Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Continued from:
[webmasterworld.com...]
The same down-and-on problem here in Turkey.
But j3 goes on and off. No steady results. At least three different sets:
216.239.63.104 (I think with additional tweaks)
64.233.161.104 (still J2)
64.233.179.104 (J3)
One of my sites that I restructured some eight months ago had the new pages doing fine pre-Jagger. However most of this site's technical pages have disappeared from Google during the update (almost anything www.site.com/page/page.html is gone)
If I use a detailed search term along with my site name the old relevant page which hasn't existed in months will appear as a supplemental result with a cache image well over 1 year old. All very strange. The pages all have PR so I'm not sure what this update is doing. Only time will tell I guess.
It seems we have ended in a situation which nobody knows whats really going on.
And I have a feeling that our friends at the plex are just like us, don't know exactly whats going on too.
Or it could be the Testing Effect on [64.233.179.104...] which has brought with it random changes. Random serps, random rankings, random canonicals, random supplementals, random Dayo_UK, random tigger and poor me random reseller :-)
Ladies & Gentlemen
Welcom to Google chaotic World :-)
I previously said:
>>> I noticed a few days ago that 64.233.179.104 was treating singular/plural terms differently. On other DCs, where a site stipulated plural, it would still rank for both, whereas this DC was dropping the singular-term serps. This still appeared to be okay on other DCs 2 days ago, but from what you say, this behavior has spread. <<<
I've now checked this and actually the above DC is now ranking our sites again for both plural/singular, just the same as the other DCs.
Here he is: [fastvirtual.com...]
Sorry, tigger, but I couldn't resist ;)
I hope the mods leave this link in, and see this as it was intended.
PS the Tigger picture is adorable. I hope the leave it up.
Yes, I've noticed that too. It's almost as if they're working their way through major search terms in groups, trying out plural/singular combos, then occasionally reverting again for certain terms. Although that sounds very unlikely, it would explain why different DCs/terms were alternating this behavior, although it does seem to have settled now for most terms I monitor.
I hope they leave the Tigger pic in too -- at least until UK morning, so tigger himself gets to see it ;)
Another new day and a shining morning. Nice to be part of this WebmasterWorld community which includes people like tigger, supplementals steveb and Dayo_UK who went out shopping for X-Mas and hasn't returned home yet :-)
I see the test DC has changed its serps again. From now on we should call Google as The Dynamic Search Engine or inspired by Matt "Inigo" Cutts, lets call it Blinking Google :-)
Oh well...
[edited by: reseller at 6:38 am (utc) on Dec. 6, 2005]
>>Poor fellow member tigger is really working hard through this update, night-after-night, continually glued to this forum in the hope that things finally turn around. Always cheerful, always helpful to others, please join me in wishing him a speedy post-Jagger recovery.<<
Please join me in prayers for our brother tigger :-)
God Bless tigger;
Guard his website;
And give him peace.
Amen.
I am a loser for replying to that!
>>These number 1 positions for the homepage on site:www.domain.com fell out after a few days.
>>There seems to have been another crawl on about the 27th-30th (which again picked up the until recently uncrawled homepages) - this did not however put the homepages top in a site:www.domain.com search.
Dayo, Ditto same thing happen with my site what you described above.
Lots of nice people still discussing this update huh? :) Good.
I found the 64.233.179.99 & 64.233.179.104 very interesting since they (as of now) fixed quite a few bugs for some websites (missing homepages for examples).
you put smile on this old tried webmasters face - now Googles turn please.
Ok - lots of sites seem to be stuck in a state of limbo again.
Not a surprise as this has been the case for months and months.
So all this update has achieved is moving sites from one state of limbo to another and adding a few more sites to the limbo state.
I really cant see why it is so hard to fix this bug Google? GG talked about testing for stability on a DC - surely there is also tests for stability accross the DCs and this must be ringing alarm bells with the engineers? For sites that have been effected there has not been stability accross the DC for months - yet G do nothing about it and are happy with this state! Pffffff!
Update Dagger has been fraught with problems, and I doubt whether google will ever regain the credibility it once enjoyed among the SEO and Web Publishing fraternities (with the consequent loss of support and allegiance among the broader public).
The upside of this is that web users are slowly shifting away from thinking of google as the only search engine with relevant results - in the short to medium term a healthy scenario would be to see google commanding no more that 40% of search traffic and users more willing and open minded to yahoo and msn, which have both improved their serps dramatically.
Referrals from both these search engines have been slowly climbing over the past five weeks and I expect the trend to continue.
Not as silly as it sounds IMHO.
As far as I am concerned this thread could have started in February and still be running.
Google lost the ability to correctly crawl and identify the structure of many sites in February (well November/December last year the initial problems seem to have started) and since then these sites have not had stable results on the DCs.
More and more sites have fallen into the trap and still Google *refuse* or are unable to correct the problem.
No word from anyone at Google - results are different accross the DCs yet the update is said to be done (and to be fair is done for sites that dont have the problem)
However, many sites still remain in a state of Limbo.
OK - perhaps people will say this is a penalty. If it is a penalty it is a stupid way of applying it, eg the penalty results in not correctly identifying the Homepage as the root, surely this is the wrong way of doing it - a downranking of a site would not result in this I dont think - and a removal is a removal.
Also if a penalty - why then do results differ from DC to DC and have done for months for sites that have been effected - surely the penalty would be applied and this would then result in stablity accross the DCs with the now lower rank.
G however not be able to determine the root page seems to be a bit like G trying to hit a moving target and as a result the DC are constantly in flux for the effected sites.
Whether G are making progress is anyone guess, sometimes I am optomistic as G have at least managed to crawl some homepages - but when I look at the mess accross the DCs then I lose hope - it just seems that they are *still* unable to resolve this problem.
For most of the Webmaster community and especially for most of the searchers - it does not really matter - so what if one or two or fifty sites are missing? - so perhaps G dont have the incentive to really tackle the problem.
However, they are failing in their mission statement and personally I dont think it is the best way to run the system - surely if bugs are identified they should be fixed.
Ho Hum.
Yes, Tigger, I agree.
All we really need is confirmation that they understand what we are talking about and that efforts are being made to resolve the problems.
eg. For your site - if you do site:domain.com all DCs show your homepage in position 2 - while the number 1 position is an internal page (which differs accross the DCs)
For sites of this nature has Google lost the ability to determine the root? Is Google working on the situation? Can we as webmasters do anything to help Googlebot along?
Come on GG - you can even do one of your riddle/vague answers like:- "I would not be surprised if these issues are being looked at." ;)
They don't need us to tell them that they have problems. They are sure to have metrics against which they measure results.
Google is but one part of running a business. Forget them for now. They will do what they are going to do and we are not going to affect them. The people who search will. But not us.
Inst this supposed to be a two way street!
I agree about getting on with other things, this is what I've been doing for the last few weeks -
Sites are in a Limbo state - just confirmation that things may change for these sites or whether us webmasters can help the process is not really asking much.
MC confirmed at Las Vegas that they are working on 301s/302s - why cant someone at G confirm they are working on the root page problem - or in fact they may be related.
If I had a problem with my phone bill and I asked by phone bill company to look at it they would and answer me back! They are a public company too!
If you send a message to G using there feedback forms then you dont get a reply.(BTW - This makes no sense to my wife. I say I have a problem with Google - she says contact them - I say I have they just dont reply)
We are not asking anyone at G to give out any secrets to anti-spam measures etc.
[edited by: Dayo_UK at 11:01 am (utc) on Dec. 6, 2005]
When I pay, then I complain. But when get free, I appreciate and take what I can.
Spam reports are probably little more than a way to stroke you. I would expect that they have their own ways to look at things. Remember that they have their own chosen people evaluating the results.
Good luck Dayo
There is no way GG is going to post anyway so might aswell give up......
