Google Update Bourbon Part 2

May 2005

[steveb]

Continued from: [webmasterworld.com...]

---

"We know how the webmasters feel about this update."

No, that is zero sum game. The most useless posts here are from people saying the serps on some datacenter suck or are good because their own stuff ranks bad or good on that datacenter. Not only does nobody else care, there is someone thinking the exact opposite due to how their stuff is ranking.

In any case (repeating mantra from past several updates), a lot folks should consider that screw ups are not deliberate policies. Google has been a technical mess for more than a year now, just over two years really. Allegra was just a blip of an update, but was a huge technical disaster. Google also has a horrible time figuring out canonical pages, particularly when webmasters deliberately do inconsistent things.

This update seems to me to be another minor bit of shuffling, with the added "bonus" of a lot of anomalies, most caused by lazy or uniformed webmastering (meaning if you have been reading webmasterworld and haven't had a 301 on for non-www and www since at least last summer, you only have yourself to blame).

I see almost no changes in my niches, except... a HUGE increase in straight redirect domains. This tactical trash gets discovered fairly quickly but apparently a new tactic has been discovered and needs to be squashed; authority sites performing same as recently; sites still in the sandbox dumped back to pre-Allegra levels, while sites that got out of the sandbox with Allegra doing a bit better.

[Dc71]

Oh how I hate the final waiting game as this seems to be the time now google waits for my competitors to complain lol. I however never complain as I believe that is like snitching when your in jail * mutch like the sandbox * but I guess a well established authority site has to do what it has to do to eliminate a competitor that uses doorway pages blatent keyword stuffing that is so obvious its on the actual page and bad grammer trying to nail other combinations of the keyword which I seem to have become a expert at without even trying.

[uksports]

Have never had to comment on one of these update threads before as we've never been affected, but I knew the day would come when we would be hit - well, the day is here - 6 year old site, completely whitehat, 7900 inbound links, authorative site for the products we sell - lost 20% of google referrals about a week ago and still on the way down, now about 50% down from normal - if this is progress, I'll be damned - at this rate, nobody will ever actually sell anything, as everyone will simply become an affiliate/scraper to everyone else until Google realise there actually has to be someone at the end of the chain selling products!

[johnhh]

Undead Hunter: agree totally we have spent years and $/£'s developing unique content ( which gets copied!) and a trusted brand. We could put up 400 sites using this material - but we don't - company policy.

Unless it all changes it is going to be pretty difficult not to change policy.

Oh - if you have too many sub-domains you will get removed totally.

[nuevojefe]

The one site of ours that got hit was actually one of our services sites (promoting us to clients) so it's kind of harsh but we pretty much haven't worked on it or paid attention to it in months... So, anyone seeing the possibility that staleness might have affected rankings?

[johnhh]

Uksports - we are the same - difficult to know what to say to the people who work for us as well

[oldpro]

They are obviously rebuilding their index from the ground-up...all sites are on even par and the race is on. Imagine the backlog of sites awaiting in the google sandbox. This may be the only way to give everybody a fair shake. Alot of people in here have been complaining about the sandbox and threads related to "beating the sandbox". I predict at the end of this the sandbox will be empty...and you will either be indexed or in the abyss forever.

[nuevojefe]

...and you will either be indexed or in the abyss forever.

the term "sandboxed" doesn't have anything to do with not being "indexed". I assume you meant ranking?

[canuck]

Seeing back-links updated on a few DCs such as:

64.233.171.104
64.233.171.147
64.233.185.104

These are fresh links... now 3 sets of back-links floating around.

<added>seeing these new links migrate across several DCs... 6 more in the last 5 minutes</added>

[Meltdown]

Sorry newbie here, not sure whether I should add to debate at all but... with these DC's you're looking at, for instance 64.233.171.104, what's the view on these, are these the possible outcomes that will be rolled out? I suppose that's the question everyone asks.

I wonder, because upon noticing one domain I bought two weeks ago and website going live shortly after, it's at number one for the keyword, did a test two days ago with two new domains, one went number one, the other fifth for the keyword.

So what do the results on the DC's actually represent? taking the above as an example.

Cheers
Meltdown

PS: Lost 40% traffic week on week with one site, so was wondering what might be the situation on the above DCs listed.

[edited by: Meltdown at 10:52 pm (utc) on May 23, 2005]

[fjpapaleo]

Google images have been updated also in case anyone hasen't noticed.

[enotalone]

I went very much through the same things others described already: huge drop on Friday night leaving me with 1/10 of my usual traffic, Saturday I got some back, today I have 40-50% of my usual G traffic back.

And yep, previously the site was also affected by Alergra.

I am for not doing any changes just because your site was hit, but pop ups always were something I wanted to kick out of the site, and because there was talk right after the update that pop ups might have something to do with it I took my pop ups out early Saturday morning, after which got some of my traffic back and the site keeps going up; slowly but up. Can not say for 100% that removing pop ups actually was why I moved up.

i see backlinks update on the DCs canuck mentioned.

My advice: don't give up, dont change anything yet!

[oldpro]

yeah nuevo...i mean't ranked

[nuevojefe]

Can not say for 100% that removing pop ups actually was why I moved up.

Possibly, one site that specifically says [pop-ups] next to our snippet moved up in this update, so unlikely any serious penalization from that alone.

[Jim Westergren]

This morning my new site on my new registered domain went from rank 57 to rank 7 in Google on my keyword (204.000).

The domain was registered less then 2 weeks ago!

Seem like there is no sandbox anymore and yes, I am happy.

[MikeNoLastName]

Weeeere baaaaack!
Don't know if anyone else has been affected, (review my previous posts about dropping 75 places).... Well we JUST popped back to where we previously were. Either G reversed the changes or removed the algo problem. At least for US.

[lorenzinho2]

whoa, just like that we're back as well. G has fixed a glitch? Or just a momentary roll back?

[Kangol]

On what DCs are you back?

[irock]

Hi enotalone,

I was wondering what pop-up ads you were running. I put Tribal Fusion pop-under codes in early 2004. And now, my SEO has a feeling that pop-unders have something to do with the rank drop.

[chopin2256]

So, anyone seeing the possibility that staleness might have affected rankings?

I update my site all the time, handmade unique content. I offer an online service to musicians that is quite unique. I have yet to see another website that offers the same service that I do. Yet, I still took a major a** beating.

Weeeere baaaaack!
Don't know if anyone else has been affected, (review my previous posts about dropping 75 places).... Well we JUST popped back to where we previously were. Either G reversed the changes or removed the algo problem. At least for US.

It seems that Google is switching from the old results to the new results still. However they switch it maybe for an hour a day maybe. I am back as of now too, but I don't expect it to stay.

[MikeNoLastName]

We seem to be back on:
64.233.171.147
64.233.171.104
But not on:
64.233.185.104

Is that a good thing?
Any others to try?

"but I don't expect it to stay"
Such a pessimist Chop :)

[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 11:37 pm (utc) on May 23, 2005]

[enotalone]

hi irock, yep i was using the same; tribal fusion code that has pop unders, but my case was worse! i also had in some pages fastclick pop under. i know not so professional...

so it was possible for users to get 2 pop ups i am ashamed to say visiting the site which always bothered me when i had this setting. now both fastclick and tribal fusion pop under code are out, i have just plain tribal fuion code without pop under enabled and adsense.

[Atomic]

I just had a massive backlink update...

[frontpage]

The folks at Google must be having a good laugh reading the desperate webmasters sweat it out with this update.

This just proves that you cannot accept any alleged guidelines for a Googlerific site. Website position location in the SERPS tend to follow the chaos theory.

Hopefully, Google is allowing new sites to be ranked and let the natural selection of better results for Joe-six-pack develop.

Perhaps, if Google can not get it's algo correct; Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may be proved accurate in his assessment that Google is a "one hit wonder that could disappear in five years."

Now, may be the time to reassess your website business's model reliance on AdSense as your primary form of income.

[lorenzinho2]

Same as MikeNoLastName for us.

Here are some other dc's that we are NOT back on:

216.239.53.104
66.102.7.104
66.102.7.105
66.102.7.147
66.102.7.99
216.239.53.99

[clearvision]

Mikenolastname - Where you off those DC's before? They look like the preupdate listings for me.

[irock]

Hi enotalone,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I also happen to have a separate pop-under code. Usually Tribal Fusion just gives you a 468x60/728x90 embedded with pop-under. Mine is like a complete separate code that labels <!--- PopUnder TB ----> and there's an iframe inside Javascript.

Another thing I suspect is that I may have too much iframes showing Shopping.com prices inside a category page. I also have robots.txt to block all spiders from grabbing the content inside the iframe. But I'm not spamming. The iframe just contains a few prices and merchant links. I don't know why I block spiders from accessing the iframe in the first place.

[enotalone]

irock, i never had that separate pop under code from tribal. but as someone else mentioned only that hardly could bring down a site. if i was you i would for sometime and if the traffic did not come back i would make sure my pop ups are at least not too agressive and would go and validate the whole site etc....

[BillyS]

Results are still in flux... Every night I search for movements in ranking on my site name. Since December I've ranked anywhere from 90 to 250.

The first time I searched tonight I was shocked because I did not show up at all for my own name. The second time I rank the query (just a minute later) I was back in position 240 :)

Google.com for me is 64.233.171.104...

[Beachboy]

I added a bit of text to a Yahoo logo and now it promotes Yahoo Search. :) Looks very nice, now to add it to a bunch of websites....

[irock]

enotalone,

Unlike other sites, my homepage can still be found on the #14. Interestingly, some of my reviews can still be found on the first page. So, I'm lost officially.

I don't know. I do have a feeling that anything excessive will lead to some form of penalty (small or big) imposed by Google.

Anyone agree?