Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Have been waiting for google's pending update but didn't get any on that. From last two days I have noticed extreme changes in search results for same google domain (like .com or .de or .nl etc.) with different interface language selected (like hl=de or hl=en or hl=nl). When you change the interface language the whole bunch of results are different.
Is this the actual update this time? Enabling the geo centric data which google wanted to implement for better localization? If yes (and if someone else is also seeing this change) then may be we can all identify the parameters of this new change, like language, servers in geographical locations or extensions (.de, .nl etc.)
-- rishi
And how do I tell my boss that three of the biggest websites around feeding over 100 staff Enquiries has been knocked off the front page in Google for many search terms?
Tell him to wait a week, its really too early to freak out. I have seen this before.
Also, google does not owe us anything, she giveth and taketh away.
I am seeing sites of mine return to sanbox rankings.
Main Keyword down 300 positions, supporting keyword +-20, not ranking at all. Which is where my site was about 7 months ago.
My established sites 5 years + have not been touched. Anyone else noticing newer sites getting hit?
>>Reseller
You get so excited about 1 page maybe returning in the serps....<<
No..No. I´m not excited because of a page. Whats in a page after all? ;-)
I´m excited that my site hasn´t been hit YET this time for the third time in a row this year (First Allegra... and then 22nd July 2005).
My First plan of Action is to go through the links page and make sure im not linking to any bad websites.
Second will be to look at the sites thats now ranking above me, find out what Google likes about them and make one better.
Third will be to hide from the boss for a while and hope no one get fired :)
The three websites are really big, been around for many many years and have always been at the top... I cant remember one update we have moved (apart from this tweek in the algo)
Side note
I would suggest that people try not to complain (much like my first post) and start working on how to fix where we went wrong, after a few days that is.
Im sure everyone with half a brian will get back before Christmas.
I'm noticing all my old phrases are back, but I still have som e phantoms coming in for new pages added in the since 9/22. It looks like they rank at most of the DCs at McDars, but not on the main Google.
As for those who think it's about crying when google isn't nice, my website would get a max of 500 visitors/month if I were N1 for all my keywords (aprox. from old good times) so it's no big loss.
I just think that today's results are not good at all, but REALLY not overall.
It seems like power is given to old sites even for their most insignificant pages.
I guess that the only solution to get ranked will be to buy text links from these authority/old sites ....isn't it exactly what Google should avoid?
EDIT: apparently the previous post says exactly the opposite...hope this is true!
Could it be the final integration of registrar info too?
Hmmmz - this happened to people last December, February, March and May - and still they have not come back.
I doubt it is a glitch - bug, mistake maybe - unlikely to be a glitch.
But we will see.
Erm - yeah - OK. But wishfull thinking perhaps.
I do hope you are right - but Google has had problems with certain aspects for a very long time. They dont look close to solving - I am trying a new thing to help Gbot along.
I am trying a new thing to help Gbot along
Breadcrumbs to a better Search Engine? hehe, I love Google really - Don't care if i dont rank I will still use Google.
Only difference is I'm back to top 3 for 1000s of technical searches. This is as it was before Feb 2/May 5.
Well if anything AdWords advertisers should be taking note here! :>~ With SERPs being absolute $h!t at the moment, clickthrough rates are going to skyrocket!
Might be a good time to even invest in Google stock!
Yeap...our adwords campaign's CTR is way up. Sales too. Our site along with every other actual widget merchant has dropped 3 pages deep, but crappy organic serps seems to be good for our company stock too.
I see Google Germany (Das Web) showing new serps, but I mightbe mistaken.
[google.de...]
Any fellow member can confirm that?
Thanks.
>>...but dont know what they were like yesterday or earlier today<<
Thanks. I checked yesterday, and results of Google Germany were not the same as of today.
>>Der resultzen on there are definitely new and improved :)<<
Thanks for feedback. Thats what I thought ;-)
However, my three and half year old content site has just regained what it lost beginning in February and continuing through Bourbon.
Only problem I ever found with this site was the canonical URL issue (duplicate page rank for www and non-www). Fixed that in June.
This update tickles me pink.
For a search for my site name (a distictive non-dictionary name) with another seasonal word after it, the top result consists of some other crummy site's page containing a single internal link to that crummy site's home page. There are only two words on the page (which are the 2 word link itself... (the words are not what i searched for)). The page also has a single non-existant image, the sorce code of which starts :
<IMG src="C:\Documents and Settings\ ...
and nothing else. The meta title of the page is all that contains a version of the words I was searching for .
That crummy result seems to be coming up 3rd on Bacon Polenta - which shows that Bacon Polenta is still extremely bad. ...the awful result is 6th now on 216.239.39.104 (google.co.uk) but still 3rd on 64.233.171.99
Based on this I'd say 216.239.39.104 is the least-worse, although still bad (my own site (bearing in mind it's got a distinctive non-dictionary name) comes up as result 31 for the 2 word search in question).
I would wait a couple of days before sounding the alarm bells.
Good advice. The fact that Brett and GG have not weighted in on this one tells me that we're either in the middle of an update or they're just testing something. I have to say that the results look half baked to me.
And, by the way, I put a couple of phrases in Clusty too. My site wasn't always at the top, but it was probably right where it belonged.
less people wil search on google, they will go elsewhere.
Teoma is the best.
Their bot is so lazy, I find it hard to believe they are the best at indexing information.
Only thing that I changed after 22nd is that I removed all pages that could be suspicious as duplicate content. My site is translated to several languages and it uses URLs similar to this:
http://www.example.com/page-name.php for English
http://www.example.com/deutsch/page-name.php for other languages.
I think that Google for some reason believed that these pages are the same because they have exactly the same name. Just in case I removed all translated pages (except index page of every language) and Google returned my site on previous positions. I'm not sure if this position improvement has anything to do with this change...
>>That crummy result seems to be coming up 3rd on Bacon Polenta - which shows that Bacon Polenta is still extremely bad. ...oooh, wait, it's dropped to 6th now on 216.239.39.104 but still 3rd on 64.233.171.99 <<
Glad to hear that you are still 3rd on the Bacon Polenta [64.233.171.99...] . Once they deploy that nice lady, there will be some tweaking too, as usual.
And "the winner takes it all", as usual too ;-)
Just in case I removed all translated pages ... and Google returned my site on previous positions.
Has the internet really come to this? Someone needs to bomb the 'Plex, quickly.
I'm just depressed. It will pass.
Yup, I know what you are thinking. "Are you on crack boy?" After all, we are speaking about computers here and this hypothesis, while possible, makes little sense. Google can easily test their search engine "off-live." Why should they freak SEO minded webmasters out? (Because it's Halloween?) Probably best to dismiss it. Maybe I have a few sliders loose too. Or, you can think of it as a little brain-salve to sooth yourself through the transition.
We'll get there. We'll be okay, well, mostly. In the end a few of us will rise and a few of us will fall. It's the nature of things.
I'll see you on the other side.
Komodo Tale
Seattle, WA
My established sites 5 years + have not been touched. Anyone else noticing newer sites getting hit?
No, quite the contrary. As I posted a few days ago, my main site, which is 7 years old is taking a drubbing. And a six year old site I have is also taking the worst hits in its niche ... some newer sites of mine with less content and fewer recip links in the same niche are maintaining or improving in position.
Update or no, it's too early to tell ... I hope. ;)
I would also like to see more analysis of what elements seem to be related ... someone suggested a while ago in this thread that this update "penalizes' sites in which in-site links use keyword anchor text.
That would jive with *many* of the sites I see dropping that I monitor. Also, sites with heavier recip links programs seem to be "penalized" .. both among my sites and competitors.
More in this vein would be welcome. What patterns do you note?
Thanks!
Cheers, MJ
1) Tiny variations on the datacentres but overall pretty stable. My gut feeling is that either this stays as it is, with normal everflux, or they will pull these results completely and turn the clock back. I suspect they are now monitoring user behaviour. If adsense revenue falls or there is the slightest indication that users are not liking the results, they will pull it. It may take a few days for them to assess the effects.
2) In many (not all) the serps have completely new sites appearing with the old established sites only ranking well for the odd phrase. The theory that this is adwords driven ( sites that previously had tons of free traffic can now pay) seems to fit what has happenned, though it is a bizarre theory. Dropping previously 'relevent' sites for new ones will inevitably risk lowering the quality of the serps. Google knows that most people use and are attracted by the free listings, so lower quality won't necessarily make people click adsense, they may just go and try other engines instead. More likely is that a significant algo tweek has been applied with the intention to improve results. New sites have risen accordingly, but perhaps too many, leaving many quality sites now on page 10+.
3) I keep seeing patterns but then a site confonds me. However, I wonder if the word proximity algo has been turned up a bit? Setting aside sites that have the search phrase in the title tag (they will carry a lot of weight) it seems that if a page has an exact match in the body text (preferably bold, H tag or anchor text) plus a nice distribution of words making up the phrase scattered throughout the page then it ranks well. If not, it will still rank well if the individual words are very close, perhaps 3 or 4 words apart. Previously, pages could rank well without have the exact phrase and the words only needed to be 10 or so words apart. e.g.
A good pr page ranked well last week for the search term "blue widgets in France" even if the on page occurance was 'The BLUE sky was overpowering the colour of the sea and a WIDGET flew past towards FRANCE' and it had the odd word repeated in an anchor text. Now I suspect that page won't be ranking. Instead, pages with 'The BLUE WIDGET flew towards FRANCE' (close proximity) coupled with the odd word in anchor text or bold seems to do well. This simple tweek could have had big effects, especially in sectors where there are many differing phrases for a product or topic. If the phrase appears in the title tag then this effect is less important.
P.S. I know I know.... its way too early to start speculating......
