Forum Moderators: open
Worst update: Nov 2001?
3rd, 4th, ort 5th: Florida?
Other biggies:
Altavista: Too many urls Dec 1998 (?)
Altavista: Black Monday, August 1999
Excite: Density tweak (Dec 1997)?
Inktomi: Over submission update Spring 98 (?)
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 7:25 pm (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
[edit]I guess from a users perspective, the results are still ok for informational searches, and when I have questioned friends and work mates they have all told me they see no change - except for one person with one word - Fonts. Couldnt find any of the sites he was expecting.
[edited by: Goanna1 at 3:37 am (utc) on Dec. 2, 2003]
I'm not sure if it was the update you mentioned or not, but it was when they started selling out.
It is the only time I ever noticed that my primary SE had become bad enough for me to switch. Every other time I switched was due to getting better results with a new SE.
Now they come along and dump a ton of sites who bought into the PR campaign. Meanwhile, the agressive SEO that all the die-hard Google loyalists have fought against is flourishing.
Hopefully, everyone will wake up and realize that no search engine is your friend. If you have spent any time even thinking about how you might rank higher without paying money to the search engine, you are the enemy and you will be irradicated.
Something that happened 2 years ago doesn't hurt as much as something that is taking away sales/income today.
Worst update: Nov 2002? (or was the cross linking one Dec?)
I thought the biggie was Google Nov 2001? (remember with the link farms?)
Maybe I just don't remember correctly, but I swear the beginning of PR0, was two years ago?
2nd biggie was AV.
If Yahoo were using inktomi results, then Florida would not be nearly as drastic as losing 45% of your best keyword traffic overnight obviously would not be nearly as bad as losing 90% of that traffic as has happened to many with Florida due to the Google/Yahoo connection.
Dave
But whenever I search I keep getting a site that searches for me instead of a site that has what I want. Google doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between a web page where the keyword might be mentioned once and a web page on the topic. If I want to learn about light weight tile roofing I don't want a site that helps me find house repair companies. Google is supposed to directly find the information I'm looking for.
Maybe there should be a column added to the update thread that measures impact. You could rate it out of 10, ala the Richter scale.
The thing I fear the most is "bean headed"
partners changing the code on the backend without telling me.
Google was able to return super-relevant results only 2 weeks ago. Now it's pretty much a mess.
We came out a bit ahead (income wise) with some sites up and others down (actually gone for the most part), but the update is still troublesome.
If G continues to use this scoring algo, it will be the most signficant occurance in the webmaster community for some time. Favoring slightly relevant largish sites or completely irrelevant portals over highly targeted niche sites certainly isn't "webmaster friendly".
I remember the AV debacle just pre-holiday in 2000 very distinctly. I started a thread in the AV forum "An Italian site has taken over my spot at Alta Vista." It had - there were irrelevant, off-topic European and adult sites showing up all over the place where pertinent sites should have been.
That, as I remember, marked the demise of AV, which had always been the favorite engine of many people.
mfishy
Florida and Alta Vista are pretty close but Florida beats it because it is the quickest deterioration of quality I have seen - not just for search engines but businesses in general. Reminds me of Coca Cola introducing "New Coke". (stole that from someone here)
Aside from any of our own issues, I think that's where a lot of the fear factor lies if we broaden our perspective and look further than personal issues.
Even though there's more diversity coming with the Yahoo switch, whatever shape that takes, an awful lot of people have grown almost exlusively dependent on Google. Regardless of the fact that it's been a source of financial abundance or supply for many - any dependency that reaches that kind of proportion is not healthy.
Whatever changes the near future brings, Google won't be forgotten as a lucrative source of traffic, and however it goes they'll still potentially provide a hefty share.
The biggest fear I see, beyond immediate valid personal concerns is that Google could go the route that AV went - because the quality setting is just too reminiscent. Absolutely the worst - about equal with Alta Vista's swan song.
The fear is that they'll go down the tubes like many others and it'll leave a void that all too many people will be at a loss to know how to fill.
If goes, what will people do? Fearful thought there.
Back in 1995, Eric Schmidt, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems Inc., said the following in regard to "a $500 'Network PC'":
"'The device will have the processing power of a PC; it just doesn't have all that other stuff,' like CDROM drives and giant hard disks."
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/199512/msg00021.html
Just in case you don't know, Eric Schmidt is today Google's CEO.
"a $500 'Network PC'" Give us break!
If you are referring to the Black Monday that I remember in August of 1999, it wasn't an update, it was the day AOL (Who owned about the same % of the search market, as Google does today), dropped Excite with "no" warning... I wanted to go back to sleep, and not wake up.... So, it really wasn't an update, it was a complete switch...
The AV update wasn't as bad, because their market share was already declining....
I'd say the Google update in March/April, 2000 was our biggest hit, with Google...
Yeah, depends on how you rank 'em. The gnashing of teeth was quite spectacular during the PR 0 crosslinking update.
What's shocking about this this particular algo adventure is the degree that Google is being mocked. People are making fun of them. Hey, during the cross linking update I remember alot of anger, dismay, and a whole bunch of "who me?, my sites clean" conjecture, but I don't recall the the ridicule that Google is facing now. Speaks volumes.
Fear Factor : Ranking Google's Senior Officers
"Mr. Schmidt at Sun said Internet companies might follow the cellular telephone model and offer cheap PC's at below cost, to get customers to sign up for more lucrative network services."
Right ...
Maybe Mr. Schmidt will give ALL WebmasterWorld members cheap PC's after Google's IPO!
Google has taken out dozens of sites in the categories I compete in. Some SEO'd, some not. I compete in a services category, and now the top of the SERPs are all dominated with pages from big name computer companies that don't sell such services to the public, and directory pages with little relevance.
The other day when I was actually using Google to search (instead of analyzing it), I found myself questioning the results more, and was having to refine my searches more.
I can always find what I want with Google as I usually search with 3-6 keywords plus modifiers. But I am not the average surfer. Most people I run into can't even open a new browser window, let alone add quotes to a portion of their search. These are the people who will start to notice a decline in Google over the coming weeks.
What really rips me about this is everything that I did for my site is visible to the user.
I hope the people at Yahoo are reading this. You've got a window of opportunity to make INK a real player again. Yahoo dump Google now, and start using INK.
however most of us are not in this position by choice. Google has slowly but surely been slipping its basket under all our eggs for years now.
Had to chew on that one for a while, but agree. I do well in other SEs (#1 with INK - both Hotbot and PureSearch) but they dont deliver traffic and MSN is schizophrenic. I would love to be more diverse in my traffic sources, but all I can do is build it and hope they come. With Google, they show up in droves - until Florida.
My vote is for Florida. No other update has been as sweeping in its changes for an industry as large as mine. Fortunately for me and unlike most, this is the slowest ime of year, but I feel for those who are closing up shop 4 weeks before Christmas.
For those sites and we know who you are that are flourishing right now, I didn’t expect to hear too much from you as your new found wealth has had very little to do from even being present in these forums in the first place. This is a serious blow to free enterprise here, and with the comprehensive power of Google it is a direct and fatal strike. Not in this algorithm/filter necessarily, but in the actual direction its leading. I think someone had better start listening out there in never never land.
Had to chew on that one for a while, but agree. I do well in other SEs (#1 with INK - both Hotbot and PureSearch) but they dont deliver traffic and MSN is schizophrenic. I would love to be more diverse in my traffic sources, but all I can do is build it and hope they come. With Google, they show up in droves - until Florida.
Kirby, that's about it. We do alright elsewhere, too, but the traffic just isn't there. For us this has been the worst update. Other updates gave us some minor fluctuation, but this has been a drop the top 10-20 folks and replace them with this that and the other (I'll grant you some are relevant, most are not)
LisaB
I hope the people at Yahoo are reading this. You've got a window of opportunity to make INK a real player again. Yahoo dump Google now, and start using INK.There's a good chance Yahoverfasta is too busy counting the greenbacks this "adjustment" is making them to hear our pleas. They've probably been raking in a pretty penny since google decided to reward us with extra bandwidth.
