Update Florida - Nov 2003 Google Update

Looks like an Old Fashioned Dance Baby!

[synergy]

www-in is showing some major shifting in all the serps I follow.. anyone else seeing this? These results were showing yesterday as well, but synced with the others late in the afternoon.

The results look really good.. hopefully this will reflect across all the datacenters soon. Seems like the spammier sites I compete against have moved down while the good honest pages have moved up.

[Nick_W]

>>Maybe NickW can't get moon pies where he is

what's moon pie?

We got Christmas Beer [webmasterworld.com] though ;)

Nick

[kaled]

I can confirm that my main index.html page has vanished.

Also, I have javascript files in the cache (WHY?)

Also I have counter results ("document.write....") indexed and cached.

Also, I have pages indexed (but not cached) that haven't existed since around Christmas.

In addition, I reported three sites for serving identical content (different colors/graphics) but all three are still in the index. (I pointed out in my spam report that ATW only indexes one of the sites). So I guess that's another spam report that ended up in the bin.

This really is not good enough.

Kaled.

[GoogleGuy]

Anyone who has specifics should send them via normal channels (email, spam report) with the keyword "floridaupdate". Thank heavens florida is easier to spell than, Esmeralda? Did I spell that right?

Napoleon, I'm not seeing that, but if you send specifics I'll ask around. Several people have said that things look better; some people have noted that their sites have dropped. In any update, some people won't like it and some people will.

[textex]

Yeah Googleguy...are we still dancing?

[GoogleGuy]

People post that they're dropped need to distinguish whether they just aren't where they expect for the keywords that they monitor. For example, if your domain shows up at all for
site:yourdomain.com -asdf
then you haven't been dropped.

[textex]

The issue is sites are no longer in SERPS for certain targeted phrases. Is this a temp issue or are we still dancing; waiting for filters to be in place and data to be added?

[stevexyz]

This just shows how strong G has become to the extent its like a stockmarket CRASH where people will start jumping out of windows etc in total dispair.

[thepast]

GoogleGuy - this is an attempt to get an answer on textex's question:

The issue is sites are no longer in SERPS for certain targeted phrases. Is this a temp issue or are we still dancing; waiting for filters to be in place and data to be added?

[nutsandbolts]

People post that they're dropped need to distinguish whether they just aren't where they expect for the keywords that they monitor

Awww but come on - 2 years with the same logical keywords then *bam* - gone when using them! It's not nice! Especially near Christmas... ;)

Textex's question is more to the point than mine...

[skipfactor]

Sites are fine. Index pages buried or gone for keyphrases they rank #1 for allinanchor is the bug I'm seeing.

[Jessica]

damn, my perfectly good sites are gone from top 10 - they are nowburied somewhere :(

[golfnut]

Our site, as well as our well known competitors, who have held positons in the top 5 spots for the last year, are not even on page 1 listings. We are forutnate but our competitors are buried back on page 5 or worse.

I have to laugh because it seems like whenever we are about to enter a peak season (April and Late November, Google updates hammer us.

[edited by: golfnut at 6:09 pm (utc) on Nov. 15, 2003]

[thepast]

I am seeing some of my sites return on:

www-in.google.com

[dazzlindonna]

yes, it really would be simple to determine the "sky is falling" issue by a simple yes or no to the question of whether or not the Florida update is complete. If the update is complete, then the sky HAS fallen for many people - including many whitehats. If the update is not complete, and still has algos and filters yet to be added, then the sky has not yet fallen, and perhaps won't. (although even a few days of lost rankings can hurt).

[webguybri]

ok, i have a site that was listed #1 for a 2 word phrase for the last year.

Sub pages are ranking ok....

the index page that was #1 is no where to be found....

its still in the index but i went to result 100+ and havent seen it.

the google directory page the site is listed in comes up #11 though....:(

[GoogleGuy]

thepast, textex, we always reserve the right to improve our algorithms. So the rankings for a query can always change at any time if we think that we've got a better way to score or rank sites for queries. That said, it's always a good idea to take a walk around the lake and give an update a couple days to settle. Sorry that I can't really give more guidance for the future than that, but in a sense there's always more filters and data waiting to be added; it's more a matter of how and when we roll out quality improvements and pull in new data.

[textex]

I am even seeing major drop in rankings for some allinanchor terms. Does not make sense.

[soapystar]

Unlike last time, however, GG is not confirming that more sites will "filter in" over the coming weeks which is the most worrying thing....

he's not saying they WONT either..he does like to do that sort of thing sometimes..:-)

[webified]

Sites are fine. Index pages buried or gone for keyphrases they rank #1 for allinanchor is the bug I'm seeing.

#1 for allinanchor? I've seen some top site's backlinks. Some might call that a feature, not a bug...

[Miop]

Worse than a stockmarket crash...at least you can sell your stock and buy something else. This is more akin to the UK postal strike we just had - they are the only ones that people use to post letters and there's nothing you can do about it!

[Robino]

What would we do without GoogleGuy?

[nutsandbolts]

Googleguy: That said, it's always a good idea to take a walk around the lake and give an update a couple days to settle.

Well, that's good enough for me... I will not jump from my flat window until then ;) Thanks GoogleGuy.

[skipfactor]

What would we do without GoogleGuy?

It is fun to be back in the update mosh pit with GoogleGuy again. :)

[soapystar]

"What would we do without GoogleGuy? "

exctly what we are doing now!

[Jon_King]

We have all been through this before. There is just no way to know where you will end up in the serps until the update has completed.

Sites are gone, sites are back, sites are low and sites are high - this IS fun. I'll bet the quality sites will prevail so I take little notice at the current snapshot.

[pmac]

>gone for keyphrases they rank #1 for allinanchor is the bug I'm seeing. <

Ding ding ding! Not a bug.....an algo tweak.

[GoogleGuy]

"It is fun to be back in the update mosh pit with GoogleGuy again."

It's fun to have an update I can spell. :)

Off to find some, um, maybe Blink 182? to quietly mosh to..

[LogicMan]

GoogleGuy: To help the "sky is falling" panic from occurring for those of us that follow the rules ("white hats"), it would be helpful to have some idea of what is happening as a major update is going on.

Do not give out any major trade secrets but how about
1. We are using crawled data 'date' to start
2. Applying on page rules taking? hours/days
2. Applying spam filter taking? hours/days
3. Applying PR taking? hours/days
4. Applying off page rules taking? hours/days

I consider myself to be a 'white hat'. Sure I try to understand what 'Google' looks for and design my pages around those ideas, ie looks like Google likes <h1> more than <Font size=+2> use <h1>. My main goal is present the page for the customer but when there are options do what Google likes so there will hopefully be more customers.

It just confuses me as to why my page could go from #1 to now where (I consider not top 100 to be nowhere) and then reappear.

[kaled]

GoogleGuy said

People post that they're dropped need to distinguish whether they just aren't where they expect for the keywords that they monitor. For example, if your domain shows up at all for
site:yourdomain.com -asdf
then you haven't been dropped.

DONE THAT. Main index.html page has gone. Is that distinguished enough?

Kaled.

[Brett_Tabke]

outta sticky...

>why Florida?

:-) Fun in the February sun:
[webmasterworld.com...]

announcement on monday - needed a male name starting with F - finalizing the PubConference pages today - so it seemed like a natural.