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I must admit that I run for cover whenever a Google update thread starts and I may have missed some important information buried in those lengthy threads of the past couple of months. Can anyone comment on the following:
Are the SERP's now displaying rankings that use actual backlinks irrespective of what a link: command may show? Ditto for PR.. do results now use actual PR irrespective of what the bar shows?
Thanks
I cannot vouch for index pages appearing and disappearing as in this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
or penalties and their duration.
I have updated pages in June with stable SERP results for about the last 8 days (only one day I saw a glitch). The cache is still old though.
What I found is that approx every five days a reshuffeling of Serps takes place, where new inbound links must have been taken into account because I saw a steady rise in rankings that can only be due to those new (external) inbound links.
Others have been mentioning three day cycles and five day cycles.
I would discount Pagerank and backlink showings they still seem to transient or non-up-to-date.
Also, geolocation on searching might confuse some serps as well.
We wait with baited breath ;)
Site online at the beginning of May, appeared in the index in mid-June, stable since then. Been freshed nearly every day for the last few weeks. Still showing no PR. Site is #1. Cache is always up to date, currently with 13 July 2003 date and cache showing changes made on the 12th.
I think Google committed suicide in May 2003, you'll see time prove me right.
Why? Many reasons, but this one struck me today :
My grandfather approached me and said "I found something on that favorite engine of yours, but went back and can't find it anymore, can you help me?"
Your experiences about quick entry into the index pretty much matches my own experiences... plenty of bot visits, pages up to date etc etc.
But if your site was #67, would you be making changes because you know the impact of backlinks has already been taken into account with these quickly indexed sites....
or does the impact of backlinks only show at some later date?
Have 4 or 5 sites all sat at #1 for very diverse searches. I just followed the rules for validation, title, description, headings, alt attributes, good content, etc, and they are at #1. No idea why they are doing so well actually.
I have seen earlier in the year sites now stabilize, but newer in the year sites still having issues. When I say older or newer in the year, this can be either when the site was commissioned and / or when you got backlinks for that site.
October 22, 2002 - Google sued over site ranking [news.com.com...]
November 13, 2002 - SEARCHKING GOOGLE RANK RESTORED [thewhir.com...]
January 10, 2003 - Google counters search-fix lawsuit [news.com.com...]
February 26, 2003 - Google lands Web search patent [news.com.com...]
May 27, 2003 - JUDGE DISMISSES SUIT AGAINST GOOGLE [news.com.com...]
The KEY date was May 27 2003. Google obtained full legal protection to start cleaning SERPs.
I think Google used the month of June to align its index.
It looks like July is the month to start cleaning the index.
Through fresh dates sites have obtained since July 7th, I have noticed Google applying filters to high keyword density pages (5% and higher). Pages with high density don't get refresh dates and show an old cache.
Certainly, there are interesting days ahead ...
[edited by: zafile at 12:35 am (utc) on July 15, 2003]
The Google Directory hasn't truly been up to date since September. It's not the most important thing in the world, but it does matter, so the fact that Google is afraid to pull the trigger on updating it is not good.
It is long overdue for an update, and would make for a pleasant mid month experience to see it update (hint hint freaking hint).
<edit... and adding pagerank for the first time in three months would be nice for dessert.>
The Google Directory hasn't truly been up to date since September.
There are small sites that download and parse the data much quicker. It shouldn't be that difficult.
Through fresh dates sites have obtained since July 7th, I have noticed Google applying filters to high keyword density pages (5% and higher). Pages with high density don't get refresh dates and show an old cache.
So am I correct in assuming that my 7% keyword density is actually too high?
However, those sites haven't received fresh date tags since July 7th:
July 7 2003
July 8 2003
July 9 2003
July 10 2003
July 11 2003
July 12 2003
July 13 2003 (the current one)
Also, the same sites are showing old caches. On the example provided, the problem with high density will involve having the following keywords and density:
keyword_1 5% +
keyword_2 5% +
keyword_3 5% +
keyword_4 5% +
I think Google set the 5% limit based on the SearchKing lawsuit. The owner of SearchKing recommended to "make sure your keyword phrase is about 5 to 7% of your body text."
[edited by: Marcia at 2:00 am (utc) on July 15, 2003]
[edited by: zafile at 2:58 am (utc) on July 15, 2003]
If you check pages with density as described on message 13 at 5% per keyword, it is easy still to disguise the amount of words to a user. If someone employs 6 or 7%, a user will notice easier the repetition of words.
The fact that the SearchKing guy recommended his clients to use more than 5%, that is an easy and logical way to determine a percentage to use in new algorithms.
[edited by: ciml at 7:39 pm (utc) on July 15, 2003]
[edit reason] No specifics please. [/edit]
Through fresh dates sites have obtained since July 7th, I have noticed Google applying filters to high keyword density pages (5% and higher). Pages with high density don't get refresh dates and show an old cache.
I know of and watch closesly 3 sites that all have a desity of 18 - 20% for their primary keywords and phrases. Each of these sites has been getting refreshed on an almost daily baisis, litteraly, for the past month. The first two rank #1 for their primary keywords and the third ranks third for it's primaries. So I don't think Google is doing as you claim. These guys are well over the 5% and doing better than most. Their PR is also not high enough to be off setting any desity issues. Plus, only one of them suffered any placement fluctuations in the last three months.
I was just about to file a spam report on one site (hidden text, hidden links, hidden page containing links to all the sites optimized by their super-duper-SE-results-for-big-bucks.com optimization company, etc.) but the site no longer appears in the SERPs at all, so problem solved.
Not to mention that the changes that I made to my site over a week ago (when googlebot last stopped by) are just appearing, and I am still moving in the SERPs as of this morning.
I was nervous when an old cache started to appear, but I'm starting to like what I see. Now if only Googlebot would come back by and pick up my latest updates. *I knew I should have sent that box of chocolates.* ;o)
tmi
File the report anyway saying what you saw and what date/time it disappeared. It will still help the programmers at Google to evaluate what is working and what is not.
Yes, they may well be attacking what you guys call spam, but some of the index files are starting to go on some of the centers again. Just some of them so far, but it does look like the instability is back on the march.
To be honest it's something I'm getting totally sick of. Whiter than white sites simply vanishing on their main terms. Just like last time.
So far it's only a smallish percentage of those sites, and it's only 2 or 3 centers. But it's happening.
