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Dealing with the consequences of Bourbon Update

Which changes has Bourbon brought about & How to deal with them?

         

reseller

3:41 pm on Jun 5, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Assuming that the greatest part of of the latest Google update (Bourbon) is completed, its rather important to do some damage assessments, study the changes brought about by Bourbon and suggest ways to deal with them.

We need to keep this thread focused on the followings:

- Changes on your own site ranking on the serps (lost & gained positions or disappearance of the site).

- Changes you have noticed on the new serps (both google.com and your local google site) especially in regards to the nature of the top 10 or 20 ranking sites.

- Stability of the serps. I.e do you get the same serps when you run the same query within the same day or 2-3 successive days (both google.com and your local google site).

- Effective ethical measures to deal with the above mentioned changes.

Thanks.

Clint

5:01 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



Clint, fwiw, my site shows a date of June 13 on 216.239.37.99. (Just a quick check.)

Janiss, ah yes, when I search for my biz name, it too shows June 13 for me. But when I search for search phrases, my hits show no date. I wonder if that means anything? Anyone?

Clint

5:05 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



I'm still screwed at Google.com. I don't even show up if I search for my search phrase PLUS my business name along with it! All those that link to me are still showing the top spots for the search phrase alone, and with my biz name in the search!

gnehid29

5:36 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



I've been following you guys since this thing started.

I have been trashed, brought back again, backlinks disappeared, came back for a while in some DC's, the whole story that has been shaking the sandbox for me in the past four weeks or so.

I tried to keep it cool and do nothing as some of you and GG have suggested, but I am starting to desperate since what I see for me is a complete loss of SEPR's for my site.

Any idea when this thing is going to settle?

caveman

5:44 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> looks like someone at the 'plex is comparing old data with new algo against new data with new algo.

Seems that way, or something similar.

They clearly still have not reached the end of this, even if WW did close the Bourbon update thread. ;-) Plus, GG has not requested comments yet.

Even in the newer result sets, we still see lots of our old sites' homepages and subpages that are popping up well in the SERP's when they probably should not, and lots of irrelevant results in some categories. They don't have it in good shape yet.

FWIW, I think the new algo is (again) featuring more LSI tweaks than people are so far discussing, especially WRT backlinks. I also think that some of the filters are yet to be put in place. It also seems to me that some "measures of quality" may not even be fully factored in yet, possibly because of analysis still going on?

Johan007

5:52 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Using

[copyscape.com...]

To search for Plagiarism of your page on the Web i can only see the odd banned site by google! I wanna be back.

[edited by: Johan007 at 5:54 pm (utc) on June 15, 2005]

caveman

5:52 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



One more thing. They seem to be playing with settings/filters related to weeding out multiple sites from same owner in same category, using common backlink footprints as an indicator.

Will Spencer

6:36 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My site which was slammed by Bourbon just sobered up.

I have hundreds of keywords which just went from >200 to <10.

The cause was definitely nothing that I did. They must be finally fixing the Google-machine.

g1smd

6:38 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Look at the cache dates. If they are 6 months old then it is an old index.

Dayo_UK

6:43 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



Strange - if anything those results dont look like they are spreading.

To early to tell for sure though.

fearlessrick

7:20 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



My site is still pretty much lost >90 - on all DCs. Whatever they're tweaking, it's not helping me.

By the time G finishes this update, they'll start another. My feeling right now is that if G traffic ever recovers, fine. If not, fine, because I am concentrating my energies on promotion away from the SEs, especially Google.

The disturbing part is that G still is frustratingly inconsistent both in the search dept. and the daily, weekly and monthly fluctuations in Adsense.

I still say that G could have fixed everything by simply kicking out 100,000 Adsense scraper sites. Adsense publishers and advertisers both would be happier, as would surfers.

Google's continuing reluctance to address the Adsense scraper issue leads one to believe that they actually want them around. It isn't a stretch to believe that G keeps scrapers in Adsense because they can abuse them as much as they like. Give them .01 on 75¢ clicks, for instance. More for Google.

Call me paranoid, or a conspiracy case, but from where I sit, Google has shown contempt for publishers, SEO experts, advertisers and regular searchers alike.

To say I'm a little tired of it would be a gross understatement. Dying to see the YPN debut. I will leap from Google like a frightened frog.

fearlessrick

7:22 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



and BTW, I think that near-absolute silence on these issues by a company the size of Google, affecting so many people, is beyond absurd and bordering on insane or just plain stupid.

Obviously, I am not a big fan of secrecy, corporatism or totalitarianism, along with a bunch of other isms.

Undead Hunter

7:25 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Just to chime in, I'm seeing great results in the Variant 2 engines mentioned above, too.

Not quite back to previous levels, but excellent for new material, and a handful of old results.

Also, I'm seeing higher traffic and revenue today than the past week, surpassing yesterday's pathetic total already... revenue won't be anywhere near our previous highs, but we could be in the "40% of previous", versus the "10% of previous" revenue that we hit in the past few days.

One can only hope. I'd take 40% of our previous revenue, it would at least help stem the blood loss until we get our new, non-SERP dependant projects up.

BTW, just to add, for the first few days of Bourbon our site was "missing", ie. a search for our branded sitename came in Page 2 or 3 results at best. Then we moved back to # 1 for at least that, but practically lost all other appreciable Google traffic. It definitely looks like we're getting some of it back today, but its too early with too little data to tell for sure.

Billy Batson

7:35 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Here's an update from Billy-ville:

On a typical search for a term I'd hope web users would be able to find my site, I get these rankings:

216.239.39.104 - #1
216.239.39.99 - #1
64.233.161.99 - #1
64.233.167.104 - #1
64.233.167.99 - #1

216.239.37.104 - #202
216.239.37.105 - #208
216.239.37.147 - #208
216.239.37.99 - #208
216.239.59.104 - #203
216.239.59.105 - #203
216.239.59.99 - #203
64.233.161.147 - #213
66.102.11.104 - #202
66.102.11.99 - #202

As Clint mentioned, the results do seem to vary from minute to minute. The cache results for the top ranking SERPs are from June 3.

Borek

8:10 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My site is 4 months old, I climbed to about 40 for my keywords before Bourbon (keywords used quite often, but no SEO work on most sites). Right now I am either not visible or somewhere between 500-700 depending on DC. This may be interesting as some of you report good results for pages cached 6 months ago, when my domain was not even registered.

sja65

8:24 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



This is the story of one of my sites.

Site is a set of 20 sites, all dealing with widgets - bluewidget.com, redwidget.com, ...
The only interlinking is in the footer. The only duplicate pages would be things like blue & red widgets would be listed both places. The individual sites vary from 500 to 4000 pages. Site has been active since 1999.

In December 2004, lost most rankings. bluewidget has about 3000 of 4000 pages indexed in google with either www or not. No 301.

In Feb 2005 I started seeing differences between with and without www. Rankings fell further. Showing 3000 of 4000 pages for non-www and 200 of 4000 for www.

March 2005 I added 301 from non-www to www. Also changed all links from relative to absolute (including domain)(went from index.html to [bluewidget.com...] After about 2 weeks both www and non-www were showing 200 of 4000 pages. Number of indexed pages started increasing.

April 2005 showing 2500 of 4000 pages indexed - starting to get worthwhile traffic again.

End of May 2005, showing 200 of 4000 pages for both www and non-www.

6-13-2005 showing 2500 of 4000 - but all are supplemental with dates from Dec. 2004. Search for site name not on first page.

6-16-2005 showing 2800 of 4000 - just a few supplemental, cached dates of 6/3/2005. Search for site name #1.

Still no significant traffic, but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

g1smd

8:39 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I installed a 301 redirect in mid-March on a friends site (of 118 pages) and it took 4 or 5 weeks for Google to sort things out. Previously some pages were attached to www and some to non-www and many were without title and description. Many pages were duplicate listed, and many pages were not listed at all.

Things were perfect at the start of May. Google had picked up all the redirects and things were all listed correctly. A fake sitemap, installed on another site, pointing to URL versions for pages that we didn't want listed had helped greatly.

In late May, right at the start of update, Google suddenly listed all four versions of every page for the site (with and without www, and with and without the trailing / on the URL - every page of the site is an index page in a folder) and it stayed that way for several weeks. The three extra versions were all without title and description. The 118 "real" pages were all with title and description.

The problem fixed itself about a week ago. Nothing on the site or in the links was changed.

[edited by: g1smd at 8:42 pm (utc) on June 15, 2005]

reseller

8:42 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



sja65

>The only interlinking is in the footer.<

Have you tried to remove the interlinking in the footer? just in case.

gnehid29

8:50 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



Probably I am out of thread but I don't know about you guys, I am being sandboxed in Yahoo also! These guys are also shaking.

wordy

8:53 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



sja65

"This is the story of one of my sites.
Site is a set of 20 sites"

Unlike Y! and MSN, Goog takes a different approach to this structure.

oldpro

9:23 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Obviously, I am not a big fan of secrecy, corporatism or totalitarianism, along with a bunch of other isms

Have any problems with capitalism?

or...

"rugged individualism"?

[edited by: oldpro at 9:24 pm (utc) on June 15, 2005]

kgun

9:24 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



stu2 4:43 am on June 15, 2005

kgun
Do you have the link to the thread about what to do to make it harder for your pages to be hijacked (302'd). I think it was written by GG, but cannot seem to find it.
Sorry for the late reply?
Did you think of one of these.
Questions for GoogleGuy

[webmasterworld.com...]

GoogleGuys posts:

[webmasterworld.com...]

You know the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1?

[w3.org...]

Look in chapter 10. Status code definition. If still confused, search on Google with the thext strings that you find there.

BeeDeeDubbleU 10:56 am on June 15, 2005

Would that this were true. They are the epitome of capitalism and capitalism does not have a social responsibility. Make no mistake about it, their only responsibility is to their shareholders.
My ranking

1. The customer is the boss. Any sale without customers?
2. Below him the shareholder. He says that the company shall make money.

There are four types of people out there.
1. Some that tries to make a living of SEO techniques.
2. People that focus on bringing quality content to the web.
3. 1 & 2.
4. People that do not bother.

Perhaps group 2 have suffered most and it is time for them to get some attention.

What is the final consequence? On free search, will content be most important after this update? Is there still room for smart advertisers to confuse GoogleBOT. I hope content wins and do not regret that some people loose positions because of smart techniques. But perhaps I hope in vain.

Janiss :57 pm on June 15, 2005

Frankly, having to do 2 sites, one for google and one for the rest of the world sounds like a big, frickin' pita - I should be writing and editing content for readers, not tweaking code for a search engine that's not going to benefit from my information!

Fully Agree.

Johan007 :52 pm on June 15, 2005

Using
[copyscape.com...]
To search for Plagiarism of your page on the Web i can only see the odd banned site by google! I wanna be back.


Exellent, Thank you.

Do anybody else know of other similar tools?

Fearlessrick :22 pm on June 15, 2005

and BTW, I think that near-absolute silence on these issues by a company the size of Google, affecting so many people, is beyond absurd and bordering on insane or just plain stupid.
Obviously, I am not a big fan of secrecy, corporatism or totalitarianism, along with a bunch of other isms.

My advice again turn off the green page rank bar and be patient.

KBleivik

fearlessrick

9:43 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Have any problems with capitalism?

or...

"rugged individualism"?

No, of course not, and neither of these has any place in a discussion with the other "isms" I pointed out. So, your point is...?

kgun

9:54 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)



You wrote in the earlier post:

****************************************************

"and BTW, I think that near-absolute silence on these issues by a company the size of Google, affecting so many people, is beyond absurd and bordering on insane or just plain stupid.
Obviously, I am not a big fan of secrecy, corporatism or totalitarianism, along with a bunch of other isms".

*****************************************************

Don't want a long BLOG like Chat of this.

My point:
Google use the procdures they mean are best to search for quality content on the web. That is with free search.

I do not reply unless you have a good point.

KBleivik

oldpro

10:14 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Google = capitalist
Webmasters = rugged individuals

GoogleGuy

10:25 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I expect the data at 64.233.167.104 to spread to other data centers in the next few days. It may still take a while to settle down though.

<added>annej, to answer your question at message #392 this is newer data, not a rollback. We had to get the first set of data out before we could push this data.</added>

BillyS

10:36 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The fat lady sings (no offense GG).

sailorjwd

10:46 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



All my website tweaks and sitemap submission are paying off.

I got two G search visitors today!

Only 4998 to go :)

It was two searchers who were very patient since my site was last on 100 results.. just above.. click to see even suckier results.

steveb

10:53 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If anybody is feeling cocky about their current business, take a look at 64.233.167.104 and see how the mighty have fallen. Spammiest garbage Google has presented in two years.

g1smd

11:03 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



>> I expect the data at 64.233.167.104 to spread to other data centers in the next few days. <<

I really hope not. The data includes pages that haven't existed for 6 months. For other pages, the SERPs reflect what is in your cached version of the page, that too being 6 months old, and the real page should no longer appear for the search term anymore because the page content was changed long ago (3 or 4 months ago).

I mentioned above that Google had finally correctly listed all 118 pages of a site, and dropped all the URLs that were 301 redirects. The IP GoogleGuy mentions has the site shown in it's "broken" format, again with a 6 month old cache.

That IP is OLD data.

Borek

11:19 pm on Jun 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I expect the data at 64.233.167.104 to spread to other data centers in the next few days.

I hope it wont - just like g1smd. Pages with my keywords as anchor text are listed before my pages - and these anchor texts are the ONLY occurence of keywords on these pages. Otherwise they have nothing to do with the subject or content of my site.

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