Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I'm looking for opinions and definately not trying to sway anyone to my way of thinking.
My question is "What use, if any, is gained by endlessly watching and reporting the differences on Google DC's. I've tried my best for the last year and have got nothing from this practice and I'm actually starting to think that the people who do it ... must never sleep.
Give me your opinions on this activity, good or bad. Just think, you may save new SEO's a whole bundle of boring trouble.
All the Best
Col :-)
Over the past couple oy years, things have been fairly stable, some ups, some downs, sometimes disappearing from the index altogether. But, it always comes back to an acceptable level.
IMHO, the only DCs that matter are the ones users are searching with. Individual DC results may spread,or they may not, I'd hardly want to make changes based on something so fleeting as those individual results.
I'm a proponent of putting time in on your site, rather than spending that time trying to figure out potential future SE position.
I've just moved out to the country and definately find grass growing to be quite an interesting occupation.
I have been guilty of DC watching over the past 12 months. In that short time I have seen the connected forums used for a great deal in addition to the seed topic. I think that users post to the DC watching forums just to try and draw Google's attention to their painful plight.
However, I do fully respect the tireless pursuits of the regular DC 'Scientists' such as Reseller, DayoUK and Tigger [Many More Also]. All the best to those guys.
I've said it before ... "It's much more fun watching the DC Watchers watching the DC's".
All the Best
Col ;-)
Oi! I'm not in that DC club, in fact I've had the odd run in with our res expert on DC watching but we've kissed and made up now, right Reseller :)
Yes. Good friends, tigger. Good friends.. :-)
"in fact I'm surprised we've not heard from him yet!"
Yes you have :-)
We Live.We Learn..We Share..We Make Friends..
The Passion of Google Datacenters Watching
msg #:69
[webmasterworld.com...]
This DC is doing this, and that one is doing that - oh, it's back where it was - no, it's changed again!
Due respect to those who choose to do it, but it ain't for me!
At the moment there really is not anything worth commenting on.
DC watching does not take long - 5 seconds every now and then and people post comments if there is something intresting.
For me its like checking my logs or looking at any other stat - often dont learn much - just part of what I do.
Interesting that you bring up Chess, it's a good game that can teach valuable lessons in forward/future thinking. In many ways it could be applicable to developing sites when you need to say "What should this project be two or three years from now".
If I try to attach any Chess concepts to DC watching, it just doesn't work for me. One of the apparant attractions in DC watching is the ever-changing rule-set. Sometimes, somedays you are up, other times you aren't so up. Chess, and the evaluation required for good games requires a static rule-set.
If, however, I mis-interpret and your interest is really more in the "personal" exchange of thoughts about the ever changing results on obscure DCs, then I'll just be quiet. It's not my place to make judgments on how people like to spend their time.
The only time I'll check a DC is if the whole site has been dropped.
I'm looking for opinions and definately not trying to sway anyone to my way of thinking.
texasville, nobody is criticizing anyone. In fact, most have said something to the effect of "each to their own" and I agree. This is colin-h's thread and he asked a legitimate question. He too is allowed to use Brett's bandwidth to discuss any topic he likes!
And to add my answer ... I do not see the point in it at all. At one time, watching 1,2 & 3 do the Googledance was kind of fun. It was somewhat like watching the fruits in a slot machine doing their thing and trying to figure out who the winners would be. But with so many data centers to watch and not knowing which one is applying this or that filter and whatever else they may be doing, it would take the likes of Albert Einstein to put it all together and come up with some semblance of order. That is ... if the data centers would be cooperative enough to remain static for at least ten minutes. I am no Albert Einstein.
Considering that all this DC watching over the last (how many?) months/years has produced no solid information in regards to predicting any future events or trends, my humble opinion is that it is somewhat of an obsessive hobby for those who like to watch lemons & cherry go 'round the little wheel. I salute the Albert Einsteins amongst us who are able to make head or tails of any of it! :)
I am with those who feel the only important DC's are those that my potential clients are actually using.
IMHO I believe that the DC watchers have become more interesting a phenomena than Google itself. I fully respect the serious ones for their interest and as you say being able to "put it all together and come up with some semblance of order".
I just wanted to be the first Google DC Watchers Watcher ;-)
All the Best
Col
It is better to spend a very small amount of time analyzing the Serps to try to determine what is causing pages to float to the top, and then spending the majority of your time working on your own pages to make them more buoyant.
The Never-ending Datacenter Watch Thread was created because some posters would not give up on "Jagger" long after it was done.
There is almost NO analysis done, or anything reported to be learned from in the thread. The Datacenter watching thread has become a joke with the, Google is broken, and gonna go broke, These serps look great because my site is doing well, these serps look terrible, because my site is doing poorly, "Look at these two", "what do you think about those", "I'm naming these", Googleguy said this, but this is what he meant, and Matt Said that, but this is what he meant, and friends at the plex think, or say this, that or the other.
The never-ending watching of google everflux by watching it's movement in the datacenters is a waste of time. The tools for checking the datacenters were created in a time before everflux, when google would update all at once, and you could watch the "Dance", as the Data, Algo Changes, and such were propagated to all the servers in all datacenters. Webmaster's had to wait until the google dances to see how they had progressed, or digressed in the serps. Now with everflux, the process is continual, Do not waste your time watching the datacenters, do productive work.
Back to Watching(Not the datacenters)
WW_Watcher
[webmasterworld.com...]
... and after 100's (if not 1000's) of posts later nothing appears to have been gained.
I think it's an extreme waste of time, but hey... it's not my time - so I could care less. As others have said... 'to each his own'. :)
We're all entitled to our own opinions, and that's what's nice about WW... we're free to express them, whether we agree or not.
Personally, I have learned several things from doing a little participation in the dc watching thread.
Many thanks for your thoughts on this topic. My original question was not meant to be critical of those who enjoy the scientific study of Google DC's, more to give those people who think that participating in it will give them a 'Quick fix' to their recently demoted SE positions the benefit of the forums knowledge.
From my own experience, I turned up a year or so ago and was extremely interested to listen to the experts on the DC watching forum ... because they wrote with such authority and gave me hope of a quick return to serp success. But after 12 months of monitoring their discussions, they just don't seem to have acheived any real insight into what's been happening.
In fact the main theme for the first few months was just wait and see ... GoogleGuy says it will all be worked out soon.
My message to anyone joining the DC watchers with a hope to getting better listings is don't waste your time. Just remove your spammy techniques, create better content and generally don't follow the quick buck.
Then again I may be wrong ;-)
All the Best & no hard feelings
Col :-)
If those were your methods then indeed you were wasting your time. However, a great many of us were not employing those methods and we are studying what is happening.
One thing I have deduced from the dc watching thread in combinatioin with the dozens of other google threads started by people mystified as to what is happening to their sites is that Google is broken. Someone down there has royally screqwed up and Google is in huge trouble with their indexing and data. This is a deduction achieved with dc watching an integral part of it. I myself do not participate in the dc watching but I do read thru it constantly and appreciate the small nuggets that they have mined.
I now know from all this...it's not us...it's google.
By reading this forum I found that I had an error in the way that my URLs were being formed ('//' instead of '/') that I would not realized otherwise and have since fixed. I also found that there was an error in my 301 redirection code which was also cured, although the cure was eventually found in another WW forum.
Perhaps I'm not so interested in the DCs themselves, but more about what I can learn from other members just by reading these threads.
..isn't it just an easy way to get your post count up without saying anything relevant?
I mean, I can easily look out the window every ten minutes and tell you how the weather is... from my point of view...
;0
"..isn't it just an easy way to get your post count up without saying anything relevant?"
FYI, posts on the threads of Google Datacenters Watch DON'T add to post count.
Talking about saying something relevant ;-)
Anyway forget about the post count thing. It was a bit provocative I admit, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I can't edit my post above anymore; it's timed out.
The weather thing is still my opinion.
Relevancy is determined by the person reading and writing the post - if it's relevant to them then it doesn't matter much if it's relevant to me or not. So, for some people constant DC watching is relevant.
That's cool with me. On any "normal" day the weather is much more interesting to me than any specific Google datacenter ;)
Is there a help line or something
:-)
