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. :)

[subway]

... sorry wrong forum ... :o

Maybe not - this is moving way too fast -

i've ALWAYS been able to go way past number 273 in a search with over 700,000 records before

...maybe it depends on how many results are returned in the first place, but I have noticed on previous occassions that you can't actually get to the *last* page of the serps, unless there's only a releatively small number of results returned.

[edited by: subway at 8:58 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2003]

[synergy]

A minus sign in front of a word will tell the search engine to subtract pages that contain that particular word.

So you are saying a search for blue-widgets that currently returns excellent results for "blue widgets" is doing so because the word widgets is subtracted? Wouldn't that be saying that the SERPs for "blue-widgets" would be the same as "blue"?

[dazzlindonna]

one of the things that is so painful to me is that allinanchor:keyword keyword, allintext:keyword keyword, and allinurl:keyword keyword all still put me at number 1, as it has for so long. only keyword keyword has changed from #1 to the far reaches of the universe.

[synergy]

For some reason, the seaches on www-gv are not so bad...

I beg to differ for the keywords I keep track of.. results are crap (same as other datacenters) currently on www-gv.

[soapystar]

it subtracts only if there is a gap before the -

[yvt360]

I find the keyword-keyword thing very interesting, maybe that is the next update, to fix that and add those in?

I find it hard to believe that Google is going to make a user type in "-" etc. to get the results they really want. If we are providing quality content on our websites and Google is not picking up the best websites, people will find something that gives them the quality results. I have to believe that Google wants to provide the best results to searchers, if they don't it will eventuall catch up and people will start to use a different search engine. You may initially use a product because of its reputation, but if that product does not meet your expectations you will find a new product.

I would not be a satisfied user if I were a consumer and went to Google right now and did a search for certain keywords, many of the websites do not make sense. I have to believe Google will eventually (hopefully soon) get a good product out there.

[killipso]

Ok Heres my last thought on the -
I think maybe anything after the - is not being read.
I don't mean the whole page just the sentence after it.
When I look at my webpage description everything in the sentence after the - is not in the description.
Instead The following sentence is being picked up.
If the - means to not read when you put the - in a search
could this possibly be happening to the text?
It makes sense as I have the plural keyword following the -
and the singular in the next sentence. If I put blue widgets in my site is gone.
If I put blue widget in it is there #1.
Just a thought.
Removing all - now can't hurt.
Dan

[synergy]

2 things:

Results for keyword-keyword look VERY good in my industry. The top 10 are sites that SHOULD be there. The results look even better than they did before the Florida update IMO.

I would not be a satisfied user if I were a consumer and went to Google right now and did a search for certain keywords..

My fiancee, who knows nothing about SEO or ranking, mentioned to me last night that she couldn't find anything worthwhile on Google for her research paper.

[edited by: synergy at 9:07 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2003]

[HayMeadows]

Synergy, that was definitely the find of the year!

Amen. It might really be the find of the year in another 24-48 hours :-)

[customdy]

"one of the things that is so painful to me is that allinanchor:keyword keyword, allintext:keyword keyword, and allinurl:keyword keyword all still put me at number 1, as it has for so long. only keyword keyword has changed from #1 to the far reaches of the universe. "

EXACTLY the same thing here... wish someone could explain what this means......

[hightraffic10]

It'e been a long time since I checked different datacenters. What is the link again? [sj.google....?...] Thanks

[synergy]

www-**.google.com

[Miop]

Doing all these things with dashes, allinanchors and plusses sees to bring up consistent results for me . Does this mean it's all done?
Could G just say yes it's done or no it's not?

[jddux]

When I do allin... whatever I get the same crappy results in some datacenters and old results in others

[deanril]

Miop - No, it would be in a riddle, G would never give straight answer

[Upheaval]

Seems like google has devalued the literal in favor of the interpetative when it comes to incoming links for many phrases.

[edited by: Upheaval at 9:27 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2003]

[GoogleGuy]

Hmm. Some of the other senior-ish people could answer this too, but keyword1-keyword2 on Google just does a phrase search along the lines of searching for "keyword1 keyword2". It limits results to pages that have that exact phrase on the page, or possibly in anchors.

[Jacob_Jans]

Googleguy - It seems to me that dashes are giving extremely different results than quotes. In many cases, searches with the dashes are returning sites that have disapeared, where quotes doesn't return the disappeared sites.

[johnnydequino]

I just upped my adwords bids by double and my home page just appeared!

(Just kidding of course)

jd

[synergy]

Hmm. Some of the other senior-ish people could answer this too, but keyword1-keyword2 on Google just does a phrase search along the lines of searching for "keyword1 keyword2". It limits results to pages that have that exact phrase on the page, or possibly in anchors.

Results are drastically different for "keyword1 keyword2" than they are for "keyword1-keyword2".

GG: What you are saying makes sense, but doesn't make sense when you look at the results of searches. I guess it boils down to waiting for everything to settle :)

As noted earlier, I must say thought that the results for "keyword1-keyword2" in my industry look very good.

[Brimstone]

"one of the things that is so painful to me is that allinanchor:keyword keyword, allintext:keyword keyword, and allinurl:keyword keyword all still put me at number 1, as it has for so long. only keyword keyword has changed from #1 to the far reaches of the universe. "
"EXACTLY the same thing here... wish someone could explain what this means...... "

YEAH. Same thing here as well. I was ranked number two for keyword keyword (out of 4.970.000 results) and now im lost somewhere in the serps. When i do a keyword-keyword search number two and when i do allintext:keyword keyword im even #1. The sites ranking 1-10 now for keyword keyword simply suck.. They have NO content what so ever.

[canucks1980]

I have been following Google for a number of months which add up to over 2 years. My speculation is that Google has taken all of the excellent quality sites and put them on layaway to give these "crappy" spammed sites a taste of what it is like to be #1 for a couple days. Then when they realize "OHG MY GOD" look at all the traffic it will make them realize they need to change their ways. Then like a Sept 11 Bomb all the good white hat sites will be in action.

[dazzlindonna]

jacob, i think googleguy was just saying that using hyphens is similar to using quotes in that both look for a particular thing - but i don't think he was saying they will return the same results. although, that is how i read it the first time around.

[canucks1980]

My theory is true... go and type cheaphotels
I expect the update to be finished fairly soon. The search engine industry is ever changing.

[wanna_learn]

LOL
Might be a pre-christmas Gift to Blackhats ;-)

[Brimstone]

My theory is true... go and type cheaphotels
I expect the update to be finished fairly soon. The search engine industry is ever changing.

Interesting theory canuck1980, I certainly hope you are right.

[customdy]

GG, we can e-mail you a few examples of the differences between keyword-keyword and keyword keyword if you would like.

Sound like many of us have the same situation

- Index page is not doing well for keyword keyword searches
- Interior pages are relatively unchanged
- Searching for keyword-keyword gives expected Index page good results
- Searching with allinanchor, allintext, allintitle give good Index page expected results.

[Jessica]

How come when I search for my site: http://www.site.com/index.shtml - it is not found.

But when I search for my http://www.site.com - it's there.

? :(

[carlr]

I just thought of something funny.

The actual results in my (very competitive) industry show results similar to the ones i was seeing about 1 year ago, before there was the crazy competition on the "keyword keyword".

I see many old, un-optimized and not-updated websites at the top of the SERP's (e.g. forums, old articles etc). Most of my competitors (and myself) are gone... poof!

I was not spamming. I hate this.

[Jessica]

oh yes, and when I search for keyword1-keyword2 my site i swhere it used to be - #3