Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
There will probably be a thread anaylising the change when the update has settled.
No point yet as it is still moving - with this thread though you might be able to tell what DCs are leading the way.
To add to what others are seeing - some of my pages have stuck in the dcs - some have gone back.
We rank #1 for lots of cryptc placenames that not many people search for (under 10,000 results), and those results have remained the same.
For the more commonly searched for terms we're seeing a mixed bag of changes so far - some are up 30 to 40 and onto the front page - quite happy -- at the moment!
In answer to previous comment about request for details:
We've made one substantial change since Allegra (which didn't treat us badly):
The change was a complete site redesign (that qualifies as substantial I assume). Aside from the look of the site, three changes within the redesign are probably the most important with regards bourbon.
1)Moved the totally text-based navigation from the left side of page to the right. The old navigation was very repetitive - imagine sumthin like:
Elbonia
north elbonia
south elbonia
east elbonia
Embonia
north embonia
south embonia
east embonia
etc
This was repeated adnauseum across the site with some minor variations. Because some pages have little content (individual bar reviews etc) the text of the navigation bar was somtimes more lengthy than the actual content.
So, we shortened it drastically and used more stepped navigation as the user went further into the site -- eg only when they click on "elbonia" and goes to that page do they see "north elbonia, south elbonia" etc displayed in the navbar. Not only did it make things clearer for the user, but it also cut way down on duplicated text.
Secondly by moving it to the right column, we hoped the robots would "see" all the real content of the site before they got to the nav bar -- we hoped this would help us re duplicated content.
2)We removed a lot of nested tables that were being used for layout purposes only. This not only made the code perhaps easier for Google to digest, it also cut down page size, load size etc.
3)more use of header tags (mostly h1 and h2, though some h3 also) across the site re-inforcing three main sets of keywords.
So nothing special really - just bringing the site up to scratch -- nothing tricky -- though best to wait a few more days before making any hard and fast decisions.
66.249.87.104
But it's *way* too early to call this update finished. Some sites that moved out of the sandbox yesterday are now back in but they have a good change of re-appearing in the next few days. I saw the same thing during the past few updates.
Patience! While you wait, continue to build quality content...
I don't understand this as I am not seeing any changes at all in any index for several KW and sites I watch. I cannot call this an update at all - Really ODD. Can anyone in the UK can show me some changed results?
Increase. We may recover all of the losses that started March 23 which is something to the tune of 60%. Changes made? None. What's the new update based on? I dunno. Quit figuring that stuff out two years ago. Maybe the link campaign last fall is finally paying off.
Other things we never look at:
- Keyword density? Never bothered with it.
- Page Rank? Useless
- html validation? Don't know much about that one either but that thingy checker says we have oodles of errors and we sit very well with Google and Yahoo. It's been a long hard uphill battle.
- Too many others to think about. You'll go nuts with the theories around here if you chase them.
It has to be all about links. Link text rotation works wonders! Recip links work great! Content helps too- we have oodles. As for myself: I'm a little fish in my industry but fortunately we're only competing with 1-2 m results for competitive phrases.
PS--not looking forward to the NEXT update. Will we fall out of the top five SERP slots to page two again?
It may be that these trick pages are hurting you with Google in some way, and if we are honest they do not really serve any other purpose than being "doorways" as they are not very useful to the users of your website should they stumble across them.
Put this right and continue to build a truly useful site for your visitors and each update should be much less painful in the future, especially with those high quality one way links that you speak of.
Take it easy, george123.
You're not alone falling out of favour with google.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 1:30 pm (utc) on May 21, 2005]
[edit reason] please no private emails on WebmasterWorld. please see tos item #9 [/edit]
I hate to break the news to you, but what you have there is a keyword stuffing site with 0 content. This crap has been ruling the serps lately and is bringing down many good quality sites.
As a matter of fact, I’m not really sure this IS your site. Your posts and recent links look like an attempt to bring a competitor site down.
I don't think you are that naive as to not knowing what might be the problem with the site you mention.
But if you are than, I'll tell you. IT IS PURE SPAM!
[edited by: max_mm at 1:16 pm (utc) on May 21, 2005]
Would agree with Total P, even sympathy seems wasted on this...
Agree too... looks like a classic 'got what you deserve' :)
First, there's nothing you can do about the update while it's going on, except get needlessly depressed or angry if your down at the moment, only to bounce back when things settle down, or set yourself up for a big disappointment if you're up at the moment and fall again befeore it ends.
Second, whether you are seeing better or worse results on various data centers, they are pretty much meaningless untill the whole mess settles and the final results roll out across the board.
Third, it's way too tempting to start trying to decide what changes need to be made to your site, let alone actually start messing with it. You can't make valid decisions like that until you have the final deal. ANYTHING you do, or decide to do, to your site before an update ends, based on what you see "during" an update, is as likely to hurt you as it is to help you.
Fourth, there may well be a bunch of other webmasters making all the wrong choices because of what they saw during the update. You might as well sit back and wait to get the advantage of these folks mistakes.
Fith, there may not be much you can, or need to, do anyhow. Even after an update ends, and whether it looks like you got hurt or helped, the time to act may well be AFTER the NEXT update.
Why?
Because some of the sites that get a bump up often seem to get over confident and overdo whatever it was that got them that upward bump. More is not always better. Another group of sites will get overly worked up about losing rankings and do all kinds of screwy things to try and correct the situation. Both of those situations may well work to your advantage in the long run.
In the end...
I know it can be hard to take a long term view during an update, but it's a heck of a lot easier on your nerves, and better for your site, in the long run.
I'll wait until Tuesday, then I'll have to figure out the simplest site re-design possible to help Google not wrongly label me as a spammer.
Unfortunately we are in the dark. What does Google now consider to be the hallmarks of a spam site?
If I knew the answer to that... I could fix my problem. I'm going bonkers with all the guesswork.
Hopefully the algo calculation for my site is so complicated it is taking longer than normal...
