Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
We went throught the phase where everything went supplemental. Even went throught the phase where lots of stuff went URL only. We have been going through this for over six months now.
Current state is that everything looks indexed normal. Very few supplemental or URL only. However, no improvement in traffic.
Looks like Google is struggling to fight spammers and scrapers to the point that, in order to keep SERPs at least somewhat useful, higher and higher collateral damage percentage is becoming acceptable. If this continues (and I can't see it the other way) - the day will come when 50% collateral damage is acceptable.
Couldnt agree more, funny how big ad payers like Kelkoo arent effected though. That site has hardly any original content. So they must be potecting some of their big partners. Most small independant price comparison engines have been booted.
The search phrase was ami-2019f [google.com] (it is a modem).
Only 3 of the first 10 results actually have anything to do with this item. The number 2 result, for instance, has this as the snippet:
California ambient ami 2019f. California chicken valtrex pox for Colorado school meridian dist California meridian new idaho homes Colorado forest celexa ......and lots of the others are similar.
My site is SERP#11, is a 12-month-old cache, and entirely the wrong page (there is a page devoted to this modem on my site, with the name in the Title, and SERP#11 is not it).
This little mini-investigation was an attempt to try to discover why referrals from Google to my site had fallen by 50% on 22 September. I think I found out. The Google SERPs are quite broken. Unfortunately, G's efforts to fix it are also breaking our sites. And their WebMasters.
I filled a spam report, but at this point it looks like 70% unrelated results may be acceptable to them as well.
Funny how GoogleGuy still not saying anything about all of this changes.
What's to say? "No, this isn't a conspiracy, and it's impossible to have a productive discussion when every conversation ends in a torrent of verbal abuse"?
Google seems broken by their own hands, most of us saldy have to relay on Google. I am not surprised so many are upset.
Well I for one would like to hear what the man has to say about this current situation.
and as for a torrent of abuse? ahh there,there I presume GG gets paid for what he does, we all know its a rough old world out there but I don't think its fear that keeps GG fro this ring,
rather SHAME,
and the empty feeling of having no replies.
FWIW, I personally favour the theory that the poor sods are trying to rectify things but Google has just grown to certain size and inertia that quick fixes are now imposible.
Yep well some people have to watch there words as they may have had manual help from Google.
We know it happens as it has been blogged.
However, all I want to do is enter into a discussion so G know exactly what we are seeing.
If I search for my website home page name and it is beaten by internal pages then isnt there something up with Google.
It is like a search for Webmasterworld and something like my profile being the top result for that search. (Not top of the serps but hidden on page 224054805)
It is just wrong :(.
You just need to have friends in the right places to get a problem looked at is a better way of saying it. But that is the same with any big company I guess.
You can tell that from Matts Blog - if you have someone like Matts email of course you will get better help than some engineer the other side of a form.
I mean look at the other engines who don’t employ Google’s “super-sophisticated” PR techniques. You search for site title “Best Widgets in America” you get widgetsamerica.com whose title is “Best Widgets in America,” all without the help of Google’s “superior” technology. Lately with Google, the same search gives you scruyou.com who have a link to widgetsamerica.com.
My suspicion is Google programmers have lost the forest in the trees. They keep tweaking the algo and the principal result is things get worse. Its like the algo has taken on a life of its own and they no longer have a lot of feel for what its doing or how to predict what a supposedly minor tweak will do.
Trouble is Google as a company has a lot of its rep tied up in their superior ranking technology and a lot of people at the plex have a their careers tied up in feeding the machine.
[edited by: mikeD at 5:09 pm (utc) on Oct. 3, 2005]
Dont want to post to much as I am in fed up mode.
But surely the top engineers at Google never need to work again?
My post above did not really mean to have an attack at anyone it is just human nature.
And I will rephrase it a bit more - if an engineer knows a Webmaster who they can trust etc they are more likely to take notice of them than people posting at Search Engine Forums etc.
However, Google Engineers - a lot of results dont make sense at the moment - I do honestly hope that you are listening (especially regarding my posts on Canonical urls)
Cheers
Dayo
However, that doesn't stop them from implementing "tweaks" they know full well will ruin perfectly legitimate sites and companies, sometimes apparently just on a test basis.
>>Yep well some people have to watch there words as they may have had manual help from Google. <<
Thats correct ;-)
I'm having strange results on site:mydomain.com - it says there are 1,390 results, which is too high, but when I get to page 10 it doesn't automatically list the next page numbers, I just get the "we have hidden similar results" blurb. Does that mean anything beyond 100 pages is supplemental? Not many of the pages have the actual "supplemental" tag.
WOW.. the reseller friendly DCs are back.
64.233.161.99
64.233.161.104
Goooooooooooooooooooooooogle ..leave those 2 DCs in peace.. or else ;-)
How about you folks.
Do you also see the said Dcs friendly to your site?
Just gobsmacked that after I changed my homepage last week someone has already scraped/cached it - and appeared in the Google index on page 1 for my unique company name :( - Exact copy of page - so nice to know that nothing wrong with on page optimization.
While I am nowhere. :(
The problems seem to be getting worse now that Google has been listed. Maybe the engineers arent the problem, but are just following orders.
Your scenario: A bunch of cocky programmer geniuses at Google are nodding obediently and keeping their mouths shut while an investment banker on Wall Street sends them lists of domains and pages that should be promoted or demoted in the search rankings.
My scenario: Changes in Google's algorithms and filters simply aren't favoring certain types of pages or sites at the moment, and some legitimate pages are getting lost from the SERPs as a result.
Which scenario is more likely to be accepted by a reasonable person who doesn't have an axe to grind?
No - I am very much a believer that G has a bug to sort out. I dont believe in the conspiary theories - but being listed has definetly changed Googles communication policy.
Just look at some of the older threads I pointed out about Canonical urls in my post in supporters and see who gave feedback/help.
Oh well times change.
Google has become spectaulary unable to fix even basic flaws in its algo (ie the multiplicitous duplicate content issues) for a place so full of phds and money you'd think they'd at least be as good as yahoo at this, but no.
Nope.
Neither do I! :o(
