Google Update Bourbon Part 2

May 2005

[steveb]

Continued from: [webmasterworld.com...]

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"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.

[johnhh]

Dayo_UK: we were always way down on some particular subject pages, on google.co.uk anyway - so way down I never bothered to optimise!

Checked a few more on 72.14.207.104 that I wouldn't expect to be in top 10 positions. We are in top 10 even though the pages are not optimised for the keywords I entered. Odd.

I think this is a major Google shuffle and will not finish until all has been recached and positions recalculated.

[Dayo_UK]

So nothing like pre-update to you?

Hmmm.

That DC does seem to be leading the way to some extent(most recent fresh dates have just appeared there)

[reseller]

Not sure, but I recall steveb (maybe) mentioning something in the direction that just before the end of updates, Google use to implement some filters. I.e what we see now doesn´t need to be the same as after the update is completed.

[johnhh]

Dayo_UK
If thats true we would end up in a better position - but with sales 90% down I'd need it too make up what we lost.

I are still doing the "page position" exercise for each of our content pages so we can compare later. OK I confess - not me got someone else to do it.

I am not going to rush out and do major site changes yet.

[testy]

great catch steveb

you gave me a heartfull laugh

:- )

[blaze]

Pages with links to my site continue to crushingly outrank me. Should I create a new site with a link to myself as a doorway page?

Don't laugh. That's what a lot of people do around here for very good reasons.

[sailorjwd]

I'm not laughing :(

When I search for a specific programming phrase and include my domain name in the search an Amazon page ranks first with my domain name buried in it somewhere.

[testy]

guys, take it in the lighter sense.

However its pointed towards google.....

Also the updates have propagated to 3DC's.
It will take atleast a week for things to settle.

[helleborine]

testy, when you say "pointed towards Google" are you referring to the distinct possibility that some of the Google "engineers" are crying and grinding their teeth more than we are, as the HR department is feverishly typing up pink slips?

[testy]

helle, I think google has optimized their pages, followed the y guidelines well enough to rank better in yahoo.

may be if we follow g guidelines we can be placed better in y.

when ever I think of a serch my fingers will type google. but now a days yahoo too has taken its position. For sure yahoo and some others should also be playing the game.

[ltedesco]

Hi everyone!
I see different results on this DCs

64.233.161.147
216.239.37.99
216.239.39.99
216.239.39.104
216.239.37.104
216.239.37.105
216.239.37.147

Does anybody else see that too?

[nsqlg]

ltedesco, for me 216.239.37.104 and 216.239.37.99 looks the old set...

[taps]

yep. Still moving. Those serps look to me like pre-bourbon.

[irock]

Hi max_mm,

I checked "mydomain.com" (that's with double quotes right?). I can only find a couple of scrapper sites, although I can only locate my homepage on #11, #2, depending on the indices.

I also checked my site by typing "link:www.mydomain.com" (without the double quotes). I found 1700 links that come from just legit sites... I don't know if the scapper sites are after 1000th place.

Frankly, I am lost. Too many conflicting opinions on this board.

[Dayo_UK]

What we need is a GG who says things like - if you are looking at DC XY:XYZ:XY:XYZ - you should walk away from your PC and go for a long walk. (like in the good old days.)

[beer234]

You may be right, now that I get almost no traffic from Google I can see more clearly which urls are referring traffic. Yahoo feeds galore. I guess i'd like to thank big G for cleaning up my logs for me so that I can run reports faster.

[max_mm]

I also checked my site by typing "link:www.mydomain.com" (without the double quotes). I found 1700 links that come from just legit sites... I don't know if the scapper sites are after 1000th place.

Legit or not legit sites is not the issue. The main issue is that probably 60-70% out of those 1700 site liking to you use the yahoo feeds and point to you.

Another issue is the speed your site has gained those links. It triggers the google filter if the links appeared too fast. (only one month ago you had 300 incoming links and this month 1400 suddenly more.

Let me guess,
1. You lost all you G traffic but enjoy a good position on yahoo.
2. You never requested 90% of those incoming links.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying scrappers are doing this intentionally. What i am saying is that G has a very serious problem on their hands re incoming link counting, weighting and evaluating (due to these issues). They simply penalise half of the web for absolutely no reason. And we have no control over this other then to start creating our own scrappers to try and recover the traffic.

P.S.
Try the same search without double quotes.
And if your domain name is very distinctive, Try searching without the ".com" you'll discover many more sites linking to you. Trust me.

p.p.s
I think that the first sign of google losing the game of link weighting was when they asked webmasters to include the rel=nofolow in href tags. I immediately knew it then that they are having some serious issues with link valuating. Why would they require this tag otherwise. Ho well, i just hope they'll get on top of this and bloody soon. They should go back to valuating links exactly as they did 2 years ago if they want to stay in this business.

[Shmak]

Yahoo, has "Search Submit" paid program. Those sites getting crawled every day and your site getting listed in "natural results" and not in "sponsored". It makes me feel that since Yahoo in business for money, they lifting sites from SearchSubmit to top in order to make money, at the same time they do not disclose to consumer(or to anyone) about this "paid advertising". At the same time they moving "free" listings down once they have collected enough "advertisers" in relevant search... This is what is going on with Yahoo now. My site listed in 2 Yahoo directories, but not even sigle page cashed, despite it crawled very well every week(about 2500 pages). It shows up for day or two, with excellent ranks, then dissapears for weeks. I think because it is very competitive "money" category, they just pushing us to roll in to Search Submit....

[RichTC]

Anyone any idea what so ever why google displays the number of back links lower than you have?

I notice a change again in the backlinks reported. Some sites show more, some sites show less. So the backlinks showing must have some relevance otherwise why bother changing them?.

Anyone with a clue here?

During this update i have seen some big adjustments in some of these numbers.

[jaffstar]

Seeing very little SERP/Link change in 72.14.207.104.

64.233.163.104 is the magical number for me.

[uksports]

Big jumps being observed on google.com at the moment - most noticeable in my sector for as long as I can remember, with some very well established sites jumping about all over the place and newer sites/pages jumping in and out almost in front of your eyes - think this update needs to be upgraded to a renewal

[Kangol]

What is your Google DC?

[irock]

Hi max_mm,

Legit or not legit sites is not the issue. The main issue is that probably 60-70% out of those 1700 site liking to you use the yahoo feeds and point to you.

No, none of them use Yahoo feeds. (well, at least I don't see it.) They are just a bunch of pretty well known electronics and PC hardware sites linking to all different pages. I asked them if my site is worthy for their link, and they just put them up. They choose which page to link. But of course, they pick homepage mostly.

Another issue is the speed your site has gained those links. It triggers the google filter if the links appeared too fast. (only one month ago you had 300 incoming links and this month 1400 suddenly more.

My backlinks increased from 1320 (Feb) to 1540 (April) to 1700 (May)... not sure if this is a huge increase.

1. You lost all you G traffic but enjoy a good position on yahoo.

I have about 10-15% remaining G traffic (about 1000 uniques). Yahoo ranking isn't that good either (700).

2. You never requested 90% of those incoming links.

I did ask for those links. But I have assorted links from news & forums. I mean, if you put good content, people will link naturally. So, I guess 50% are organic and rest are requested.

Try the same search without double quotes.
And if your domain name is very distinctive, Try searching without the ".com" you'll discover many more sites linking to you. Trust me.

I did the same thing for the last couple of months. Usually I see two of my listings on top. Since Allegra, I only see one. Weird. Anyway, I now see many more links to my site, but majority of them are Anandtech, Gizmodo, a bunch of company website press sections and of course, some scrapper sites. While I do see scrapper sites, it took me quite some time to locate a few of them.

I can only retreieve up to 900 results by typing in mydomain so I don't know what the rest are.

[edited by: irock at 3:40 pm (utc) on May 24, 2005]

[johnhh]

UKsports: we are getting different results from two office machines looking at www.google.com. For us anyway.

[bether2]

Anyone any idea what so ever why google displays the number of back links lower than you have?

Google displays a "sample" of your backlinks. Not sure what criteria they use to choose the sample, but they state clearly (somewhere) that it's not the full set.

[karmov]

We took a major move forward in a very competitive sector (still nowhere near the top yet), but have been shifting a bit since this all started. I don't think the dust has settled yet. As others have mentioned, Wednesday-Thursday may give a better baseline.

[helleborine]

Bobbing about in the SERP sewers isn't exactly getting me excited about "going up."

Besides us here realizing that searching Google for "Dorothy's hotrod knitting bananas" will give you 30K sites that aren't about Dorothy, hotrods, knitting or bananas, is there some grumbling in blogs or other forums that Google has lost its coompass (double-o intentional)?

[clearvision]

My google is always going to the same data center. 64.233.187.104 Central CA(lousy results) but I have excellent results in:

216.239.37.99
216.239.39.99
216.239.39.104
216.239.37.104

1. Is there a way to determine which DC's are using the "newest" information. I know there are some that have been tracking for a while and wondered if there are any consistencies for example:

216.239.37.99 gets updated to 64.233.187.104.

I had a thought, what if this new theme park experience is the wave of the future, they don't want anyone to really know what is what...it could all be part of the plan...everyone plays the "feeling lucky" function with each search :)

[Vork]

Could anyone outline what possibly causes site penalties or serious drops in rankings in this update?

any novelties / bourbon specific penalties?

2 of my sites are out of sight in this update whereas everything seems perfectly white hat...

[helleborine]

I'd like to replace the "I'm feeling lucky" with "I'm feeling down and out." Either way, you will be disappointed.