Update Florida - Nov 2003 Google Update Part 2

[GoogleGuy]

Continued from part 1: [webmasterworld.com...]

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I stopped by several times yesterday, but it seemed like people were into the analysis stage already. caveman, this update didn't add any penalties for hyphenated domains, so that's not a factor. Just a reminder that people with specific feedback (good or bad) can send it to webmaster [at] google.com with the keyword "floridaupdate" somewhere in the email. I've mentioned that a few times, but as more than one person has pointed out, it can take 2-3 hours to read the whole thread from beginning to end. :)

[lasko]

I can see everyone is still hammering out conspiracy theories and trying to find which server will give the correct results.

So to answer all questions regarding searches with - or + and ~ why not visit the Google Advanced search pages.

[google.com ]

As for search results,

Backlinks have not yet been filtered in, this alone is a sign that the update has not finished.

Take it easy guys

:)

[jddux]

I'm seeing good sites starting to show up in -in.. not mine yet but competitors, im crosiing my fingers

[edited by: jddux at 4:47 pm (utc) on Nov. 18, 2003]

[northweb]

Is the dance starting to slow down?
I'm seeing my keywords show up in the same position in 9 - 10 datacenters.

[rfgdxm1]

I'm still wondering about all those missing, obvious internal backlinks at dmoz.org I mentioned in post msg #309? I am seeing that in lots of cases on that domain. Seemingly random. One possible explanation is just that the link: command is buggy.

[James_Dale]

Give it another couple of months at least ;)

[SEOmariachi]

Not regarding commercial sites, roaming around the net I have noticed that a lot of my favorite blogs that I visit have lost 2 - 3 points PR (usually they are not very high PR becuase of all outbound links) most I see are down to zero. 2 or 3 of the Blogs I visit are pretty popular and there PR has hovered about the same, but almost all the other ones I have visited are at 0. Was "blogrigging "somthing that google was trying to combat?
So they spanked all 'blog' sites down a little bit? Any thoughts?

Olllee!.
SEOMariachi

[DerekH]

This list is so hard to browse after 24 hours away that I'm sure someone's asked this already, but...

Is the *old* Google Directory back? It seems to me to be so...
DerekH

[jddux]

The google directory has been updated since yesterday, I know this for sure, and our site in the results does not show it being in the directory, but in the directory it is there, I would say this is a good sign implying that the current results arnt updated

[europeforvisitors]

I realise you say "if they reach a certain threshold" but I personally think if there was such a threshold then it would need to be set very very high.

Hey, it's just a hypothesis. I'm not saying it's correct. :-)

But I do think Google has enough collective IQ at the 'plex to devise algorithms that look for artificial patterns based on natural language analysis, statistical probability, and whatever else its Ph.D.'s were writing their theses on before they were recruited by Google. We've been told repeatedly that Google takes more than 100 factors into account when determining search rank, and it isn't completely unreasonable to speculate that, as time goes by and Google's resident brainiacs put their heads together, Google may be getting better and better at comparing those factors to identify (and compensate for) what it considers to be "artificial" SEO. Whether that's actually happening is anybody's guess.

[lasko]

Or it could be that we all should chill out for a bit longer and let google do their job.

We can all study the effects once its finished and adapt afterwards in a better frame of mind.

Whatever you do now won't fix it any quicker could make it worse so just carry on regardless and check back tomorrow.

[netguy]

I'm not seeing any changes in backlinks, but I'm seeing the adjusted PageRank on -va

www-va : 216.239.37.100

If you modify your host file, -va seems to show some solid PR changes for the several dozen sites I've reviewed so far here in the U.S.

-It's just difficult to tell if will hold, or even if PR means anything in the current environment.

Steve

[jddux]

When I check the backwards links in -va they are not updated but it is because it is going back to the regular www.google.com when you check the backwards links, so try checking backwards links, then sticking in -va in the URL works for me

[wanna_learn]

-in is looking most junked now!

[sd2001]

Alexa has no service at present is this a Google related problem?

[punta]

Can someone remind me of how to modify the hosts file to change where the toolbar looks for data?

[europeforvisitors]

Contrast Compare wrote:

What google is trying to do is eliminate SEO. Scrap your lame black hat/what hat talk. It doesnt matter to google. Fundamentaly, if you are manipulating the SERPS, they dont want it, period. How can you make money off of PPC when people can manipulate the results?

Google's Webmaster guidelines make it clear that it doesn't like anything "artificial." I don't think it's fair to say that Google wants to eliminate SEO, because it's in Google's own interests for Web sites to have descriptive titles, headlines, anchor text, etc. But it's also in Google's interests to discourage or at least weaken the influence of "aggressive SEO" that seeks to manipulate Google's search results. (By "aggressive SEO," I refer to techniques that are practiced by those who try to "exploit holes in Google's algorithm," to use a phrase that has appeared more than once in this forum.)

The motivation for discouraging "aggressive SEO" has nothing to do with selling PPC ads; it's simply the need to protect the quality of Google's core product: search results. Google's success was built on quality search results, and the company would be foolish to let SEO consultants and other outsiders take control of its SERPs.

[Trax]

myfishy: "Talk about blind optimism! :) "

are you sure? dont you think it will change
well
teach me on this one please :)

[netguy]

Punta, to see your new PageRank, add the following line
to your "hosts" file (no extension) for www-va:

216.239.37.100 toolbarqueries.google.com

Depending on your M$ system, the hosts file will be in:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts OR
c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

[yvt360]

I like the way the Yahoo directory results look as far as who should be where, at least in my industry. Does Google have any relationship to these results (not web, directory) do a web search, then hit "directory"

[sd2001]

Our domain in Alexa using Googles results still shows 410 backlinks, Google itself only shows 29!

[Spica]

Here is an observation regarding the hyphen:

kw1 kw2: site is gone (used to be #2)
allinanchor:kw1 kw2: #2
allintext:kw1 kw2: #3
allintitle:kw1 kw2: #2

kw1-kw2: #1
allinanchor:kw1-kw2: #1
allintext:kw1-kw2: #1
allintitle:kw1-kw2: #1

Penalty for having these two words next to each other too often? It would seem stupid to do that (penalizing sites that only sell blue widgets, and no red widgets and green widgets, as other still-listed sites do), but that would fit this observation.

[1milehgh80210]

I don't believe there is any penalty for over optimization of backlinks on this -update-.
During the last google 'troubles' about 6 months ago, people gave examples of search terms that brought up highly ranked "sites" in competitive areas with NO content, (404, hosting placeholders etc). I noticed these sites are still ranked in the same place. Looks like their backlinks are still working fine.

[nileshkurhade]

Is it possible that Google is giving more importance to keyword density.

[Powdork]

(usually they are not very high PR becuase of all outbound links)

Not how it works. Outbound links have no effect of the pr of a page. The number of outbound links effects how much pr is doled out by each link.

[Trax]

thats what i am thinking about right now
wonder if i need to make it
kw kw a
instead of kw kw
to get my results back

how gay would that be

[Powdork]

For the keywords I follow closely, the sites that have gone missing as of Florida are what would probably be considered the authority sites for those phrases. I started to feel this way during Dominerelda too. I also see the correlation between ultra focused anchor and missing pages as well. The two factors could be working together. For instance, I have an authority site which is AWOL for its main phrase. The anchor text is very focused (Location Keywords or Lake Location Keywords). This is completely natural however as the name of the business is Location Keywords and the url is locationkeywords.com. These two factors greatly influence how people link to me. This is common among the authority sites for industries. They tend to have been around longer and were able to get the good url first so that their title, url, and anchor will likely be tightly focused.
So here are what I see as some possibilities.
1. Sites with tightly focused anchor are being held out for some reason. This gives the appearance that many authority sites are being held out because they often have this.
2. Authority sites (high local rank) are being held out and it looks like there is an anchor text thing because many have focused anchor.
3. little of both.
D. none of the above.

Anyone care to share their thoughts.

[lbobke]

My main site just went up from PR 5 to PR 6 while a secondary did not have any PR 5 mins ago, now it went from "4" to "6".

Laurenz

[fashezee]

We went from page 1 to page 14 or greater for most of our keywords.
Then only difference is that I noticed google indexed our external links
on our text version (which we forgot to disallow robots.

I'm sure this was the factor. If so, we recently disallowed the robots
and are removing the external links that may have caused the decrease
in ranking.

Is there any hope that we can get back up there?

[edited by: fashezee at 6:33 pm (utc) on Nov. 18, 2003]

[nileshkurhade]

I think the only reason why my site lost ranking is because of Links Directory that has totally diluted the keywords density of my site.

Is this right?

[benc007]

"Some people seem to have been penalised for heavy backward links with keyword(s) in anchor and others haven't:
At risk of giving Google too much credit and ideas for their next algo tweak (which I'm becoming more and more convinced that forum 3 and 78 are totally responsible for)...

It looks as though the well SEO'd *older* sites have held better than the newer sites, suggesting that Google have worked out what is and what isn't an unatural time frame to collect backward links in...

e.g.

Site A has been around 5 years and has 250 BL's
Site B has been around 1 year and has 400 BL's

therefore site B is guilty of *forcing a better page rank*

Can anyone confirm that sites worst hit are e.g. under 2 years old with quite a few backward links?
"

I have confirmed this. This seems illogical because if the newer site (Site B) has alot of quality content and high PR internal pages (PR > 3-4), Google may count these pages count as backlinks. As a results, the newer site should perform better in the SERPs. However this doesn't seem to be the case.

Any suggestions or ideas?