Update Jagger - Part 2

[Brett_Tabke]

Continued from
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Patrick Taylor]

One thing that is consistent in all my research on this update is that sites that rely heavily on internal linking schemas with next to nothing inbound links will suffer under the Jagger knife. In other words, if G sees you have a great site with no inbound links, there is a good chance that site will get a penalty. Seems kind of logical I would think. At some point someone would link to you via natural linking, right?

I have seen this to a degree, but it would only be logical if Google wasn't too interested in new relevant content that hasn't been around for the two years or so it can take to gather natural links. I have certainly seen pages (forgotten and broken - riderless horses) maintaining a rock-solid high rank through Jagger even though they haven't been updated since 1995.

[Yippee]

I would think the age of those pages (or domain) trumps most major penalties. I agree with you, however, from a TrustRank perspective, if you have a nice site, well organized, structured, etc. with no inbound links, that has to be a flag. Even if someone links to deep pages within the site, I am sure G credits the domain name for a link in the name of trust. BUT no inbound links on a site that has matured the "so-called" sandbox age would be suspecious I think.

[Patrick Taylor]

I wouldn't imagine newer content-rich pages are penalised or flagged in any way, but they can take a long time to achieve any sort of ranking, if ever. Those old and useless broken pages that have somehow held on to historically obtained inbounds - these are often pages from another, older era of the web - they sit there serenely, high in the rankings for certain search phrases.

I'm talking about searches for information, not shopping money-type searches. It can often be very time consuming to have to wade through several pages of poor quality Google results before one comes across anything useful. As has been said before in this thread, if you are doing research on something you have to get past those useless thin-content pages from online so-called encyclopaedias.

As far as Jagger is concerned I am hoping the balance will be adjusted so that good quality information comes to the fore at the expense of old-aged junk that nobody bothers to manage. I'm talking about search phrases other than "money" phrases and where Adsense is not something the site owner would ever contemplate.

[chriseo]

>> And who is that Mr. Matt "X-SEO" Paines whom hiding behind his blog? another retired SEO :-) <<

Matt Paines, MSN Search Champ [masternewmedia.org], the only SEO from the UK. and too my knowledge, not retired :P

[Patrick Taylor]

For what it's worth, I don't believe Google is just a cynical moneymaking machine driving webmasters into buying their products. I think they probably still believe genuinely in their mission, and if they want to stay ahead of Microsoft they will have to stay different to Microsoft.

It seems more likely they are simply having to deal with conflicting demands from users in a situation where the web is being swamped with new and often unscrupulously created content. Thinking about what is going on with Jagger, it may be more productive to sit back and look at the whole thing in the long term. Of course it's fun to do the trainspotting thing with all the DCs, but in the end it's how Google and the web will be looking months from now, not next week.

Some people here doubtless know of Brett Tabke's post about "Success in 6 months" - can't quite remember its title but I sent it to someone the other day and it seemed to make good reading still.

[mzanzig]

Now, wouldn't it be great if hotlinked images would also account towards your TrustRank/PageRank/WhateverRank? Occasionally I get really annoyed by people (usually discussion forums) hotlinking my stuff without giving proper credit. Now, if Google would honor that, it would be great.

OTOH, what kind of spam would we see then?

[johan]

My canonical url problem is fixed as of 1 or 2 hours ago on .com and .co.uk

[Phil_AM]

Ok, in my market, right now, there are two distinct set of SERPS. I ask the forum to tell me what J1, or J2 (or if you're reseller, J3)!

66.102.7.99
216.239.57.99
66.102.11.99

216.239.59.104
66.102.7.104
216.239.57.104

Now, 4 of these contain one set of results, and two contain another. There are no other variations in my segment.

Also, the 4 only appeared about 3am New York time yesterday (so I highly doubt they are J1, perhaps J3?!?)

[Yippee]

I personally don't care which Jx we are on because that's all smoking mirrors by G. However, I will say is that the set on 66.102.7.99 is the newer one. Whether it is J2 or 3 or 73856.9405 is for someone else's amusement.

From the way you have them listed, looks like the *.99 DCs have the new SERPs and the *.104 have the old SERPs.

[Phil_AM]

I hear ya Yippee. For the record, the DC's listed had two sets of results, lets call them A and B.

66.102.7.99 A
216.239.57.99 B
66.102.11.99 A

216.239.59.104 B
66.102.7.104 A
216.239.57.104 A