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.
Not much change if you have an older high quality site with a lot going for it.
Lots of positive change for some of the newer sites.
Pure results with good content.
Great
The real litmus test of this update is not how my site and your site have fared.
The only criteria is the following: ON AVERAGE, when I use Google for searches, does Google deliver what I am looking for?
Try many searches you do regularly as a user, not while fretting about your own ranking and your competitor's. Search in topics different from those in which you have a vested interest to remain unbiased.
Then compare Google and Yahoo.
Yahoo *may* be rougher, but Yahoo gives you what you're looking for.
Something Google no longer does. Google beats around the bush a lot. Yahoo takes you there without detours.
I always felt that Google was 3 steps ahead of all other SEs, and was well on its way to being 10 steps ahead of them all. But something has gone awry - and I say this as a searcher, not as a webmaster.
Before you comment that Google is still better - do the experiment.
Time to celebrate with a bottle of bourbon tonite..:). I like everyone else here took a huge hit too.. But I play this game by making MANY websites so that any one update, I get losers and winners.. usually my winners are better sites that have more income potential than the losers... And my losers always seem to come back in their rightful positions.
Anyways, for all of you that have a single or a few sites that have been devasted, I just want to say keep working it. I know its hard when this happens but all you can do is keep on going.
One piece of advice that has been mentioned time and time again is to diversify.. I would take this to the extreme that you need to diversify in different niches and even in the same niches. My sites represent 7 different niches with at least 3 websites devoted to each niche.
Hope all your sites get shuffled back in to where they belong.
As I mentioned the other day - still seeing a lot of searches containing supplemental results dating back in some cases 6-12 months. (Ok these sites may have previously been sandboxed and might be why they have not been crawled recently?). This is not a complaint - just a fact.
Perhaps I am looking in the wrong sectors.
Google is still missing certain sites completely out - either through a filter or accident.
I guess the next question is when does this update thread get changed back to :- "Minor Shuffling - Incremental Indexing - Not an update" Thread. :)
Personally I would like to see backlinks and pr update complete before I say it is done - but you have to wonder if this it it now.
Before you comment that Google is still better - do the experiment.
I changed my default SE to Yahoo about ten days ago as part of my own experiment and to be honest I see no real difference in the results. I have been able to find what I need there just as well as I do on Google. Try it.
I use Google for my own searches and never need to look past page one.
With respect, this is hard to believe ... never?
In any event, my "content-only" site in the non-spammy topic took a hit and I have begun to make some changes. These changes will make for fairly stupid navigation, but I need the traffic.
These are:
1. My index page HAD a link to every one of my internal pages. Internal links gone, and replaced by copious amounts of on-topic text, with very few links. The necessary link page is buried in second-tier internal navigation.
2. Because my "free widget plans" are graphics, my internal pages were built with a simple html template with little variation beyond title, image filenames, and a few words here and there. I am now busying myself, grudgingly, adding more really dumb, useless text to every page. For variety, I'm removing some AdSense units and replacing them with image links to "Yahoo - the better search engine," or image links to some of my other related websites. I'm moving blocks of codes around, changing words here and there. All to give real, unique content the appearance of real unique content! 'Cause Google can't tell unless I hit it with a 2x4.
3. Each internal page had some anchor text for my keywords leading back to my index. I am varying the content of this anchor text.
[edited by: helleborine at 2:24 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]
Yeah. I've had no problems, to be honest. This update isn't one I even noticed as a searcher. I still use Google to search for things.
That doesn't mean Google doesn't have a problem, though. Say 1% of all content sites are inexplicably missing from the index. Surfers aren't likely to notice that at all unless they're explicitly searching for the company name of one of the disappeared sites. But they may wind up on a less informative site than they would have if Google was working better, or they may think there's no site out there with information XYZ on it even though there actually is. Just because surfers don't notice a problem, doesn't necessarily mean they're not being affected by it.
Whatever indexing/filtering problem Google is having right now, educational websites seem *completely* unaffected by it. I just used Google to find hundreds of educational sites on a variety of topics for a project, and since I was nervous about the missing-sites thing I double-checked some of the searches on Altavista, and I found nothing missing. No cloaky porn things or content-free Adsense pages, either, which have occasionally plagued the educational sector. Perhaps most tellingly, I have received no increase in email from panicky schoolchildren asking me for the answers to their totally-unrelated-to-my-website homework assignments. Don't laugh, the incidence of those letters went through the roof after Florida. (-: If schoolkids don't find what they're looking for right away, they evidently give up VERY quickly and start trying to get random adults to find it for them.
For some searches, Google is returning excellent results right now. My guess is that's why some people are saying "WOW the SERPs look TERRIFIC!" and others are saying "ARGHHH this looks TERRIBLE!" It all depends what sector you're looking in.
I wonder whether Google is doing something to try and eliminate freeloader pages that aggressively pursue commercial terms despite selling nothing themselves; and in the process they have ended up kneecapping good content sites optimized for phrases including commercial terms.
Just a few ideas percolating around in my brain; don't take 'em more seriously than that. ;-)
Helleborine - as we discussed I think you would benefit from a 301 redirect but you are unable to do this with your host. - I noticed they did have a tech forum - have you tried posting a question there?
Having said that I thought that your caconical url problem looked fixed - but rankings have not returned. Is the dance done? Dominic lasted 12-13 ish days, Esmeralda was a long one too!
LisaB
It resells some products from other companies. All these pages do have original content on them.
The site has loads of good links, I don't use any "dirty" tricks, I regularly update content, add pages and all that maintenance stuff we all have to do.
I've had tons of positive comments about the site over the last the 3.5 years.
I am first for my domain dame search but the rest is Kaput. If you think you can help and would like the URL, sticky me, I would love to hear some comments/thoughts.
Happy weekend to everyone, even those who got send to Dumpsville, population - me!
Well, yes, as compared to sites about, say, the Emancipation Proclamation, or Kantian philosophy. (-: I hope no one thinks I'm being pejorative when I refer to arts and crafts as "commercial"; I consider them one of the finest forms of commerce, personally. And if it's true that Google is throwing resource sites like Helleborine's out with the bathwater, it's a serious problem with the algorithm.
However, if it's true that the good sites that are disappearing are all informational sites about topics that other websites sell products for, then perhaps they're reminding the algorithm too closely of another, content-free sort of site about a commercial topic that other websites sell products for. If so, figuring out what it is could give them the knowledge they need to beat the algorithm.
Or, I could be too optimistic and it's just a totally random bug that will be fixed in 6d6 days. *rueful grin*
Great SERPs here in the UK.
Would you be kind to study the top 10 in the following search and then come here to this thread and post your honest feedback about the quality og Google UK serps. Thanks.
<snip>
[edited by: engine at 4:18 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]
[edit reason] specifics [/edit]
that first site in the results...well, I took a handful of different snippets from it, used them for searches on Google.com and came up with plenty of other sites with the same exact wording. Oh, that's what a scraper is. IC
BTW, that site's homepage doesn't have the slightest bit of originality either. Totally bogus.
[edited by: cyberfyber at 3:32 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]
cyberfyber - er no - that is not a scraper. (assuming you are seeing the first result I am)
Results could be worse (prob have been - not a term I am familiar with)
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:25 pm (utc) on May 27, 2005]
[edit reason] off topci [/edit]
>Reseller - best to take down that example - to specific for WebmasterWorld.<
Oh sorry. Tried, but the option of editing my post isnīt there anymore .
I wonder whether Google is doing something to try and eliminate freeloader pages that aggressively pursue commercial terms despite selling nothing themselves; and in the process they have ended up kneecapping good content sites optimized for phrases including commercial terms.
This isn't quite the same situation, but it's similar enough to warrant a mention:
On my content site of about 4,300 pages, I have maybe 50 pages that might be termed "commercial" because of hotel affiliate links. Of those, a number are for City1 (a major subtopic of my site) and others are for City2 (another subtopic, though one that I haven' covered in as much depth to date).
Before the Bourbon update, most of my hotel pages for City1 were in position 2 for a number of simple keyphrases, while the hotel pages for City2 weren't nearly as prominent.
Since Bourbon, my overall Google referrals have jumped at least 900%, but those City1 hotel pages are buried down in the rankings, while comparable pages for City2 (a larger city that I don't yet cover in as much depth, and which I'd expect to be more competitive) rank #1 for comparable keyphrases.
Is this a totally random phenomenon? It does seem odd that Google would look askance at affiliate pages for a topic that I cover in great depth while rewarding my affiliate pages for a topic that I cover in less depth.
(On the positive side, I don't really need Google referrals for the City1 affiliate pages, because my City1 editorial pages have enough critical mass to generate significant traffic on the affiliate pages through internal links.)
Your traffic holding up?
Saw a bit of movement in the term I stickied you the other day (I know it is not one you track though)
However, if your traffic is holding up - then no probs :)
PS for EFV. DC - 216.239.37.104
<fact>
Pre Allegra G referrals 8000+ per day
Post Allegra c 800 per day
Post Bourbon 8000+ per day (yesterday 11000)
The interesting bit
The top 10 search phrases used to find our site are identical pre allegra and post bourbon. That's identical (Whereas there were 25000 different search phrases each pre allegra month)
We made no changes between allegra and bourbon other than regular DB driven content editing.(becasue we knew not what to change)
</fact>
<opinion>
Whatever was done in allegra was exactly reversed in Bourbon.
</opinion>
(40000 page fully commercial site, 7 years old)
I don't really need Google referrals for the City1 affiliate pages, because my City1 editorial pages have enough critical mass to generate significant traffic on the affiliate pages through internal links.
Just had to highlight this so it doesn't get overlooked.
Yes, my traffic is looking really strong for a Friday--so far, anyway.
I just checked the data center that you mentioned, and I'm down for one or two of the keyphrases that I track but unchanged for others. I'm seeing the same results on google.com. Overall, I can't complain about those results, although they're off-topic for one of the keyphrases that I watch. Yesterday's results for that keyphrase were more relevant.
The fat lady may have sung, but it appears that she's returned for an encore.
