ban googlebot from the old site.

Google is a moving target, it's best for you to keep moving as well.

[excell]

I thought everyone here was a volunteer member? :)

[europeforvisitors]

Everyone seems to be asking GG questions. What ever happened to asking questions on the forum and gathering feedback from all the members.

One reason may be that we aren't allowed to discuss real-life cases in this forum. The Webmaster who doesn't know why he's been hit with a PR0 penalty (or what he can do about it) may not find it helpful to talk in generalitities about "red widgets," "blue widgets," etc. If GoogleGuy is willing to look at a site and say, "Those 1,000 keywords in white-on-white text are hurting you," what's wrong with that?

It would help if more members would include URLs in their profiles, but there are several reasons why that isn't always practical, such as: (1) The Webmaster has more than one site; (2) The site with the problem is a client's site, not the Webmasters; and (3) The Webmaster is paranoid about exposing his sins, fears, and weaknesses to competitors.

[Beachboy]

Very smart, John316. :)

[rogerd]

>>Spend 8.95 on a new domain.<<

This may be practical for some domains, but for a "real" company domain, with the company name as the domain name, with hundreds or thousands of links, with printed literature, etc., that's just not practical. Hence the suggestion for a dispute resolution mechanism, paid review, etc.

[john316]

PR0 is just that....zero

Build new .... it has to be better than that.

>>with hundreds or thousands of links, with printed literature, etc., that's just not practical.<<

Probably more practical to include "find us in FAST!" in your company literature, or you can just buy adwords.

[Gregory]

JOHN316, I have a problem accepting this advice of yours.

I've spent years developing my site. It cost me money to be registered in Yahoo and other directories.

Now, you suggest that I throw my work to the garbage and start from the ground 0 again?!?

:(

It my humble opinion GOOGLE ENCOURAGES spam by not allowing
webmasters to recoup their PR. This forces them to follow
john316's advice which is - forget about putting all your efforts into 1 or 2 quality sites. Just create lots of small spammy sites and hope that one of them SURVIVES.

That is WRONG, and GOOGLE INDIRECTLY encourages such behavior. If we are to build a better web GOOGLE and small webmasters MUST find a way to co-operate with each other.

Playing a CAT AND MOUSE games is not GOOD for the web.

GOOGLE should find a way to ENCOURAGE webmasters to concentrate their efforts on small number of QUALITY sites.

When GOOGLE penalizes our sites and offers NO WAY to regain our PR we have NO CHOICE but to follow john316's advice.

john316 wrote:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Best advice I've heard about PR0:
Spend 8.95 on a new domain.

Move penalized content to new server.

Re-arrange the structure a bit.

See how your old site ranks at FAST.

Ban googlebot from the old site.

Google is a moving target, it's best for you to keep moving as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[edited by: Gregory at 5:32 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2002]

[excell]

john316 aren't many website just getting dropped, greyed out or pr0 because they have a server misconfiguration or other problem at their end? Shouldn't that be checked before everyone races out to get yet more domains?

Granted many sites seem to be penalised for obvious reasons and the best solution my well be to start afresh. What % of problems do you see to be server/client(as in the website) related and google related (as in spam filters penalising the innocent etc.?)

[qball0213]

Some mentioned earlier that the pages with page rank less than four don't show up, on my site my internal links aren't showing up now, and they are all atleast page rank 4, most are page rank 5, so that's not it in my case, and now that I think about it, I am missing some external links as well, a few hundred as a matter of fact, although that could be a less than 4 page rank thing. Isn't it too early to tell if your page rank has gone down?

[john316]

>>Now, you suggest that I throw my work to the garbage and start from the ground 0 again?!?<<

You are at zero.....google put you in the garbage, move on.

[excell]

With all respect (and not knowing the specifics) how do you KNOW that it is google to blame for this and not something that is under the control of the site owner? Such as correct website format, correct server config and correct web relationships.

[john316]

>>Such as correct website format, correct server config and correct web relationships.<<

Since we really only guess at what is "correct", I think it best to move on. BTW...what makes you think google is "correct"?

[Gregory]

jOHN, Wrote:

<<Since we really only guess at what is "correct", I think it best to move on. >>

This is exactly my point. If we do not KNOW "what's WRONG"
and have NO WAY of recovering our PRs, we have little choice but create LOT'S OF SMALL SPAMMY sites, instead of concentrating all of our efforts on a couple of quality sites. WHY put all of our eggs in ONE basket. GOOGLE may STEP ON IT!

Is it the way to encourage webmasters to build QUALITY sites?

[excell]

google is often wrong and in my experience it also often has to do with something at the client(webmaster) end actually. you are obviously coming from a different experience, but I have yet to see a PR0 that cannot be traced to a problem that cannot be fixed, either easily OR by putting it in the "too hard basket" like you say and trashing it and starting afresh :)