Forum Moderators: open
This might mean a possible update.
WebmasterWorld Google Update Changes:
The problem: Chit chat noise in update threads.
Last month we hand several thousand messages posted about the update. The volume level was intense and people couldn't find the info that was appropriate. Many senior members complained about the "me too" chit chat messages being left.
We are not going to do that this month. If you don't have anything new to add to a thread thing please kick back and read. Additionally, we are going to be proactive in keeping those threads clean. Again, the volume is so high this time of month that informing everyone of any thread tidying is near impossible.
We would appreciate your continued latitude, cooperation (thanks), and patience as we head into this months update.
Thanks.
For the Team,
Brett Tabke
Google Update FAQ:
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Messages in this thread do not count towards user message totals.
Understanding Dominic: (the previous update):
[webmasterworld.com...]
Not sure if this is a common observation or not... But basically since Dominic I am not seeing any fresh versions of my index page (www.mydomain.com) in the serps, but for the site search (ie it's there for a site search, fresh tag and all).
Google is showing an old version of my index page but sans-www, ie mydomain.com. This page does rank lower than *some* internal pages on some serps, higher on others.
The site has been in the Google directory since the January update.
The results, however, are still quite strange on many search terms. There is no logic in many cases - so its difficult to plan new strategies.
Its also showing very old backlinks (backlinks are showing for links that were removed over 2 months ago) and sites that I launched 2 months ago have still not made it in the Serps properly.
All the links that I have gained over the last 2 months have not all been taken into account.
Looks like Google is still not quite right.
European indexes like .de , . be ,etc - from last month show better and fresher content.
There you have it - an algo tweak. I think they've always given a bit too much of a index page boost in the past.
Brett, In my case (and many others) this "algo tweak" is causing my contact page or sitemap to appear first. Surely this can't be good.
There you have it - an algo tweak. I think they've always given a bit too much of a index page boost in the past.
Not a good thing; in some places it's similiar to a search for "Yahoo" having Yahoo's games page as #1. It's very odd.
EDI: Yes, what he said. I have some sites where the links page, or some obscure TOS page is #1.
Maybe, this algo was tweaked by G's legal department. :)
Here is why I think this, I just checked my domain and the domains of several other sites I've been watching.
I searched for allinurl:domain.com
and in the results I see the same page listed several times:
www.domain.com/
domain.com/
www.domain.com/index.shtml
domain.com/index.shtml
I have never seen the same page listed 4 seperate times, each one has their own PR. If G is indexing the same page 4 times, and giving each one it's own PR, it must be because some backlinks point to index.shtml (like internal links), some to www.domain.com and some to domain.com.
The results I'm seeing (big drops) would be expected if it was only giving the page credit for 1/4 of it's backlinks. The next logical question would be (for those wondering if their home page has a penalty) Does G see all four of these pages as being duplicate content even though it's really all the same page?
my3cents
[edited by: my3cents at 1:57 pm (utc) on June 16, 2003]
Hopefully that will force users into using key phrases for searches rather than single keywords.
I tested a few key phrase searches on -fi using two and three word combinations and results were uniformly excellent.
GoogleGuy did tell us this was the way things were heading last month.
TJ
The index page of Imported Widgets Inc has the words "Imported Widgets Inc" in the page titles, in H1 tags on the index page, and the words "Imported Widgets Inc" appears 30 times throughout the copy. Furthermore, the index page has 1500 inbound links using the link text "Imported Widgets Inc".
But when somebody searches for "Imported Widgets Inc", the results show the TOS page, which has the words "Imported Widgets Inc" only once, in the footer. And this page has only one other page linking to it, using the link text "TOS".
That's odd.
No, no, no... not at all. The selection of which page to actually display in place of the index does NOT bear that out at all.
Furthermore, if that was the case all sites would be treated equally. That is not the case at all either.
No... I am drawing firm conclusions yet because I haven't analyzed the data sent yet. But in no way is it a rational tweak to elevate sub-pages which are more relevant. If that is the case, they have got it badly wrong.
I mentioned about that a few pages ago, Google is not telling the difference on some sites from mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com.
It seems to tell that it is duplicate content and only puts 1 in the search results but ranks them completely different depending on how you have your backlinks....with www or not.
Hopefully Google will pick this up soon as the update is only a few hours old.
There you have it - an algo tweak. I think they've always given a bit too much of a index page boost in the past.
two points
1) one of our sites is showing the "returns page" not good for an eccomerce site.
2) Gateway pages :: sigh ::
DaveN
ADDED: figured it out. The internal links that are just /main.htm etc are in Google as domain.org/main. That example for me gives www.domain.org/main for incoming external links and domain.org/main for internal links to the page.
Is this a problem? Man, I have to go through 158 pages changing internal links to the main page and index!
[edited by: Stefan at 2:16 pm (utc) on June 16, 2003]
something odd about the toolbar this morning. Going to www.mydomain.com/ gives a grey bar but going to www.mydomain.com/default.htm gives us our normal pr. We haven't switched the toolbarqueries to fi, just the normal default install.
I can confirm this too. It's like, let's find the page with the least IBL's and show that.
mydomain.com = PR1
mydomain.com/index.html = PR6
That's happening on several sites.
Interestingly, the top returned results included three pages that had added links to the site -- but it did not include the site at all!
I guess Google visited those sites and has not gotten around to visiting mine. At least we know they are returning fresh results for some pages.
After 3 months the deepfreshbot did not get to my new 2,500 pages. I lost pages.
I did check those pages with the sim crawler here and they all came out spiderable.
ouch...
1) why a 0 Pr site ranks higher than Pr 7 site.
2) why a new site ranks higher thatn a site which is there for 5 years
3) what factors are affecting ranking it sure aint page rank. there are things i feel google has changed in algo which we are not able to realize but google is tring to do something diff.
I think its time to think outside the BOX. Google is upto something ---- not big but significant.
Dupac
I am in India, noting is happening here - only fear is that this doesn't continue for long as Dominic did and finishes as fast:: as possible.
Also Google updates it stinking old, out-dated, ages old, historic directory or maybe we are better off without that green directory tab LOL
No offense, just bored, as noting is happening and my site is gone for a toss coz of that mix-up internal ID bug [webmasterworld.com]
1) why a 0 Pr site ranks higher than Pr 7 site.
2) why a new site ranks higher thatn a site which is there for 5 years
3) what factors are affecting ranking it sure aint page rank. there are things i feel google has changed in algo which we are not able to realize but google is tring to do something diff.
I think its time to think outside the BOX. Google is upto something ---- not big but significant.
Dupac
MurphyDog
I've a new site with 2 brand new links (last week) from PR6 sites showing bit no listing for the URL itself.
Gbot has looked at the index page several times over the last week but not gone any deeper.
Check out this page: [webmasterworld.com...]
I'm wondering if a google is only counting backlinks that have been around for longer than 3 months. Any new links that have appeared before then aren't present.
Is this update complete or are changes still evolving with it?
