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Hope this warrants a new post...
I am interested if anyone knows about how google determines whether your site is likely to stay similar to its current content i.e. if your page continually changes how does google react to this?
I have a page where i am changing content only slightly each day (i.e. the date for a start)- will google look at this site as a site that 'can't be trusted' to be relevant to keywords it happends to be optimised for?
Does it use some sort of factor to determine similarity to previous versoins of the page?
So i suppose what i really am asking is "How does Google determine a pages relevance over the long-term?"
Regards
Martin.
Remember, some things don't change from day to day, week to week, or month to month. The following are likely to be the same on each of Googlebot's visits:
- Page title (very important)
- Anchor text in inbound links (also very important)
- Standing heads, section blurbs, and similar items.
So, if your site is titled "Shelbyville News," other sites link to it with the anchor text "Shelbyville News," and you've got the name "Shelbyville News" in H1 text across your home page, the odds are good that your home page will rank high for a search on "shelbyville news" no matter how many times you've changed the other content on the page.
This is a very interesting point and I think there is some truth in that the "rate-of-change" function of some (if not all) page elements can influence SERPs. For example, a page TITLE that changes very frequently (as compared to the "web average") and does not display the "web average" of theme variance reeks of optimization. It wouldn't be hard for the Big G to obtain a set of functions/metrics on things such as what the "average" rate of change of things like TITLE is. Pages that don't fit this standard model of an "average" page may not be penalised immediately but perhaps they would be "tagged" for closer examination/filtering by other bots/whatever.
Such a set of functions/models - describing how pages SHOULD evolve in a non-optimized world - would be a powerful tool for identifying signs of optimization.
Scary stuff (if you're a SEO)...
To illustrate:
"Widgetville current events for May"
Should the Widgetville city council just change the title and content when June rolls around or should they succumb to "I'm hyper-sensitive to google algorythm and would prefer to deliver out-dated content to my user, but keep my "ranks" (hehe).
Well actually, most SE's (google included), would give you a a bit more attention (probably favorable) if you just do what your supposed to do and give fresh content to the fine citizens of Widgetville.
You should expect major difference in search results and it has nothing to do with "stability filters".
"Widgetville current events for May"Should the Widgetville city council just change the title and content when June rolls around or should they succumb to "I'm hyper-sensitive to google algorythm and would prefer to deliver out-dated content to my user, but keep my "ranks" (hehe).
They'd probably be better off having a permanent title that read "Widgetville Current Events" or "Widgetville Events Calendar," assuming that they were updating the page each month. (The reader who's looking for June or July events isn't likely to click through to a Google listing of "Widgetville current events for May.")
Going back to the orginal question and to maybe summarise whats been said...
Do you think that making these minor changes will "throw" google and 'drop you' giving lower SERPS than if the page was 'always there'...
i.e. during the latest 'dance' i am concerned that if i keep changing my website (only slightly) google will get peeved at its *stability* i will lose any SERPs that I might have. Maybe i'm barking up the wrong tree here - but as has already been said - there is some truth in it.
-Martin
NO
during the latest 'dance' i am concerned that if i keep changing my website (only slightly) google will get peeved at its *stability* i will lose any SERPs that I might have. Maybe i'm barking up the wrong tree here - but as has already been said - there is some truth in it.
What about the idea of the 'fresh-boost'? I wonder what will happen with the new fresh-deep.bot (doesn't seem to be registered...), if this effect will still be seen?
Martin, I have a feeling that the only thing that you can count on giving you any stability in the search engines is age, links and content (content content).
For me and most, I believe, up until now, slightly changing content has not had adverse effects on the stability of your pages in the serps. For me this has only helped because of the fresh-boost.
Furthermore, judging from Napolean's research [webmasterworld.com], it is pretty clear that in these turmultuos (relatively speaking as a web designer, of course) the age of the page helps. Why? It's been in Google for a while. Simple as that. When they do drastic algo changes or revert to old indexes your site is still there.
Aged sites with good content and relevant backlinks, seo'd maybe a hair back from the bleeding edge, will do very nicely in the long run. In the short term, be prepared for fluctuation, do your work, do it well, think it through etc. and buy a bottle of your favorite for the day when you reach the top spot!
