Update Allegra - Google Update 2-2-2005

[illusionist]

My site which came back on december 26 update, seems to have disappeared again on this data center [216.239.53.99...] . Its notwhere to be found even in allinanchor, allintitle etc? I see majot change on that data center, is this a new update?

[Freedom]

I am probably going to get yelled at for this but Allegra was the best thing that happened to one of my websites which is now back from the dead after going MIA during the Florida massacre.

[Iguana]

When I look at the results I see very bad results - irrelevant in fact on 3 word searches. Coupled with the practical loss of many sites (maybe minor sites, just PR5) this is worrying.

My searching interest (and my website interest) is narrow (music) but I really think current results are rubbish. If I search for anything beyond 'bandname' or 'bandname lyrics' then I just get the same ecommerce/big affiliate sites (epinions/ rateyourmusic/ kelkoo/ metacritic/ launch) with individual album pages or band pages. Compared to Yahoo/Teoma this is very poor.

I remember a friend telling me about 3 years ago that he thought the 'amateur' had about 2 years to prosper before the big boys took it all over - it looks like he was right as far as Google was concerned but just 1 year out.

[LostOne]

"I wonder how many webmasters see the other side of the coin on this, i.e. the results look good."

Count me in. Absolutely stellar changes. Been working on links the past five months, while doing no changes to the site with regards to other SEO. Okay some text has changed or been updated on several pages, but when it comes to all the hoopla about KW density and other stuff I've ignored it.

Site was hit hard in early August recovered late August--then late September fell but recovered over two months. Hammered again in mid December but not as bad as August. Yesterday everything changed--up across the board and never have seen these kind of positions in the 2 1/2 years the site has been on the web.

I'm not writing home about this one--probably never will with how strangely Google works. Who knows what they will bring tomorrow, next week, or two months from now.

Crossin' my fingers

[jdh226]

How do I know if I'm in the "sandbox" or if I simply got dessimated in the SERPs? I've been top 10 for all of my primary key phrases for about a year, and now I'm not in the top 200 (or more). I am, however, the first site lsited when you type in my business' name.

Is this being in the sandbox?

[kahuna]

WARNING! THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE!

Cut and paste that to your clients.
I did that 500 messages ago and life is so simple.

I do have a theory about all this...
and it's called MSN "We're more precise."
So G is gonna look like the MSN so people say..
"Well, I just looked at MSN.. and it's like.. G.."

That is, spammmmy, by link and backlink. So then
all the SEO's will keep up with the spammies... and MSN will become useless, and G will shine again when it switches it's algorithym back, about the same time the MSN "We're no longer percise" advertising campaign is over.

gotta go... Coast to Coast and Art Bell are coming on...

OHHHHH and hey all you geek and "Don't Panic" fans...
if you are still reading this...

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy comes out in May.. this not the BBC version.

[I_Brian]

The datacenters don't look settled at all - from here all I see are inconsistencies and possibly an incomplete use of an index. I'd say it's too premature to start cheering or jeering either way. But once those numbers line up...

[Rollo]

Did anyone else come out of the sandbox for a few days, then go right back in again? Happened to me.

[Liane]

I have yet to see a negative to this update.

I haven't either, in fact quite the opposite ... but I am biting my nails as there are just too many negative reports to ignore what some of us may not be seeing.

The data centers are not entirely lined up yet so I would say its still too early to say anything at all. However, most appear to be stabilizing.

All I can say is thank goodness for MSN at this point. My site is doing great there ... despite all their glitches. Even Yahoo is delivering some traffic for a change.

To those whose sites seem to have disappeared, I wouldn't lose hope just yet. Its entirely possible for pages to drop out of a specific data center only to be picked up again. Wait a few more days and see.

Good luck everyone and hang in there.

[RichTC]

You never know perhaps google are going to provide results that have rich content in relation to the key words requested?

Oh sorry, just dreaming for the moment! more likely, it will be more of the same to try and boost adwords revenue further.

Until they wake up to the fact that Anchor text links should not be the primary factor anymore, Google will just continue to lose market share to the other search engines that are content driven.

With so many sites on the net, so many networks, so many directory sites, so many listing services the old method of links is no longer viable.

One or two here mention spam in other search engines but frankly, i would rather see the Google SERPS with sites that are rich in content mixed with a few spam sites rather than a mix match of dam directory sites and non relevent contents sites listing high as it is currently.

The Google SERPS have never looked so bad, in the majority of search requests ive done the results come back with next to ZERO content relevent to the search terms.

They used to be great at one time for content sites - its such a waste of what was once a great search engine

[Whoa]

Googleguy, when I search for our domain - let's say it's x.com and I search for x where x is a very unique name, many sites come up in the SERPS before x.com. It's #15 and other sites are ahead of it.

This is a very good site for consumers, great original content, did great in Google until recently, now seems to be down 50 places in the rankings on things it used to do well on.

Why would this be? Is there any human intervention available where you or somebody at Google could look into the site and see what happened?

I know you track billions of sites but I think this one could be a good one to look into to see if you think the new changes you are making are actually working. From my perspective, they are not.

Thanks.