Clarification request...

Will older data be brought back or am I back at ground zero?

[reneewood]

I've been looking for clarification of this question, but can't seem to find an answer. Maybe there is no answer....

For a site such as mine that was freshbotted to the front of the SERPS in March and added to the permanent index in April and then dumped by dominic in May--has GG qualified whether or not the older/missing data (missing backlinks and pages picked up during the April deepcrawl) will be brought back in for the next update or will my site have to start at Ground Zero again? Is that data just lost? Or is it stored somewhere where it can be re-incorporated into the index during the next update?

[John_Creed]

Googleguy has stated to expect at least one more traditional update before the full transition to the new system.

So ideally we'll get another update this month and your site would be included.

However, no-one knows for sure. Your guess is as good as ours.

Personally I no-longer have any confidence in google and see no reason to believe that we'll get a real update in June.

[Marcia]

renee, no doubt they have it, some things keep turning up and disappearing again. But they're using older data for some reason we just won't be able to figure out. I don't believe anything is lost, we'll just have to wait.

I understand how everyone feels, I had to deal with a panic client call first this morning, it's all being explained over and over again, with no end in sight. Especially if a site went up in March (this one did) - it's maddening - it looks like it's missing, but it isn't. Google doesn't lose anything, if they do it isn't for too long. If anything they get too much sometimes.

If I check anything, I'm checking at Hotbot where I can check 4 search engines all at once, including Google - to stay in balance. In fact, I might run everything by and see how it's all doing at Inktomi. We just don't know, and there's no point to being aggravated - it'll get there when it gets there.

BTW - Hotbot Search Engine is PR0. :-)

[biggles]

Marcia - would be very interested in knowing how you or anyone else is explaining Google's current wierd performsnce to aggravated clients. Given the total confusion as to what's going on I'm personally having difficulty coming up with an apprpriate & succinct explanaition to pacify unhappy clients. Being told to wait and see what happens doesn't go down that well when they've fallen out of top 10 results.

Suspect I'm not alone.

[mfishy]

We are not sure whether the April crawl data is lost or not, although GoogleGuy said it is there and could be used for cross verification. It seems as though the plan is to disregard the April data altogether and deep crawl again soon for the late june/july index.

The only explanation for their using of old data is that it was easier to test the new algo on an established database.

[jojojo]

so shouldn't the deepcrawl have started by now for the june/july update?

[jdMorgan]

biggles et al,

Succinct explanation:

"Google is rolling out a new algorithm and new filters. It is apparently a big change, and live testing is apparently underway. Therefore, the behaviour we observe is different than anything we have seen before.

"Since Google's stated goal is to provide the best possible search experience for their users, we are reasonably assured that this situation will be resolved soon -- according to one Google spokesman, in a time frame that is longer than weeks, but shorter than months."

If they don't understand that, they will probably blame you if it rains tomorrow - maybe you should fire them.

More generally:
There is simply no use in getting wrapped around the axle over this situation. It either resolves itself, or we all start over again trying to understand the black box that is Google's algorithm. But again, we can either worry ourselves to death over whether it will rain tomorrow, or the next day, or we can turn to more productive work until we see some unmistakable sign of impending resolution.

For now, I'm going to continue trying to bust into #1 on Ink/MSN - the sole holdout that has my current project site consistently stuck at #2, while another site is at #1 (and it really, objectively, should not be). Meanwhile I shall studiously ignore the fact that the same site is missing the majority of its backlinks in Google, because Google is just being strange these days. I can't predict what traffic source #1 will do over the next few weeks, so I will work on traffic source #2 for now.

Now, re-read the second quoted paragraph above, and here's my prediction: If you're not spamming in any way, shape, or form, and your site is reasonably well-implemented and linked-to, everything is going to be OK - It's just going to take awhile. Google will finish their algo update, they'll continue to work hard to whack the spammers, and search relevancy will improve.

So let's see how this turns out... Best of luck to all!

Jim
(Who really should stick to the techy forums, but had too much wine w/dinner) :)

[rfgdxm1]

>BTW - Hotbot Search Engine is PR0. :-)

Sigh. Why does this not surprise me? Google ought to get rid of that PR display on the logic that it reveals to the world how inept they are.

[bekyed]

Doesnt surprise me, hotbot have never given us satisfactory results ever and have little importance in the seo business.

[jdMorgan]

Hotbot has significance in the SEO world because you can see Inktomi data, and the date that it was spidered, not because it is a great traffic-driver.

HTH,
Jim

[mfishy]

<<so shouldn't the deepcrawl have started by now for the june/july update? >>

Yah, would have hoped so. Not looking good :(

[Stefan]

It just goes on and on, eh, waiting for a fresh index... I have pages that went up just in time for the Mar deepcrawl, worked 12 hrs a day getting ready for the crawl, and now almost 3 months later they are still not there, still no sign of a new deepcrawl, and like mfishy said, GG sounded as though they were just saving the last crawl as a back-up... we could be a month or more from a new index. Four months or more to get pages on a PR6 site listed! Ink had them 2 months ago (they're pages that are supposed to begin making me $$ so it's very tedious).

Sorry, frustration is starting again.

Added: I might be confusing the crawls, pages befor Mar deep are there, after not, and pages that were in the early Feb crawl disappeared. It's a mess. Apologies again for the rant.

[Marcia]

All we can tell when people ask us, clients or otherwise, is that Google rolled back to an older database at some point, are in the middle of making big changes, that sites will appear and reappear with results constantly changing, that we have no control over it, and that until then we can't do anything about it. And that it should settle down in about a month and there's nothing to worry about.

All we can do is continue to work on our sites until then and hope for the best.