Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
the SERPs were different in the past few days for sure.
changed mid day today.
I've notice that after checking a few times my favorite search phrase (about twice a day and for a couple of days), suddenly google.com starts showing results pretty similar to the results that were available in the Caffeine datacenter a few days ago.
This sudden change in search results have happened always when I restart my computer (I switch it off at night).
The "Caffeine" search results always dissapear when I put IE8 back to its default settings (Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, Restore advanced settings, Reset). However, the "Caffeine" search results will show again after a couple of days as explained above.
The regular search results and the "Caffeine" search results at google.com both have removed a Web site that has shown steadily in the top 30 for the last 4-5 years. The site uses a lot of outgoing links to sites hosted in the same Web server. All the sites in the same Web server have the same outgoing links. The affected Web site site doesn't have a lot of relevant content. The affected Web site and the sites it links to are owned by the same person.
The regular search results and the "Caffeine" search results have treated nicely various older domain names with a fair amount of relevant content.
The "Caffeine" search results treat even nicer those older domain names with a fair amount of relevant content.
Are other people seeing this? Also do people think this is a change or a temporary bug related to caffeine.
Plus as you dig further in the results Google is elevating pages whose authors could care less about them.
Usually these are the best pages though,m at least from Google's perspective. No SEO and a labor of love that brings natural links.
I too believe that this is caffeine--off and on. Just doesn't make sense for Google to update in such scale days before bringing caffeine in.
lol, i give up.
My only job was to get you going and spice up the thread White. Works like a charm :)
fakedsysadmin, I agree with you about older domains, they seem to be given more weight, it also seems they don't have to have authority status but have to be current, well maintained and frequented. I noticed that since last week at least, and that is happening in most searches every day up to now, may be because more and more Caffeine DCs (CDCs) and databases are serving the main scripts requests.
Yes it looks a mess at times, what I theorize is G* is prioritizing DCs and their databases by category segments and geo-locations, example:
Business and Finance / North America / Authority sites => test locally, roll in small dozes
Business and Finance / North America / minor sites => roll and test live on CDCs
That's what I am trying to convince myself is happening, large well known corporate or gov sites are not shaken so much, whereas internet mainly based sites, big or small are seeing good results one day, bad the next. All that, I believe is due to them tweaking the algo on one hand and observing public opinion and reaction on the other.
I also have a hunch that G*'s engineers are putting a lot of weight on mobile search, squeezing compatibility for their own new mobile smartphone and its mobile browser with its new Apps, trying to bite the big Apple, whether that will end up being a mega "bite" or a nano "bite", that remains to be seen!
I have a feeling we ain't seen nothing yet!
My only job was to get you going and spice up the thread White. Works like a charm :)
Hint,
Should have used your "rile up whitenight for info" passes
here >> when they start rolling in new data 6-12 hours later on various datacenters after the "official announcement,"
You might find THAT INFO exponentially more useful.
We live, we learn, eh?
Perhaps, you can bribe Shaddows to loan you some of his whitenight-info-passes when that time comes...
or convince miamacs back to SEO, or get Guru "M" to make a ridiculous analysis & appearance here.
The problem is the algo is in a test mode so some errors are being adjusted. DO NOT PANIC. If a monster was hit with their branded name, its just a mistake! Everything would stabilize in a matter of a week max!
And remember "Cocacola.com" will always rank #1 for coca cola
Honestly, I am not a Googler and Google is currently not being very forthcoming with me on the details at this point.
I would hope a Googler can come in here, like they have done so many times in the past (although not recently), and tell webmasters what is up.
I honestly said all I know.
It seems to me that something big is up from what I am seeing here and in other forums. But is it Caffeine or something else, I do not know. Although Google said it is not Caffeine - or at least, Caffeine is not live.
Honestly, I am not a Googler and Google is currently not being very forthcoming with me on the details at this point.
Well that pretty well validates much of what whiteknight has had to say.
I also do think more is up RB. Google seems to be driven by a profit motive more than anything else now.
Outland, have you been hit? When did it happen and how bad is it for you?
Well that pretty well validates much of what whiteknight has had to say.I also do think more is up RB. Google seems to be driven by a profit motive more than anything else now.
I'll let bigger brains than mine work out what that means.
Until that final launch, I also expect Google's second-level reporting (Webmaster Tools, site: operator, etc) will be more chaotic than usual. And it will take some time after the launch for them to stabilize. I'm not using them for any major actions anymore, at any rate.
This is something I generally agree with but... I've noticed some sites that I consider very strong not changing at all with site: operator.
Someone mentionned WW as dropping pages with site:, I don't follow how WW stays in the index but can anyone describe what they are seeing with WW and site: more closely or talk about any changes with site: in general terms for other strong sites they see.
Perhaps some will call this outdated, but I still believe in primary and secondary indexes whether Google says its the case or not.
For both of these below, I leave out the www
site:example.com (Total pages in Google)
site:example.com/* (Pages in "Primary Index")
Strong sites (defining as sites whose pages rank well, not necessarily PR), most often have a very high proportion of their pages in the Primary Index.
The only certain way I know of to see if a URL is really indexed is to search on the URL itself and see if Google gives a result. Otherwise, if you use site:example.com you will just get some number, often alarmingly low. And if you do individual searches on site:example.com/directory/ for all the directories, you will find URLs that were not in the simple site:example.com results - sometimes MANY such URLs.
When it comes to the primary index over any supplemental indexes or partitions, the most valuable information for me is to see what Google exports to AOL search. And with AOL hinting that they may drop their Google Search partnership [webmasterworld.com] that information source may be on life support, too.
The most valuable metrics for me come from whether a URL is getting actual search traffic from Google or not. Search results and rankings are now so personalized, localized and erratic in other ways, that only traffic itself gives a solid picture.
If a URL gets no search traffic from Google but I consider it worthy of being a site entry page, then I'll investigate whatever I can learn about its ranking and indexing as part of a debug process. Same thing if a page's traffic seems low or has changed significantly. However, the site: operator or any single ranking report, taken as primary data, can mislead an analysis rather dramatically.
Interesting about AOL and I think you're right about maybe them exporting or just making the primary index available to AOL.
I do agree that there are many faults, inconsistencies about the site: operator especially on directories.
For a large site, it is hard to keep track and check on thousands of url's so I like using tools such as site: .
One thing that still sticks out in my mind, is my obersvation that sites with a higher proporption of pages showing with /* correlate to higher overall traffic.
Outland, couldn't agree more...worse month so far in 8 years...
If you’re falling outside of the top 30 results I don’t even think Adwords can save you unless you’re prepared to shell out the bucks. It’s looking more and more like the “Fat Cat” update to me. In other words small business will foot the bill in rankings and money for this one.
I don't want to be one of the only guys in the room wearing a tinfoil hat, but every time there's a Google shakeup, I can't help but wonder if there's an advertising motive by the big G.
With Google, Bing/Yahoo will become a formidable competitor this year, and there is more pressure than ever on the part of Google, to show an increase in rev, Q-over-Q. You can be rest assured, that business decisions are driving technology decisions these days at the Plex. Google is no longer a computer science academic exercise - it is a business, in what will become a more competitive business space. Those who ante up, will reap the benefits. The days of free traffic are slowly but surely becoming obsolete.
conversion rates seem to be down for everyoneEveryone in my main vertical is saying the same thing...traffic steady, conversion rates way down. Shoppers are browsing, loading up the carts, and bailing before checkout.
however, i had many other problems (read my earlier posts if you like) with my website ... and "doubled" a little relativated means, i get still only 10% of the traffic i received before the last updates smacked my website down...
all the best to the webmasters that lost rankings. i know how bitter it is. :-/
itloc
My guess is that this update will be gradual and relatively smooth, but sadly some will get hurt.
That's the only difference between this equally massive but not sudden update and the landslide updates before, I guess G* had taken onboard the big hoo-haas caused before. This time decided to punish / hit slowly with less pain and reward smoothly with less euphoria, nonetheless the changes I expect to be as great!
