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
A blind staggering drunk has no "pattern". People thinking they are looking at an algo update are on a fool's errand.
For those stubbornites who persist in thinking these changes are algorithmic, please explain:
1) Why does Google display results showing pages that have not existed for 19 months, even though Google knows the pages do not exist?
2) Why does Google not obey 301s involving certain types of pages?
3) When doing a search within a Sept22 site, why does Google rank supplementals that mention the term first, then rank the rest of the results algorithmically?
4) Why is it hailing with thunderstorms in LA one minute and sunny the next?
Don't go off on wild goose chases. Google is a drunk in a china shop. Until the drunk sobers up, you just gotta do your best to protect your china.
Wrong. He has an erratic pattern.
webmeister, this is exactly what google needed to accomplish. And it's so far exactly what I'm seeing, sites that have heavy seo work done on them, or towards them, have dropped, while sites that don't, are either exactly the same, or ranking slightly better than before on the new results. Thus steveb's claim that this is not an update. But who cares what you call it, this is clearly catching the intended targets, seos.
This also reminds me of Florida, and it's why I have not been using any of the more aggressive seo tactics on the sites I have full control over, I expected this type of clamp down, especially after this summer's filter tests and modifications, and especially after the apparently manual removal of directories a while ago. It is my working assumption that manual removal was carried out to enable google to construct a profile of spam backlink directory farms, at least that was part of the purpose.
I think maybe what has happened is that google is testing a completely new version of hilltop, with a completely redone trustrank component, which is why some people see little or no changes, while others see very large changes. This is how steveb can be both right and wrong at the same time.
But other commercial sites did not drop, those also have seo done on them, but of I believe a different type than the ones that did drop, I haven't studied them enough to determine what the difference was or is, but I could guess.
I'm not changing anything yet. But it's not like these results just popped up in the last 24 hours. They've been on at least some datacenters for a while. I would love to protect my china and trying to figure out why I dropped 19 pages in the ranking would seem like a good place to start.
I might as well look into it, it's not like I'm having to spend much time dealing with customers today anyway. :)
For debt consolidation this is proven wrong first 2 results and many others are "highly optimized"
what if google has been tracking programs SERP monitoring programs.and how would that improve the quality from Google's point of view?
It would tell Google which keywords were getting the most SEO attention, which is another way of saying that it would show what search results were being targeted for manipulation.
The number 1 site for my major search phrase is overly SEO'd. He has two full time guys in India doing nothing but exchanging links with any site that have him. He has 100's of pages of junk content doing nothing but making his site bigger. He has massive amount of links pointing to internal pages of his site from other urls that when you go there are all 301 redirects to his home page. I could go on but you get the idea.
He's been number 1 for well over a year and this update did nothing to him.
I have been a great beliver in hilltop... until now. One site of ours has all the right links for hilltopping but has dropped 80%. Another has no hilltop links and is flying. On page Seo tactics are moderate and similar to both.
I'm off to join the drunk. :)
Cause very theory thrown out seems to be wrong.
I still cannot accept there is nothing I can do to "fix this". I could accept get off your butt develop content and get more links but not this time. All I ask for is a track to run on.
Right now I feel like I walked into a dark room and someone moved all the furniture.
Totally wrong, which againillustrates how bizarrely inappropriate many folks are looking at this. Quality hobby sites are effected, ones that wouldn't know seo from ceo.
It's laughable to say Google is adding more nonextstent supplemental pages as some sort of battle against seos!
The situation here is simple. Think of the scene from "Apollo 13" where the astronauts want the re-entry procedures and get the runaround. Kevin Bacon says, "They don't know how to do it." That's it. Google doesn't know how to fix its problems. They try things that only make it worse. They will either someday figure it out, or burn up in the atmosphere when they become too irrelevant for anybody to care.
>>Why is it hailing with thunderstorms in LA one minute and sunny the next?<<
I'm wondering the same thing!
As for my websites (at least my main one), I'm beyond trying to figure out what Google is doing and am trying to figure out how to do damage control. Which is kind of like a blind person trying to make his way through a junk shop without tripping, but it's all I've got to work with.
I don't understand why SEO best practices would have to be hit if the content is quality.
Well, GG is about chasing the wrong animal...me think.
What was mentioned previously is important...why google is showing so much supplemental pages and rankings look like right after feb-05 somehow?
Seems like google does this often and I hope they burn up real soon
using the mcdar tool, at
[mcdar.net...]
im still seeing 2 distinct sets of results..
Google persists in finding old cached data from a year ago and putting it back in the SERPs, especially if the page is the non-www version or an old mirror page, rather than the main indexed URL (where the email address no longer appears in the real page, cache, or in the snippet).
For the last few weeks there have been 2 distinctly different SERPs spread across the datacentres. One with 18 results and one with 22 results, but with only 16 results that were common to both.
This is the new bit: the numbers changed slightly. Without &filter=0 I see 1 to 15 of 22 and when adding the &filter=0 the SERP changes to 1 to 16 of 16 with 2 of the results from the first test disappearing and three new ones appearing. Maybe Google is now amalgamating the data in some way, or maybe I caught a datacentre in mid-update? This is reproducable for the last half hour or so.
What if? They did, all summer long. They only stopped last month, it was really annoying, even with google cookies blocked they'd still use that js redirect thing.
What's interesting here is that a certain method seems to be now be downgraded, while other methods are still succeeding.
I'm still waiting to see steveb say something that corresponds to the reality I'm observing, it looks like there's a lot of really specific changes happening, and if you aren't in those, you can say and think as he does, nothing is happening. However, I've been watching something happening for the last 3 months, this simply seems to be a culmination of at least part of what I've been watching.
I noted the same, several seo'ed sites survived this current test, and I believe that comparison will give me enough information to pinpoint much more closely what is being targetted.
Great informative discussion. But we need to keep in mind that we are still assuming and guessing and nothing has settled yet.
IMHO, the real future of your site might not depend on what happened until now but upon what is waiting for you right across the DCs! especially this one:
Please welcome again Miss Bacon Polenta
[64.233.171.99...]
You might take a look, but don't touch! ;-)
stuff 4 beauty:
Do a search for your domain in this format site:example.com -www
Dayo_UK:
Thanks for alerting me to my problem - I have done a redirect from the non www to the www ... What about all the pages it has indexed under the non www - will that straighten out in time?
My sites had this same canonical problem and dropped like a stone in the Feb 2005 update. Site-wide rewrite directives were put in place on 31 Jan. Google referrals slowly rose thereafter, and dropped like a stone yet again in September. I did a check just now for both www and non-www:
Results 1 - 10 of about 6,680 from mysite.com for siteWideKeyword -www (all Supplemental)
Results 1 - 10 of about 31,900 from mysite.com for siteWideKeyword (many URL-only)
Added:
Curiously, attempting to look at the cache on the first 6 non-www results gives "Your search - cache:HUYZX... com -www - did not match any documents.". The 7th has a cache date of 2 Nov 2004.
[edited by: AlexK at 9:43 pm (utc) on Oct. 17, 2005]
looks the same as the "new" results that everyone is talking about.
Good for us, not so good for many others.
"For those stubbornites who persist in thinking these changes are algorithmic, please explain:
1) Why does Google display results showing pages that have not existed for 19 months, even though Google knows the pages do not exist?"
Because they are seeding the new results from an older db, possibly for testing purposes, possibly because it's just easier to do it that way, maybe they have baseline performance metrics for that db, who knows?
"2) Why does Google not obey 301s involving certain types of pages?"
What type of pages, I've had zero problems with full site rewrites, all pages 301'ed. Maybe you did it wrong? Who knows, I have not seen this.
"3) When doing a search within a Sept22 site, why does Google rank supplementals that mention the term first, then rank the rest of the results algorithmically?"
Because it's a new algo.
"4) Why is it hailing with thunderstorms in LA one minute and sunny the next?"
LA is close to the coast, most coastal areas are subject to quite rapid weather changes.
Steve, I really think you're missing something here, from the beginning of the thread you've said you are seeing nothing that looks like a new result set, I can easily see it, what are you looking at? And I can easily see the patterns of the new results, they fit in perfectly with all the changes I've been watching this summer. Usually I read your stuff, sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't, but it usually seems to be at least a good option for explanation, I don't get that sense this time around.
LA is close to the coast, most coastal areas are subject to quite rapid weather changes.<<
Well, I've lived in L.A. for my whole life and it's known for its consistent weather, which doesn't change for weeks or months - it's sunny 95% of the time, and when it rains it often rains for several days or a couple of weeks, followed by months of no more rain. When I was growing up hail was rare. As of the last couple of years it seems to be a several times a year thing. Ditto with thunderstorms. Weird.
Frankly, both the weather and Google searches suck today. And I don't know the reasons for either one sucking.
Who knows? You are saying there is some soooper secret algo change. But then you don't have a reason they have been "seeding the new results"... which just illustrates how absurd your contention is as this is not a new change. These results have been supplemental for well ove a year.
"What type of pages, I've had zero problems with full site rewrites, all pages 301'ed. Maybe you did it wrong? Who knows, I have not seen this."
Read the other threads. You can't 301 a Supplemental.
"Because it's a new algo."
How? What? Huh? That's not an answer. Why does Google *choose* this behavior. Just waving your arms adds to the confusion.
"I really think you're missing something here,"
Considering that you appear totally unaware of the Supplemental index, I'd suggest you take a look at all that you are missing. This isn't "new". Until you can actually answer the firstv three questions, why bother postulating some vague and mysterious intent on an entity that is having trouble even tying its shoes.
