Update Florida - Nov 2003 Google Update Part 2

[GoogleGuy]

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

---

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. :)

[satanclaus]

nope, not for me. have tons of relevant, useful content. which google seemed to love for many months.

You're obviously missing something. Look deeper.

[edited by: satanclaus at 3:18 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2003]

[Iguana]

Good point Umbra - the senior names whose postings I always read may be unhappy with their rankings but mot saying anything. But more likely, they know that this is a long-term game and they might have won or lost this month but the important thing is to devlop your site. I would like to see the Supporters forum and read their Googler update thread, though.

Even taking into account the observation that big authority sites are doing better and therefore the toal number of sites in high positions has decreased - there must be an awful lot of winners in this update. 1 page dropping out of the top 10 results in someone else's page coming into the top 10. I don't hear much from these winners.

[nileshkurhade]

I was exchanging links with other sites, now my site is totally out for my keywords (which i used as anchor text). But the sites that exchanged links with are in the search results, strangely they are showing my link description, and they are the only keywords on those pages. So i think Google needs to re-think its algo.

[dupac]

Hey
I have a site which was ranking in top 5 for last 3 months. It stil has a high PR (7). The other pages with PR of 6 and 5. But the site is totally vanished. I mean i cant even find in top 2000 results of google. Event though I am shocked and kinda angry but i tried to reason what happened.
1) Outgoing links from your site doesnt have a big factor anymore. ( which I saw was a factor in last 3 months)
2) Incoming link still important but Florida update gives weightage to other thing.
3) The other things are freshness of page(I feel this is a big one). How often your page is updated.
4) Same anchor text a problem in Florida update( big effect).
5) I am not sure about this ---> Less title word more weightage or not?

If you guys also have some other experience with Florida update share it.

Please be more technical rather than start crying abt your website without reasoning:)

AND FOR GG WILL THERE BE REGULAR UPDATE AS USUAL OR THESE REULTS WILL BE THERE FOR A MONTH.

thanks for your suggestion
Deepak

[merlin30]

"Content possibly?"

Absolutely not. I can show you a (competitive) search where the only thing that puts the site where it is what is in the META KEYWORDS tag! Not backlinks (yes I've also checked ATW), not hidden text, not cloaking, not hub status blah, blah, blah - purely META KEYWORD stuffing!

I'm quite prepared to provide the example. In fact, I challenge any poster asserting that the current results are unquestionable in their quality to take a look; should they find the legitimate reason why such a result exists based on the merits of either on page, or off page factors then they are quite welcome to reply to this post stating I talk absolute b*******s (stating their reasoning obviously)!

If no such poster is prepared to take the challenge then they should refrain from being smug.

I don't assert that Google is broken or I, or anyone else, deserve to be placed in the #1 spot - just that there are plenty of examples of totally irrelevent results.

[stevexyz]

I have not read all the posts so sorry if this has already been discussed.

It is starting to appear that this new update has only changed the "profitable" search phrases - this info is easily available to G from their ADWORDS program. So if the phrase "blue widgets" is searched this is firstly checked to their to see whether it matches any of their predefined "profitable" searches. If it does it uses an one algo if it does not it uses another (the old) algo. I have checked various searches and this appears to hold true but not all.

[Tiffany]

I am 100% positive in my mind that this whole thing is centered around specific words.

Example:

I DONT show up for my business name, which is completely strange, however I so show up for the first three words in my name, why? The last word.

Lets say I sell pretty blue widgets and didgets but primarily I sell widgets. My main keyword would be:

Pretty Blue Widgets

Since the update though, I show for only:
Pretty blue
Pretty blue didget
didgets in pretty blue

NONE of my terms show up for the word widget anywhere. My indexed site shows up for didgets but not for widgets, follow me?

Look outside the box on your sites, I think this is the reason everyone is having so much trouble with this. We are all either suffering saturation penalities on specific keywords or that specific word is encountering some kind of problem in the serps.

Let me mention that my site is STILL number 1 with my index pages for anything that has the word didget or pretty blue.

[dupac]

hey
Thats an intersting theory. This might be true but I havent done my research in it. But if G is doing that then new sites won't rank higher. But I do see some new stuff ranking decent in G. Will look in to it.
Deepak

[trillianjedi]

Tiffany - that's all about your site.

What would be more useful info for you to examine is information about the sites that *are* doing well in the SERPS for "pretty blue widgets".

TJ

[nileshkurhade]

i think stevexyz is right, they are applying one algo for profitable keywords and other for non-profitable. I lost my rankings for the most profitable keywords and other non profitable keywords still hold good ranks.

[c1bernaught]

looks like using sub domains is working for quite a few people. I'm seeing a single company dominate the to 15 or so using subdomains.

They are using the keyphrase in the title only once with a geographic component twice. Seems to really work well even though the landing page is the same for every subdomain.

Looks like using your keyword sparingly in the title, description, etc. but having a supporting word or phrase twice really works...

[sd2001]

We have had all the above problems we have always been #1 for our keywords, then our index went past the 820 mark until this morning at 3.00 am GMT, we are now #2 .uk #8 .com

So somethings have changed, but its nice to have it back.

[figment88]

my observations:

1) Google has increased broad matching more. If you search for "widgets" sites that only contain "widget" do much better. I think this is the single biggest loss of relevency.

2) As other people have pointed out something is definately up with keyword density. I am not sure if Google has downrated this factor or penalized it over some amount. Clearly, though, there seems to be some "sweet spot" where there is not too little nor too much kw density.

3) As people have stated around the dash (-) posts, having multiple word phrases on your page seems irrelevent unless someone explicitly searches for a phrase. There may be a sweet spot as with density, but I think keyword proximity and ordering is meaningless to the current SERPs.

4) If the points above don't come into play, PR actually seems to me to be kicking a**.

[BobHighland]

>>>i have been working for days now to scrape the paint off of my 20th floor windowframe, so that i can eventually open the window and jump. almost have it all scraped off.

Just throw a chair through it. :-)

[buzzmaster]

Is it possible that google is trying to completely differentiate their results from Inktomi(soon to be yahoo) results?

Inktomi optimization is accomplished with heavily loaded on-page factors while google optimization is done with more off-page factors.

Google is now dropping sites for keywords that match both heavy on-page and off-page optimization.

Maybe they're trying to force people to "choose sides".

[lasko]

i have been working for days now to scrape the paint off of my 20th floor windowframe, so that i can eventually open the window and jump. almost have it all scraped off.

Or the PC you used windows through windows :)

[trillianjedi]

looks like using sub domains is working for quite a few people. I'm seeing a single company dominate the to 15 or so using subdomains.

Yeah and the guy that built that site will be back here in two months time for update Georgina crying "argghh... Google has really messed up this time, my site is nowhere to be seen!".

TJ

[onedumbear]

im keeping my update opinions to myself but,
has anyone noticed the number one spot for the phrase "search engine".
i don't watch that set of keywords at all, but i would be interested to hear from someone that does as to weather google was in the #1 spot before the update bagan?

[Tiffany]

Ok I analyzed my keyword saturation for the suspect word. Remeber that Google suspectedly has now started combining plural and singular which would make my main keyword:

Pretty - 50 - 12.08%
blue - 49 - 11.84%
widgets - 24 - 5.80%
didgets - 12 - 2.90%
widget - 9 - 2.17%

If you add the % of widgets and widget you come up with high saturation of that specific word (7.97%) What makes no sense is the words pretty and blue both have hugely high keyword saturation due to geographic area and they dont seem to be affected at all.

In regards to my competitors I think it is silly to start looking at them until the serps settle. Many of my serps are very different than last night. Half the battle is just finding the issue and then making progress on fixing it.

[Powdork]

I just figured how Google can make us all happy without producing relevant results, which I guess just wasn't working for them.

All they need to do is change the default setting of results returned per page to 500. Then, being behind 480 irrelevant results won't hurt so bad, as long as your still on the first page.;)

[needinfo]

I've read that a lot of sites are being returned in roughly their pre update positions in the SERPs when doing an allinanchor or allintext command on the same search term.

My sites however are still getting burried in the SERPs when doing this... any suggestions?

[stevexyz]

I am almost certain G intergrated the singular and plural being talked about aprox 3 to 4 weeks ago. This was when I first started to notice this change. I dont think it has alything to do with this update.

[jddux]

I think it is still too early to jump to these conclusions, I am sure there is still big changes to come, if you check the google directory has been updated, but the actual search results to not show these updates, which would most likely imply they have not finished yet

[Sunset_Jim]

Like so many others, my home page has disappeared from the SERPS for highly competitive key phrases. It had been in the top 5 with PR 4 for many months. My competitor's sites (#1 and #2) are still #1 and #2 and the only reason I can see why is that their PR is 6 wheras my PR is 4.

[Small Website Guy]

Google seems to be giving you a keyword prhase specific penalty (not a site penalty, just a penalty for that keyword phrase), if your site is too perfectly optimized for that keyword phrase.

How else to explain this mystery which I mentioned here before:

Title of page: word1 word2 word3 word4

Result of search for word1 word2 word3: TOP RESULT

Result of search for word1 word2 word3 word4: NOWHERE TO BE SEEN IN FIRST 10 PAGES (and in page 10 none of those words are even mentioned in the title).

Obviously my page is getting a penalty because the title too closely matches the search phrase. How else is this explained?

Maybe you should try changing your title from "Keyword1 Keyword2" to "Company name - the best source for keyword1 keyword2" and you will do better in the SERPs?

[FillDeCube]

use altavista search engine can make myself feel better..

[Nikke]

My various client sites have actually not been affected earlier in this update.
But right now! Wow! Some data centers has a brand new site i tend on #1 for some keywords while others don't show it at all.

[FillDeCube]

Small Website Guy, I agree with you. If we change our title now , will google relist our site in next dance?

[Powdork]

use altavista search engine can make myself feel better..

Those are surprisingly good results. Still too many ads though

[trillianjedi]

Maybe you should try changing your title

Interesting observation SWG. Out of interest - does your anchor text generally match your page titles, or just one or two words from them?

TJ