Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
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]
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
Yep. Good observation.
To me this indicates that Goog is STILL having issues fully implementing Caffeine behind the scenes.
difference between caf and decaf is getting less and less
(except oop seems less harsh in caffeine)
True.
Never trust company officials from public relations department.
Learn how to think independently of what Google is trying to push into your brain.
Stop believing in "google is not evil" and "santa clause" exists propaganda.
Don't make a fool out of yourself.
If I was to try and plump for one reason that things are not quite right => it looks like they have implemented a "Word Association Football" filter based on the John Cleese piece from Monty Pythons Matching Tie and Handkerchief. They are trying to second guess what users really mean in their searches and getting it right only some of the time and when they get it wrong it is almost comical (but not when the wrong site has taken your #1 slot).
Cheers
Sid
We track a keyword, lets call it 'widget shape'. This was ranking #2 right behind the maker of 'widget shape'. But as of the 24th or early 25th the rank the same for 'widget shape' but it points to a page that is 'widget color'.
The page it points to, while semi-relevant, is not as relevant as the page that was there for 2 years.
So the keyword being tracked still has a rank position, that dropped one to #3, but to a different page on the same website that is only partially relevant.
This is for a keyword that receives thousands of hits a day even not at #1, not some obscure keyword.
It is quite fascinating (and frustrating) to watch this evolve. It was almost like watching a baby having to burp, and its just letting out little burps, I am waiting for the blowout.
and... ....it's Halloween again isnt it? :)
It's like many pages aren't ranking anymore on their KW's and in the index many very old site's (some even death )show up.
On this site with low competition it has gotten 1 organic hit from Google and that is it. Totally not like the last 20 sites I have done.
Google please pull your head out any time now.
Todd
Lee
Do you think this means that this is what Google wants to go with?
It seems their computing power has been purchased by bing.
This is happening with the new fade-in feature, where the navigational links fade in upon page load, but again, no search button. I think this was a deliberate design change, but I don't understand why they would do anything that would complicate the search process or confuse people.
Others seeing anything similar?
these are the times when internal NAV is more important than ever and the link of the little man starts to shine !
Kristos, can you elaborate a little on what you mean by this?
Others seeing anything similar?...
Look up, about five posts up. ;)
...these are the times when internal NAV is more important...
Internal navigation is the easiest to abuse and thus less trustworthy. That's an opinion, but one based on several years of testing different keyword/navigation things out and reviewing the results over the course of days, weeks, and months. In my experience keywords in navigation don't convey all that much, if anything. Think of what happens to pages containing the same meta description across many pages. If you think in terms of Page Rank, where individual pages have unique meanings and concepts, and as a bonus have their own backlinks, then things like internal navigation can be seen as being worth less.
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:20 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2009]
Internal navigation is the most likely to be abused and thus less trustworthy
Martinibuster, my understanding as well however keyword stuffed internal navs do seem to be playing a positive roll in this update. Unless Google is still yet to apply filters. Very worrying if not. It mean huge sites with thousands of nonsense pages linking back to themselves through an internal nav structure are ranking well.
This is a step backwards isn't it?
...huge sites with thousands of nonsense pages linking back to themselves through an internal nav structure are ranking well.
Did you do a backlink analysis on these sites?
Did you do a backlink analysis modified by certain keyword phrases?
Did you do a backlink analysis that segregates the results by TLD and ccTLD?
Have you kept track of how many inbound links they've acquired within the past few months?
Have there been changes to on page SEO?
Have they been publishing a steady stream of press releases?
How many times have they been mentioned in the news?
Did you check if pages are being cloaked?
Did you check if they've purchased domains and are redirecting them?
Things can improve for a site despite what they are doing. For instance, I know of a large site whose link builders are not building links at all. Their guys are buying links from networks and pocketing the difference. This brand is so well linked and trusted that the crap links don't make a difference, bad or good. The point is, the most obvious thing you see may not be what is accounting for a change in ranking. It's simply obvious and easy to spot.
Just my opinion and observation from where I stand (your view may differ ;)): I am not seeing keyword stuffed navigation playing a role. If it did then some of the canaries I have living in the mines would be jumping around and turning blue.
What I have been seeing this entire year are SERPs that have that "machine learning" feel to them, where they rely too much on trusted sites. Yahoo and Bing have that feel more than Google.
Geocities just closed. That is bound to make waves in the link graphs used for identifying trusted sites and ranking pages. Now that to me sounds like something to look out for.
Geocitites just closed
What were they thinking?!
Heck, they could have at least sold it on ebay for a couple million.
Wonder if I make an offer of $100, could I get all those domains? ;)
What's leaping out at this point is that his "internal nav", if you can call it that, is a basically a list of those keywords pointing back to maybe 3 different pages in total. So each navigation item doesn’t even have its own unique page.
On page SEO is what would be expected, not over the top, nothing too funny going on there.
...keywords in nav make no difference?
Keywords in the navigation is to ranking what Musk Oil is to attracting a lover.
Step back and think about it. Any fool can slap their favorite keywords into the navigation, and millions do, and it doesn't work for them. That's because there other factors at work. It's not the musk oil. ;)
[edited by: martinibuster at 9:50 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2009]
I was just raising an eyebrow at your catch-all opinion of
In my experience keywords in navigation don't convey all that much, if anything
and especially that last
if anything
I know your pretty clued up so i wondered if maybe you was teasing the clan a little or truly believed this?
oh, BTW, again testing your Musk Oil is pretty simple but it would require true testing and not simply bathing quasimodo in it and then claiming he attracted no female lovers. The Musk Oil is not the only factor in attraction and you can play with the many factors. If your Musk Oil is really rubbish it will never pass any test but we all know the difference a sweet perfume makes on a woman. It adds a little something :)
Step back and think about it. Any fool can slap their favorite keywords into the navigation, and millions do, and it doesn't work for them. That's because there other factors at work. It's not the musk oil. ;)
well now your broadening it somewhat to where i came in. Your originally said keywords in nav have little or even no affect at all ("if anything" you said). Now you are talking about the range of factors. Its only musk oil if you get ripped off on a street corner, you could just have easily used a good judgment and bought a proven cologne. To say smell or scent has no part is really misleading.
If keywords in nav have little affect i wonder why google bothered adding filters for it when the algo was so little affected by mega menus?
