Google Datacenters Watch: 2006-01-09

Observations, Analysis and Remarks

[reseller]

Hi Folks

All indications are pointing in the direction that we are approaching heavy changes in Google's index infrastructure. Matt has confirmed that several times. As such its of importance at present to keep an eye opened on possible changes on Google's datacenters.

In fact watching and analyzing changes on the DCs of high importance, IMO. Because it tells us much about what do we expect tomorrows serps to look like, and might take actions regarding our sites in good time.

Some of us are addicted DCs Watchers and we do that with passion and there is no doubt about our spirit of sharing our observations with the rest of our kind fellow members . However, we are often blamed of hijacking other threads if we have no place to post our observations and remarks ;-)

For you passionate Google Datacenters Watchers, I'm starting this thread.

Let those observations, analysis and remarks coming.

Thanks!

[Dayo_UK]

You name it and BigDaddy will resolve it. Thats at least what Matt has been signaling.

However, at this advanced stage of BigDaddy we are not seeing much of the expected improvements, Canonicals, supplementals, redirects etc..

Well MC has not really been signalling that - right from the beginning MC has been saying that it lays the groundwork/infastructure for future improvements in Canonicals and redirects - not supplimentals though.

It is just that so many of us are so impatient for a fix to this issue - I am sure that MC understands and is aware of that.

How about a progress report Matt/GG....?

Ok us first.....

The progress report from me seems to be that BD has identified some homepages which were previously missing - either due to correctly identifiying the canonical or following a redirect - I am not 100% sure.

These homepages have no or little ranking value though. To me for these problem sites it looks like Googlebot is scratching the surface in the correct manner - eg crawled the pages directly linked from the homepage - but not going very deep.

On BD some cache dates are very old for pages which are showing a more recent crawl in the serps - eg I can tell by the snippet the crawl was in the last few weeks but the cache is 9-11 months old.

[dmoz24]

I am having decrease in pages, increase in rankings for top terms with a possible drop in PR to prejagger one.

And this is on and off for me since 20 days, on now and off this second

So cannot estimate traffic loss / increase. traffic is holding at the same levels now.

[reseller]

Dayo_UK

>>Well MC has not really been signalling that - right from the beginning MC has been saying that it lays the groundwork/infastructure for future improvements in Canonicals and redirects - not supplimentals though.<<

Well it seems that we two read the same but understand it in two different ways :-)

Lets recall what Matt wrote, and let our kind fellow members judge for themselves about what Matt is signaling here:

"Q: What else can you tell me about Bigdaddy?
A: In my opinion, this data center improves in several of the ways that you’d measure a search engine. But for now, the main feedback we’re looking for is just general quality and canonicalization."

[Jakpot]

Well, my feedback is this - The SERPS have not been improved at all after 2+ years of theoretical manipulation and tinkering. It is quite shocking
to see some of the sites that are in the top 30 or so positions.

[soapystar]

jakpot....thats true but....

it's the same for all engines and has been since the internet became the place to buy and sell...

for me i tend to be shocked at some of the sites I see in the top of competitve serps because its happening to Google and I have come to judge Google by a far higher standard than the others..i mean MSN is years behind Google...Yahoo is hit and miss..and far mjore miss than Google...its about the particular serps you follow...

[specter]

Hi guys,

In your opinion, how many time before the assumed process fully propagates?
A site of mine comes up in certain SERPs and not in others (same keyword),since is not updated in all the datacenters yet,I assume.But it's almost three months that this situation goes on...
Ideas about?

[texasville]

I don't understand how MSN is "years behind Google". I have no penalty problems in MSN. My site is indexed properly. MSN totally understands what my site is about. No canonical problems in MSN. None of my pages are supplemental in MSN. After short period MSN drops my pages that 404. No old caches in MSN. In my sector there are good clean results.
The Big Daddy dc has all of these problems with my site. It is dropping pages that display my products. It has turned all my original content pages supplemental.
This is NOT an affiliate site. It is a small 31 page site for a mom and pop operation that has a brick and mortar business and the site is it's online presence. These are big ticket products. All pages have unique content and description.
In my opinion Google is messed up! And years behind MSN!

[reseller]

texasville

>>The Big Daddy dc has all of these problems with my site. It is dropping pages that display my products. It has turned all my original content pages supplemental.
This is NOT an affiliate site. It is a small 31 page site for a mom and pop operation that has a brick and mortar business and the site is it's online presence. These are big ticket products. All pages have unique content and description.<<

Agreed. That BigDaddy thing has been a big disappointment till now. As I wrote early today it hasn't delivered yet what many webmasters have been expected it to do.

[texasville]

I feel Google makes it's living off the serps. It is their single backbone in their corporation. I feel webmasters are their customers. Without our sites-there would be no serps. Therefore we are their customers. We provide the sites that carry their advertising. (although there is no ads on my sites).

Looking at it this way- Google has the worst customer service in the world. If another company like Dell or even Microsoft has this kind of customer service, they would be bankrupt. They would be scourged in every news and consumer service in the world.

Try writing them. Nope! Gotta go to their help page. Send them a complaint about how your site is treated. They send you back a form letter saying they can't answer their mail. Go to their forums. It's BS.

Just as a lark I posted a question in their forum. Nothing. zip. nada!

No help. Just a cold shoulder from Google.

I have tried everything. I have even removed the descriptions from the alt files trying to project a non seo'd site. LMAO. They just continue dismantling my site.

Oh and remember when GG wanted us to report those spam sites with jagger? Remember how he spoke to me personally in that thread? Remember how he came back and said it was textbook and he personally reviewed and removed them.

Well, the number 1 site in my sector that is such a blackhat was removed. Back in 5 weeks. Back to number 1 with no changes. It's all such a big joke. I am sick of Google.

Thank Heaven for MSN and Y! which seem to have no problem with my site. In fact my traffic from them grows daily, even tho I am not changing position in their serps. I think it is just more people using them.

Sorry for the rant. I just get tired of playing by the rules and getting treated so poorly.

[Miop]

Agree with you Texasville - I have followed hardly any of the threads about G's 'problem' so I don't know what it is. I don't know why canonicals should suddenly have mattered, or any of the other issues that have caused people's sites to take a dive. It feels like they just tinkered so much it broke, and now they can't fix it.
The results now are sad, with mostly directories and Ebay links dominating the results. It wouldn't matter if it was a short term issue, but this has been going on for months and months. If there was ever a case of 'back to basics' this is it IMHO! (for them and us)
We have lost so much money (in spite of using Adwords) that we may well do a Colin H and give up.
I wish I could get more traffic from the other SE's but since trying to fix for G my rankings in MSN have plummeted (they weren't that good anyway really), and we just don't get much traffic from any other engines except Yahoo which is our saviour at the moment. I never put all my eggs in one basket - searchers have dones that by only using G for their searches.
There is only one basket.
Hurry up Google please - I know it's all a big experiment for you, but there are real people here, who until things change, are suffering in real life (TM).

[cleanup]

"Thank heaven for MSN and Y!"

Totally agree, once again I feel to compelled to reiterate that IMO Google is broken, getting worse and not getting fixed fast.

Furthermore, I don't believe anyone one in this or any other forum truely knows what to do to improve/get ranking back etc these days.

After all if Google themselves don't know how to fix it how in the hell can we be expected to know what to do to rank?

This is not a rant, my blood pressure has not risen while writing this, but just like the boy in the story I feel that once in a while the un-sayable has to be said ..

"The King has no clothes"!

there I said it.

[SEOPTI]

Prepare for a neverending update ...

[frakilk]

>>> Well, the number 1 site in my sector that is such a blackhat was removed. Back in 5 weeks. Back to number 1 with no changes. It's all such a big joke. I am sick of Google.

texasville -
Do you reckon there has been a slight rollback to a Jagger1 or Jagger2 index? What is the cache date on the site you mentioned?

Coming up on 3 weeks since the 'data refresh' on the 27th Dec and still no improvements. Hmmmrph.

[texasville]

Cache date is jan 10 and I don't see a rollback.

[NoLimits]

Man... I bet the CTR of AdWords clicks is through the roof with all of the crappy results they've been spewing out to the public here lately.

I'm really starting to honestly believe that they are intentionally throwing up crappy SERP results to make the Advertisements the most relevant items on the page.

And if this is not the case - Google has been wasting its resources. With all of the "brilliant" minds they have on the payroll - this kind of crap shouldn't be happening.

I personally, haven't used Google as a search for 5 weeks... only queries I've done have been for the purpose of checking site ranking. Toolbar removed - I'm officially DONE catering to Google. I don't care if I lose 90% of my income as a result. When I finally do manage to build traffic streams from other sources - I'll feel a hell of a lot more comfortable. Google hoses their entire index at least 3 times a year, and it makes me sick every time. It's a joke.

I think that their multi-server technology for speedy results is not an effecient system for multi-billion page indexes. If they can't update them in a timely manner... than what the hell is the point? The bot seems to be tripping over things that were NOT a problem in the past. Why is it a problem now?!

I'm so tired of this garbage. I hope that MS and Y! realize that this is their time to make an impact. Imagine that... rooting on Microsoft, I NEVER thought that would happen. Sometimes you just have to pick the lesser evil.

[edited by: NoLimits at 8:32 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2006]

[texasville]

NoLimits- If that is the case why trash so many sites? No- I think too many engineers-like cooks- have spoiled their broth.
The side effect is their revenue enhancement. Probably Page and Brin have told them not to fix it too quick.

[texasville]

I do get a feeling of justice is being served as Google's engineers are trashing Google itself in much the same way that they are trashing my sites.

[ScottD]

Dayo_UK

Thank you for your reply to me. I'm happy its not a canonical problem, and its just the 301 taking effect, but do you think I had a canonical problem in the first place? The 301 has only had this effect on the big daddy results and those other DCs I listed, not the main serps. If I don't see the same thing in other DCs then I remain in the lost and lonely results of page 4.

Hopefully as you say the 301 is fixing the problem I had, and that will be the end of it. Anyway, thanks again for your support

[ScottD]

soapystar

I tend to agree with you. Our site ranks number one in Yahoo and has amazing results in MSN - purely because they are second rate in comparison to Google.

I believ our site deserves top positions now - but it didn't deserve it before, and in yahoo and msn it had them anyway.

We can all be happy when we're winning and tend to think that means the serps are good, but sometimes we have to be a bit more neutral and accept that our site may not deserve the number one position.

I'm not saying that Google has it all right. I know a useless site that does well because it's all HTML and has lots of unique content, but the content could be written by anyone. It has no value. It annoys me to see them above us in the serps, but I still see much fairer results on Google than the others. And a useless site can do well in serps but users will quickly move on.

[reseller]

ScottD

>>Dayo_UK

Thank you for your reply to me. I'm happy its not a canonical problem, and its just the 301 taking effect,...<<

I recall steveb replying to you :-)

================================
steveb
Senior Member

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msg #:147 10:21 pm on Jan 14, 2006 (utc 0)

ScottD, what you describe is not a canonical fix, but rather Google just picking up the 301. That happens all the time.
===================

[reseller]

Good evening Folks

And back to Google Datacenters Watch :-)

On these DCs

[64.233.179.99...]
[64.233.179.104...]

What do you see when you run commands:

link:www.yoursite.com

and

site:www.yoursite.com

Thanks.

[edited by: reseller at 9:50 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2006]

[Jakpot]

"It feels like they just tinkered so much it broke, and now they can't fix it."

Google has so many people who are tinkering they
perhaps need to put in some tinkering controls
or reduce staff or do both

[icarus]

Greetings Reseller,

On [64.233.179.104...]

- I see a pre-jagger link count for our main site

- I still see our home page buried way down deep when querying site:www.mysite.com, it's been this way since shortly after we implemented a http:// to [www...] 301 redirect on Nov. 6

[specter]

IMO Google has been hacked hard...

But you know,their policy is the silence...

[reseller]

icarus

Greetings to you too.

How about the date of the cache of your homepage on the said 2 DCs?

[Miop]

<What do you see when you run commands:

link:www.yoursite.com

and

site:www.yoursite.com

Thanks. >

I see 19 links, (58 on the other DC's except two, which have no links and PR0. I think the 58 is wrong as includes internal links which are now outdated)

site - I see lots of pages from my site, some of which are url only.?

[reseller]

Miop

>>I see 19 links, (58 on the other DC's except two, which have no links and PR0. I think the 58 is wrong as includes internal links which are now outdated)

site - I see lots of pages from my site, some of which are url only.?<<

Thanks!

So you are saying that 19 links is more accurate number on the 2 DCs?

And how about the date of the cache of your homepage?

[spainly]

for me it's hard to understand "link:" results

my domain has more than 2,575 links in yahoo

in google
- link:domain.com -> no results
- link:www.domain.com -> 2,540 results ( but all from domain.com! )
- link:www.domain.com -site:www.domain.com -> no results

from jagger we are in the deepest... any idea for this strange link results?

[Miop]

I would say 19 is more accurate (though it's hard to tell because it used to be 19, but they were different links! 58 is an old number from at least 6 months ago)

My cache date is 13th January on both DC's.

[reseller]

Miop

>>My cache date is 13th January on both DC's.<<

And my homepage cache is 14th January. I.e the 2 DCs are showing very fresh cache dates of our homepages.