Google Datacenters Watch: 2006-01-09

Observations, Analysis and Remarks

[reseller]

Hi Folks

All indications are pointing in the direction that we are approaching heavy changes in Google's index infrastructure. Matt has confirmed that several times. As such its of importance at present to keep an eye opened on possible changes on Google's datacenters.

In fact watching and analyzing changes on the DCs of high importance, IMO. Because it tells us much about what do we expect tomorrows serps to look like, and might take actions regarding our sites in good time.

Some of us are addicted DCs Watchers and we do that with passion and there is no doubt about our spirit of sharing our observations with the rest of our kind fellow members . However, we are often blamed of hijacking other threads if we have no place to post our observations and remarks ;-)

For you passionate Google Datacenters Watchers, I'm starting this thread.

Let those observations, analysis and remarks coming.

Thanks!

[icarus]

Reseller,

On both

64.233.179.99
64.233.179.104

snippet shows 13 Jan
cache date shows 14 Jan

[reseller]

icarus

>>snippet shows 13 Jan
cache date shows 14 Jan<<

Great. So we know that the cache are fresh.

Reason why I'm asking about the said two DCs is because they represent a set of DCs which have started showing different serps and different number of backlinks than the rest of the DCs.

Of course it could be just the everflux or major reshuffling, or something else ;-)

[Ellio]

I think Matt Cutts confirmed way back that 64.233.179.104 was a Big Daddy IP address - at least some of the time.

[needinfo]

Reseller,
On both Dc's my cached date is 9th March 2005.

[reseller]

needinfo

>>Reseller,
On both Dc's my cached date is 9th March 2005. <<

Thanks. Do you have any particular problem with your site? is it ranking at all on the 2 said DCs?

[King of all Sales]

texasville -

Those who say that Google is producing better results than MSN or Y are simply not being objective.

We operate a 400+ page (and growing) ecomm site in the US with no bricks and mortar presence and we are doing very well, primarily because we advertise and look for new ways to help users find our site. The point is, we have to be objective about the current state of search because we need to allocate our ad dollars in the most effective way possible.

The only thing Google really has is ad revenue. They must keep the users they have while attracting new users to the fold. They are certainly doing a lot of things in an attempt to attract new users but from where we sit, we don't see that happening.

We have expanded our adwords campaigns slightly in the past year, but were spending less. Our CTR has remained virtually the same, but the page impressions are down significantly. That means that less people are searching those keywords.

To add to this, Google employs a contextual algo to their adwords program so that many of the clicks we get are for search terms that have absolutely nothing to do with what we sell. For example, one of our product categories is Army widgets. We have keywords like "US Army widgets", "outdoor Army widgets", etc. Our ads will show up for searches like "first regimental patch," which has nothing to do with widgets at all. Google decides that "regimental" has something to do with "army" so they show our ad. The user clicks on it thinking that since it showed up on the page for their search, maybe we sell patches. Of course, the user doesn't find patches and leaves and we get to pay for the visit. As business practises go, that one would fall under the category of SLIMEY.

Google can only do that for so long and get away with it. We are presently happily finding that increasing our ad spend in other areas is paying of quite well.

[reseller]

Ellio

>>I think Matt Cutts confirmed way back that 64.233.179.104 was a Big Daddy IP address - at least some of the time.<<

You are right. And he wrote:
[mattcutts.com...]

"Executive summary: if you want to play with a Bigdaddy data center, hit 66.249.93.104 instead of 64.233.179.104"
and..
"I walked down and talked to the Bigdaddy folks, and sure enough: 64.233.179.104 has been taken down for testing."

However 64.233.179.104 hasn't been showing the BigDaddy of 66.249.93.104 for sometime now.

Could it be that the folks at the plex are working on another version of BigDaddy..... a BigMammy :-)

[steveb]

MSN and Yahoo have their own forums. There is enough electrons being murdered in this thread GOOGLE datacenters thread without dragging in those carcasses.

[needinfo]

Reseller,
this site ranked well in google approx. 8 months ago, then I started to see a slow decline in Pagerank and rankings, then around the time of the start of the Jagger update some pages went URL only or had no cache showing including the homepage. After that I kept seeing the homepage get indexed correctly on some Dc's but not on others (no particular order). Just recently (about 1 week ago) my homepage started to show the March 9th 2005 cached date on the two BD DC's. Right now the site does not rank anywhere on any DC but still does on MSN and Yahoo.

btw, this site is in the finance sector and has been live about 2 years.

[tedster]

Continued:

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