Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2009

[jd01]

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

What is the Caffeine Update?

Google File System v2

A couple of years ago at the first Seattle Conference on Scalability, Google’s Jeffrey Dean remarked that the company wanted 100x more scalability. Unsurprising given the rapid growth of the web. But there was more to it than that: GFS – the Google File System was running out of scalability.

[storagemojo.com...]

Background Here:
[storagemojo.com...]

[edited by: tedster at 4:05 am (utc) on Oct. 1, 2009]

[caribguy]

@dertyfern, @AnkitMaheshwari:

Exact same happened last night while doing searches on Youtube, but only from about page #20 or so onwards... It would be interesting to know if other G properties also displayed that behavior...

[cangoou]

Google does ALOT of testing at primetime viewing hours Pacific Time in the fall.
The SERPs can change completely from minute to minute.

Year, it was only on some DCs (just a reload changed your SERPs completly) and now it's gone back completly to the results from the day before yesterday with all the keywords gone again.

If you are right and it's only a test (not a update swapping over datacenters) I guess there is a chance that these SERPs will never establish (which makes me wonder what to do about the vanished keywords).

[aakk9999]

Year, it was only on some DCs (just a reload changed your SERPs completly)

Same here. We are back on the first page, then refresh - gone to page #10, then refresh again - back on the first page. Keep clearing cache in between refreshes - still the same behaviour. Same datacentre.

Also - very strange serps for that keyword - saw the competitor being #7 on page 1 and then again #13 on page 2, both entries for the home page! Never seen this before.

[cangoou]

Yes, we got this double-entries as well. But do you see it switching now? Here it's completly gone since 5 hours or so.

[aakk9999]

Yes, it is switching right now. I am in UK and am looking at google.com serps.

BTW, the first 5 entries on page #1 seem to be very stabile, it is the rest of serps that keeps changing - almost like having a 2 variants.

[SEOPTI]

I see wild fluctuations with Googlebot crawling URLs, up and down last two weeks. It seems they are using their horse power for a different task than crawling and indexing at the moment.

[SEOPTI]

Crawling is almost non-existent today, anyone else seeing it?

[barretire]

Yes I am seeing it. It has slowed everything down. Also noticed that Google toolbar crashed and when I reinstalled I appear to be getting caffeinated results. I posted this on the caffeine forum

[tedster]

I'm getting reports of missing home pages again. It's nothing like the major epidemics of the past where an entire data-set seemed to be skipped over - but at least some of the data being folded in right now seems to be deficient.

[Hissingsid]

Just reported some changes here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Cheers

Sid

Mod's note: For many members, depending on their control panel preferences, this link will not go to the correct post but rather to the start of the thread, so you'll have to navigate to it by using the cited message number (msg #4008466) and date and time as a reference.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:41 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2009]

[dertyfern]

Significant changes in the UK today with what looks like something completely new: some listing descriptions show a "jump to" link at the beginning of the description text.

I've not seen this before. Weird since it points to the same URL as the normal serp hyperlink.

[mcskoufis]

I am seeing some weird listings in a nice I am monitoring in Greek SERPs. One site at #4 shows 3 links below title/description with link to more results from that domain. Never seen that before..

[tedster]

The "jump to" page fragement links started showing up in the snippet near the end of August. Now they are now gaining some steam. Here's our discussion about it [webmasterworld.com].

[jaffstar]

From Friday afternoon I am seeing a new set of results. Some sites that were not hurt seem to be back.

Anyone else seeing this?

[edited by: tedster at 12:16 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2009]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

There were three other mentions of a Friday roll-out of different results here, but they were made in other threads as a side comment.

[Hissingsid]

Removed post: I found what the issue was and can't blame Google for my own c**k up.

Cheers

Sid

[edited by: Hissingsid at 1:13 pm (utc) on Oct. 19, 2009]

[cangoou]

Yes I have but it's still #1.

[barretire]

Okay guys. First Google has been very slow, sometimes not working at all. I am noticing what appears to be a fairly signifigant rollout going on across datat centers. I am witnessing big changes over here on the East coast. When checking datacenteres I only see this on 2 or 3 right now but the reults are live here.

[Hissingsid]

Up to Friday 16th .co.uk sites with backlinks weighted towards those from .co.uk sites were given a boost. Now sites with more backlinks, mainly from .com sites have been given mini site links and a boost up the rankings for the most important terms. Its as though last month was a quality not quantity month for back links and this month it's the other way around.

This also means that last month sites that have built up their backlinks naturally (with a bit of help) over many years did better than those who bought them from blog link ad sellers and cheapo third world SEOs.

And I thought Google wanted to reward natural links and penalise bought links. Silly me for thinking that they know what they are doing.

Cheers

Sid

[whitenight]

And I thought Google wanted to reward natural links and penalise bought links.

My goodness Sid, I spent the greater half of 2007 ranting on this board and debunking this.
You still insist on "believing" Goog's propaganda.
And yes, It IS silly of you

Like other recent threads here, it's time to stop believing in the Santa Goog.
He never existed.
You've been lied to.
It's his JOB to lie to you and keep you ill informed.

Get over it YESTERDAY, and start building your business based on REAL LIFE ALGO results... not some nonsense Goog wanted to push thru their FUD mouthpieces on various forums.

The only thing that suffers when you listen to that FUD is your profits.

[CainIV]

Really strange phenomenon I see on a site.

Dropped for it's keywords on Friday.

site:website.com shows the index page, with a cache date of Oct. 18.

Search for any of the homepage content with quotes returns 0 results from the homepage, except for a few sentences

Those sentences are only on the homepage. Yet, Google is returning an inner page on the same website, about a different topic, which doesn't contain the sentence, and when it does, it is showing the index page Title (incorrectly) on this page in the Serps.

Bizarre, any thoughts? I did header checks on both pages, which return 200OK. Seems as though it is an actual indexing issue which began Friday...

[Gmorgan]

I too am seeing some strange results.

Last week I changed the homepage title tag on a client site to include keywords and on Monday they started showing up on page one for those keywords. But today they have slipped down the rankings and the search result shows the old title even though the results were using the new one and the cache shows the new one. Google has also chosen to ignore the new meta description.

Has Google forgotten where it's cache is?

[cangoou]

Is someone seeing something new? I got the feeling these are old results folded in...

I as well have a site where google forgot the main index page.

[Lorel]

I've been watching a 3 word phrase (keyword, Keyword, City) and nothing has changed in the top 12 since the 17th (5 days). Positions below #12 are bouncing around however.

[CainIV]

"search result shows the old title even though the results were using the new one "

Seen the same thing just today, but in fact the title actually changed to a previous title, dependent on what query was used!

[whitenight]

title actually changed to a previous title, dependent on what query was used!

..."specialized" datasets... ;)

[crobb305]

When was the last toolbar PR update? I don't recall seeing one in 6 months.

Are they trying to gradually phase this out?

C

[cangoou]

Last TBPR-Update was end of june as far as I remember.

I guess they new that it will last some time till the next one - there was another update at the beginn of june as well.

[SEOPTI]

I'm seeing 30% more URLs in the supplemental index with the
site:www.example.* query. This affects all of my established sites.

Also checking supplementals at search.aol.com shows 30% less URLs.

[mcskoufis]

What I'm noticing is a great deal of slowness in indexing of changes on some sites I am working on. Sometimes changes are in within 15-30 minutes, but other times it takes 10 days or so, something I haven't noticed for a long time.