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Why am I talking about this? Well, Kalman filters have a knob that blends between how much you believe your model vs. how much you believe each new data point. If you tweak the knob all the way in one direction, you always trust the model and any new input just gets ignored. On the other extreme, you can ignore your current estimates about the state of the world, and only trust each new data point as it comes in. If you set the knob too far in that direction, the object you're trying to model jumps all over the place each time you see even a hint of new info.
Lots of people here are getting more stressed than they need to be--their knobs are turned a little too far toward worrying about the very last thing that happened: "Now my subpage is coming up higher than it should! Okay, now my index page is back and the SERPs look good. Gaaack! Now I'm showing well at DC but the subpage still shows up higher at FI! Too much pressure--I'm going to drink now, and start spamming every FFA I see tomorrow!" :)
If you look around, you'll notice not too many senior members posting here. They chime in every so often, but their knobs are twisted further in the other direction. They know that the index switchover takes a little time to settle, and they have the perspective not to get too worried about things right now, and in general.
I haven't posted much of my take lately, but if I could give advice, it would probably be: don't panic. Here's what I would expect. Probably about one data center per day will get switched to the Esmeralda index. You may see some improvements during the course of the switchover as ingredients get blended in as they're ready. I would expect another round of ingredient-adding after the index is switched over.
So: if you're really into Google-watching as a sport, I would check in once a day to see what data centers have been switched, and maybe to run 2-3 searches. Browse a little while, and then come back the next day. Find something fun to do at night besides poring over every last thing that GoogleGuy (or whoever) posts on WebmasterWorld. You'll feel better, I promise.
This is just my take. You're welcome to ignore it. But I mention it because during this index, I heard about a lot of good and bad searches from webmasters, and the more I dig, the more confident I am that things will turn out well.
Odd observation: For KW phrases where I was also rock steady at #1 before Dominic but have not recouped, I see the same mydomain.com showing up instead. So, here's what perplexes me: Why am I seen as www.mydomain.com for some KW phrase searches, but seen as mydomain.com for other KW phrases. Seems if I'm indexed correctly, that should be true for any and all KW phrases. In other words, www.mydomain.com should come up for all searches where my homepage comes up at all instead of mydomain.com coming up.
It's almost like they tweak per category instead of the entire index. That may not make sense, but it looks like that to me. But I don't have a handle on anything...I'm just trying to make sense out of something I am sure makes sense, but doesn't look like it does.
Any thoughts that may help us understand google's beahvior in this respect?
There seems to be a lot more consistency among the nine *known* data centers for this update as opposed to Dominic.
Also, this index seem much more filtered ... smaller ... refined ... focused.
One keyword I watch had over 6 million results in Dominic ... now I am seeing about 4 million for that keyword in this index.
After studying the index very carefully I think I can see some of the areas where the algo has changed.
The algo change has been a success in my opinion. When searching for keywords **not related to my site** the relevancy and freshness has improved significantly since a few months ago.
All in all ... congrats Google on improving an already terrific search engine.
Im not saying this because my site is doing well, because it is not. But I can honestly agree that my competition that is above me is deserving of it.
Two nice posts from mrbrad and Beachboy. I'm ducking out while the getting is good and catching up on the sleep I missed last night. :)
I said "twist the knob".
Makes a big difference, of course. From #152 to #12
If it filters though all the DC's at #12 that's pretty good.
AW
I'm noting the return of my clients index page ranking under a very important phrase within a couple data centers.
I got this 24 hours ago on -fi on an index page born in Feb., optimized for 2 phrases. After almost 2 long months of six-feet-under, it appeared in the -fi SERPs last night, matching its -fi allinanchor ranking of 3rd.
On the 2nd phrase, to which the index is #1 on an -fi allinanchor, it's still AWOL in the -fi SERPs
When that #1 allinanchor & Google's #1 allinanchor (search engine) are in the same ballpark as the SERPs, Google ain't broken no more for me.
Q: For many sites, the index page seems to be buried on search terms for which logic determines they should rank highly. Is this a transient feature, like some of the other recent issues, resulting from the changeover to newer data? Or is it due to a more fundamental algorithmic change?
A: I don’t think it’s a fundamental algorithmic change. I don’t recall hearing about any changes would bring about long-term behavior like this. I’m pretty sure that it’s more of a transient issue, and I wouldn’t be concerned about this.
Well, as far as I can see there is no move on this "Transient" issue. But I will leave it till the whole thing settles and see what happens 'cos at the moment it ain't looking good.
I'm noting the return of my clients index page ranking under a very important phrase within a couple data centers.
I noticed that as well this morning! I thought of it more like a 'branding' - a marketing issue. Search for our sites name used to rank #1 due to lack of strong competition. Lot's of inbound links on the name which is not a primary keyword for our traffic but after the last changes - like many more sites - buried deeper in the SERPS.
Great to see improvements and seeing overall traffic rise though number of inbound links drop dramaticly.
So all complaining folks, get a helicopter and have some broader view. We're all guessing at the possible algo-changes but good they are!
Happy flying and take care ;)
How can anyone doubt a penalty involving anchor text and the optimisaton of the page?
Read MSG#160 very carefully. I think a recent index page optimized for 2 phrases that bolts to the opposite end of both spectrums for each respective phrase is a prime example of the allinanchor issue. Why would it appear at all if penalized?
Because its not a penalty in the old sense, its a penalty for very specific keyword or words depending on the combination of anchor text and the on-page optimisation. Everything else is fine for that page.
Peace-out
>> What part of what GG said, don't you get?: "Expect to see more scoring factors percolating throughout, and probably some more percolation after all the data centers have the index data"?
Q: Is the PageRank showing for my site my final PageRank?
A: Probably not. Unless you're really familiar with hosts files, toolbarqueries.google.com, and DNS, your toolbar might be talking to the older index. If you feel adventurous about these subjects, feel free to hotwire your DNS entries, but I'd recommend that most people wait for the index to settle down more and just check their PR then.
>> More percolation says this is not the final index. So, you can look at the PR on www2, etc right now, but how do YOU know it's stable?
It is rediculous, there are no FINAL index as long as Google is still running their business. There are only NEW index. So what's the FINAL index you define for Dominic? There are no final index for dominic before Esmeralda because SERPs varied a lot between all datacenters even when Esmeralda is started. But Dominic DO brought in a NEW index. Along with the NEW index, people do get NEW PRs, NEW Backlinks listed and of coure NEW SERPs. WHY? Because that's what we called a NEW INDEX - an update!
So what is the time are you suggesting me to see your 'Final Index' to check for backlinks and PR? The day when Esmeralda is replaced by AliBaBa (can I suggest this name for the next index)? :)
>> I think it is as reliable as your semi-penalty thread which had poor newbies all running to change their H1 tags ...
First H1 tags is only part of semi-penalty discussion. The funny thing is, you have more posts in the semi-penalty thread than I do. :) Then why you remove your H1 too said in one of your post?
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Most of us who post here are adventures. We want to follow everything and keep our self up to date. That's why we join the forum and participate actively in it.
There are nothing wrong for a newbie to learn how to change their HOST file to point toolbarqueries.google.com to an updated datacenter to see an updated PR in their toolbar. We don't need to wait until the final index (undefined) before we can check our PR. No one can tell when something is *final* but we as an active participants in webmasterworld and google.com will follow everything we could.
I've just notice such an incident.
Have been watching between www and ww2. My main "bread of my life" site dropped to page 2 for it's search term and looks destined to stay there on both www and www2 :-(. My two "love of my life" sites (different search terms) BOTH keep coming in at number 1 on www2 and then disapearing again. But they are never #1 at the same time for their respective search terms. They both made #1 on www at one time or another, but then disapeared again.
Oh, the torture (and yes, I have tried walking around the lake!).
And the update is hopeless - its taking as long as Dominic - I use to think Google belongs to "The Generation e" - Where things move much faster than this!
If you use the google dance tool you can see that 4 datacenters so far have the index.
How long has the current update been going on? eh... about 4 days.
How many days does that leave?
4. (SJ doesn't count as googleplex is playing in the sand with that one. Actually I heard that San Jose is shut for the holiday season.).
Anyone?
teeceo.
One of my sites came back from the dead and popped back up at #4.
Another one climbed all the way from #44 to 39.
I'm still in a state of shock right now. Just goes to show everything hasn't settled down yet.
www-fi has changed drastically - however one fo the other datacenters in coming up on www periodically.
Strange - considering fi was the first dc to change perhaps what we see here on fi now will be the final update?
very exciting either way :)
And to point out: that change did occur on fi.
Also, on the site that climbed from #44 to 39, it was completely rebuilt and put on a static IP which I have the opinion Google favors since the only site of mine to rise in the serps in all this had a static IP. Maybe it means nothing, but it was about the only technical difference.
I also discovered that Google may not like over optimization. So I modified my title somewhat on the site that now sits at #39. We'll see if it helps.
Strange - considering fi was the first dc to change perhaps what we see here on fi now will be the final update?
Nothing strange here jojojo, this is the update afterall!
And (sadly for Zapatista but hopefully your goodstuff sticks!) no, I can tell you with a large amount of confidence that what you see now on -fi won't be the final update - GG said it himself in the first message of this, Esmerelda update thread part 3:
Probably about one data center per day will get switched to the Esmeralda index. You may see some improvements during the course of the switchover as ingredients get blended in as they're ready. I would expect another round of ingredient-adding after the index is switched over.
So, I read this as to say "when all of the datacenters have the new index (i.e. 799,000!Yahoo backlinks) there will be one last deep-crawl-or-filter-related tremor before things are what we here may refer to as stable.
