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]

[Paully]

Thanks for the info GG

[kindred1]

well this was nice to wake up to today.
Ive been counting the minutes till my new site showed up in google!
on www2 and www3 im anywhere from 1st to 5th listing on the first page using various keywords.Thanks to you guys for explaining how to check page rank with the google tool bar on www2 and 3.
Im showing a page rank of 6 with the toolbar.
I just hope this carries on to the main www google page....
How long do you guys think the main google index will be updated? days weeks?

[thunderpaste]

I think 4-5 days till everything settles. But I can only guess... I thought the update would start 4 days ago:)

[Beachboy]

GoogleGuy:

So which button started the update? Was it the red one? Or the blue one?

[ikbenhet1]

it's ok for 3-4 searches, but after that i got a headacke for free, and opted out, don't know why never use that anyway,

[bobmark]

mahlon, If I can presume to answer for GoogleGuy, he has said in the past that mentioning webmasterworld is seen as a sign of credibility, at least indicating you have some knowledge of what is, and what is not, spamming.

[airforce1]

hello mahlon, thanks. :)

[mahlon]

Yes airforce1, glad to have you here, you will find a lot of great people and info here. See the welcoming post [webmasterworld.com...]
:)

[skirope]

GoogleGuy:

Our company had 3 different websites, with 3 different domains. We decided to consolidate all three domains into one domain. So we are now forwarding the old domains to the new domain.

When I search for "link: ournewsite.com" on www2/3 I see that even sites that had links to our old domains are considered a link to the new domain. I am hoping this will help out the PR on our new domain.

Is this a feature of the new algo or has this always been?

If this isn't clear I can try to reword it...

Thanks! Ski

[edited by: skirope at 7:35 pm (utc) on Oct. 31, 2002]

[mortalfrog]

Looks pretty good... went from 14 pages of content to 340 solid pages in the index. I hope that covering many search phrases instead of just a couple will pay off like it's supposed to :D

[thunderpaste]

I am happy with the update so far. Improved on 2-3 word phrases and went from 12 to 11 on my main 1 word phrase. Still hoping that PR hasn't been fully calculated in because I have new links that might help.

[webman]

Another very disappointing month for me! Last month, my entire domain, that I have been working on for 8 months straight, dropped from Google. It went from getting crawled every day to a grey PR. Then when Yahoo changed to Google SERPs, all of my yahoo traffic disappeared because of the grey PR. I was REALLY hoping that this update would add my domain back in (especially since it is the last update of the Holiday season), but NO LUCK! The site is completely absent from Google.

The site is very clean so I couldn't imagine there being a penalty, it's almost as if they are ignoring it. It has links to it from Yahoo, Zeal (6), and at least 10 other PR 6 sites and 50 or 60 other sites. Now I'm finding it hard to get additional links because nobody wants to trade with a grey PR site.

Besides that domain, I've had very little luck with my other domains. They dropped from first page results to almost unfindable (not on the first 10 pages) during the last update and haven't changed so far this update.

I've gone from a Google fan to being VERY DISAPPOINTED with Google.

[thunderpaste]

Just checked out the FAST SERPs and they look the same as they did three months ago.

[bcc1234]

Thanks to you guys for explaining how to check page rank with the google tool bar on www2 and 3.

How?

[PFOnline]

Sorry if its been asked, but is there a way to check our new Google PageRank with www2 and www3 with this update?

Anything else to check out besides seeing new backlinks and page positioning?

Thanks
PFOnline

[Total Paranoia]

Webman.. you say you have a grey PR bar.. not white? Doesn't a penalised site get the white bar of death? What does it say in the alt when you hover over the PR bar?

[Yidaki]

Doesn't a penalised site get the white bar of death? What does it say in the alt when you hover over the PR bar?

scary, it says "total paranoia", LOL!

[webman]

Yeah, it's grey. I don't think there's a penalty, it just got "unindexed".

[subway]

Did anyone ever answer the question of "where have the dmoz and yahoo backward links gone?". Mine have dissapeared as well.

[Belgian_guy]

I see lots of posts stating "i'm doing fine","gone up from #12 to #9" ...
but i start wondering if anyone ever answers any questions at all.
I hope this is really a forum for GG specialists.

[Istvan]

Hi PFOnline,

you may want to check out this thread: [webmasterworld.com...] , here you can see your new PR.

Istvan

[PFOnline]

Thanks, Istvan. :)

[Beachboy]

<<I see lots of posts stating "i'm doing fine","gone up from #12 to #9" ...
but i start wondering if anyone ever answers any questions at all.
I hope this is really a forum for GG specialists.>>

Oh yes there are many highly qualified Google "specialists" hereabouts. This is the greatest single concentration of knowledgeable SEOs I've ever found. There is a Google knowledge base around here someplace, which is where you ought to go to get a grasp of the fundamentals, if you lack that sort of info. Then after that, feel free to ask any questions in the forum. You will get answers.

[GoogleGuy]

"My point, if I have one, is save yourself some mental wear and tear and don't get suicidal over early results."

Couldn't agree more, bobmark. Belgian_guy and Shoestring, I'm not saying that anything will move a lot one way or the other, just that index switchover time always causes a lot of changes, and not to get too stressed in the meantime. I don't know if you'll get in this time or the next time, Shoestring.
studmuffin and airforce1, y'all have only posted 2-3 times, but I'm sorry to hear if you don't think Google's quality is better. Hanging around here you can pick up lots of good tips; definitely feel free to report any problems that you see, too. xbase234, if a keyword stuffing spammer got in, feel free to do a spam report and mention webmasterworld. airforce1, if we returned a 500 Internal Server error for a search, that's what we saw when we crawled the page, but our link analysis told us that site was important for the search.

skirope, yup, that's the way that domain migration is supposed to work. Glad it worked for you.

Finally, Beachboy: the update button was the red one. Ever seen The Matrix? :)

[Belgian_guy]

Thanks beachboy!

I was searching around all info i could find but couldn't find a real answer.

So, i'll try again ...

when most pages from a site are dropped in WWW2 -only 2 of about 60 remain in the index - at this stage of the dance, can they still show up in the next few hours/days?

Any info to allow me a good nights rest (or a nightmare) would be highly appreciated

[radiosky]

Google Guy,

How fast can they remove a spammer? I got a bead on one that has over 610 keyword stuff doorway pages with zero content routing traffic to his main site. His product could land him in jail for fraud. (chilli powder regrows hair!) He has about a dozen more domains using similar tactics.

I've been reporting him for months but will mention webmasterworld this time.

[jen24815]

Any opinions on this:

I updated - basically redesigned - my whole site mid-October. Those pages were spidered shortly after. I thought I had a decent chance with Google with the new pages - they're very user-helpful, but (hopefully) were also designed to help me out search-wise.

Results this update aren't good :( but I'm wondering...would those pages added mid-October even be showing and ranking now, OR will I have to wait until November's update to really see results.

Thanks!

p.s. I see a lot of posts saying wait until it's over, but in the past I haven't seen any real difference in my terms from the start of the dance until it settles; usually what shows initially is almost verbatim the final result.

[GoogleGuy]

radiosky, it can happen in hours if the spam is really annoying, but we try not to do manual spamfighting if we can help it. If you do report it, definitely mention webmasterworld so we know where the complaint comes from though.

[radiosky]

Thanks GG. Just sent it in. He's shameless.

[lowbwtom]

Finally... Top rankings across all major keywords!
Thank you, Google!