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Some think an update is in the wind - are people expecting big, possibly bad for some, changes?
It's too quiet out there.
For one of my most important keyword we have dropped every day or two from the second result to number six today. Everyday I look and everyday I lose little ground. I have ranked very high for this keyword for almost three years. My backlinks have been the same for a month.
Anyways, something strange is going on at google as far as I am concerned.
And I see Good Things. I see fresh sites included in the index between updates. I see results with a date on them. I see dynamic sites using very ugly querystrings with thousands of pages in the index, and ranking well. I see relevant results, and (believe it or not) less spam than two months ago.
Well Giacomo, I am glad to see that you - one person - has a good opinion of what Google is doing right now.
However, what I see is that 'message boards' and 'news threads' have popped up on the first page of results and bumped long standing #1 down to #5. And who knows what other sites that have been solid in the top 20 are now gone. Message boards? in the top 5? You've got to be kidding me! And I'm not talking beautifully created, content rich forums. I'm talking about a cheezy thread that someone used to say a few words about his site and put some links in there. The board is about 'Widgets' his site is about 'Onomatopoeia'. Come on now.
BR
Perhaps this is actually an update of sorts in the traditional sense, a running update is a major technical achievement so some editing is bound to happen until they have it all running smooth.
However, it would be a shame if these inconsistent/crap at the top days become a regular feature - it would mean Google craps out on a regular basis - ie today we are cleaned up - tommorrow the stench will return and searches will smell eggy - then it'll fix itslef again...
I got a few of my pages up, but re-running searches makes me disappear again (as if by magic!).
Refresh, refresh, refresh.
This is a Google burp for sure, and results I'm seeing for some straight forward searches are returning up to 5 results in top ten TOTALLY irrelevant - just like the last burp.
My stats are bouncing up and down as a result.
Give this baby some orange juice!
It's an all singing, all dancing, bouncing and burping baby new Google!
Oh, give me patience, give me some patience...
steveb, I don't think we've received a single spam report that mentions "newhoo" anywhere in the text of the report. Would you mind shooting me the search that is showing this?
GoogleGuy, who has read about newhoo several times from steveb and is now curious about what the actual search phrase is. ;)
best,
GoogleGuy
I sent two obvious examples.
On the other hand, I see that some/many/most of the newhoo links have been stripped out. I noticed (and posted here) a couple weeks ago that I lost a single backlink (among hundreds). I now check and see that the link I had from newhoo is gone, which explains the loss of one obviously -- but it has not been replaced by the corresponding link from dmoz, meaning I have no link showing now, neither from newhoo or dmoz.
(((edit... just sent a second one, that shows the phenomenon even more clearly)))
best wishes,
GoogleGuy
<edit>steveb, I didn't realize that you were talking about a link: query. Having newhoo.com showing up in backlinks wouldn't affect things. I'll ask tomorrow someone tomorrow to make sure, but that wouldn't affect PageRank/rankings/traffic/etc.</edit>
btw, seekanddestroy, I wanted to check out what you were talking about with your site too. Would you mind doing a quick spam report and just tell me your query/site, and mention "seekanddestroy" in the report too? I've got some free time late tonight and I'm curious about your what's going on with your site. Thanks!
best wishes,
GoogleGuy
Ditto, seekanddestroy.
Could you sticky me on that one? I have seen my share of issues with Google in the past, but you seem to be taking it to a new level.
I would like to see that.
Thanks,
I am in a highly competive area, and i've noticed in the past 3 days there have been major changes in the serps, spam is mostly gone from the terms "widget" but there is a lot more spam (link farms) for the terms "city widget" taking up the top 5 SERPS
In the second example I sent, it does seem likely that bad dominoes are involved. PR7 dmoz cat links to a subcategory, neither has more than 20 links altogether. the subcategory only has a PR4, and then all the sites in that subcategory then also have lower PR. Granted the PR display is nearly worthless right now (hint hint hint), but still there appears a clear effect.
Next, some/many/most of those newhoo links have disappeared, meaning some sites now have neither a dmoz or a newhoo backlink showing when the dmoz link has in fact been in existence for years in some cases. Is the secret sauce awarding proper pagerank even though now there is no backlink showing? Well, maybe, but it seems like there is good reason to doubt that is the case.
Most important though, the displaying of the newhoo links is a screw-up, regardless of whether it matters or not. What it is NOT is some deliberate filtering/penalizing of one dmoz category in twenty. Some people here want to ignore that this stuff is going on, and some want to think that obvious mistakes are deliberate algorithm. Instead, this is just evidence of problems, they are trying to fix them, and they ain't fixed yet.
im desperately clinging to hope now that they will soon.
But i just can't understand why my site has been crawled 3 times fully, yet only been in google for 3 days before being dropped.... :/
I'm not talking about newhoo showing in search results.
I'm seeing an AOL directory? search SERP in Google SERPs:
Searching for "widgets south metro" this appears underneath me at #2:
AOL Search: Results for "metro widgets"
... SNIPPET ...
search.aol.com/ dirsearch.adp?query=metro%20widgets - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
Follow that link, and you end up here: http¦//search.aol.com/aolcom/search?query=metro+widgets with the same title & description appearing #1 in the SERP which when followed, loops the same AOL SERP page.
They are absolutely amazed and we have quite a laugh! They ask me how I do it, and I explain that no one knows, or at least certainly not me.
Napoleon, you around? You still playing the magical refresh game too?
8O(
Not to worry though, Googleplex should be on the case as we go to press, Googleguy to the rescue! Du du daaaaaaaa......
8O)
Has anyone seen him? What kind of outfit does he wear, bet it's Marvel cool!
;O)
Go GG Go!
Before submitting this message, I check my Amazon associate account, I find some big sites lose their traffic heavily.
e.g.
Time Magazine - drop 23%
Weekly Traffic Rank: 116 (1 week before: 104)
AT&T WorldNet - drop 21%
Weekly Traffic Rank: 23 (was 18)
Fox News Channel - drop 20%
Weekly Traffic Rank: 30 (was 25)
Will send forward of it now UK 9.35 pm to webmaster@google.com
Seekanddestroy in subject title re: webmasterworld + Googleguy - someone got it but on it's way again.
Cheers,
Seek.
i think you should be using the spam report. is that right googlegod er guy?
[google.com...]
titled:
Fwd: 'Googleguy' requested this email from Seekanddestroy at Webmasterword
Thanks, Seek.
I'll try again now though,
Thanks,
Seek.
OK - repeated emails to webmaster@google.com and via spam report which worked without server error this time.
If I see a reply here, Googleguy that you still haven't received my emails, tell me what airport to meet you at, and a time, let's get these problems sorted out - how can I help - sorry no PHD just a good BA - tea (good tea - I'm English) or coffee to help the coding along - sandwiches..., dust the Google furniture... dunno, but wanna help fix broke stuff somehow!
;O)
Seek.
