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I know they didn't just put their heads together and say lets dump the informational sites. It's got to be a result of some change in the algo. It looks to me like root level homepages are given preference. Many edu sites among others have valuable information in sub directories and on other deeper pages. Also if preference is being given to key words in the domain name older established sites are left out. I know I can’t afford to change my domain name and lose the outside backlinks that I already have. There must be other things affecting this as well. Little algo changes. Any ideas?
If those of us with information sites can figure it out perhaps we can get our pages moved up a bit in the serps.
My impression of .edu sites is that they are massively assisted by the Google algo. The number of kids' web projects on the most remote spurs of academic sites seem to pop up all over.
If you are a little guy with information to share, you just better make sure you can back up what you're sharing. If you can, I think Google will know it and will like it.
Google couldn't care less what information was being shared or whether one could back it up or not.
I don't think Google favors commercial sites. However, Google probably does favor root level homepages. But I doubt it.
You stated that the commercial sites are above the informational one's. Maybe the commercial sites are more relevant?
If you are a little guy with information to share, you just better make sure you can back up what you're sharing. If you can, I think Google will know it and will like it.
Well Google thought my information sites had plenty to share until the last update.
Sometimes I wish we had a separate forum here on webmaster world for non commercial and minimally commercial sites (meaning the site might bring in a little just to pay expenses). Our problems are a lot different.
I also wonder if there should be two different searches on Google. One for people who are looking for a product and one for those looking for information. I know a lot of sites have both but I think Google could work something out to include both.
I for one would much rather work on none-commercial it is far easier. -;
It depends on how many hours you spend doing research then writing and rewriting. I don't mean just regurgitating something that has already been written.
The current serps seem to have pushed a great many commercial sites above informational ones.
I gotta tell ya... after three hours helping my mother find a few things to buy last night... I would have said the complete opposite.
Information sites galore.
I actually ended up using Froogle for the first time, and by that stage was very glad it was there.
Money drives everything - whether intentional or not. Universities with more money are more likely to get their research noticed - and make good research as they have the capital to invest.
BOTH information and commercial sites can do well in google. Educational sites that in general have high PR love to link to good quality informational pages - while commercial sites that have tons of PR - such as AOL Time Warner sites link to their own companies and help them as well.
Completely and utterly untrue, i aint' going to provide evidence.
Except, get an edu. and start making affilate links, you will get the drift
nuff said
I believe that, when google has completed this current process, it will be easier for me - and others - to find what we're looking for. I hope I'm not being too optimistic.
Beth
[edited by: bether2 at 12:18 am (utc) on May 29, 2003]
Money drives everything - whether intentional or not. Universities with more money are more likely to get their research noticed - and make good research as they have the capital to invest.
Most .org and other Big Information types have serious hidden agenda somewhere in the background.
Having sold a domain for information purposes to a supposed charity/non profit information resource, it was interesting to note who PAID the bill :0
Shak
One thing about information, specialty, sites, is that we don't have a lot of competition. We occupy important niches and don't get lost in a fog of widget.com's. There are only two others in my field and they're both friends of mine. I arrange kw's and titles so I don't infringe on their serp's and they do the same for me.
It depends on how many hours you spend doing research then writing and rewriting.
Yep. I spend hours on every new page, not to mention the time in the field getting new material. I have to laugh when I see posts about thousands of dynamically created new pages and whether Google crawled them all.
Keep the faith.
That said, often the results I'm looking for are provided by commercial sites. Hmm, that sounds stupid so let me explain.
I'm a programmer. If I want some example code on a Windows API call that I've never used before, I'll either use Google to search for the function name or go straight to the Miscrosoft Developer Network (msdn) site.
It's interesting to note that Google finds pages in the msdn site quicker than the local MS search engine does! I think that says a lot about Microsoft.
Unfortunately, the example code I tend to find is usually shocking, both on msdn and various amateur and semi-commercial site that show up. However, that is certainly not Goggle's fault, it does a good job of finding example code, tech data, etc.
I had just felt that if I could get the homepage up in the single word search new people would find it and get interested in my aspect of the topic.
BTW Great Site!
Don't give up hope... after things are settled with Google, and another deepcrawl has happened, (fresh or deepbot), your main kw might be right back up there. I'd imagine that your articles, full of text with many different words to be found, help to bring people in on many different pages, much like me. I get arrivals on some very weird searches and some of them stick around to read things. Information sites have a natural advantage that way; lots of content to be spidered and show on the SE's, (including Google to stay on topic :-) ).
One thing about information, specialty, sites, is that we don't have a lot of competition. We occupy important niches and don't get lost in a fog of widget.com's.
Depends on the topic. I'm amazed by the number of hotel-booking sites that come up for even the most obscure travel destination queries. Search on (town name), and you're likely to find a slew of reservations pages--and in some cases, those pages won't actually list any hotels in the town.
I've often wished that Google would offer "I'm searching for information on..." and "I'm shopping for..." filters. Searching for information in the main index can be like trying to find a book in a public library that randomly mixes books with mail-order catalogs.
Buckworks, if I spot GG I'll give him fresh batteries and direct him your way.
(I hope this isn't too self-referential... not another word about it, promise)
Isn't Froogle seen as the split for info vs e-commerce/shopping?
Froogle is just merchants--no affiliate sites.
Anyway, offering a "shopping only" filter solves only half the problem; non-shoppers need an "information only" filter, too!
>>Completely and utterly untrue, i aint' going to provide evidence.<<
You wont provide evidence because you can't :-)
Google indexes the text on the page. They also consider off-site factors such as who is linking to you and what anchor text are they using.
Google doesn't research and double check what's on your page to see if you can back up your words. That's just silly.
Having sold a domain for information purposes to a supposed charity/non profit information resource, it was interesting to note who PAID the bill :0
Shak
and the TOS ruin what sounds like a good piece of gossip :)
Yep this is one way, but i think a better way, and maube what Google is planning to "organically" move commercial and shopping listings to adwords and froggle, so basically whenever you click on the left SERPS you are looking for info, and when you click on the right you are looking to buy.
By "organically" I mean making it much harder for commercial sites to keep "reliable" and predictable listings in the main SERPS over time, by say rotating top fairly similar relevant results for "money" queries, and making it harder to SEO your way to the top.
I would not be totally unsurprised that in some time in the future for highly spammed and commercial queries, Google will just display adwords or froogle results.. as their info-based algo makes it almost impossible to rank these queries due to the high number of spammed and SEOd sites.
note>>this is not meant to be a provocative post<<!
Google indexes the text on the page. They also consider off-site factors such as who is linking to you and what anchor text are they using.
Google doesn't research and double check what's on your page to see if you can back up your words. That's just silly.
..........
If you wish you can always do a bit of detective work yourself, btw, you are on the right lines with your statement "They also consider off-site factors such as who is linking to you and what anchor text are they using. "
I'll have to admit that most of my individual articles come up pretty well in the serps and weren't affected much by Dominic. But I have been working several months on the single word that best fits my topic,like spelunking would be for you. The homepage had finally made it to #11 and now it's hidden down in the 30s.
Have you read the threads about the so-called "semi-penalty"? I myself have an informational site, which does very well except for my main keyword (which is also the title of the site).
It might not help but it's worth a try as no one is going to find it on page four of the serps.
Meanwhile, I believe that those who make a positive contribution to the web, rather than focus purely on the spammy mechanics, back up their front office pages with all kinds of useful material which supports them. This kind of material (possibly as an alternative to thousands of marginally-varying generated spam pages) is recognised by Google and will produce greatly improved results for what you want to see ranked well.
Of course, many people may not feel able to create lots of pages of original content without quality falling through the floor. For them it is indeed back to anchor text and links and keyword density.
But, to repeat, if you can back up what you're saying, Google will know. And Google will like you.
You might not want to make too many changes to your site until the "Dominic update" is complete. There are still quite a few steps in the process that googleguy outlined which have not yet (to my knowledge) been completed.
Check out googleguy's comments in this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Beth
