2:Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2010

[g1smd]

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

I'm currently looking at an e-comm site where sales for the four complete weeks since May 16th are down 77% compared to the previous four weeks.

So far, I have no additional words of wisdom to add to this thread, and not much of a clue how to fix it.

Traffic levels haven't fallen by much, but instead it's as if Google is sending completely the wrong type of visitors.

Number of pages reported by site: search kept on falling, but in recent days have started to go up. Sales returned for two days, and then dried up again.

[edited by: tedster at 12:05 pm (utc) on Jun 15, 2010]

[jimbeetle]

In the tumbler searches, I'm thinking, something in the algo mechanism is refusing to acknowledge that there are search completions out there, and it's rewriting the query.

This really is quite frustrating for a user who actually know what he or she wants. I search for some quite arcane stuff -- and I thought I knew how to use Google -- and get quite frustrated with Google ignoring my queries and returning what it thinks I want. Half the time it ignores quotes, the other half the + sign, and the other half -- ;-) -- any terms that it feels like.

Some knobs are definitely dialed the wrong way.

And G, this is as a user, not a webmaster, SEO or whatever.

[scottsonline]

@robert...again thanks for leaving it up as I hope it helps others understand what is happening to the traffic. When we wonder why traffic is not targeted I bet there's a good chance users are ending up on our pages when they meant to be somewhere else just as the casual user might click on result #2 thinking "I trust Google so this must be what I'm looking for"....at the end of the day the Visits are there but the results are not.

Reading what was pulled from the blogspot page it's pretty clear they're assuming we're all incapable of finding what we were looking for when in reality I'd rarely had a time in the last five years where I couldn't find what I wanted with Google.

I'm just astounded by the depth and breadth of the problems. In one day I've discovered you cannot search for brand name prescription drugs to find out how quickly they work or you'll be given 30% of the malware sites by Google (did anyone notice if you use the word "it" right now in some searches you get italian sites from .it? Literally when google seems to get confused it's overriding searches based on perceived geographical reference...local search fail, cannot search for products by brand name or you'll be given map sites to golf courses and in the case of our industry I can't search for specific aftermarket parts like I once could because Google will return links to a famous authors webpage that has the same name as the brand? Wow!

Three entirely unrelated and different industries all having the same problem with google undervaluing direct matches in favor of whatever it is "this is".

[g1smd]

Traffic up 15%, sales down to almost zero again.

@jimbeetle I also despair when I search for "exact stuff" and get loads of things that I do not want, and that I thought I had excluded.

[scottsonline]

@g1msd

I have tremendous respect for Google and for Matt Cutts. I think up until January of this year they did an astounding job at delivering quality results.

I'd love for Matt to explain how the examples I've given today are an example of results "we are happy with" with the we being Google.

Customers found our site quite often through Google. Our analytics show that in the eyes of google all of our stats were better than the average of our competitors. They found products easily, found the site friendly and easy to use and checked out without incident. That has come to a screaching halt in the last week with this new filter. So were thousands of customers mistaken and instead of landing on an ecommerce site where they can buy the product should instead end up on a twitter page or blog page where they can read some spam about the same?

[internetheaven]

What happened on June 4th? What type of sites were hit? I've got dozens of sites and about a fifth of them were hit on June 4th but I can't work out the common theme.

Any help?

[Victor1]

i am sure now after much work today that it has to do with the silos your keywords are in - if you optamized for the wrong root word silo, the site took a hit.

Some longer tails have more than one Root silo to work from.

All the sites of mine that stuck i have found i luckily had the right root silos i was working in.

This partially explains why some searches are giving these types of results.

I know their will be more tweeks on G's side. I have changed over th 3rd site today to new adjustment. It was ranked 6th for last 8 months and was not affected by Mayday. So this is another of the same type of testing I am doing with this concept. Now changed two sites that were hit and one that wasn't but has better links then sites above them.

After more investigation, a big player, Amazon, is using this method. Likey they have been on to it for a while. I assume they have the contacts and personal to stay ahead of the curve. I noticed newer pages (less then 2 1/2 months old) all optamized this way and ranking right at the top.

[outland88]

In the past weeks Jerry Seinfeld has done some hilarious short bits specifically addressing what people are mentioning in these forums. He made it clear he didn’t like it and wanted Google to return to their old ways. When Jerry polled the audience everybody agreed with him. He loosely implied those not agreeing with him probably had interests with Google. Unless they buy him off I’d give the argument to Jerry not the Phd’s at Google.

Jerry seems to imply Google considers us all idiots and what they’re doing is a little too presumptuous for his tastes. It’s like a waiter telling you should use cream in your coffee every time you request sugar. You could imagine how irritated you could become with the waiter. If the comedians start going after you could sink quickly.

Silo's?

[JoeSinkwitz]

Content silos...use LSI to determine what to hyper-target and hyper-segment individual pages, getting in-bounds to those pages.

My problem with silos is when employed can be excessively spammy. Fast widget, online widget, surprise widget -- if it is really just the same product/service, the content can be largely fluffed and trick Google (much like now). The freshness of backlinks is a joke too -- 20,000 blog links really isn't better than 20 solid industry links when it comes to relevancy.

[outland88]

What happened on June 4th? What type of sites were hit?

I got hit on June 10th again after coming back for two weeks. My stats, since then, look like somebody put a sword to their backs and said jump. I'm confident Google will fix things by Christmas or the next.

[TheMadScientist]

20,000 blog links really isn't better than 20 solid industry links when it comes to relevancy.

But it's not about relevancy any more it's about freshness and what you really want even if you might not think what they show you is what you're searching for... LOL.

[Web_speed]

This allows me to sit back and do something else while I listen to my site traffic as people hit the main page (which is a sonar ping) then to my product pages (a blip sound) the signup page (a buzzer) and my thank you page (a cash register kah ching, plus I've got a bunch of farm animal noises for other target pages...it sounds like barnyard on a good day.
Lately it's been dead on the farm.

I love that. Going to put up my own farm tonight.

Back to Google. Seeing very abnormal traffic patterns myself over 10 client sites i monitor. I see "good" on the the dot keyword hits but lately, unfortunately from the wrong countries. Sales are dead for almost a full month now.

I'd call Google's latest SERPs update "a better Adwords click ratio twaek". Or better still "the Google kah ching tweak".

[aspdesigner]

@scottsonline, when I do that search, I got the same (single) Ad both ways. But for a $6 product, the fact that there are not a lot of companies willing to pay per-click to come-up for that search does not seem surprising.

Google's mis-spelling correction appears to be a re-positioning (and increased aggressiveness) of a previously existing legit function - it is telling you up-front that it is showing a "corrected" query, so it makes sense to display ads based on that.

Google's forced keyword replacement, however, is NOT so friendly. It does not say anything about what it has done, nor does it give you a way to undo it! But in this case, while the SERPs may be all over the map, the AdWords will typically match what I wanted.

In the vast majority of the cases where I am seeing "wonky" SERPs, the AdWords on that page are typically spot-on. It is hard to believe how such a combination would not result in more AdWords click-throughs.

"I have tremendous respect for Google and for Matt Cutts."

I USED to think the same thing. Florida was a rather rude wake-up call for most of us here at WebmasterWorld, as I explained here -

Is History Repeating Itself at Google? [webmasterworld.com]

"I'd love for Matt to explain how the examples I've given today are an example of results "we are happy with" with the we being Google."

We asked the very same question back in 2003. Repeatedly.

"A bunch of the top sites three months ago when they started their research were scholar/research type articles."

This is a good find! During Florida, one particularly damning piece of evidence that they were targeting highly relevant sites, and not just aggressively optimized ones, was the fact that legit, highly relevant, naturally ranking sites were being "kicked to the curb" as well.

I take it these "scholarly articles" were not aggressively SEO'd?

"The other thing I noticed is many times the results were littered with duplicate sites."

The more you fill those few Top-10 spots with duplicates, malware, non-relevant, spammy, personal sites, etc., the fewer (or no) legit choices you give the user on that page, and the more likely they are to click an AdWords link instead.

I guess Google thinks we're not smart enough to figure that out.

"What does malware have to do with top of the silo?"

That's the same problem we had back in Florida - one or two problems might be understandable, but so many? All having the same observable effects? Reducing organic relevancy / quality? And Google claiming nothing was wrong? Even back in 2003 we were saying - "No way can Google be that stupid!"

"and then require they click on a text link..."

Hey, be glad you got that! In the majority of our screwed-up SERPs, THERE IS NO OPT-OUT BUTTON! For example, in the competitive commercial search where the Dallas Cowboys are now listed #1, the only alternative search links are at the BOTTOM...

"Pages similar to... (Cowboys site)"

But of course, the page was surrounded by AdWords (3 on top + bunch on the right), NONE of which were about the Cowboys, or football, or memorabilia, or anything sports-related...but ALL of which were spot-on to what I had actually searched for!

"It is possible to force Google to display the entered 3-word tumbler query scottsonline suggested by putting it in quotes. That's generally not the way most people search, of course. They don't even know what quotes do."

@Robert, I have been seeing where Google is even IGNORING quotes, and giving me instead what it damn well pleased. I have a non-specific example of that as part of another topic I will post later.

"but with the important difference that in the tumbler query Google had, apparently prior to the disambiguation, excluded other pages that were excellent matches."

I suspect this may be the result of Great Relevancy FILTER taking them out of the running first - simply another effect of what we saw back with Florida, if you take-out the most relevant sites, this is what remains.

"In the tumbler searches, I'm thinking, something in the algo mechanism is refusing to acknowledge that there are search completions out there"

ditto.

"...a query for which there are no search completions to offer..."

None at all, really? Also evidence that Google is removing highly relevant sites.

Just like with Florida, they are not exactly being subtle with how they are doing this. They just keep denying any problems exist, and singing happy tunes about "high quality" and "better than ever!", and like BP, hope no one will notice what is actually going on!

Look all, I've got one of my main clients acting strangely now. He's still doing OK, considering the carnage this has wrecked. Still holding multiple #1's, plus a variety of Top-10's. And dominating Yahoo.

But one of the problems of being real good at what you do, is now he thinks getting a #1 spot is like turning on a light switch. Or if he drops in a given SERP, it's like my HTML is defective or something!

I spoke with him today, and I may end up loosing this major client that I have had since 2008, just because Google decided to get greedy, and toast the SERPs to line it's pockets with more ad sales!

I am scrambling at the moment, but this could very well take out our business. :(

I recall back in 2003, some legal beagle posted about the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against Google by all the small businesses that were damaged as a result. I don't recall the exact approach, something about anti-trust I believe. But the way I feel right now, if someone wants to do this, count me in.

But to be honest, I would rather see those that hatched this share a jailcell instead. And if he was helping to cover-up what they were doing, that would include Matt as well.

"In the past weeks Jerry Seinfeld has done some hilarious short bits specifically addressing what people are mentioning in these forums."

@outland88, I would love to see that - I could use a little bit of humor right about now. Is any of that available on the web?

Last time, we got ppl like the New York Times and Fortune Magazine asking questions. Today, we got Jerry Seinfeld. Well, at least it's a start! LOL

"I'd call Google's latest SERPs update "a better Adwords click ratio twaek". Or better still "the Google kah ching tweak"."

You mean the Google "Payday" Update? (some of the members here renamed it)

[coachm]

For what it's worth we're also seeing sales issues and at the same time getting completely frustrated with our own google searches. I'm not inclined to panic and we'll still create content for users not SEO. It's like everything ends up as two steps forward, then two steps back with google traffic. Sometimes we seem to end up with traffic wanting to buy things, and then we'll hit a streak when nobody wants us but they'll click like heck on adsense ads instead, and back and forth it goes, so we never make more money.

[outland88]

aspdesigner,

If you've seen that new "Related To" feature in Google Adwords, popping up on the longtail, that's pretty convincing evidence this is the Google "PayDay" update.

[Robert Charlton]

It just all makes no sense...

scottsonline - I had to turn to other things after my posts above, so my thoughts above are incomplete, but your comment basically sums up my conclusions so far. ;) I've been trying to puzzle this out, with no success.

What I'm not understanding is what the "trigger" is... what caused Google to force disambiguation on this set of results, but not on some others?

Various thoughts I've had at random...

- there's a crossed wire somewhere in one of the data-centers....

- there's a mole from Bing working at Google....

- all of the 89 Google results displayed for the tumbler search are spam....

- this is an incomplete fix from last week....

- they're A/B testing options, to see which set we prefer....

- this is someone's one-day-a-week project, and he hasn't been able to get back to it yet....

- Microsoft hired Jerry Seinfeld in anticipation of this moment.

outland88 - Is Seinfeld actually making comments on TV, or did you just make that up?

Seriously, in addition to various anomalies noted above, I have at this point seen some serps that looked like they started off with a few from the right phrase and then followed up with searches from the most likely misspellings... with no note in the middle that they were switching search terms.

I've also seen some really excellent results, including very long-tail where the semantic matching is pretty amazing... and searches in competitive areas too. On many of these, it feels to me like Google is making just the right choices.

It all seems to crumble when there aren't that many good matches... though in the case of the duck music search, I would defend Google's result set as being the best of the bunch. It's likely that Google didn't suggest any one other search for the duck music phrase because there wasn't any one search that was close, and the search just deteriorated because of lack of good options.

But why, when there are many good matches, are they shutting them down in some queries and not in others that seem to be equally longtail?

And I don't go for "AdWords" as an explanation.

[ohno]

"if you want to do business, you pay google their cut, it really is that simple. Get over it."

A silly comment IMO. Yesterday was our best day in months(so far this week is shaping up to be the best for months too), we have changed nothing on the site. Anyone can see G is changing daily at the moment, when things have been constant for more than 7 days then comments like that will hold water, at the moment they do not.

IF their plan is to get everyone to pay for results then this will not work at all IMO, (1) Not everyone will see a ROI so most will go elsewhere/stay how they are now (2) Too many people out there would not pay in the first place.

[Mike McKnight]

I feel for all those folks on here that have suffered as we have. We weathered thru the Florida hurricane back in 2003 and several minor "fixes" or "Dances" as we used to call them.
But in the back of my mind, I guess I knew that the day would come that G would want to be paid for their service from as many ppl as they could get to pay them. It seems that that day has come. It's not like we haven't ever tried AdWords, it just never was profitable for us, too dumb to figure it out I suppose.
I long for the old days of Infoseek where you could make a change and get the results of that change in the SERPS within the hour. A friend back in Chicago that owned a similar business and I used to play SERPS games to see who could get the most listings on the first page.
Well I think that the only results that G will let slide eventually will be .gov or .edu or non-profit sites without paying. I think that when they went IPO the only thing that really mattered from then on, was quarterly profits for the share holders. After all that is the main and ONLY reason a corporation exists - to increase share holder value.
We may not be able to stay in business this time, this one seems even worse than Florida. "First do no evil" went out the window with the IPO I'm afraid. Sorry about the minor rant. It used to be that a few of the really bright guys in here could eventually figure out most of the Dance and would share it with the rest of us morons so we could make the necessary changes to start making a small living again. But this one looks like it has even the best and brightest among us baffeled.
a beaten down small fry , flopping around in the bottom of the boat - Mike Mc

[aspdesigner]

@Ohno: It's also "pretty silly" to judge the entire Internet on the ups and downs of a single website.

Your claimed reasons why "this will not work at all" are likewise invalid, for the following reasons -

• Given the stranglehold G now has on search, "go somewhere else" may no longer be a viable option.
  
• If a business's rankings vaporized, "stay how they are now" may put them out of business!
  
• As another member (scottsonline?) pointed-out about a specific competitor, companies may do so even if it has poor ROI, if the alternative is to go out of business.
  
• Not everyone has to do so for this work - any increase in sales is still an increase.

"If you've seen that new "Related To" feature in Google Adwords, popping up on the longtail, that's pretty convincing evidence this is the Google "PayDay" update."

@outland88: Haven't noticed that - will keep an eye out for it.

Did just notice, on SERPs that are not (yet) chock-full of AdWords, there is a link below the ads -

See your ad here »

So I guess they are promoting AdWords sales for all the businesses looking at the SERPs and wondering where their sites went?

Was looking for Jerry Seinfeld's comments about Google. Of course, being Google, I ended-up reading about Conan O'Brian! Perfectly logical conclusion - cause we know they're virtually twins, right?

Tried to do a narrow search for recent videos - sorry, instead we're giving you Google TV clips, plus a bunch of Tom & Jerry cartoons!

Including 3 of the Top 10 from a web site in Romania! Cause Google knows everybody in America speaks Romanian, right?

But No Soup For You! ;)

Finally found a brief mention from a recent TV interview on hulu.

He was indeed making fun of / complaining about Google changing his searches. Said he found their attitude very condescending and obnoxious, that he didn't like them doing that. -

"Did you mean AFRICA?"

"Is what you were TRY-ING to say... you poor, dumb..."

When your SERPs have gotten so bad, that comedians actually start making fun of them, you sound pretty silly trying to claim that nothing is wrong.

Even during Florida, I can't recall THAT happening!

"In the past weeks Jerry Seinfeld has done some hilarious short bits specifically addressing what people are mentioning in these forums. He made it clear he didn’t like it and wanted Google to return to their old ways. When Jerry polled the audience everybody agreed with him. He loosely implied those not agreeing with him probably had interests with Google. Unless they buy him off I’d give the argument to Jerry not the Phd’s at Google.

Jerry seems to imply Google considers us all idiots and what they’re doing is a little too presumptuous for his tastes. It’s like a waiter telling you should use cream in your coffee every time you request sugar."

outland88, where did you see that? Is there any video or story available on-line?

Cause trying to find it using Google is like throwing darts blindfolded!

[ohno]

You're missing the point, the fact that things are up & down suggests things are far from over. Today has been dead so far. Since 2002 we have never seen sales patterns like this. No one can figure out what is happening because the goal posts are moving DAILY, can you not see that?!

[ohno]

To add, RE:Adwords. So, G gets its dream and EVERYONE starts advertising, how will that work? Users will still only see a select number of ads on page one no matter how much they are rotated. Imagine a WORLD WIDE Yellow Pages, pointless. Fact is the WWW is growing daily, however, trying to give everyone a slice of the action (paid) is just not practical, it’s like me moaning now that I want to make a new OS only to find Microsoft is dominant!

[walkman]

I got a 10% increase starting Sunday from previous week but I'm still down a good 25% since this started.

[steerpikegg]

So, G gets its dream and EVERYONE starts advertising, how will that work? Users will still only see a select number of ads on page one no matter how much they are rotated

Presumably they would want first page bids to go through the roof

[AG4Life]

Would love to see that Jerry Seinfeld clip. Searching for it on Google only leads back to this thread!

Incidentally I've been watching Seinfeld on DVD (and Curb) during my downtime as a way to distract myself from the current Google situation.

[aspdesigner]

"You're missing the point, the fact that things are up & down suggests things are far from over."

According to Matt's video, it is. The update happened around the first few days in May. They then appeared to turn the dial up around the start of June.

The "Payday" update happened over a month and a half ago. According to Matt, if you are still having a problem now, it's your own fault. How many MONTHS would you have us wait?

Have you considered the possibility that they may be playing with the knobs, just to keep us distracted? Or perhaps simply built instability into the algo? Google is also constantly making changes, even between updates.

But if you believe Matt is telling the truth, then you have to reject the notion that the update is not complete, as he has stated otherwise.

"Users will still only see a select number of ads on page one no matter how much they are rotated."

True. Companies will have to start targeting less-used SERPs (those that Google is showing a convenient "See your ad here" link), or try to out-bid each other on the more popular SERPs (I believe someone has reported seeing that already). Either way, G makes more $.

"however, trying to give everyone a slice of the action (paid) is just not practical"

You're right. Some companies (perhaps many) will go out of business as a result of that. That's part of what makes such a strategy so evil.

"it’s like me moaning now that I want to make a new OS only to find Microsoft is dominant!"

That's a very good analogy, considering we have allowed Google to become so dominant in search. Back in 2003, at least the market was more spread-out.

"I feel for all those folks on here that have suffered as we have. We weathered thru the Florida hurricane back in 2003"

@Mike: Glad to see someone else still here that actually remembers Florida! I was beginning to think I was the only one left.

"I long for the old days of Infoseek where you could make a change and get the results of that change in the SERPS within the hour."

I remember those days as well.

Now we have a little green bar, the displayed value of which only gets updated a few times a year!

"Well I think that the only results that G will let slide eventually will be .gov or .edu or non-profit sites without paying."

Wouldn't mind so much if they hadn't become the gateway to the Internet.

"I think that when they went IPO the only thing that really mattered from then on, was quarterly profits for the share holders. After all that is the main and ONLY reason a corporation exists - to increase share holder value."

Whatever happened to corporate responsibility? Or given the present mess we find the economy due to unchecked corporate greed, what about government enforcement?

"We may not be able to stay in business this time, this one seems even worse than Florida. "First do no evil" went out the window with the IPO I'm afraid."

Agreed, and in the same boat.

"It used to be that a few of the really bright guys in here could eventually figure out most of the Dance...But this one looks like it has even the best and brightest among us baffeled."

It may be possible to compensate somewhat. But two major problems are -

• By devaluing the most relevant sites, you need to make your site a "near miss" to the actual target - this is by it's nature a hit-or-miss affair, and may not even be possible in some instances.
  
• Looking at what kinds of crappy sites Google likes to see now - do you REALLY want to make your client's sites look like that?
  

If you were around during Florida, you may want to take a look at this thread...

Is History Repeating Itself at Google? [webmasterworld.com]

It might also interest you to know that ALL of the symptoms we observed first-hand during Florida, are being seen again today! It looks like an attempt to do the same thing again (Florida V2.0)

Last time, we were able (with some help from the national media) to get Google to clean up their act. It is my hope that we may be able to accomplish the same thing again - if not ourselves, then perhaps with the help of some "official" avenues?

[ohno]

"According to Matt, if you are still having a problem now, it's your own fault. How many MONTHS would you have us wait? "

So, you take MC's words as gospel? If we had we would have done changes which Monday/Tuesday would have led us to believe they had worked, today we would be thinking what on earth happened. Monday/Tusday taffic was around normal but sales WELL up, today sales are way DOWN but traffic is way UP. If this new algo IS going to mean this is what happens then changing the site will not change a thing IMO. I'm finding it hard to believe that all the tweaking is done at G.

As for how long, who knows? If i see the "pattern" repeating week in week out then I'll believe what MC has said, when i see huge variations from one day to the next then I'll stick with my viewpoint that things are still up in the air.


ps, I mentioned Florida ages ago, MC also stated that what happened then would not be repeated with this update, do you believe that?!

[kd454]

"According to Matt, if you are still having a problem now, it's your own fault. How many MONTHS would you have us wait? "

I am not really having many problems like some, but I am seeing some crap SERP's out there in general. There is the good mixed with the junk (spammy) results, they should have called this the google bomb update.

I usually just look at what my sites are doing but after reading this thread I started to look at what was actually in the SERP's and WOW google is going downhill fast with this update.

The one or 2 word keyterms look o.k the 3 keyword or more terms are basically spam mixed with decent results.

[AG4Life]

Last week this time was the best day (given the day of the week) we've had since March, traffic wise. It was just after Google announced Caffeine had launched, and I had hoped the worst was over.

Today, it's the worst day ever.

Can't wait to see what it will be like this time next week! </sarcasm>

[AG4Life]

And this other website that I help manage has also experienced a 10% drop since the start of the month. This is the official website of a particular product, its major keyword is the name of the product, which is an unique, one word (made up) name (and also the domain name). The website itself is simple, only about 6 pages.

The funny thing is that referrals from Google for the name of this product (which counts for the majority of search traffic) is down. I can understand long tails, but why would a keyword that ranks number one *and* number two (so two pages from the same domain returned for the search term) drop in traffic? The top listing has sublinks which, since the site only has a few pages, pretty much shows all the pages on the site as well. No adwords on the results page, that I can see anyway, taking away traffic.

There doesn't seem to be any external reasons for this drop, no new product launches or news coverage that would explain previous traffic spikes (if anything, a previous launch event which saw non Google referrals double overnight as some of the big websites picked the story up, actually saw less Google referrals - this was around the middle of March). Otherwise Google traffic has been pretty steady, up until the first week of May, which saw a drop (then steady for the rest of May), and then since the first week of June, it's been steadily dropping.

Non Google referrals are steadier, but some of the big sites that refer traffic (especially forums) are down. Bing and Yahoo referrals are actually up (of course).

I have no idea what's going on. The only thing I've notices is that if you use the date options ("Past 24 hours", "Past week" ...), the website isn't even listed on the first page until you use the "past year" option, which ranks it near the bottom of the first page. It's true that the website isn't updated often, only for important announcements and such (and since it is the official website, it's the source of all new information regarding the product), could this be why traffic is dropping, as it is losing out to sites that are updated more frequently with more meaningless content (through comments, or simply employing a counter or a dynamically generated date)?

[Robert Charlton]

When your SERPs have gotten so bad, that comedians actually start making fun of them, you sound pretty silly trying to claim that nothing is wrong.

Re perceptions of Seinfeld's independence in these matters....

Microsoft Ad Strives for Comedy
WSJDigitalNetwork — September 09, 2008 — See the recent Microsoft ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11NOblvuEpU
[youtube.com...]

PS: I thought outland88 was joking when he first mentioned Seinfeld's recent comments. Paid placement, perhaps?

[TheMadScientist]

@ backdraft7

I WAS using GA and recently deleted the code from my pages and all my goals (oops Mad, there is the change!)

I just now reskimmed the thread to try and get a better picture of things, and noticed your edits:
LOL, but hmmmm... at the same time.

Have you thrown them back on out of sheer curiosity or anything?

Also, was there anything else 'little' you did and maybe didn't think about having any type of effect?

I know one day I changed the text in the home page bread crumb from 'text' to 'example.com', just because I felt like seeing what happened and I wanted to 'drive home' then name of the site a bit more and I figured it was a good way to squeeze it on the page again... My rankings didn't seem to be impacted but average page views on the site increased significantly shortly after, which I found very interesting from what I considered a 'tiny, nothing' change.