Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
No, that is zero sum game. The most useless posts here are from people saying the serps on some datacenter suck or are good because their own stuff ranks bad or good on that datacenter. Not only does nobody else care, there is someone thinking the exact opposite due to how their stuff is ranking.
In any case (repeating mantra from past several updates), a lot folks should consider that screw ups are not deliberate policies. Google has been a technical mess for more than a year now, just over two years really. Allegra was just a blip of an update, but was a huge technical disaster. Google also has a horrible time figuring out canonical pages, particularly when webmasters deliberately do inconsistent things.
This update seems to me to be another minor bit of shuffling, with the added "bonus" of a lot of anomalies, most caused by lazy or uniformed webmastering (meaning if you have been reading webmasterworld and haven't had a 301 on for non-www and www since at least last summer, you only have yourself to blame).
I see almost no changes in my niches, except... a HUGE increase in straight redirect domains. This tactical trash gets discovered fairly quickly but apparently a new tactic has been discovered and needs to be squashed; authority sites performing same as recently; sites still in the sandbox dumped back to pre-Allegra levels, while sites that got out of the sandbox with Allegra doing a bit better.
[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 9:25 am (utc) on May 26, 2005]
Although those pages may be positioned correctly on content the pages need to be re-crawled to see if there are 404 etc - and I would imagine a re-crawl may remove the supplemental tag.
reseller.
I dont see updated backlinks on that DC - I think I know why you want that DC ;) - however I think we have a way to go yet - so hopefully it will shake out alright for you and me (and everyone - but I guess that impossible.)
[edited by: Dayo_UK at 9:28 am (utc) on May 26, 2005]
My Google referrals were up 350% on Wednesday, and rankings for the keyphrases that I watch have jumped back to pre-March 23 levels--or higher in a few cases--so I'm feeling pretty relieved at the moment
EFV, guess GG wasn't on vacation afterall :) Happy for you.
>reseller.
>so hopefully it will shake out alright for you.<
Thanks..
Wish you the same.
These results move me from #6 to #17-#22 for my main keyword and promote several sites with near-identical mirrors of themselves high in serps.
I wouldn't worry to much about particular dcs at the moment. This thing hasn't finished yet.
Check using this: [mcdar.net...] Results are all over the place!
by other dcs - I mean more than they have - not just the above dcs - new backlinks look like they are on about 50-60% ish.
Slimeball competitor webmaster with crappy page without a link to my site, comes up #1 for my company name. I know what he must be thinking... "priceless."
His bakclinks went down, mine justifyingly went up. He's #1 for my name, I'm #142, with an irrelevent, PR-less internal page sneaking up at #138.
its hard to look when you cant find yourself with unique keywords, with site name. Every backlink to you is above you.
Our home page is outranked by 34 scrapers, 4 non-existent internal pages that are supplemental results, and 2 random low pr internal pages.
Supplemental, non-existent pages are outranking critical pages of the site, although those critical pages have hundreds, if not thousands of inbound links.
What you describe is exactly what I'm seeing.
I hope this isn't "IT."
The SERPs are a joke. People specifically looking for me don't find me. Brilliant. I do hope they are typing up pink slips at the 'plex. Could they be simultaneously recruiting at the Yahooplex?
>64.233.167.104 has updated backlinks.
216.239.59.104 has the old backlinks.<
That means that the google.com I see from here (66.249.85.99) is showing the old backlinks then.
Wel question for everybody..
How safe is it to use McDar Tool?
Atleast at the time when a big update is going..?
When at this time Google is more busy Updating a huge amount of data...and they
might get irritated receiving replies from automated tools....
Anybody any Idea....it is very Important to know...
coz i know at the time of update most of the ppl out there use automated tools to see what's happening...
Regards,
KaMran Mohammed ;-)
I think people are not finding me with the usual searches and are having to recall my site's name. Many people mentally bookmark sites by knowing the site they want is "number 3 on a search for 'black widget tours' " - that is now failing and people are searching on my site name which, thankfully, I am still there for.
I've never seen that before. People must be noticing wacky SERPs then. I hope they are switching to Yahoo.
Over the years I have had many frustrated clients of mine (generally the ones who dont really understand SEO) ring me after a month or so ranting about how they used to be number one of this keyword and that, and now they are not "what the hell is going on" is a common one.
SEO is not about getting number 1 for a particular keyword, lets get that straight. SEO is about increasing traffic from search engines.
Clients seem to forget that they might have lost a position for one keyword, but they have thousands of number 1 positions for keywords you could not even make up.
The real key to SEO is increasing quality content and endexability. This means that instead of relying on the positions of a handfull of keywords you build up a pool of thousands, this way it does not matter if you drop a position or two, as long as the traffic keeps going up!
Using this philosophy my sites see steady growth unaffected by Google updates, and once my clients grasp the concept my clients stop asking me for WPG reports!
Next week - A lesson on how to suck eggs.
Munster says :A lesson on how to suck eggs.
What do u mean by this Munster.
wel ur post was like a good pitch...
thanxs..
KaMran :-)
People have posted this about previous updates and have been hit.
:: Sigh ::
Content sites have been hit previously, have been hit with this update and will no doubt be hit in future updates.
Reminds me of an old flame that flamed out pretty quickly. She had her "time of month" like clockwork and was very grouchy and unapproachable for about a week. Then there was the pre and post "time." in which her mood swings were off the charts.
I jokingly told a friend at a party that she was only stable abut 3 days a month. That sealed my fate, but it was essentially true.
Same with Google. Unique site names coming up at 75, when they are 1 AND 2 on MSN and Yahoo, means, plain and simple, Google isn't worth my search effort.
I'll reinterate: corporations with established brands (money) have fared well in this update, no matter how sloppy their code is. ebay and amazon did well, especially stores and affiliate sites, yahoo stores got dumped. If you are an adwords advertiser you probably did well. If you are an adsense publisher, maybe, maybe not. If you are an AS publisher in the content network only (no search), you likely got dumped.
On that last point, the logic is simple. If Google puts my relevant, on-topic page down in the 70-300 spot, it likely won't be found by searchers, but the ads that run on my site are also on G's search results. Result: the don't have to share revenue with me. Greedy bastards, plain and simple.
All other theories are hogwash. This update was mostly about money, Wall Street, the price of the stock. Google is looking longingly at ebay and amazon as partners and/or takeover candidates. It's the way it works. If you don't think so, then why is Froogle still not successful? G is focusing on selling products, not relevant search results. This became obvious when they explained part of smart pricing with the example that a site reviewing a product was bad, a site selling the product was good. Money, money, money. It's all they see.
And about that 301 edirect and the code for .htaccess. I installed it yesterday and took it out today. My reasoning is that if Yahoo and MSN can find my site without it, why can't Google? I truly don't believe it has anything to do with anything.
[edited by: fearlessrick at 12:22 pm (utc) on May 26, 2005]
64.233.189.104 displays one set, 64.233.187.104 displays another.
In either case, my unique site name is buried on SERPage 16, somewhere around the scraper/pervert boundary.
You would not be surprised by the fact that you are not the first person to make such comparisons.
Google is clearly going through a big change at the moment - but is very unpredictable.
Brett - if the word on the street changes to its all done - please let us know. ;)
Not that Brett or any other really experienced webmaster are reading this thread now - probably just sitting back thinking "look at those fools chasing dcs - no point looking for a little while yet"
I see two sets of results instead of the usual three.
64.233.189.104 displays one set, 64.233.187.104 displays another.In either case, my unique site name is buried on SERPage 16, somewhere around the scraper/pervert boundary.
Yes Hellebornie....even i see the diff results in both the DC..
KaMran :-)
The more competative #1 positions that we are holding are still there, and even my newer sites are still holding page 1 results.
The newest site seems to have avoided the sandbox and has actually went up a notch since it's main competitors doorway page has disappeared from the serps. Otherwhise, the results are pretty stable.
Now. None of these sites are aiming for any specific keywords, but they are SEOed for good ranking and indexability.
I'm seeing some crap in the SERPs as well, but not where it counts, and since
I just thought this thread could use at least one more positive post.
Two points...
All other theories are hogwash. This update was mostly about money, Wall Street, the price of the stock.
1. Unless you work for Google then your theory is hogwash too. How many people searching Google actually click on an ad? 20%? 30%? 50%? The point is, that even if 50% click on an ad, that leaves 50% of their traffic unhappy with the results. I cannot imagine someone at Google saying - "We need to drive up advertising, so we need to de-tune our search engine." Unless you plan on exiting the business quickly, that strategy is very shortsighted.
2. This update isn't over yet. (I love saying that too.)
Actually, I'm much more interested in the algo as it relates to $$$, politics and power, as in Adsense, Adwords, ebay, amazon, yahoo, the fact that corporate sites come up welll in searches, but sites like mine, informative pages with definitive five word titles, similar and/or matching keywords, good content, no spammy links either inbound or outbound, are ranked 75 or below.
My main bone of contention is why does the world have to sit still every month while Google fiddles with the web? Yahoo and MSN aren't nearly as intrusive or disruptive (I've been unable to access my own site at various points during this update/crawl, like in a DOS attack). I could understand if Google were the best search engine far and away, but as of Bourbon, they are now a distant third.
I've thought it over and I'll likely remain in the AS program, even after this, but I'll not put anywhere near the amount of time I have been optimizing it, caring about it, tracking it. And their "restrictive covenant" (look it up) they call their TOS? I've hit the ignore button on that. Basically, if they don't like what I do or say, they can kick me.
BTW: I've never bought into this pagerank and link popularity business. To me, the web is about information. I present it the way I do, without restrictions. Many people have commented and praised me for my work, but they don't link to me. I don't write pages to generate links (many people do); I write them to inform, entertain and/or educate.
Google is not now, nor will they ever be the absolute arbiter of quality content, though I'm sure they, in their plastic world, think they are.
It is the constant 'beat the update' attitude of everyone that causes Google to update their algo's causing them to steer away from past successful algo's.
I know it is idealistic thinking to hope that people would not try to fool the SE's into giving them 1st place for the word widget when the site is actually about 'Swiss clockworked widgets'. I am just saying that if your site is content rich you will soon see what keywords it is relevant for if you built it well.
Update watching is a quick way to a heart attack. My sites are doing well, always have, my Google dance days are over, my keywords and positions change, but traffic continues to grow. So I am happy.
Anyone disagree?
As for
[Google is not now, nor will they ever be the absolute arbiter of quality content, though I'm sure they, in their plastic world, think they are. ] I'sorry Dayo, its nothing personal but what a rediculouse statement.
Don't you think its for Google to decide how to rank sites in THEIR index? If you want traffic from Google they are in fact the absolute arbiter of quality content and will contiue to be until one of us has a 51% stake!
Dont lose sight of the fact that we dont own Google, we hope to be included.
[edited by: Munster at 1:34 pm (utc) on May 26, 2005]
