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I also notice it seems that Google has 2 banks of datacenters. Only one of the 2 does the partial update. Next partial update, the other bank of datacenters is used. Looks to me like -ex, -in, and -zu are involved this time. And, possibly -va. However, it could be that all of these are being rerouted all to one physical datacenter. Looking at traceroutes this may be the case.
I created a page yesterday (same day bot came round and grabbed page) ... Today is in main index
When all is said and done, you have to admire what Google are actually trying to achieve. I don't necessarilly believe that what we're seeing are the results of a huge algo change as much as it is just testing the whole new update technique. Fingers crossed ... when they do sort the problems we will have a continuously updating index full of all our award winning content and information rich sites. :)
From what I gather, there are some major changes taking place at Google. They are probably wishing now that they never would have released the Google Toolbar, which gave away a lot of their ranking secrets. Now they are desperately trying to come up with some new ranking factors because they want their indexing process to remain a mystery to webmasters.
Looks like we may be in for a rollercoaster ride.
I should point out that almost all the SERPs that I regularly monitor are informational ones that spammers are very unlikely to ever target. Thus, when I am evaluating how good SERPs are, I'm basically looking to see if the most relevant sites make it into the top 5. Since I almost never do commercial searches, the spamminess of those isn't of much concern to me. Others who watch those closely would be better able to comment on their quality.
So the next question is, when is PR and the backlinks going to get fixed? Or are they?
jd
They are probably wishing now that they never would have released the Google Toolbar, which gave away a lot of their ranking secrets.
What exactly is that supposed to mean? Am I missing something?...If so, please fill me in..lol :)
I have a site, 'mytownwidgets.com' that has been rock solid at #1 (out of 600k) for "my town widgets" for over two years. For 'my town wodgets" it has been a yo-yo from #8 to #17 (of 700k). For 'another town wodgets' it has been #3 (of 70k) for 18 months until Dominic and Esmerelda. The title is "Another town wodgets, my town wodgets, my town widgets for sale'. The only mention of 'another town wodgets' is in the title. If I lose this phrase in the title, does anyone think it will help improve the results for 'my town wodgets'?
Other than speculating which index is leading the way, how are you all optimizing now if you think this update is indeed ongoing, fed by freshbot?
how are you all optimizing now if you think this update is indeed ongoing, fed by freshbot?
Kirby, I've been going through all my lesser pages making sure they have good descriptive titles and headings. I find I've been a bit sloppy about that because I was concentrating so much on index pages of my sites. Now my strategy is to get more interior pages up in the serps with their more specific content. Hopefully that will make me less Google dependent on just a few serch terms .
The newest one seems to have taken a step backwards, but not completely back.
I have noticed one oddity, though: My site, region.com, has a "site within a site" that we'll call city.com. The city.com domain redirects to a secondary index page within my site, region.com/city.
In the past, the "site within a site" has appeared only once on the SERP for "travel city" or "city travel." Now, however, it's appearing twice in the first 10 search results: once at the city.com URL, and again at the region.com/city URL.
This may simply be a matter of fresh results and an existing index being blended without duplicate listings being purged. (The city.com version has a slightly edited page title and is showing a June 25 date in the index, so I assume that it will replace the region.com/city listing at some point.)
As I said previously, -ex is in the lead as far as applied filters go...the rest of the datacenters are reflecting what -ex had 3 days ago.
They'll catch up.
Peter
What filters are you speaking of and how did you come to know about them? Spam filters?
There typically isn't as many "filters" as you would think. The algo itself takes care of much of it "upfront". Genrally at the end of an update Google would roll in some spam filters but nothing much. This is why, up until recently, the SERPS have usually stayed pretty much the same from the start of the update to going live.
If anyhting, I would expect more ingredients to be ADDED (proper PR) rahter than more filters to be applied.
I wouldn't read too much into the data centers right now.
If anyhting, I would expect more ingredients to be ADDED (proper PR) rahter than more filters to be applied.
This is what Im hoping will happen soon. Once (or if) that happens, then maybe I can get back to making needed changes without fear of sending my sites into the Google Twilight Zone.
<whisper>Pssst...you want to know Google Ranking Secret?</whisper>
Spam as many Guestbooks as you can, guaranteed top 10 even with the most competitive keywords with over 5 million results.
No need for hidden links or hidden text or even cloaking, just get your site popular by visiting as many sites with guestbook. Better still, get an automated software to do it for you.
Google would just be so happy to stick your site in the top 10 across all data centers, shoulder to shoulder with establish respected institutions.
Did anybody say 'spam filter'?
Ohhh...you mean...drop-clean-site filter
I thought June is for Fathers Day? Who changed it to Happy Spammers Month?
I noticed the same thing. Guestbooks are working again. SO are links from log statistics files. Two things that googleguy said will not help are helping. Hopefully it's only temporary.
Has this been brought up or did this just happen?
I hope it's not a sign of the apocalypse. ;)
<edit... "coincidence" noted of GG appearing within seconds of the datacenters making (somewhat) of an improvement...>
Ahhh.... you're back!
Go on then: are you willing/able to comment on the situation GG? Will this sort itself out? Will the index pages re-emerge, as you originally suggested? If so.... any hint on timescale? In fact any hint on any of this? You can no doubt see a glimpse how many people are hanging desperately on this.
Those sites I originally sent you are all goners again by the way.
Go on then: are you willing/able to comment on the situation GG? Will this sort itself out? Will the index pages re-emerge, as you originally suggested? If so.... any hint on timescale? In fact any hint on any of this? You can no doubt see a glimpse how many people are hanging desperately on this.
I'm hearing a resounding "no comment" from Google, Inc.--fair enough.
Napolean, the site I sent you's index file has stuck on most DCs for its 2 optimized keyphrases for about 8 hours--a new record! Are you noticing this trend elsewhere in the sample?
Not really, no. A handful are there at the moment, but the rest nowhere.
Most seem to appear fleetingly on a few centers now and again, but don't last.
The lesson I've actually learned here is not to put too much into a site. The main site affected took months of effort - a classic - then this happens to it. I won't be repeating that approach any time soon!
My sites are still showing the same number of backlinks as they did right after the latest update began. I've gotten several PR5 and 6 backlinks since then but they aren't showing up in Google.
Since this is my first post in this thread, I might also say that this doesn't seem to be the rolling updates that I was expecting, because I was under the impression that backlinks would be changing on eac rolling update.
-fi lead off the parade originally this month.
A site that's been sitting #2 of 1.4 million on a 2 kw search was down yesterday between 5 am and 8 pm US central time due to a bandwidth allocation matter.
www2, www3, and -fi don't give any indication of the down time yesterday. However, in www and every other datacenter, the index page title and descript has been replaced with a 509 Bandwidth Exceeded message.
This 509 stuff will go away in a day or three (yeah, the site's been down this road before is how I know, but hopefully this won't never ever happen again)
One site doesn't a trend make, I simply found it interesting to see a bunch of datacenters lined up on a freshie type visit, while www2 3 and -fi seemed to have been uninvited to yesterday's festivities.
My guess is that GoogleGuy was accurate when he said to expect AT LEAST one more traditional update.
I do seem to remeber him saying to expect more changes after all the data centers align though. Guess we'll wait and see, but the index seems to have taken shape.
I feel for those who have lost their index pages completely, but must admit that the current SERPS are infinitely better than Dominic.
Agree. Things are stabilizing. I still have no idea about what happened for the last few days but judging by the quality of current SERPS in my spam-free search space, I am pleased. Compared with other SEs Google seems to be better again. (Hope I am not making a premature judgement.)
