Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
[webmasterworld.com...]
My website has plenty of outbound links, but they are on relevant pages. The problem my site has always had, was a lack of "inbound links." I got tired of searching for people to link to me (with all the spammy sites around) and gave up. So my pages have acquired some links naturally I guess(and I'll bet I still don't have more than 30 inbound links for the whole site) Still have a PR4, which I've had since it disappeared in Nov.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 8:54 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]
The notable exceptions are those suppliers that participate in adwords.
If they are going to go with the no free lunch algo, google won't last long. No offense to adsense publishers, but personally I would rather use a SE that gives me the source (authority) sites without having to click thru 4 or 5 pages of serps or clicking thru a referrer.
I am not an engineer or code geek, but am a MBA from the top business school in the nation. From a business standpoint a search engine is more a "loss leader" for a company that has other revenue streams such as MSN. Manipulating information (search results) for capitalization is self defeating. Google has now found itself between a rock and a hard place. The rock being MSN and the hard place Yahoo.
True...in theory, commercial sites should pay something for serp position, but in reality most companies like mine have brand recognition (customers go directly to the website instead of search) and off the web distribution and marketing. If google thinks it can force companies to pay for position...they are overestimating the value of their product. A number one position on google might increase my overall sales and traffic to my website by a fraction of 1%. That hardly seems worth the effort to participate in their adwords program.
I am sure most "real" companies feel the same way. Evidenced by the fact that I rarely see companies with strong brand identification advertising with adwords. Sure...you see Amazon, Ebay and the such, but still they are resellers or glorified traffic cops.
Google has a very thin market...too thin to justify their current market capitalization (stock price).
No it would be called corporate suicide. Could we keep this to rants about the update and not this Ruin a Business 101 stuff please.
No offense to adsense publishers, but personally I would rather use a SE that gives me the source (authority) sites without having to click thru 4 or 5 pages of serps or clicking thru a referrer.
What makes you think all adsense publishers are like that? Many of us are content sites that were established long before adsense came along. Mine is one of the top informational sites on my topic. It's a lot of work to maintain and the adsense revenue is welcome.
What I'd really like to see now is a serious thread looking at the changes this update has brought about and how to deal with it.
[edited by: annej at 1:59 am (utc) on May 31, 2005]
As a person that uses google for search more than depending on it for income...they need to make up their mind and settle on something. As for maximizing revenue...they reached their point of diminishing returns along time ago. They need to get back to what made them #1 and stick with it.
We cannot even make the slightest analysis of the specifics of what google may be penalizing or rewarding as far as SEO because as each day passes there are wild swings in the results. However, IMHO the answer to what bourbon is all about lies in getting into google's mind as to their motive beyond relevant serps.
I do believe I am on topic if bourbon is less an IT issue than it is a business decision.
enough said...no more business 101
I did not qualify my statement...sorry. Did not mean to make a blank generalization. There are many information rich websites with adsense...as there are many that are mere pseudo directories with adsense.
I should have given more detail to that statement...please accept my sincere apology. But, I am sure that you would agree with me that because of PR and other off site factors many websites are sometimes at the top of the serps that are redundant. For instance, if I am searching with google for information on a medical condition (which I did today)...8 of the top 10 results where merely directory type sites with adsense ads for medications for the condition. None of these 8 had hardly any information regarding the medical condition.
On the other hand. If those 8 were websites with detailed information about the medical condition and just happened to have adsense ads available directing me to treatment options...that is the way it should be.
I am sure most adsense publishers that provide the searcher with in-depth, well researched information would rather these other aforementioned types of adsense publishers would just go away too.
checked all the datacenters with several different url's with as many keywords today...everything is all over the board...lots of disparity between the datacenters since PR is back in the equation. The same URL's and kw's were stable for a few days prior.
This inconsistancy has been the constant with bourbon. I see alot of post where people who have been hurt venting or trying to get advice on what they can do to get back in the game.
My posts have been to try to calm them down...don't start messing with on or off page factors, because what might help today will hurt tommorrow.
Are you saying that we are only to report what we see and not try to analyize what we are seeing? Where does that get us? It just seems to me that bourbon has little to do with SEO issues thus far. I have been following the posts of several people who have taken a hit with this update...so far nobody has come up with answers as to....why?
It is the members here who have been playing by the rules and have still been penalized for some reason. They hold the answers to SEO issues relating to bourbon, but we have yet to make any solid assumptions as to what might have been the cause of their demise. Isn't that the purpose of this thread? To identify the changes google is making with bourbon so we adjust and benefit?
However, we live in the real world, so here's a question:
Assuming your site tanked (and stays down), will YOU: _______?
(A) Increase your Adwords spending to make up the difference in lost traffic/sales?
(B) Leave your Adwords spending exactly where it is and simply 'take it on the chin'?
(C) Decrease your Adwords spending or cancel your account completely to 'show them who the boss is'?
checked all the datacenters with several different url's with as many keywords today...everything is all over the board...
It is the members here who have been playing by the rules and have still been penalized for some reason.No one has been penalized until the update is completed. It takes Google a good deal longer to complete an update then it did pre-Florida. Seasoned folks take these fluctuations in stride and wait for the update to complete before any serious update analysis, site changes, or lamenting.
As steveb said, it's sometimes informative to watch the process. But the DCs rarely give an accurate indication of what the final SERPs will look like. Relax! It's an algo and it's gonna produce a set of results.
Worrying 'bout it won't produce more favorable resuts, at least it hasn't for me yet. All it's done is give me more gray hair! :)
d't know if it will be resumed or reversed.
I guess the way I view it is that since my site is pure and white as snow and since it is right for my visitors, it's not me that needs to make the change, it is Google that needs to make the change.
Sure, I could try to start chasing this algo change, but if I do, then I might have to do things that are not "what's best for my visitor" and frankly, why would I do that? If my site is good, because I'm not sole dependant on Google, people are going to find it and because it is designed for them, they should like it. If it doesn't rank high in Google, then it will leave people wondering what the hell is wrong with Google?
I know alot of people hate hearing the above, but as I see it, if you hate or are frustrated with Google, the best thing you can do to stick it to Google, is build a quality site, find other means of exposure and then leave Google having to chase you or answer to joe searcher for why good quality sites like yours don't rank well in their search engine.
Google couldn't care less about whether webmasters like the results. What Google cares about is that joe searcher likes the results. So the only thing that matters is joe searcher's opinion by way of search traffic. If joe searcher thinks the results stink, he will go somewhere else. Then and only then will Google care. Especially when Joe searcher starts favoring another SE and so all the PPC money starts leaving Google and going to that other SE.
I totally agree with you on the 'made for adsense' sites. I don't understand why Google allows them as it is hurting them with poor search results and is hurting searchers who can't find what they want. I can't see how it's good for Googles reputation and business to let they keep running adsense.
"No one has been penalized until the update is completed. It takes Google a good deal longer to complete an update then it did pre-Florida. Seasoned folks take these fluctuations in stride and wait for the update to complete before any serious update analysis, site changes, or lamenting."
that what I said, but in different words...ie:
"We cannot even make the slightest analysis of the specifics of what google may be penalizing or rewarding as far as SEO because as each day passes there are wild swings in the results."
"My posts have been to try to calm them down...don't start messing with on or off page factors, because what might help today will hurt tommorrow."
Wouldn't you agree with those statements?
oldpro, yup like both you and Dave said too early.
The faster they go the furtherer behind they get (old DP maxim).
There is also one about a five pound sack and 10 pounds of .
Did you know that the new Intel 128 bit microprocessor can execute an infinate loop in one second?
Last but always true, GIGO.
Have a good night folks.
I don't think bad incoming links would hurt a page with a good many quality incoming links. But when inner pages that don't usually have incoming links are suddenly linked to by spammy generated links sites it might well be hurting.
I even found a site that has generated page titles and made it ahead of the legitimate pages in the serps with a search for those titles. This site itself is an ad for gambling.
not that worried just yet.
I donīt see much changes on the DCs. For my own testing I see top 2-3 sites stable since yesterday. Little change within top 4-10 sites. To some extent resembles what we saw after allegra update completed.
Iīm afraid that we are looking at the begining of the end of Bourbon update.
Wish you all a geat day and top positions on the serps ;-)
No one has been penalized until the update is completed.
I've lost about $2,000 in revenue so far in this "update".
That feels like a penalty to me. ;-)
And, no, this is not on a scraper site. This is on a site which features technical information, 97% of which was written by me.
A site which, btw, is older than AdSense, older than Google and older than HTML. This "site" started out as a document which was shared on FTP sites. When the web came out, and I was finally convinced that the web was here to stay, I made the decision to HTMLize the whole thing. (Note: The domain name changed about a year ago.)
So, where it is possible that scraper sites were the target of this update, it seems that information-only sites were hit more directly.
the update seems to be halted
Google posted that PageRank was taken offline because those servers were pressed into use in computing the update.
Now that PageRank is back online, it seems to me to signal that the update is complete.
Gentlemen, welcome to your new world.
>Now that PageRank is back online, it seems to me to signal that the update is complete.<
I think so too.
However, talking about the toolbar PR importance and whether it will play any major rule in future, I wish you take another look at what GG said on toolbar thread:
>GoogleGuy:
This is just plain old normal toolbar PageRank--no trustrank or update to the visible PageRank. <
Where does it say this?
I am much more of the opinion that now Page Rank is back things might start moving again.
But for people who have a Caconical URL either coming out of a problem or going into a problem things still might be moving.
EG. For those with the problem (hopefully coming out of) eg EFV then DCs beginning - 216.239.57.* and 216.239.53.* have backlinks and pr consolidated on both the non-www and the www.
I would expect this to move accross all dcs (Whether you class this as part of the update or a seperate issue I dont know)
But a couple of my sites have this problem and when I look at my serps then I honestly cant say this dance has finnished.
Probably lower PR homepages that have not been crawled since about mid May?
First off dont panic - I have seen this happen to a site with this update and come back. At the moment Google does not seem to be holding recently crawled pages for very long
However the page still appears in a normal search and site:www.domain.com search still returns results.
Might be worth watching - esp for those effected.
Google might be finished, but I don't think they are. Can anyone explain the different results I'm still seeing at the different data centers for my site? What's the general opinion on that? Does this mean they are going to leave it like that, or does the different results mean they are not quite done yet? I'm not too up to date with the datacentres and how they work, just that I know I can check there to see what's happening.
And yeah, earlier on it was said that results are irrelevant. Well, try and do a search for florists and artificial intelligence websites come up! Just for an example. I don't think they are quite done yet...
>Its not over yet, mysite is still in and out like ....<
AnonyMouse
>"up and down like a *****'s drawers" might be more apt!<
etraffic104
>Can anyone explain the different results I'm still seeing at the different data centers for my site? What's the general opinion on that? Does this mean they are going to leave it like that, or does the different results mean they are not quite done yet?<
Friends!
You have to choose between two possible scenarios:
- Bourbon update isn't over yet after 12 days of its start.
- Bourbon update is completed. And all 3 of you are describing the symptoms of "The rotating algos"
Your choice!
