February 2008 Google SERP Changes

[annej]

< continued from [webmasterworld.com...] >

who cares if the anchor text is "Click here!". Your going to rank for title keywords without one inbound anchor text!

And I have exactly the opposite happening. I have several years worth of links with the anchor text (my site name).
It's not like they appeared all at once. A few months ago the homepage started to be filtered out for the most common (and key) word. The page still does well on all data centers but gets pushed way down on in the serps on Google.com.

Site is #3 on ALL DCs for a very competitive phrase, but nowhere on www.google.com.

Yes, yes! The difference is this has been going on for some time for me and now it seems to be happening to more of you.

nobody else in my page 1-2 SERPs is having these probs

Me either, at least not with the sites that were in the top 10. There has been shifting but nothing as drastic as my situation.

"minus something" penalty back to bite us?

Sort if like the -950 except in this case the google.com result has been jumping all over from around -100 to not there are all..

Another strange thing is if I set it for 100 results then Google shows a far lesser page with few links at around -20 with the far higher PR and well linked homepage indented below the lesser page from the same site. It's definitely a filter of some sort.

most of us have one thing in common.......fairly new sites...am I right?

My problem is with a site that is over 10 years old.

I'm taking the stance that I will no longer worry about google.

I keep telling myself I should do that. My site has a great long tail and the one search term doesn't make that much difference. But it just bugs the heck out of me! It seems like I should be able to figure out what odd thing about my site is causing the problem.

[edited by: tedster at 8:26 am (utc) on Feb. 1, 2008]

[Durbanite]

This whole index issue is a major concern for me. I have been watching it since the beginning of this thread (Dec 07) I am noticing the indexing and then de-indexing of more and more phrases on our site. It began with the brand phrase, then it was 3 critical phrases and now its too many to count. For the first time I actually cannot give my client a rank report and have suggested waiting a few days to see if the phrases return again, as they have in the past. I'm talking about huge drops here from #5 with a specific phrase off a optimised page to # 87 for a page not even aimed at the phrase....Anyone else seeing an increase in the number of phrases being dropped on their site?

[Lorel]

I may by cynical but I've only seen reports of this that stem from software companies who benefit from raising fears of this sort.

I have seen articles in the NY times, Theregister and Pcworld on this topic.

The reason I found out about it is someone contacted me who thought his website was hijacked and before I had a chance to dig into it he contacted someone who thought it was a russian hijacker and the FBI was getting involved.

[zaglebie]

there was an SERP update yesterday ? cause i see some changes..

[marketingmagic]

It's been bouncing all over since this thread started. Searching from US proxy we're #2, searching locally here in Canada, we're #5, then 20min later we're #10. Not sure what they are doing...

[Hissingsid]

Is allinanchor:term bouncing for you as well?

For me it is. Also it is different between .com and .co.uk

Cheers

Sid

[DXL]

Does anyone have any idea if the fluctuations are the result of Google changing their algorithms, or if Big G simply dropped the ball somehow and what we're seeing are the results of a bug that they can't fix?

[glenng]

I am seeing fluctuations in the number of results returned for some search phrases as well as a positive change in the SERP's as of this morning.

[Durbanite]

I'm seeing no improvements in either our local Google or .com. Both still show # 87 for the phrase with the incorrect page. Correct page still dropped.

[andrewshim]

I am seeing fluctuations in the number of results returned for some search phrases

ditto. my main phrase results bouncing between 62 mill to 76 mill to 81 mill!

[andylc0714]

My new pages that uploaded last Friday is now ranked in the first 10 of SERPs, I think that it is eaisier for new pages to get good ranking this month...

[marketingmagic]

bouncing around - .co.uk and .au in, then out, then back in... what's happening G?

[Lorel]

I was checking Google for the links on a site I manage last night and found a bunch of spammy links submitted by a previous designer. This morning allllll the spammy links are gone.

[tedster]

For the record, I thought I'd note some SERP oddities that have been mentioned in other threads this month:

Different ranking when using capital letters [webmasterworld.com] -- seems to be only from the UK so far

Google Indexed My Site Search Results Pages [webmasterworld.com] -- related [webmasterworld.com] threads [webmasterworld.com]

[url=http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3582928.htm]Google Adds Sitelinks for a New Batch of Websites [webmasterworld.com] -- related thread [webmasterworld.com]

[Vimes]

Hi,

I'm seeing theres a link: operator update occurring and what looks to be a link update to GWT seeing my links in GWT increase and the totals on the link: operator search drop.

Vimes.

[kamikaze Optimizer]

Thanks Ted for the helpful related links.

As this month comes to a close I would like to mention that it has been a very active month as far as serp changes goes (much unlike the past 4 months).

And although I have not started a thread topic on it yet, I am just noticing that Google has indexed my robots.txt file.

[anhwu]

It seemed a new update was on the way. I also noticed that old pages usually have their consistent position despite of their PR and no-change content. Anyone knows why?

< continued here: [webmasterworld.com...] >

[edited by: tedster at 5:04 pm (utc) on Mar. 1, 2008]