Continuous Update - looking for evidence

Yes / no / Maybe? ARRRGGGHH!

[projectphp]

OK, Everyone keeps saying "We are living, in a continous update world, and I am a continuous update girl" (sorry for the rip off Madonna), but does anyone have any actual proof?

People keep arguing back and forward, but having read almost every post, all I see are rehashes of the same old rumours, respun as truthes, until the origin of such belief is lost in the mist of forum threads past.

So, my questions are:
1. For thoise taht believe, what are you basing this assumption on, apart from the lack of an update? (REMEMBER: Lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack)
2. Has anyone seen a change in the number of backlinks for their site since the last update, or seen links updated on different sites on different days? (this would be a good indicator)
3. For those that do not believe, how long before no update does equal rolling update?
4. What effect will this have on Link Rep and PageRank, and how often will these elements be updated?

I am starting my own investigations, with the following being my basis for a conclusion:
1. Backlinks changing on different sites on different days.
2. PageRank changing on different sites on different days.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers.

[GrinninGordon]

Yes(ish)

I believe you have 3 algos that dictate the results you see. One of which is freshbot based, which is "continuous" / dynamic. But the main algo is still deep bot with subsequent traditional G calculation. And I think we will have a quick step soon.

[TheDave]

I think we are seeing continuous updates. My site was crawled about 1-2 days ago, and is now in the index with the fresh content cached. No fresh tags to be seen. I think you need to draw yourself away from is the toolbar PR, and the displayed backlinks. I think that's what google wants ;)

[SinclairUser]

Dave,

I think you are on to something. I personally have enjoyed watching all the guesswork and speculation in the forums. I am amazed at the reluctanace of some people to accept change. Continuous update is here to stay and thats final!

On the other hand.....

[tigger]

yes, but the problem is as the B/W links don't seem to be updating new sites are not standing a chance, a site I put up a few weeks ago came steaming in at number one for my main keywords within 3 days, now it's down to the 2nd page.

I can live with this and in the good old days the links would update now nothing, so come on Google throw the switch and update the links

[doc_z]

My oberservations are:
- anchor text seems be continuously updated
- no update for backlinks and PR (shown by Google)

Thus either it is something between a continuous and a traditional update or there is a continuous update but the new PR and backlinks are not (yet) shown.

The only way I see to make a decision is to wait. If the backlinks are changing, I would look at the ranking: If there are major changes (in particular for new sites/pages) then PR is updated. However, if the are just small normal changes, then PR was already updated (continuous updated) and the new values are just displayed.

[2oddSox]

I've a fairly new site that I've been re-working a few pages on recently. Those pages are now cached in G with a date of 26th July. I really didn't see a whole lot of difference with Googlebot over the last 10 days or so except for a minor flurry about that time.

No change to the PR or the backlinks however, but it is a new site.

2odd...

[Markus]

I started to believe in the ongoing update about a week ago. A relatively new site (fully indexed by Esmeralda) went up in the SERP significantly. Google referrers increased from 100 to 2,500 per day. Since there have not been any changes on the site and since there have not been any major algo modifications at Google, new inbound links must have been taken into account (IMO in terms of PR and anchor text.)

After having a discussion on this issue, I have been checking Google's index. It has not been discussed a lot here, but some of you may know that there have always been 2 versions of pages which were crawled regularly (the fresh tag) in Google's index. One version of a page reflected Google's previous deep crawl and one version reflected the fresh crawl. (The fresh crawl version never really replaced the deep crawl version in the index. There rather were two indices and results from the fresh index replaced results from the deep index in the SERP.) Our main site has a date on it and, so, it was possible to see both versions of a page in the SERP by doing the right queries.

However, currently, at i.e. the www-ab data center there is a version from July 29 and a version from July 23 of our home page in the index. (It can be found for searching our site for "29 juli" and "23 juli" respectively. As I have said, before Dominic the older version always reflected the last deep crawl. Now, it appears that the data gathered by the freshdeepwhateverbot replaced the old data in the "main" index completely. IMO this is a good indicator for Google indeed being on its way to a continous update.

[marcusmiller]

Hi

My site seems to get pages added and updates reflected about every 3 days, this is nice.

My site also seems to get some pages go back and forth between new pages old pages with no continuity. For every thing google gives it seems to take away just as much at the moment.

My site relies on regular updates and if everything works like how they are hinting it will be great but at the moment things are a bit fuzzy.

- I have seen no backlinks added for 2 months +
- Our site google directory link in the serps but if you click through to the directory page we are not on it.

its all just getting a little tired now, come on google, get your act together.

[dunnthat]

Continual update is definitely a possibility.

New site built 14 days ago - now showing at #1,#5, #3 and #3 for 4 pairs of keywords. The domain name is only 16 days old.

No PR for any of the pages...but who cares?! The phone is ringing!

Dunnthat

[dnbjason]

I started to believe in the ongoing update about a week ago. A relatively new site (fully indexed by Esmeralda) went up in the SERP significantly. Google referrers increased from 100 to 2,500 per day. Since there have not been any changes on the site and since there have not been any major algo modifications at Google, new inbound links must have been taken into account (IMO in terms of PR and anchor text.)

I agree, I have had major movement a couple days ago on 3 keyword (from #80 to #3), when I check the allinanchor: for these keywords I come up in the top 5. A few days back I didn't even come up for the allinanchor. This is a newer website and all the links for these keywords were added after the last update. So that is almost enough proof for me now that we maybe are in a continues update.

[rfgdxm1]

Strongest evidence for an update: I've seen substantial movement in the SERPs since Esmeralda of pages that haven't changed. Before with everflux new pages would be added, but the relative ranking of old ones on the SERPs didn't change. I've seen a number of SERPs where the top 10 have moved around significantly at various times since Esmeralda, and none of those pages has changed in the least in the last year.

[mil2k]

My oberservations are:
- anchor text seems be continuously updated
- no update for backlinks and PR (shown by Google)

Same here. Also many days after Esmeralda was complete one of my sites in a competetive category did a big jump from #93 to #5 and is fluctuating almost every day in top 5.

Other brand new site got picked up in google and is on top because of its aggressive link campaign. Is showing a PR 0 though :)

[jcoronella]

I have seen new sites get fresh tags, get indexed. Then when adding new outgoing links from these new pages, they too get fresh tagged and then get indexed. With additional links to the first, both pages rise in the serps. These results have been there for weeks now, which leads me to conclude that Bubba is among us (The continuous update that does not yet have a name I like). It also represents to me that PR is being calculated, and passed - just not shown in the toolbar (same with backlinks)

I have seen these changes around the times of the fresh listing changes - in or out - with the fresh changes behaving as they always did - bumping listings higher temporarily.

[ulysee]

I have seen no sign of new backlinks for my sites being calculated into the rankings as of yet.
To me it seems like a continuous fresh update.

[iJeep]

No. The fresh results are changing like always. I have moved around a little in the ranks, but it hasn't gotten stirred up like in an update.

Also, right after the last real update I added a new section with about 5,000 pages to my site. The main page has been spidered and cached. None of the others have been cached. It is all well linked on a PR5 site (one of the top 3 PR sites in my DMOZ cat).

I still believe there is another lever to pull to initiate the true perpetual update or another update like they used to be.

[EquityMind]

I had a meeting with Google yesterday. They are referring to this as "Incremental Indexing" and while the update is still occuring once a month, the goal is to go from the batch indexing into the incremental indexing platform.

EquityMind

[IITian]

EquityMind,

It was my feeling too but did Google say it explicitly in the meeting? Thanks.

[too much information]

I agree with the continuous update, but what turn-around time is everyone noticing? I've seen pages fresh tagged and moving in the SERPs in as short as 1 day, but on average it seems to be around 2-3 days.

Does anyone have a better guess on how fast the SERPs are updating?

[HyperGeek]

There are so many different elements of an overall "update" to categorize, I'm surprised no one has even considered the chance of there being an everflux of link text updating and a monthly or even quarterly recalculation of other things like PR and backlinks (although I feel backlinks should be updated as often as possible considering Google's known ranking methods.)

[MrSpeed]

They are referring to this as "Incremental Indexing" and while the update is still occuring once a month, the goal is to go from the batch indexing into the incremental indexing platform.

This could explain why there seems to be so many inconsistencies with what people are observing. Did they mention how far along they were in the implementation?

One thing that does seem consistent. There seems to be more emphasis on fresh content than in the past.

[EquityMind]

IITian -

In the meeting, they referred to their monthly update and I commented how I was seeing a continous update cycle every few days as we added content and made changes to a large ecommerce site (one of the dot com big boys). My contact nodded in agreement and referred to the "Incremental Index"....I laughed and told him I had better write that down all the while thinking about how I was going to post that here at WebmasterWorld. The conversation implied that they were moving to this platform for one of their product lines sometime in Q3-Q4 so the assumption is made that for the normal index that would coincide most likely around the same time albeit anybody's guess whether it would precede or follow.

[g1smd]

Google has been in continuous update mode for many weeks. A search for "Anytown Widget Place" has slowly increased the number of results from the mid 90s to the mid 170s over the last 2 months, going up by 4 to 6 results extra in the list every few days. The datacentres vary by 3 or 4 in the number reported at any one time, but the general trend is usually upwards. There was one period where there was a sudden drop of 10% or more though, but restored a few days later.

[keyplyr]

does anyone have any actual proof? [that supports a continuous update theory]

There has been none.

[Beachboy]

GoogleGuy, you can't comment on this pending momentous change? When does Google move into continuous update mode? How many more traditional updates will there be?

[IITian]

EquityMind,

Thanks for answering my question. Now I would guess three to four more traditional monthly updates.

[LogicMan]

Backlinks for one of my pages has definately updated in the last week. It may be the result of a continuous update, a "Incremental" update or a monthly update but it happened within the last 7 days.

Here's the facts:

I have a PR5 page that I link to other internal pages
to 'boast the PR' of several internal pages. One of those pages has always rated #1-2 in a major search term for me.

Since it now has many other backlinks (that I do not control), about 2 weeks ago I removed the backlink I control to see the affect of removing that PR5 link.

No change until yesterday but it could have happened anytime within a week. (I only check rankings once a week). It dropped to #23. I looked at the backlinks and sure enough the controlled backlink was gone.

The receiving page has a cache date of 6 days ago. (I date the page when changes are made and that page is updated every day or two).

I want that page in the top 5, so I have now added the link back, so I'll see what happens.

[EquityMind]

I also can attest to the addition of pages into the index within the past week or so. Two months ago (mid to late May) we built in several hundred static pages into a dynamic environment to allow better indexing for a top tier ecommerce client. Home page was a PR7 until Esmerelda and is now a PR6 (no reduction of SERPS even with the PR drop). First layer of new pages (47 pages indexed from the home page)was indexed and serps began to show in late June (all PR1 with very good rankings - only 1 backlink for each page showing - from the home page).

This last week the 'second layer' of pages (approximately 400-500 pages) only linked to by the 'first layer' pages all made it into the index and traffic shot through the roof (all PR0 with no backlinks showing at all). All of this without an update? We are extremely well ranked in the SERPS this week (very competitive terms), all of the static pages we put in are in the Google database (using the site search within Google) and it feels like we just went through a 'dance'.

I believe the 'Incremental Indexing' is on...

EquityMind

[Stujoe]

EquityMind,

I did a similar thing with a php site at about the same time in May and have seen the same thing as yourself. A first layer went in a while ago and the deeper stuff went in last week. Traffic has doubled and the pages are ranking well.

[jeremymgp]

Just to say a big thanks to EquityMind for his posts, that's the first hard info we've had on the update process for a while and the clear outlining of the twin processes of Incremental and Batch indexing makes things much less confusing and gives something of a timeline to hold on to. Thanks again,

Jeremy