Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
its not the trademarked ghost dataset that went missing, and it wasn't a rebuild like the halloween update.
No, but the overall technique has a familiar feel to it. More than one dataset may be involved this time - and perhaps many more. Interesting that three weeks ago we were hearing reports of googlebot spidering like crazy, and in recent days, reports of googlebot not even showing up for some sites.
[edited by: tedster at 5:09 am (utc) on July 15, 2009]
traffic numbers...ranking
God, this is THE biggest FUD possible.
I don't have time to write my full rant today, but if you seriously want to continue down this already disproven theory of SERPs...
I would like to know where one is getting the other sites' traffic numbers from?!
Please say Alexa so i can go berserk...
To be more specific, if you don't understand that on Election Day CNN will get more traffic, and on Super Bowl day ESPN will, then more the pity.
As for "disproven theories", um, if the phenomenon started in the past two weeks, who the heck disproved it?
And, I didn't say that I concluded anything from the current rankings, only that the seasonally higher traffic sites are in fact ranking higher, much higher. Unlike some here, I don't draw conclusions from a limited amount of information then go around proclaiming them as facts.
shall we rehash the pagerank sculpting debate...hmm..wonder why MC made such a big issue of it, if it didn't work ever, eh?
A. I happen to be in one of the few industries where the traffic AND conversions of the top 5 sites are public knowledge.
Everyone knows everyone else's traffic and even conversions.
B. I happen also to be in many other industries where I have direct personal access to up to ALL 10 of the first page SERPs.
C. I've already disproven this.
Just because you STILL can't explain why lightning happens, doesn't mean that Zeus is true and not a myth.
It's lazy SEO and not even based on anything other than the thought,
"Gee, I can't figure out the SERPs, so it must be caused by something ELSE i can't figure out like my competitor's exact traffic numbers"
You can rollout this FUD campaign AGAIN like you did a year ago, but it makes it even more laughable than before.
[edited by: whitenight at 12:10 am (utc) on July 16, 2009]
You mean that topic where the nonsense you were preaching was shown to be 100% wrong? LOL That topic you mean?
I'm afraid you saying "I've already disproven this" is too bizarre to do anything with other than look at with amazement.
Finally, I just stated a fact from the results in my niche. I didn't draw half-baked conslusions from it. That is your territory. It might be nice though if you just kept your FUD in the topic areas you want to talk about.
You mean that topic where the nonsense you were preaching was shown to be 100% wrong? LOL That topic you mean?
Yea, cause MC said so? lol
page rank sculpting works just the same as before.
(which you swore up and down NEVER worked, right?
I can point to your exact quotes if you like)
I'd show you the PUBLIC results of some tests a group of us did, since MC's pronouncement but you wouldn't believe it anyways... cause it, like, involves, testing and empirical data and junk....
Finally, I just stated a fact from the results in my niche. I didn't draw half-baked conslusions from it. That is your territory.
I ask you again,
(you always dance around my direct questions)
Where are you getting your competitors exact traffic numbers from?!
As for traffic numbers, seriously take a freaking Valium for once. I never said "exact" numbers. But general information can be gotten from Compete, Quantcast, Hitwise and Nielsen (and, gasp, asking the site owners)... but if you would stop ranting for just one minute and read... as I said, the site's in question are benefiting from a seasonal phenomenon.
For example, there are general sports sites that rank similarly all year long. Then there are baseball sites that rank better at this time of year than in December. If you can't understand that election sites do better on election day, there isn't much more that can be said to try to help you. 4th of July sites have more traffic around the 4th of July. Christmas ornament sites have more traffic before Christmas than in March.
[edited by: steveb at 12:34 am (utc) on July 16, 2009]
B. The "seasonal phenomenon", as you call it, has been around for years, and has NOTHING to do with why the SERPs are the way they are right now.
(Yes, i noticed you added and edited your original argument after the fact to CYA.)
It's a FUD argument to even bring it up concerning the current SERPs update
Are you seriously not getting this? Is everything so black and white for you?
Look, without busrting anymore blood vessels, try to follow this...
-- An event has been going on for two weeks.
--During this event, according to all traffic ranking sites the traffic to the official site for this event increases more than 10 times (maybe 100 times) as much as normal for the site.
-- In the past two weeks the ranking for this site for its secondary search term (other than the name of the event) has gone from about #20 to #4.
-- This may in fact be a coincidence, but it is what it is.
...Then also similarly the page on the TV network website that televises this event has risen in the ranking from about 15 to 10, as no doubt its traffic has gone up. Similarly the official news site for this event has risen from the 40s to #12, as its traffic goes through the roof for these two weeks. And one other site has a similar phenomenon.
All these ranking improvements could be a pure coincidence, however, I merely mentioned that this phenomenon was occuring in my niche. You may feel a need to draw a black and white conclusion from this instantly, but I don't need to, other than it causes me to pay attention to this factor now, and I am curious if people in other niches will notice it, and I'm curious if these rankings will go down over the next couple of weeks after this event ends.
[edited by: steveb at 12:46 am (utc) on July 16, 2009]
All these ranking improvements could be a pure coincidence, however, I merely mentioned that this phenomenon was occuring in my niche
You backtrack better than any fox around....cept your quotes are right there.
You said "There is no doubt though that this is the one development in my niche that suggests something new in the secret sauce."
lol, "no doubt?" "secret sauce"?
"new development" - you mean the "seasonality" adjustment Goog as been making the past 5 years?!
No, you were referring to your REAL FUD argument of "looking at traffic numbers and ranking them in order" which you insisted on spouting for over 6 months when a similar update had you baffled.
As I said in the earlier parts of this thread, I am NOT going to let that chicken-bone-throwing, Zeus-lightning-throwing FUD to infest this board again.
As always, if i say something is public that means you can search for it. Try searching for the empirical data i'm talking about... instead of parroting some MC junk back to me
I have a quick question, the links that Google shows in WMT are they those that Google actually counts, or are they just listings of existing links and does not indicate that any weight or value is being given to them by google?
Those are the links they've found. love.
(And even sometimes, not ALL the ones they know about)
Whether and how much they count those links is anyone's guess.
There has clearly been sometype of change though, as the fourth site I mentioned went from about 100 to 15, where it has never been before, ever.
Here, maybe this will get you fired up again....
Another possibility is these rankings improvements are due to hand-sorting.
<kaboom>
What is even more upsetting, if you follow the instructions for the answer for question that was asked you actually can put yourself in mortal danger (Severe injury or death could occur)
Should Google trust such a generic Q and A site? IMHO, no, they should not give it so much weight and I am still seeing a lot of sites like that at the top.
@trinorthlighting
I see this too, as well as stale 3 year old articles from Buzzle and Go Articles using Buy keywords, (which coincidentally were on page 4+ previous to these SERP issues) with outdated or useless information, especially for surfers who are seeking to buy something.
Useless results!
At the same time, steveb I do see some serious merit in what you are saying. I see the exact same trend you are seeing in this update.
And why wouldn't we? One of the next major hurdles Google needs to address is better analysis of semantics as they relate to intention.
If any given update addresses how Google deals with keyword semantics, the obvious byproduct would be significantly increased positioning for websites that Google believe offer exactly what the user wants to see when they type in, for example, a holiday driven phrase. And I seen the EXACT phenomenon recently on a website I watch, in a sector closely tied to the July 4th holiday.
I believe these new rankings are due to a major upgrade in the way that Google handles semantics. As the net gets bigger, and more and more websites compete, the best way to offer the best results to users is to deduce better what they are looking for and segment better by keyword
@all
As for your seasonal sites being promoted, this is a phenomena that has been around for a while, but for a shorter period (technical use, not venacular). Leisure KW searches (for eg) give very different results at the weekend, compared to weekdays. Evening results vary from workday, too. If Google can now vary results by seasonality, I wouldn't be surprised, and would see it as a major improvement.
One possible machanism would be with semantic analysis. Take Tedsters normal example of [Apple: orchard, cider, ipod, fruit]. Now, say you were optimised for cider, but ranked mediocre for Apple. Search volume for "cider" goes up by, say, 1000%. G decides cider is hot news. Suddenly, your "apple" results improve because the liklihood dramatically improves that the searcher was looking for cider info, rather than than ipod. Not fact, just a suggested mechanism that doesn't rely on traffic numbers, but does produce seasonal results.
CainIV, semantics may very well be the BIG CHANGE. As noted towards the end of July Part 1, analysis shows no ranking correlation with structural information such as page, site, domain, link volume etc. But the rash of apparently random penalties just prior to the event, along with several other threads on this forum showing some are being released, suggests to me that penalties and/or filters were also involved.
Has anyone seen any long-standing penalties being released?
[Edit- fixed style codes]
I don't know why you would suspect that, but you suspect wrong.
Thats why. But I'm happy to be wrong.
Which I can only assume is about my Tues prediction which started the very next day (Sunday), and to your credit Shaddows, has taken longer than usual to rollout
---------------
For those who pay attention to such things, I do see the DCs and datasets starting their "cosmic eclipse" which,
if it stays to past patterns,
signals the last few hours/parts of the update.
Okay, well, if we are in the last hours then there is not much time for my site to come back on the main keyword *look freightened*
Not necessarily.
(Can't remember exactly who it was) but it the last update, several people just "popped back" to their former rankings in the last minutes and even a day after the update was done...
My post was for those who can use that particular info for other purposes,
and NOT a prediction of where and how any "lost" pages will return.
The #1 site for a niche I work in is a Geocitie site with nothing but links and adsense on it. Now that's a quality result ;)
This happens to be the site that bumped me from that spot to oblivion even though my site has rich unique content with a solid link profile and has been around quite a while.
Bing and Yahoo have it listed and don't show the geocities site anywhere.
If Google's trying to deliver different results than the other two, then they are succeeding the problem is the results are far worse than their competition.
Google Trends [google.com]
There's also clear reference in published patent(s), and combined with phrase based analysis of sites' content (first order and 2nd order co-ocurrence), why wouldn't seasonality come into play?
why wouldn't seasonality come into play?
Seasonality CAN come into play...
But let's be clear here:
- portions of a certain poster's ORIGINAL argument were edited at the moment, so one isn't getting the full gist of what was being argued.
- seasonality has been part of the algo for over 4 years in one part or another.
It's not "new" or "secret"
and while an "updated" (or enhanced seasonality affect) may effect certain terms,
it's nowhere near the cause of the 98% of other terms affecting in this update.
- As soon as "seasonality" starts getting mixed with
"SERPs based on traffic, click thrus, blah blah,",
you might see me "frothing" again.
They are two separate issues and trying to mix and mash them together is just FUD.
It happened that last time there was a "confusing" update and it took quite a many months to "fix" that particular failed logic.
So I'm all for discussing increased "seasonality" affects,
but let's not see that turn into "Goog is ranking based on traffic"
I reserve the right to show the invalidity or validity of any argument that I choose.
But thanks for caring :)
- As soon as "seasonality" starts getting mixed with
"SERPs based on traffic, click thrus, blah blah,",
you might see me "frothing" again.
They are two separate issues and trying to mix and mash them together is just FUD.
So I'm all for discussing increased "seasonality" affects,
but let's not see that turn into "Goog is ranking based on traffic"
Seasonality, traffic and bounce rate are all mentioned in the same patent - along with a bunch of other potential factors, too.
