Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
We webmasters and publishers have been communicating with Google through two kind friends; our fellow member GoogleGuy and Matt Cutts. And many of us are glad for Google's attempts to reach out to webmasters. However, because GG and Matt are busy people our concerned and questions haven't been always addressed.
- how about the much needed new infrastructure weather reports?
- how about paying more attention to webmasters whom sites have lost pages, ranking and sometimes just been dropped out of the index?
- how about our kind fellow members concerns about canonical and supplemental issues which have affected their sites?
- how about the much needed prompt action from Google's side when our fellow webmasters report spam.
The said issues and much more haven't been really addressed by Google in the way which satisfy our webmasters community.
Of course, I do understand that there is only one GG and one Matt and only 24 hours a day. And I can't demand from GG and Matt more than they are already giving graciously of their times to communicate with us.
Therefore, it was a great pleasure to read that Google has appointed Adam Lasnik to reaching out to webmasters. In that connection, Matt wrote on his blog today: "My hope is that Adam will help Google listen more, and will also grow into answering webmaster questions. We sent him to WebmasterWorld Boston to soak up what Pubcons are like, and he’ll be at SES London as well."
It was also very encouraging indeed to read on Adam's blog lines like:
- "My main focus is on broadening communications between Google and Webmasters… learning as much as I can from both Matt and the Webmasters he chats with so amiably and then building upon this rapport."
- "I’ll also be a “Webmaster Advocate” inside the Googleplex. I’ve seen firsthand that tons of folks here already eagerly read and appreciate Google- and search-related comments throughout the Web; I’ll be doing what I can to expedite concerns, bug reports, and other feedback to the right colleagues."
I do hope Google will be listing more now to webmasters and will be more prompt in addressing their concerns.
Yeah, let the guy into the Frat house ;)
Of course he will need to pass the initiation test first.....
Post the current Google algo and search source code here for all of us to see.....that should do the trick ;)
Give us regular updates of the code and we'll even make you Frat. Pres.,.....what more does anyone want?
"Of course he will need to pass the initiation test first....."
He will pass it for sure.
However, I do hope that Adam is more tolerant to webmasters criticising Google than Matt ;-)
Nice post. It sums my situation up nicely as well as explains the emotional side of things as well.
What I think totally sucks is that we have NO CLUE as to what we can do to correct things. We have bits of information (nothing concrete) and we are left to chance it with trial and error. With as many aspects this involves we may not find the answer anytime soon or may never find one at all. Pretty much blind luck.
Adam,
The words from FRED9989 are echoed my many. Hope you can help us.
...I could handle anything :)
But enough about me. Go check out Matt's followup comments in his recent mondo blog entry (the index-timeline one) if you haven't done that already (easiest way to spot his comments: search for "matt cutts" instead of "matt." And dang, there are too many Adams, too!)
The key takeaway: our algorithm changes are *never* set in stone. Our team is collectively reading every note here and in the blog comments and doing our best to scour the blogosphere. Specific site examples are being brought to meetings, shared with other groups, dug into.
--
Until recently, a huge bulk of my own personal income came from affiliate marketing, online advertising, and also advising clients on search-engine and online marketing related issues. So I'm no stranger to the feelings of uncertainty and frustration that some Webmasters are experiencing now.
I wish there was a magic bullet to cure all the concerns of the "good guys." But until then, we're keeping our eyes peeled, looking for ways to improve.
* Okay, so it was durian fruit ice cream, but that was bad enough!
Would you like to tell us whether Google has finally walked away from the competition to index more pages than anyone else in favour of other priorities?
If so, what are those other priorities?
Many of us here have no doubts that you are working hard to provide a quality search. What many of us here are so upset about is the fact that many good webmasters are still in the cold here. We offer direct feedback and opinions but not much of a reply back (via sending emails to addresses posted here). Not trying to be rude here but this is also an aspect of quality.
We know you want to protect your algo as much as possible. But why in the world can't those of us who sent in their site get a heads up saying we recieved your site and looking into it. -or- we see some potential problems with your site that you should look into. - or - there are no problems we can find. And that is it.
I personally have waited patiently for quite a long time now. About a year. What I seen happen to our site last year is now happening to many other sites now. Home page coming second. Supplemental pages overtaking the newer versions. Old supplementals coming back from the grave. Pages dropping. Pages coming back but not sticking and later dropping. PR tanks. Backlinks going all over the place. The only feedback I have had was that our site had no penalties. This message was on a few occasions throughout last year.
With only that to go on again we have been very patient and trying to remain positive because of hope that one day just a shred of information that might pass our way.
Recently the home page coming second has been fixed and seen a decrease in supplemental pages. But still the site is 1/3 indexed despite these good changes (been a few months now). Many level four pages still not going into the index (really crappy because PR distribution from those lower pages aren't being fairly send back into the site because of this - this is where most of our links reside anyway).
But enough about me. Go check out Matt's followup comments in his recent mondo blog entry (the index-timeline one) if you haven't done that already (easiest way to spot his comments: search for "matt cutts" instead of "matt." And dang, there are too many Adams, too!)
What's really going to help is to stop trying to place the burden of fault with guiltless webmasters. When I look at the examples of improper linking and consider what's happened to some sites I monitor I wonder what these examples have to do with what I'm seeing. Which is nothing. Good sites are being slammed and this explanation is insulting when you know for a fact that this doesn't apply to you.
A lot of webmasters complained about the silence and I can understand that but silence is better than feeling misinformed.
"So I'm no stranger to the feelings of uncertainty and frustration that some Webmasters are experiencing now."
Thanks for those kind words. Much appreciated.
You are still new at Google and we wouldn't blame you for what happened before you joined Google. That wouldn't be fair at all.
However, we as webmasters have reached the point where we expect much action to help recovering healthy sites which were killed by BigDaddy for no logical reasons.
It isn't good enough for us that Google's folks keep telling us they are "listening". Hundreds of posts of decent webmasters have been published and hundreds of feedback have been sent to Google since BigDaddy emerged.
The business of our kind fellow members has been affected and somtimes killed by BigDaddy for no justified reasons.
Please tell your friends at the plex to stop asking us to listen because we are not going to. And please tell them not to underestimate our intelligence and humiliate us by posting Collective Generic replies [mattcutts.com]. We need specific replies and solutions for our kind fellow members who have been suffering since the monster BigDaddy emerged.
For that I wish to thank you in advance.
This is my first post here but I have been reading with interest all these threads on googles "legendery" BD roll out. My website was on the first page for months and then the steam roller BD came along and knocked me to page 4. over 400 pages de-indexed and lots of supplemental pages appearing. I know have only 11 pages indexed. All the other sites that I work on as well are experiencing the exact same difficulties. Now I do appreciate that google are supposedly trying to help us by appointing Adam to liase with us but lets all be honest. What can Adam specifically bring to the table. Can he turn round and say this is what is wrong? you need to do this? I don't think so. I think that this is all just a stunt by google to appease webmasters that have been unhappy with google for a long time and are now looking to try and stop us webmasters promoting another engine and slow down the process of google taking a nose dive.
I might be wrong but I would like to see some proof in the pudding. Come on Adam prove me wrong!
This is only my opinion and I suspect a lot of other webmasters fell the same.
Thanks for listening to a dejected webmaster.
Pete
What I think totally sucks is that we have NO CLUE as to what we can do to correct things.
And it's not as if I am a free-loader, being a Tier 1 Adwords customer.
Three years+ of building a feature and content driven web site for my users but making sure not to stray outside the continually shifting goalposts known as the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Not easy and time-consuming. Now we see our terms dropped dozens of pages while our content-free competitors rise to the surface. Mr Cutts says this is my problem - if I am dropped, then my site is spammy rubbish. Typical G arrogance.
Though I am glad that given his experience, Adam might have some empathy, I remain hugely cynical about whether there will be any noticeable difference. Webmasters in effect provide the meat in the Google sandwich yet out of all the thousands of employees we get 2 liaison officers. Big deal.
Will this mean that the next time I submit a reinclusion request or other query to Google search I am am going to get anything more than: "We understand your concerns regarding your website in our search results. Unfortunately, we are unable to send personal responses to all of the requests we receive to review individual website content."?
Somehow, I doubt it.
I don't hang around the Google forum much these days, it's far too repetetive and I'm too busy but you can pass this on to your engineers.
Whatever hardware and/or spidering problems Google may suffer from time to time, basic search will never, ever, ever work properly (i.e. to the satisfaction of users and webmasters) whilst penalties are part of the algo.
If the algo includes step changes (i.e. penalties and, I suppose, bonues) rather than consisting entirely of smooth curves, the results are guaranteed to be unstable and unpredictable.
Given that unstable/unpredictable results will never satisfy webmasters, your time will be utterly wasted until the engineers change this design policy.
I have a masters in computer simulation of control systems, so I know (or used to know) a bit about computer algos and stability. You can consider what I have said above to be 90% fact and 10% opinion based on experience. Anyone who has studied and/or understands the basics on control engineering/feedback systems will say pretty much the same thing - it's basic and it's fundamental.
Kaled.
I just wanted to say that it isn't all Big Daddy's fault. My business was cast adrift last year, way before the introduction of BD. Approximately 6 months without a useful hit from Google and no response from their help page submissions.
I had to lay off friends and eventually sell up and move on. I will never forget the stone cold silence that I received from the Google help emails and I wish you every success in rebuilding the vast bridges that were destroyed between Google and Webmasters.
Please be sensitive to webmasters concerns when you next feel the urge to say "Wait and see what the next update brings", we've heard that many times before ... to no avail.
:-(
Yes, Hi Adam.
In this age of increased communication would love to know what exactly happens to sites which have problems with duplicate indexing on non-www and www.
I still see these problems throughout the index and it seems to destroy the ranking of sites.
A clear up from Google of whether this is the case or just webmaster rumour/theories etc would be great.
Webmasters have been banging their drums about this issue for a very very long time.
Also Big Daddy is supposed to address these issues - does Google feel they are now handling this better - or is this still something down the road?
It says to me that you, I, and everybody else is better off creating spam sites. I can spend hours just on one article, and a spam site can spend the same amount of time churning out dozens of practically content-free pages, and they will do better.
My original 2000 word article won't get indexed, but by god a spam page with a half a dozen sentences that look like they were written by six year olds, plus lots of keyword targeting will.
What the hell is the point of staying within the lines and playing by the rules, if Google is going to change the rules and redraw the lines, and not mention or explain it to you, and when they do speak out about it (ala Matt Cutts), they all but accuse you of being a spammer.
* Okay, so it was durian fruit ice cream, but that was bad enough!
That's just plain disgusting! You should try out for Fear Factor if you can stomach that stuff!
Thanks again.
