The good data center - maybe there is hope?

Getting visitors from SERPs I shouldn't be ranking well with

[born2drv]

Please forgive me if this was discussed in another thread, but I haven't seen anything similar posted.

Anyone notice this phenomenon.........

I've been getting refferers from:
[google.com...]
... even though I no longer rank on the first page for "furry widgets" any more, however I was #1-page1 before Dominic.

Now GG is on record for saying that the Dominic algos have reached all data centers about 2-3 weeks ago. I also know that people have been getting their sites back ranking and with pagerank as per this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

The only conclusions I can get from this are two things:

1) Somewhere out there, exists a datacenter that was never updated, or has reverted to it's old state.
2) Somewhere out there, Google loves me again and I'm ranking on the first page!

I wish I knew which one it was... GG if you're out there, could you single out #1 for me if it is false? Is there anything else out there that could cause this anomoly? Anyone else notice this behavior or have any reasons for it occuring?

Thanks.

[born2drv]

Forgot to mention... this has been ocurring for the past 6-7 days now.

[bether2]

born2drv,

I've noticed the same thing recently. When I check my logs, I'll see that someone found me on the first page of the serps for a keyword, while other people are finding me on page ten (or whatever) of the serps for that same keyword.

My guess would be that the cause is not your reason #1. I concluded that it's just part of the current process that's going on and will settle down after the next update.

Beth

[quotations]

I have similar things going on but only on a few pages of two newer (9-12 months old) sites. Fluctuating from #4 to #1 and back on one site and #16 to nowhere to be found on another. Most of the rest appear to be stable.

[Dolemite]

You're "good" datacenter is someone else's "bad" datacenter.

For example, many sites seem to be showing a cache from around April 2nd, with correspondingly outdated SERPs.

[entropy]

Is it www-in.google.com? SERPs are slightly different there. Not old, but different.

[Net_Wizard]

This has been going on...

I posted a while ago that one of my retired domain which is currently parked at my web hosting domain is rank #1 for its old key phrase which of course has nothing to do with web hosting.

To make it worst, the parked domain was freshboted(sp) and now showing at Google just like this...

*Hypothetical search: Credit Card*

MyWebHosting.com
This site offers web hosting blah blah blah blah
Description: This site is about credit card
www.MyOldDomain.com

I temporarily took it out from park in case somebody would accuse my web hosting site as spamming :(

[SlyOldDog]

born2drv

Are you in a industry organized by location? Regional googles give different results to the US results, even if the user searches on Google.com when the user performs a search involving a country or city name.

Our sites show up in completely different positions when I search from outside the US.

Maybe this explains your anomaly?

[Netizen]

And don't forget, people can set Google to show from 10 to 100 results per page - so if you are on page 10 for someone with it set at 10, then you are on page 1 for someone with it set at 100. I have mine set at 100 as it is easier to scan. (and no, there is no hint about how many results the user has opted to show per page in the referer)

[Powdork]

What happens if you don't have your IP filtered in your stats program, search for furry widgets, don't find your site there, and then go to your site via bookmark, address bar, etc. Just a thought for some, definitely not for all.
There has been significant jumping around lately, including everflux. Remember when we use to talk about everflux. Ahh, the golden days, I remember them well.

[gstewart]

people can set Google to show from 10 to 100 results per page

Good point, Netizen, but I guess that almost every ordinary searcher uses the default 10 per page, so page1 means in the top ten. Alas...

[Chris_D]

Just use one of the google dance tools - and see which datacentre is your friend. Check you stickmail.

[born2drv]

It could be the 100 thing, but I don't think I would get that much traffic from that...

As for regional listings, I'm not regionally listed in any US states I don't think. It's a Canadian-based business with a server in California that sells mostly to Americans. Unless it's ranking higher for Californians?

I think I know where these users are coming from now. When I check all 9 datacenters, some rank me higher (1st page) while I'm still on page 9 for others. For example, www-fi is showing me as first page for one search term which I've been getting lots of traffic for in the past 3-4 days. All 8 other datacenters show something different. So I guess some users are being fed www-fi's results while everyone else is getting the other 8 datacenters.

Add this to the fact I recently got other search terms permanantly ranking higher again (showing in www and all 9 datacenters).. So it definately brings me hope that Google is again starting to factor in backlinks and fresher data.

[born2drv]

Just wanted to add that I got another 3 search phrases back today, up on page 1 for www that were previously buried and more search phrases seem to be in the works for a recovery.

By "in the works" I mean that several search phrases that I got killed on are now appearing on 3-4 of the 9 datacenters within the first page, just like the other ones did that are now live on www. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if I get them back too within the next 2 days!

[g1smd]

>> I have mine set at 100 as it is easier to scan. (and no, there is no hint about how many results the user has opted to show per page in the referer) <<

I don't understand the no hint part as this is what I see:

[google.com...]

[google.com...]

I also noted a site that on 10-per-page view was #90, but when looking at it in 100-per-page view it jumped to #3 indented under the #2 result from the same domain. So you can never be absolutely sure of your position, as it depends which server, which domain (maybe one of the 75 registered in other countries), which langauge, and combinations of various "advanced" options.

[born2drv]

Haha! son of a .... I got them back just like I thought/predicted!

Thank you Google! To everyone else, I wouldn't worry at all... check the other datacenteres and if your site is listed in more than 5 of the datacenters, there is a good chance it will show up in www in the next few days!

Also if anyone is interested to know, this site is > 2yrs old, has lots of inbound links, and ranks very high for alllinanchor for the search terms I mentioned I got back.

[mrguy]

Not to start another datacenter change thread, but I noticed today that changes across the datacenter are happening much quicker now.

The last couple weeks, the changes take a few days to make its way across, today, on several phrases I was looking at I noticed a change on a few and then within a few hours they all reflected the change for the terms I'm watching across the board.

Could be, were getting closer to whatever it is they are trying to do with the updating on the fly and syncing the datacenters at a much quicker rate than we are used to seeing.

Any one else seeing this or am I just crazy?

[Stefan]

You're right. I had a major change for a kw serp yesterday that was on 9 datacentres all at once... it didn't propagate (it did it pretty fast anyway, overnight EST).

[edited by: Stefan at 12:08 am (utc) on June 10, 2003]

[MeditationMan]

I was just checking the same thing myself. This morning my site was #7 for a keyterm, and now it's at #6 across all active datacenters. It made me think that Google must be in the process of reapplying some of their filters, which presumably can be done fairly quickly across the board.

[netguy]

>Datacenters updating quicker

mrguy, I noticed the same thing, with the exception that it appeared there was a little added delay on -fi. Most importantly, my various results are starting to look a little better for the first time in ages.

Maybe its getting close to being 'more than weeks - less than months.'

Probably just a fluke. ;)

[mrguy]

-Maybe its getting close to being 'more than weeks - less than months.'-

We can only hope!

[icarus]

I can concur with the data center observation based on the terms I search for - changes occurred in the last couple of hours, and I'm also seeing a rank restoration of some keyphrases that were relatively stable for months (until 'D').

[eaden]

Yep, I have seen whole new sites added very quickly, and right up there in the serps in a day.

[john316]

Guys, its really time to move on; why obsess over data centers when you could speculate on Shards [computer.org]?

[thunderpaste]

My serps have changed three times in the last 5 days with the last time showing some serious improvement in rankings.

It made me wonder earlier today if this was the beginning of rolling updates with different spam filters being brought in over time like GoogleGuy said to expect.