Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I had two sites. The main one is very stable, but the second one goes up and down very often, almost one week up and one week down. This week, it stays longer than usual and I hope Google found a way to keep results consistant. Both sites are ranked higher than before.
[edited by: tedster at 2:03 am (utc) on May 2, 2007]
One day they are off the hook and the next ..<crickets chirping>
MSN and Yahoo are completely useless in terms of search results and traffic. They want to leave it all to Google engeneers :-)) So migthy G can leave any MFA crap on top for a lot of keywords.
Exactly! Unfortunately there is no competition what-so-ever.
Can you imagine a little old lady somewhere who's dabbling in a hobby site and wondering why she's at #10 one day and at #698 the next?or
a single mom who's struggling with her site after a full day's work, happy that she's discovered a way to earn a little extra to make life a little easier for her kids and herself, and just when she sees a little light at the end of the tunnel, someone shuts the door?
Andrewswhim, I resemble both of those descriptions (minus the being a mom and minus the kids) to a T. All I want is a solution and soon.
Good luck to all that have lost out
Can you imagine a little old lady somewhere who's dabbling in a hobby site and wondering why she's at #10 one day and at #698 the next?or
a single mom who's struggling with her site after a full day's work, happy that she's discovered a way to earn a little extra to make life a little easier for her kids and herself, and just when she sees a little light at the end of the tunnel, someone shuts the door?
Andrewswhim, I resemble both of those descriptions (minus the being a mom and minus the kids) to a T. All I want is a solution and soon.
I feel for you. Thank god I've got a home catering biz I can fall back on. I hope you have something more dependable too.
It's like being a player, going to the stadium where you don't know :
-what game you're gonna play
-what the rules are for the day
-what ball you're going to use, if there is one
-how many balls you're using in the game
-what shape the field is
-how you're supposed to score (if you are!)
It used to be that you concentrate on content, make sure you don't step out of line and the rest would fall into place. Now we have everflux and everyone is supposed to spend 10 hours a day groping their way through Google's jungle of filters.
now that I'm at #25 for my main keyword (from #1), my Adsense eCPM is sky high simply because those that DO take the time to find my site on page #3, #10 and #27 etc, are ACTUALLY READY to click!
everflux ... bah!
daily earnings are down by 70%
Junky MFA link collections stay on top very steady.
So how about creating a black hat alternative site to ballance your losses.
For many search phrases this seems, what Google engeneers love to leave on top.
does seem the only way to play G's game
I am one of those that keeps up with what is going on and have spent a lot of time keeping within what Google wants.
If sites like mine get penalised then I will start to think, as posted above, that black hat methods are back as the winning strategy.
And that would be a disaster for Google. The recent strategy of creating a neutral web could be in tatters. Much of Google's search work for the past few years would be rolled back and count for nothing.
Junky MFA link collections stay on top very steady.
So how about creating a black hat alternative site to ballance your losses.
Can't do it dude... it's a karma thing... damn... holding on to principles suck big time (sometimes)
if you can't beat it! spam it!
does seem the only way to play G's game
nope... can't do it....
If sites like mine get penalised then I will start to think, as posted above, that black hat methods are back as the winning strategy.
okay... okay...
if one person calls you a donkey, he may be wrong.
if two people call you a donkey, they may be wrong,
if three people call you a donkey... then hee-haw! hee-haw...
going to look for my black hat!
Can you imagine a little old lady somewhere who's dabbling in a hobby site and wondering why she's at #10 one day and at #698 the next?
But will she be at #10 one day at #698 the next if she focuses on organic content, has never heard the term "SEO," collects Hummel figurines instead of links by the bucketload, and isn't selling anything or larding skimpy pages with three AdSense units (meaning that she doesn't have an easily discernible motive for spamming, thereby earning herself the benefit of the doubt)?
#*$! happens, and so does collateral damage, but how often do they happen in the overall scheme of things? Are there really thousands of little old ladies with genuinely useful hobby sites who have seen their pages on knitting, spoon collecting, or rose gardening plunge in Google's search results while junk rises to the top? Or is it just barely possible that the fictitious "little old lady with a hobby site" scenario is a distraction from what's really happening?
The point is that this is happening to sites that I have never suspected of any SEO (sites that would probably have only a vague idea of what SEO is) as well as some that do partake in SEO.
It looks random to me and is an incredibly bad way for Google to test out whatever it is testing.
Someone has already mentioned this but if you have a website with telephone support, exactly how are you meant to guage the correct number of support staff if search engine traffic is a big part of your business and Google keeps playing with your site? Many sites must be experiencing similar problems and most of them will have no idea what's going on.
In my opinion, Google's current strategy to neutralise the web (i.e. create the web that would exist without Google) is doomed to failure. The world, people, businesses do not work like that. The essence of our capitalist society is that everyone is out for what they can get. Google cannot change this. They are not God. They cannot change human nature.
If anyone from Google reads this please stop and have a think. Google should be about indexing the collective product of humanity, not trying to bully that product into a shape that better fits some algorithm.
Rant over.
Someone has already mentioned this but if you have a website with telephone support, exactly how are you meant to guage the correct number of support staff if search engine traffic is a big part of your business and Google keeps playing with your site?
Yapp we have now 3 squids and a databaseserver to run 16.000 people a day... .... talking about overkill.. Well at least I can get my own videostreaming going now. :)
Well anticipating that we would get sc...ed again, we kinda tried to go for a compromise and took the risk for faster performance for the users. Anyway we thought next contract runs out in 6 months .. so the risk would be half a year instead of a year.
No idea how really to plan in this. Google seems to be intent to kill everything off between mini hobby Mom and Pop sites and mega businesses. No place inbetween the two extremes.
[edited by: mattg3 at 2:56 pm (utc) on May 4, 2007]
In my opinion, Google's current strategy to neutralise the web (i.e. create the web that would exist without Google) is doomed to failure. The world, people, businesses do not work like that. The essence of our capitalist society is that everyone is out for what they can get. Google cannot change this. They are not God. They cannot change human nature.
If everyone is "out for what they can get," isn't it reasonable that Google should be out for what it can get (whatever that might be), and that it should have the right to run its Web site the way it wants?
Or do you prefer a double standard?
But will she be at #10 one day at #698 the next if she focuses on organic content, has never heard the term "SEO," collects Hummel figurines instead of links by the bucketload, and isn't selling anything or larding skimpy pages with three AdSense units (meaning that she doesn't have an easily discernible motive for spamming, thereby earning herself the benefit of the doubt)?#*$! happens, and so does collateral damage, but how often do they happen in the overall scheme of things? Are there really thousands of little old ladies with genuinely useful hobby sites who have seen their pages on knitting, spoon collecting, or rose gardening plunge in Google's search results while junk rises to the top? Or is it just barely possible that the fictitious "little old lady with a hobby site" scenario is a distraction from what's really happening?
EFV... seems like the little ol' ladies I know and the little ol' ladies you know are of a totally different breed. ;-)
Google cannot change this. They are not God. They cannot change human nature.
Aehm Google understands capitalism pretty well. 99% free work and no salary and plenty of new tools aka that 3D program £d sketch or whatever to encourage more free work... That's a good minimal salary. ;)
Personally I think now the biggest ones to blame are yahoo and msn as in actually getting their act together and give us a decent alternative ...
'DO NO EVIL'? Google has got to where it is through an image of something different to a profit hungry corporation. It's original ethos does not sit well with current events and it's exalted status as king of search must be in jeopordy if it loses the trust of the people.
Even if it isn't YOUR site in the top ten, you'll find that someone else is.
Has anyone actually found that a site 'not as good as them' has risen above them?
If so, is there something about that site that we can learn from? Or should it be reported to Google as a 'wrong' result?
Seriously, though, few people seem to be trying to 'get into Google's head', and work out WHICH FACTORS they've changed in order to improve their search results.
I dont care WHAT your backlink profile looks like. But if your using regurgitated wiki content you should be at the very BOTTOM of the serps.
Gaming is rampant as ever. Devaluing paid links will just lead to more sites like this being successful.
There are only ten results on the default first page for any given search. Everybody can't be in the top ten. Everybody thinks they should be in the top ten, but everybody can't be.
The point was stability of results. Diversification leads ultimately to sloppy content work.
But as it is what is demanded new servers are going up. :)
Either way, 99.9999% of Google users won't know if results are stable or not - just as now, the whole concept of datacenters with different results is a total 100% whoooosh for 100% of non-webmaster Google users. And a fair number of webmasters ;)
Never forget "SEO 101" Google isn't there to give webmasters a good time; doing well requires webmasters to look at Google from a searchers POV. If it isn't a problem for searchers, then Google will not perceive it as a problem.
true I completely agree with you - BUT in one sector that I watch the top ten/twenty results are so far off the mark its unreal.
Searchers do not need stability of results; chances are, either (a) they'll never do that search again or (b) they'll have no recollection of what appeared last time.
Precisely. Google is a real-time search engine, not a directory. What's more, the Web is constantly changing, so why wouldn't anyone expect search results to change?
Stability may be good for owners of Web sites (at least for those who have high rankings for desirable keywords), but it isn't a measure of search quality. If anything, the opposite is true, and change is necessary to improve the supposedly awful results that Webmaster World members like to complain about. :-)
>There are only ten results on the default first page for any given search. Everybody can't be in the top ten. Everybody thinks they should be in the top ten, but everybody can't be.true I completely agree with you - BUT in one sector that I watch the top ten/twenty results are so far off the mark its unreal.
In our fairly International branch some black hat smarties occupy almost 1 - 20 at Google with a whole bunch of domains offering the same MFA link collections.
Even for loads of search phrases like England+kw, USA+kw, Canada+kw, Africa+kw, etc.
Pls. Google Gods, have mercy and donate some peanuts to the IT world and hire a bunch of intelligent Grandma`s to tell your engeneers about those few quality sites that deserve to be on top.
Stability may be good for owners of Web sites (at least for those who have high rankings for desirable keywords), but it isn't a measure of search quality. If anything, the opposite is true, and change is necessary to improve the supposedly awful results that Webmaster World members like to complain about. :-)
In our branch junk sticks on top like glue and real quality sites get dumped.
Since ages the top 30 selection is getting more and more junk friendly.
However I am glad, that at least for you things seem to run fine ...
