Google.com SERP Changes - February 2009

[pontifex]

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

Stuck in my daily work, I have not paying too much attention on Google lately - maybe tired of PR discussions, dupe checks, etc. But with today's glitch [webmasterworld.com] or the reports here [webmasterworld.com] over the last days of several updates [webmasterworld.com] here on the board, I was reminded of Tedsters prediction on Pubcon in November: they are up to something.

First: Traditionally seems January to be a big update month for Google. I was kicked or blessed in January in the last 7 years more efficiently then in the rest of the year (except Florida).

Today, shortly after the glitch with the malware report, my indexed pages doubled.

Problem is: i have also changed a lot on my major site in the last 2 months after pubcon, so I do not know if that is just me or the rest of you, too?

However: IMHO is something cooking and I have not yet figured out what. I expect major changes in the additional Video and Images results and also in the "Related searches"...

The additional image searches are now at a different place in the SERPs? Isn't that displayed differently now?

Someone with more ideas?

P!

[edited by: tedster at 8:34 am (utc) on Feb. 2, 2009]

[b2net]

Many domains were -950 filtered today. Has there been a change in the filter?

[flicks]

I don't think there is any change in the filter. Everybody saying there ranking is recovered.

well pls tell if your ranking is still not recovered.

[potentialgeek]

I went from SERP #8 to SERP #4 for one phrase by moving the directory with about 30 files to a subdirectory, and added it to the LHS navigation bar of the directory, thus adding about 200 new internal links to its main index.

e.g:

example.com/widgets

to:

example.com/new/widgets/

I made the changes a few months ago, but only just noticed the progress. I suspect a lot of webmasters miss ranking opportunities based on internal navigation omissions. Internal links rock!

p/g

P.S. I also 301 redirected all the old urls.

[flicks]

That's great potentialgeek, Internal links are also very important. It reflect the navigation from one pages to others and increase the user friendly structure of the site. Maybe somehow google has started giving more weights to the website structure.

My keywords rankings are back, this has happened fourth time in last few days, but I am afraid and wishing this should be the final update. I wish more and more people put there opinions here so it will help everyone to understand the problem and resolving the issue.

[union_jack]

b2net - We have been -950 today. Have you made and recent site changes?

[edited by: tedster at 5:54 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2009]

[b2net]

No changes. I lost dozens of sites, most of which have been without any changes for several months. I think the algo classified them as spam.

[MLHmptn]

I am now noticing either a roll back or a filter has been loosened as sites that were affected by this "branding" issue are jumping back up on the first page. Anyone else noticing this now?

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

[edited by: tedster at 5:49 pm (utc) on Mar. 2, 2009]