Fresh Tags

What causes you to get/not get them?

[Huntersbiz]

Over the past two weeks almost every result in the top 20 for my two keywords is showing fresh tags. Except my site which is #1 or #2. Can anybody help me understand whay would cause my site to be the only one not showing fresh tags? Googlebot has visited every single day and I do have some changes made. Any insight would be appreciated!

[martinibuster]

As I understand it from my experience, you have to make somewhat significant changes. Changing text and title tag around isn't necessarily going to do it. Removing font tags and going to all css isn't either.

By fresh, Google really means "FRESH" content. As in some major change in content or the addition of content.

[Huntersbiz]

But then how come almost every other result on the page is showing tags? Most of them appear to have made no change at all. And in the past, I have had fresh tags when no changes had been made to my site. Changing content doesn't seem to be the full answer.

[martinibuster]

in the past, I have had fresh tags when no changes had been made to my site.

But was there a change in position? Probably not. I believe I may have also seen the fresh tag for non-changed content, but there was no boost in serps. I know this is true because I keep Excel spreadsheets for my clients positions.

The only FT that I care about is the one that comes from adding new content, and seeing it jump up the page for a week to ten days, and knowing that in a months time it may become part of the permanent serps.

[leoo24]

would it be reasonable to assume that if your page is being thrown to the top of the serps in everflux that you are going in the right direction with your optimization (spelling?)or does everybodies page who gets the freshbot experience everflux?
i have had improved placement for some of my keywords after everflux.

[rfgdxm1]

>As I understand it from my experience, you have to make somewhat significant changes. Changing text and title tag around isn't necessarily going to do it. Removing font tags and going to all css isn't either.

Nope. I am seeing right now a fresh tag on a SERP for a page that site hasn't changed in over a year. I see these all the time, including with my site.

[Huntersbiz]

There is ALMOST no movement in the SERPS so it's almost a technicality (although one I'd still like to figure out an answer for).

BUT, there is one change. I am #1 for the first keyword at all times. But for keyword #2, I get bumped out of the #1 spot by a site that does show fresh tags. The crazy thing is that this site shows as a 404 error... even in Google's cache! I have written about this before but haven't heard any responses on how this can happen.
How can Fresh results bump a 404 error page over me into the #1 spot. And again, why would my site not get fresh tags at all?

[martinibuster]

rfgdxm1:
READ THE WHOLE THREAD.

But was there a change in position? Probably not. I believe I may have also seen the fresh tag for non-changed content, but there was no boost in serps.

As well as:

The only FT that I care about is the one that comes from adding new content, and seeing it jump up the page for a week to ten days

In other words and to expand, I don't really care about someone else's fresh tag, performing or non-performing. The only one I care about is my own, that comes from adding new content, and watching it go up in the serps.

[edited by: martinibuster at 6:10 pm (utc) on Mar. 29, 2003]

[Huntersbiz]

Technically, there was a change in position. A site that DID have FTs jumped over me into the #1 postion. The fact that there is nothing but a 404 error on this page only adds to my confusion.

[martinibuster]

The fact that there is nothing but a 404 error on this page only adds to my confusion.

Sometimes the only reason a page is on top is because of the inbound links. When you press on the cache, Google highlights the words on the page on which the keywords appear. In the case that the keywords don't appear, Google's cache states that the page is relevant because of inbound links.

What reason does the cache give?

[rfgdxm1]

Read the whole thread yourself martinibuster. The OP simply asked why his site was the only one showing without fresh tags. I was responding to that issue. You then shifted to "The only FT that I care about is the one that comes from adding new content, and seeing it jump up the page for a week to ten days". That is a different issue.

[martinibuster]

The previous response in message 4 is clearly a response to the original query. So chill out.

It's part of the discussion to also expand on the subject.

[Powdork]

I'm interested in the answer to the original post as well. My site is often visited by fresh bot as well but never receives fresh tags. I have made giant changes but even with fresh bot visits to the changed pages and the fact that the server returned a 200 not a 304 there have been no fresh tags and the indexed/cached page remains that from the previous update.
For the other posts I would say that 90% of the fresh tags represent pages that have not changed at all. I used to think updating pages played a role, now I think it is entirely dependent on pr. I used to think adding links from pages that already receive fresh tags would help. Now I think it is entirely based on pr

[rfgdxm1]

OK martinibuster. ;) What I was focusing on was *just* the part by you I quoted.

[rfgdxm1]

>For the other posts I would say that 90% of the fresh tags represent pages that have not changed at all. I used to think updating pages played a role, now I think it is entirely dependent on pr. I used to think adding links from pages that already receive fresh tags would help. Now I think it is entirely based on pr

This is my observation to. The higher the PR, the more likely a fresh tag. As an example, that page on another site that hasn't changed in a year I see getting a fresh tag all the time is a PR6. This may have to do with available Google computing resources. In Google's mind, high PR pages are more "important". Thus keeping the cache fresh for a PR6 page is a priority, but not a PR2.

[Huntersbiz]

rfgdxm, I know what you're talking about but even when I go to the cached version, the WHOLE thing forward to the 404 message. I quickly see the message at the top but then that dissapears and the whole page if the 404 error. ?!

[Huntersbiz]

I have seen the PR/FT relationship mentioned before. But my site has a higher PR (I believe a 6... I'm on Mac so it's hard to be sure--it's the highest PR in my Google Directory category) than any of the sites below it that DO have FTs.

[matkat]

Just too add to the confusion. My site was completely rebuilt as far as content and structure in mid-Feb. I did change the title and keywords slightly. Fresh and Deep have been in a lot in March. So...I have 2 keywords and 4 3-4 word phrases I track. I did move up on almost all of them but here's the oddity. Some have fresh tags and some do not (the fresh tags are carrying a new title while the old one's have a slighlty different version). How can that be? The PR is 6.

[matkat]

Just too add to the confusion. My site was completely rebuilt as far as content and structure in mid-Feb. I did change the title and keywords slightly. Fresh and Deep have been in a lot in March. So...I have 2 keywords and 4 3-4 word phrases I track. I did move up on almost all of them but here's the oddity. Some have fresh tags and some do not (the fresh tags are carrying a new title while the old one's have a slighlty different version). How can that be?

[martinibuster]

Huntersbiz
It would be interesting to know what that cache says. In order to make a successful diagnosis one must make as thorough examination as possible.

[freejung]

>Now I think it is entirely based on pr

Powdork, I agree that PR plays a huge role, but I think the age of the entire site must have something to do with it as well. My older site typically will only get 10-20 pages with fresh tags, and I have about 20 pages of fresh content on it which have yet to be freshbotted this entire month, and the homepage is a PR6.

On the other hand, my newer site, which has a PR5 homepage, typically gets 100-150 pages with fresh tags, and as soon as I add a new page, it is almost always freshbotted and included in the SERPs within a couple of days. So there must be other factors besides PR, and I think the age of the site is one of them.

And, to quote the Daley Llama (who is different from the Dalai Llama), "there is a random factor somewhere."

[Huntersbiz]

I'm with you Martinibuster. Any thoughts on how I can see that before it forwards?

[Perfection]

On one of my sites, every page with a PR6 has fresh tags, everything under 6 doesn't.

[Huntersbiz]

Here's another weird symptom that I bet some of you have seen...
the VERY SAME page shows up with NO fresh tags under one keyword search and WITH fresh tags under another search!

I think there is much that we don't yet understand about fresh tags.

[Powdork]

Powdork, I agree that PR plays a huge role, but I think the age of the entire site must have something to do with it as well.

Yes, I may have gone a bit over the top saying it was entirely based on PR. Clearly there are other factors but I haven't seen any pattern accept consistently high pr.

[brotherhood of LAN]

entirely based on PR

I've not edited a page in ages, still get thy freshness with a PR7.

other factors

Using the likes of "if-modified-since [webmasterworld.com]" and similar headers is probably another one.

[martinibuster]

Any thoughts on how I can see that before it forwards?

The Wayback Machine [archive.org]. This may give you an idea what was on the page.

Go to Alltheweb and do a back link search to see if your keywords are in the backlinks, and to see how many back links there are.

link:www.web-site.com

[rfgdxm1]

>I think there is much that we don't yet understand about fresh tags.

I agree. Clearly I see a correlation between fresh tags and PR. There do seem to be other things involved. Someone mentioned newness of the site. It would make some sense for this to be a consideration. A new site is much more likely to be having content and modified because it is in the process of creation than some PR6 site where the HTML hasn't been touched in years. Thus, Google may have as part of the freshbot algo to seek out sites and pages where it thinks the probability of fresh content is higher.

[Visi]

As I noted last month, the fresh tags seem to have become a way for google to verify their database from/to. Google has been having issues in getting their database up to date since last July, with multiple 404 error pages present. We have been watching this over the past 6 months extensively as we completely redid a domain with new pages. Finally last month googles database updated, but after freshbot revisited the 404 old pages numerous times? Again this month we are seeing the 404 errors from the freshbot. Think google is using it not as a fresh content bot, but rather a confirming bot for what it has seen in the latest crawl. We also noted that "slurp" bot is doing the same thing, revisiting numerous 404 pages to verify. Like I said a different perspective, but one that seems to fit into what the previous posts are noting.

[rfgdxm1]

Google may well be using the freshbot to double check to make sure that 404 pages really are gone. Makes sense if they have excess computing power and bandwidth. This way they can confirm that last time they didn't hit a server glitch or webmaster error, and add the pages back if this was the case.