Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
If enough webmasters get fed up and ban Googlebot, word will get out that Google's index is not complete, because their bot has been banned. People will go elsewhere to search, because they know Google can't list all the sites due to the ban.
the list of TRULY banned sites on yahoo makes that pretty insignificant by comparison, yet thats had no affect on users.
Old onsite optimization has regained weight.
I disagree with this one.
I have never played the link game. I have concentrated on onsite factors, and have been spending my time adding content. We actually have a low number of sites linking to us (less than 300) across all search engines reports.
We still have managed to stay in the top 10 for our most important keywords. Now with the the Alegra update, we are at position number 93.
It's just to save wasted bandwith ... nothing personal against Google - just business...
itloc
If enough webmasters get fed up and ban Googlebot, word will get out that Google's index is not complete, because their bot has been banned. People will go elsewhere to search, because they know Google can't list all the sites due to the ban.
Users aren't looking for "all the sites"--they're merely looking for pages that fit their search criteria. If a search on "purple widgets" returns 995 search results instead of 1,000, (or even 900 results instead of 1,000), how many users are going to know or care, as long as they find what they need in the first 10?
If a search on "purple widgets" returns 995 search results instead of 1,000, (or even 900 results instead of 1,000), how many users are going to know or care
But, talking about banning Googlebot seems to be serving some therapeutic value here :).
Users aren't looking for "all the sites"--they're merely looking for pages that fit their search criteria.
Imagine user's being informed (over millions of web sites) with something like "We recommend that you use xyz search engine for best results".
This is where we, webmasters can make a difference and inform users that they are not getting the full picture.
[edited by: max_mm at 3:23 pm (utc) on Feb. 7, 2005]
When unique site names for above-board sites are so far down in the rankings, it's obvious that Google is broken. Why are they silent?
If an airline's planes can't fly, they come out and tell you what's happening. If a car maker's car rolls, they initiate a crisis PR campaign.
It's a PR Disaster waiting to happen. All somebody needs to do is build a media database of journalists who cover Google, Yahoo, MSN, search, etc. Then, create a blog that covers ridiculous results - e.g. x.com is way down in the rankings so when people search on x, they cannot find x.com. Then, write a pitch and blast the story out to the media: Google is Broken. That can be big news in all sorts of mainstream publications.
To avoid this scenario, Google would just need to come on in places like this and say: Be patient. We are implementing a new update. We are confident that many of you who are currently experiencing bad search results for searches where you deserve better will soon see that this update will correct those temporary search problems.
Why don't they do that? I think they are worried that a statement like that would simply spread the word that their search capabilties are having big troubles. It could tank the stock frankly.
Why don't the media cover the story? Obviously, they don't hang out here. They don't track this topic close enough to be able to detect this news on their own.
Why don't webmasters bring this story to the media? Well, I think they believe that you should not bite the hand that feeds you. In this case, for Allegra victims, the slogan morphs to you should not bite the hand that once fed you (because it may feed you again).
Would Google employees ever stoop to punishing individual webmasters who they don't like? I have a feeling they do it, even though it probably opens them up to a big legal liability.
I also believe we owe Google a little time to straighten this mess out - maybe a week and a half. But if there's no correction and no response, I think it's good to be more vocal -- outside of isolated places like this one.
It's really sad that I now am viewing Google as an ugly monopolistic company that doesn't care about its end users. I used to reserve that for Microsoft. So, whether the press has covered Allegra or not, I think the PR disaster has already happened for Google. A sad few days.
Really, all it would take is for a Google employee to come on here and say "Be patient during this update. We are tracking your issues and comments closely. Thanks for your continued support of Google."
That could win back a lot of hearts at this point.
Also [216.239.53.99...] seems to have the freshest data.
The index on this datacenter is much more spammy than before Allegra. On page-optimaziation seems to play a big role. h1 and repeated keywords rule the serps.
For example one site I monitor (not mine, a competitors site) has the keyword 4 times in the title and 4 times in a h1 tag on the site. Additionally this guy has linked all his pages on the bottom of each and every page. Old style Crosslinking seems to work again.
Needless to say that the site looks horrible for the user.
Another VERY strange thing I saw is a sitemap of one of my domains ranking very good for competitive keywords. There is none keyword in the title and the sitemap is structured like
keyword1 link-to-keyword-1.html
keyword2 link-to-keyword-2.html
This sitemap ranks better on each and every search term than the sites it links to do.
In fact it shloud be the other way round, because the surfer does not want to be presented a sitemap. He wants the site with the content on it.
greg
I am assuming that your site is new(ish). This datacentre does not seem to have new sites and all pages are in the supplemental index for all other sites (weird).
Whoa - good post
This is the crux of the problem as far as I can see. If Google can not return a site based on that site/companies unique name then there are problems.
If a search on "purple widgets" returns 995 search results instead of 1,000, (or even 900 results instead of 1,000), how many users are going to know or care, as long as they find what they need in the first 10?
If someone is searching for a companies website then they will not get what they need in the top 10 - unless what they want is to visit another website/directory before visiting the companies site.
[edited by: Dayo_UK at 3:38 pm (utc) on Feb. 7, 2005]
