Why only one update per month?

[kiril]

I've been peering in on the Google News forum for about a month now. The most striking thing to me is the degree of excitement (and sometimes anguish) about the Update. I can can even feel the excitement a little myself, although my website promotion activities are just for fun, while I suppose many of you have your jobs on the line.

My question is this: Why does Google do large-scale updates only monthly (or less as now appears to be the case)? Why can't they just let it run constantly? I imagine it is an intensive use of computing power and network bandwidth, but isn't an alternative to run slowly without stopping?

Just curious.

[Brett_Tabke]

They do allow it to run almost continuously in the "freshbot/everflux" regard.

After that, we assume (no one knows for sure but Google), they have to:

a) Stop to recalculate the index throughout the web. There has to be a stopping point were numbers such as PageRank gets recalculated. Running calculations on 3-? billion urls is very processor intensive.

b) Rework the algo.
- Just to update the results so they don't get too stale. If the same sets of pages are listed over and over under the same keywords, people tend to go elsewhere.

c) To fix problem results.
The search engine model is liquid with very few defined absolute parameters of operation. The model itself sounds simple: data in->repackage->data out. Within reason, they are dealing with variable size and shape of inbound data sets. Those range from simple text to complex formats such as doc files and pdf files. At some point, bogus data is going to creep into the system that has to be addressed.

Recalculating rankings, tweaking the algo, and addressing problem results all line up in a single stopping point that works out to be about a month apart.

[Jesse_Smith]

:::If the same sets of pages are listed over and over under the same keywords, people tend to go elsewhere.

Except when the top sites listed are quality sites. I've been in the Top 10 for my major keyword for years now!

[ircgeeks]

It would be nice if Google would update once a month. The reason they don’t want to update is they make to much money off add words. Why give it away for free when they Can charge for it.

[chiyo]

>>:::If the same sets of pages are listed over and over under the same keywords, people tend to go elsewhere.

>>Except when the top sites listed are quality sites. I've been in the Top 10 for my major keyword for years now!
<<

Well it may be good for you Jesse but it may not necessarilly be good for google's users! Agree that good quality sites (in google's definition i guess) should always be 'up there', but people do like to see different results (as long as the relevance and quality is good). Otherwise as Brett says, people get bored and like variety, even of the quality is less, but still acceptable.

We have been in the top 10 for 5 years too on our keywrods, but we are ready to get knocked off every so often. google will be all out to prove also that for a sustainable business, you need to pay to advertise for consistency. Search engine placement is icing on the cake if you can get it, and its worth all the trouble and compromises you have to make to optimize for. But it's NO sensible basis for 100% of your A&P expenditure.

[Brett_Tabke]

Thanks, that is very good reminder IRCgeeks. We tend to forget about what effect a simple algo change can have on a search engines bottom line.

[Alphawolf]

Google should update once per week. What a happy shiny web it would be then. :)

AW

[Webber]

I will be so happy if it is really once a month. Seems more like once in 1 1/2 month......

At least it will give us more time to work on the site before the deepcrawl comes again.

............always thinking positive...........

[Chris_R]

I doubt the update is "held back" to make more money.

I'd wager that 90% of people making a profit off of google gets updated daily anyway.

Of course - it does get new people in faster to pay for an ad...