:-( : Update...false alarm Sept 2005

What *is* an Update?

[straticus]

Continued from:
[webmasterworld.com...]

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It seem the backlink update has begun, not surprising after the heavy spidering lately, good luck everyone!

[WW_Watcher]

All I see is a BL & Directory update, I am not yet seeing anything other than everflux in the serps so far

But what do I know,
Back to watching,, (Sorry, I had to post something with this new account to keep it)

[Kirby]

Im seeing distinct serp changes in some areas and very small changes in others. The increase in pages for my sites are old pages that only exist in Google's memory.

One thing I've noticed is more frequent use of dmoz titles and cats, which I dont like, since it doesnt always reflect the page accurately.

[Surfer000]

The SERP on my site has moved up about 4 positions in the last 36 hours, visible PR of 6 has not changed in a few months, and the BL number is up from 219 to 319. At first glance this looks like maybe a SERP update did happen along with the other evident updates, but actually I am now wondering if its just a freshness thing because I recently updated the title of my site' main page.

hmmm....

[GoogleGuy]

All I see is a BL & Directory update, I am not yet seeing anything other than everflux in the serps so far.

Yah, this isn't an update. Backlinks/Directory data may be freshly visible, but the core data hasn't changed more than the usual everflux. Sorry to dampen the mood.

If you see spam currently, feel free to report it at
[google.com...]
with the keyword Gilligan and I'll ask folks to check out the reports though. No sense letting that pent-up energy wanting an update to go to waste. :)

[g1smd]

I see several datacentres where old data from a year ago has re-appeared as Supplemental Results. Google does know about the new data on the page, and has cached that new data recently as a non-supplemental result with an up to date snippet, but it also has a year old snippet (paired with a cache that is less than a month old, in the same SERP, on the same datacentre, for the same webpage, for a *different* search query) that it is keeping hold of too. This was data we wanted to be gone forever, and it was gone for a few months, but now it's baaaack. Removal tool took the data out of sight for 90 days and now it is back again.

.

I see several sites that put in 301 redirects, more than 6 months ago, to make sure that just www was listed for all pages. Now some datacentres have reverted to showing the (year) "old" listings with some www and some non-www listed, and many URL-only entries. In some datacentres the sites have ~120 pages (the real number) all listed with title and description (and cache from a few weeks ago), and in other datacentres it is a complete mess with many URL-only listings and a mix of www and non-www again, and the cache for those results is a year old for those same pages that show a three week old cache in other datacentres.

What is going on?

[patc]

GG:

Yah, this isn't an update...

D'oh and I was thinking it was a Google's 7th Birthday bash update.

Can you help release a bit more of the pent up energy by hinting at all when something more significant than everflux is taking place? If nothing is in the pipeline right now, suits me.

Cheers!

[GoogleGuy]

reseller, good quote in msg #165. Just because directory data or backlink changes are visible doesn't mean that rankings are changing. Data can go into effect quite a bit before it becomes visible to the outside world.

[truthbetold]

GG - any idea when the next real update will be?

[BillyS]

Yah, this isn't an update. Backlinks/Directory data may be freshly visible, but the core data hasn't changed more than the usual everflux. Sorry to dampen the mood.

As a relative newbie, I think it's interesting how GG confirms what some of us suspect already. For example his use of the term "freshly visible." Now who talks like that? (I hope GG really doesn't talk like that all the time.)

By the way, if I am going to a PubCon one of these days, I need an update... My birthday is December 10th, but an early present would be great. What say, GG?

[nsqlg]

GG - any idea when the next real update will be?

If GG tell you he would have to kill you hehe

[modemmike]

GG, does this non existent update have any implications to those frustrated by 301 redirects (whole domain in my case) landing us in the so called "sandbox"?

[dataguy]

Man, and we had such a perfect name for this update too...

Kind of reminds me when the castaways were about to be rescued through the efforts of that robot that walked the ocean floor.. until Gilligan's lucky rabbit foot got caught in the robots memory.... a lot of us are feeling about as unlucky as Gilligan right now...

[frup]

Further proof that a goodly number of posts are based more on wishful thinking than facts or evidence.

[modemmike]

wishful thinking than facts or evidence

I don't think that a BL update is anything to discredit as being trivial or mundane. I am personally glad there is a "goodly" number of replies to discuss such things because the more input we have the better we are able to determine if in fact anything is happening. I haven't posted much here in the past only because I felt I didn't have any valued input but surely this topic is not in vein or wishful thinking... it isn't to me at least :-)

[hermosa]

Googleguy. I saw backlinks go from well over 200 to 18 for 1 site. That seems like a drastic drop. Is this just a temporary flux? Pagerank hasn't changed.

[edited by: hermosa at 3:05 am (utc) on Sep. 8, 2005]

[walkman]

I was right. First I said that the update would happen during the first week of September, and then said that it didn't happen. ;)

[Kirby]

>I don't think that a BL update is anything to discredit as being trivial or mundane

Since it is extremely incomplete information, then it really is trivial at best.

[frup]

A BL update means next-to-nothing. Some people think it might be a precursor to a real update, where the SERPs change. So, letting people know of a BL update has occurred might be useful to those people trying to predict when an update is coming. But in-and-of-itself, it means nothing. Honestly, I'm amazed people are still checking their backlink counts on Google.

This wasn't an update because there weren't substantial changes to the SERPs. Not even minor changes, as far as I can tell.

[deanril]

Well, if this isn't an update then Im worried.
Can anyone shed some light on my situation then please.

My Home page from my major site is gone from the serps. On an old version of Google Toolbar its grey bared, on the newer ones its still has PR5. It has no cache when you check it. A few places the www.site.com/page.cfm (index) page is showing up(ranking ok but not nearly where www.site.com was), and in the serp you can click the cache and get the cache, but using toolbar no cache.

All other pages have PR like normal, so just Home page gone ;(

Wondering if temporary, been like 4 days now. Never used that Google tool to tell them to take a url out of index, can someone sabotage you with that thing? Home page rank very good, so definately under microscope from other Webmasters ;( Site and Home page hasnt been missing from Google serps in like almost 2 years.

I thought this was an update so wasnt concerned.

Any help or sheding of light would be GREATLY Appreciated!

[deanril]

For the above post I wanted to add, all other pages are normal, still ranking in serps and have same pr, home page missing ;o

[joeduck]

deanril -

First check robots.txt and make sure it's not messed up, which accounts for many indexing problems per SE reps.

If that is OK think what changes you've made that may have invoked a penalty or severe filter. e.g. you started an affiliate program with a questionable site?

Any link buying or link swaps? Google seems to be penalizing text linking more and more.

If pages are missing consider a reinclusion request at google.com/support/

[deanril]

Thank you joeduck!

Nothing like that as of lately. Robots ok, no Affiliates, I check out every link partner pretty thouroughly, havent been doing alot of linking lately. Front page hasnt change in awhile either, maybe I'll wait a bit longer and do a re-inclusion request. Thanks again!

[GoogleGuy]

patc, sometimes when I've said such-and-such is likely to go out at so-and-so date, I've wished later that I hadn't picked out a specific date (either because it launches earlier or later). So I try not to make predictions about the future. The next webspam thing I'm aware of is relatively soft.

If you're seeing a directory from your site go away, the only new factor I'd check for is doorway pages with JavaScript redirects. Google has been getting better at detecting that lately. We're catching spam on freehosts better/faster, but if you're on the blackhat end of the spectrum, you've probably already noticed that. Hmm, let me think. Yeah, most of the things we've been doing have been relatively "behind the curtain" (less visible) for the last few weeks.

[joeduck]

Hugo -

I'm not sure I agree about not "penalizing" but certainly you reference the BEST source of info in Matt Cutts' excellent summary of link issues at his blog.

[joeduck]

GoogleGuy returns to WebmasterWorld! Hey dude wazzup?

[shri]

Got an email from an affiliate manager who stalks my site... informing me that my PR has changed.

Anyone got a data center where the PR update is rolling out?

[smokey99]

Can anyone tell me how to turn off this stinking email notification?

I enabled it on this thread now can't turn it off :-(
I have checked the board help, it says to edit my orginal post and disable. But I see no edit button.
Sorry to interupt important talk with this, but I am going nuts with notices.
Thanks
Smokey

[deanril]

"If you're seeing a directory from your site go away, the only new factor I'd check for is doorway pages with JavaScript redirects"

GG, was that for my one page missing? Or I missed some one elses post and I'm totally lost?

Secondly, are you saying Im using doorway, or someone else is using a doorway with a javscript redirect? Cause now I'm really lost ;(

My site is clean, no tricks or whatever, Im in this for the long haul, just not worth it to play games. To me these little tricks are not good for a site you've been actively developing for years.

[nsqlg]

If you're seeing a directory from your site go away, the only new factor I'd check for is doorway pages with JavaScript redirects. Google has been getting better at detecting that lately. We're catching spam on freehosts better/faster, but if you're on the blackhat end of the spectrum, you've probably already noticed that. Hmm, let me think. Yeah, most of the things we've been doing have been relatively "behind the curtain" (less visible) for the last few weeks.

Hey GG, I have one directory that has gone away from SERPS that use javascript redirect, of my "authority site", we are added in dmoz top level of your language, tons of unique content without any SEO, exclusive online books, since 2000 we write for users for fun, a team working 3 years refusing put ads why its sucks, included the Microsoft. I'm can let you know my site, if you dont love my site or this penalized directory can ban my main domain instead of just this directory...!

(Sorry for my english)

[edited by: nsqlg at 5:10 am (utc) on Sep. 8, 2005]

[joeduck]

smokey - I think you must email a forum moderator to have it removed.

deanril - does site:yoursite.com show your pages? With descriptions?

gg - Google Earth is so neat it even impressed my high schooler as I pulled him off Wolfenstein to demo it .... An absolutely cool application