Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
They do this to thwart link spammers. Yahoo gives a more complete picture.
Google should open a antique store because they sure suck as an up to date search engine.
(Looks like I won't have spend the bucks to send flowers to the Googleplex since they have not met the target of removing ancient supplementals by the end of this month.)
What may be happening (and Matt Cutts has hinted at this several times before) is that the datacentre is actually offline while they do something to it, and all calls for that datacentre are actually going to a different one behind the scenes.
and all calls for that datacentre are actually going to a different one behind the scenes.
Maybe that would explain why all of the sudden we are getting hit from international customers. We haven't had so many calls from europe and australia ever. We do ship there, but it's a real pain to verify their orders.
The just seem to get worse and worse every day, strangely in a way that they should have no problem with.
Google shows only about 5% to 10% of the links that they actually know about.
They do this to thwart link spammers. Yahoo gives a more complete picture.
Shhh... Let the link chasers keep using what they think is best :)
However, the changes for the related: command are fascinating, with major changes showing. The results are far more accurate in identifying similar sites. Our main competitor has for months not shown any related results on google (which is an impossibility in a competitive sector) and have consistently remained at position 1 for primary search terms. On 64.233.187.104, they now show 30 related results, as does my site, and 19 of the related sites are common to both our sites, with each of our sites included in the others similar results. The 19 sites common to both of us are definitely all "authority" sites in our sector. In both our cases, the datacenter correctly includes a number of sites owned by each company (which are not included in the 19 sites common to each of us). The balance (less than 6) are a few sites which are within our sector but unique to each others related commands.
A similar pattern runs through a related: command for all my main competitors.
This is the biggest update I have seen for related commands and definately seems to be correctly identifying authority sites in our sector.
Whether these changes roll out to other datacenters or affect the serps remains to be seen.
The 19 sites common to both of us are definitely all "authority" sites in our sector.
Out of interest, how do you decide whether a site is an "authority" site Optimus?
Oh and incidentally, the PR on my main site, which changed yesterday, has rolled back today.
[edited by: Simsi at 10:39 am (utc) on Aug. 31, 2006]
IMO the 19 sites I refer to all contain information and advice relevant to our sector. Of course some are better than others, but the consistent thread is that they all have good to excellent content, are free of garbage, redirects, mass link pages etc and all deserve to do well in the serps.
Of further interest to me on 64.233.187.104 is that another competitor which consistently embraces dodgy tactics, including content theft, has all 30 related links for his main site displaying the plethora of his company's interlinked domains and subdomains.
That of course, may indicate that he is an authority of his own!
Personally I am still up in the air when watching those DC's. Not that it is all bad SERP's but I find that reaching page 1 seems amazingly easy for some insignificant sites with low end link exchanges as only marketing. Weird.
Maybe we should ask that "dude" about his tests though? :)
By the way watching closely some results, it looked like he is not testing on US results, more on UK ones (just a guess this morning).
One thing is sure, some quality filters are off IMO. (although 72.14.209.104 is not much better today from where I stand)
e.g. ww*.example.com/apage.html
The pages are indexed when you do a site: search, but search for the page doesn't work at the moment.
[webmasterworld.com...]
I have also seen bits of it spread to other DCs at times, and later revert. Yesterday the cleanup had been at least partially reverted even at gfe-eh (but that DC may actually have been offline).
Today, at gfe-eh and other DCs, I see the cleanup in an even more advanced state than at any time before. A lot of the more recent supplemental results for pages that are gone, redirected, or since edited have also now been cleaned away too.
Any idea what is going on? It sucks being on page 1 for 3 years and them dropping constantly for the past 2 months. I am starting to fee like it will never get better. Watching my results multiple times a day can't be good either.
Although right now (looking at 72.14.207.99) it really starts scring the hell out of me.
I am usually a big GG fan, but there are damn wrong results right now.
Googleguy, are some filters off or what?
There are websites:
- with almost 100% similar backlinks, from VERY low end unrelated sites
- using automated link schemes,
- spamming every homepage they can
- other with 100% textlinks purchased from totally unrelated sites
...on top of SERP's now? It's sad. Given some improvements since June I though all would be fixed, obviously not.
Compare to that one of our websites that has REAL 100% true, relevant and related popularity which is gone fully supplemental and sliding down to nowhere, it makes me wonder!
Hopefully just another test, but I am not sure anymore.
I think this is the "at least 85% of your links must be extremely low quality" datacenter (thus valuing both spam and trivial sites).
Meanwhile, I would suggest to enjoy the rest of the summer :-)
Google's embarrassing summer affair with blog comments and redirects is just stunning.
Reseller, how many months have we been saying this?
It must be getting on 18 months for some of the forum participants and still no real light at the end of the tunnel. I don't really know how the Google experts keep stringing us along like this.
All the best
Col :-)
It's the first time that I feel almost embarassed for Google though.
For the past couple of days, seing so many really "average" sites (I don't want to be rude) being pulled up to page one is just amazing.
If this is a test, someone must shed some light for me, cause I can't find any good reason.
On the other hand, I remember last year some weird things happenning around the same period, but it is not that bad was it?
