Forum Moderators: open
The panic is settling down, the whine of worry is receding to a steady hum in the back of my head, and several recovery plans are forming...
I lost my index page entirely, due to lazy keyword stuffing. My fault! Unfortunately, mine is a very small business: no listing = no food (let alone xmas).
I was planning on overhauling the website anyway, and I've given myself until 1/1/04 before I accept an opening with another business and abandon my own. The question now is: overhaul the index page and resubmit to Google immediately, overhaul the entire website and resubmit the whole thing in a few weeks, overhaul the website (starting with the index page of course) and wait for Googlebot. Time is most definitely a factor.
...are any of these plans likely to restore my index page to the directory before I have to throw in the towel in January?
There are also longer range options of starting over with a new website and closing the old.
Mahalo Nui Loa! (Thank you very much!)
If everything works out and Google is Better-Better now then before.
We have one thing to be thankful for.
Atleast they did this before the Christmas Season
For that Thank you Google, Im still putting "Google Rulez" on all my pages, thats extra PR point ;)
Interesting point about the free lunch possibly being over. Do you see Google becoming PFI for commercial sites?
I think it's going to be a lot harder to get a free lunch but as long as Google want people to use Adwords they will have to at least put 1 or 2 good results in the SERPS.
Algo's changing frequently will be the main problem but as long as you have enough sites with different optimization styles you should at least do better than returns from PPC.
Here's hoping anyway.
Good to see so many senior members contributing to the thread!
Next person who uses the word "filter" to describe the normal ranking process gets taken out behind the dugout and shot.
Come and get me. The word "filter" is clearly relevant here. "PageRank," by contrast, has always been part of the normal ranking process. It was done once per crawl, and pre-computed. A "filter," by comparison, is an ad-hoc adjustment performed on the subset of hits produced by more fundamental, prior algorithms. If it wasn't ad-hoc, you'd never be able to turn it on or off in a fraction of a second the way dozens of posters were clearly doing with the hyphen trick.
Google uses both normal ranking algorithms as well as filters, and always has. This latest thing that's producing all these shell-shocked webmasters is mostly a filter.
"Filter" doesn't have a nice ring to it. The public relations folks at Google will never be caught using the term. It sounds like punishment -- smacking down those who rose to the top. It's much better to use terms like "PageRank" or "normal ranking," because they sound like no one ever gets punished, and everyone gets exactly what they earn.
But it all amounts to the same thing, now, doesn't it? It amounts to whether you are going to survive on the Internet under the Googopoly, or find some other occupation.
..and the kid touched the wrong switch without telling anyone?..and they still havent noticed?
They already figured it out.
The exact moment was when they realized that when searching for "Google", the #1 result was "123ABC BOBS SUPA-PHAT FFA DIRECTORY".
I do agree with the jist of the post you made, though and also wonder if google tried playing with the Applied Semantics knob on this one.
Under Kackles theory the query could be filtered and sent to different search servers (with different sorting rules) and run against the same index.
That would explain the fast dash fix, pretty sure they didn't rebuild the indexes to fix anything.
reminds me of the Google update of Nov and Dec 2001.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
there is a new datacenter.
I already posted a 'New Topic', but as it usually takes extremely long :( until my posts are put live I think I can post this here too. Maybe it has to do with florida, too ;)
plasma@billy:~$ for i in a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z; do for j in a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z; do dig www-$i$j.google.com; done ¦grep www- ¦egrep -v "^;"; done
www-ab.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.51.100
www-cw.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.57.100
www-dc.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.39.100
www-ex.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.33.100
www-fi.google.com. 41 IN A 216.239.41.100
www-gv.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.59.100
www-in.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.53.100
www-kr.google.com. 60 IN A 66.102.11.100
www-lm.google.com. 60 IN A 66.102.9.100
www-mc.google.com. 60 IN A 66.102.7.100
www-va.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.37.100
www-zu.google.com. 60 IN A 216.239.55.100
P.S.: It is quite unstable at the moment (got a server error already :)
toolbar PR is not up to date
index has the same SERPs as -va for my keywords
1. When index page goes MIA, the dmoz description and category are lost, and the page shows up at position 500+ instead of top 5
2. For results i still rank high on my index page has its Dmoz Description.
3. Every now and then my pages come back from never never land and the dmoz description etc is restored.
This to me suggests there is a perm index, of which my site is no longer part of for certain terms. Google seems to be attempting to rank and bring back these MIA pages into the index. In my opinion in order for this update to be complete and rolling updates to start again, the freshbot results have to converge with the existing index. Otherwise you get fragmention of the index's across datacenters.
A couple of days ago things were looking pretty good IMO, with most of the spam completely gone in the top-20 results, for everything I follow. Earlier today though they seem to have turned the knob a little too far, and the results are pretty funny sometimes :), (sad is probably more accurate actually).
My sites are still doing fine but the relevancy for most product searches I have tried are now pretty poor. The nice thing is that there are now far fewer ecommerce sites around in the top-10 for my searches, (not to mention zero affiliates :), so there is less competition.
However, one wonders how long people will still be looking for products in Google if they keep serving these types of results...or will there be a new link to Froogle at the top of search tomorrow morning? :)
Question: is this based on search terms that would certainly indicate the person was looking to purchase? As in "buy widgets" or "widget sales". If not, I say then Google is working The Way It Ought To Be.
Question: is this based on search terms that would certainly indicate the person was looking to purchase? As in "buy widgets" or "widget sales". If not, I say then Google is working The Way It Ought To Be.
Well no. However, do you not agree that the large majority of people making specific product searches, which indicate they know what they are looking for, are indeed looking for somewhere to buy that product? If you disagree with this I would be interested in what sort of conversion rate you have achieved with the typical "buy" phrases you are referring to?
Yes, it does - I bet I said the same thing about being like INK then :)
But I did start spending on AdWords when I got creamed.
I am not the first to talk about the SEOd "score" in this update - that honour belongs to NFFC in the Supporter's Forum, though I mentioned this happening (albeit for some pretty on-the-cutting-edge examples - but not what you would call "standard" spam) about 10 months ago.
<note>Ask Brett how the hell to work the search so I can find things and link to them when I see him in Chicago</note>
But it is just a hypothesis, which seems pretty accurate for pretty much everything I have looked at.
Great shame about the keyword1-keyword2 trick being posted, that was very interesting while it lasted :)
Basically, I feel this score is created on the fly when a search is made, a look up is done to see the competitive nature of the phrase (perhaps a look up of AdWords bids and popularity as one of the criteria). An analysis is made to see if the site bears signs of professional optimisation ie. it is too good to be true. If the signs are higher than a certain threshold, created at the time of the search for that phrase, down the tube you go! As all the elements of optimisation can play a part in this, you can not pin what you did that tripped the filter exactly - but search phrase anchor text, on site links, standard "healthy" optimisation of search phrases in the title, <h> tags, body text, alt tags etc., may all add points if done well. As the filter is "on the fly" it is tough to figure out what is happening and different people in different markets with different levels of competition (as Google sees it) will see different things.
It looks like Google are playing with the filter knob right now. Today it was higher than yesterday and authority sites are ruling on competitive terms. Tommorrow they may turn it down a notch. Who knows!
As I have sites included in the last 3 weeks or so that haven't fallen and sites from 4 years ago that have, I really can't comment on the new/old results being factored in theory.
I stress, this is my opinion only. Only Google really knows what they are doing, and this is well planned IMHO.
[edited by: makemetop at 12:31 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
Of course they changed, for the better. Sites with quality content are ranking much higher, and sites that were built on anchor text alone (or nearly all) are devalued.
As I said, what I'm not seeing is literal "disappeared" sites. Lots have dropped, and they deserved too. Lots of decent quality pages from quality sites have have risen.
My sites haven't moved much, since I knew how to link via anchor text as well as have good content. The difference now though is my sites are surrounded more by quality authority sites, rather than piffle.
Important note -- the above again doesn't address blatant spam. That is still here, though different types of spam than previously. I'm not saying this algo is "done", far from it. But the direction is extremely positive. The previous "all anchor text all the time" algo was ridiculous. Anybody can make as much anchor text as they want. It was a measure of very little. The emphasis of the new algo is much superior, but again it needs improvement in two key areas: blatant spam removal; and the application of localrank or "authority within a niche" rather than just authority in general.
is there any particular reason you seem to believe that google should be biased against commerce sites? i dont think i've ever used the word 'buy' when looking to purchase something. if i want to buy christmas ornaments, i type in 'christmas ornaments', not 'buy christmas ornaments'. this would generally give me a nice mix of both informational (how to make your own christmas ornaments) and commercial (buy your christmas ornaments here) types of sites. from many of your posts, it seems as though you are hot on the trail to eliminate commercial sites from google. that would surely disappoint me. i hate shopping, so i do most of my shopping online. i sure would hate to be limited to only sites that tell me how to make my own christmas ornaments, because then i wouldn't have any way to buy the materials to make them online.
edit: christmas ornaments was just an example - i dont sell them or have any site related to them
[edited by: dazzlindonna at 12:43 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
If my theory is right, and the rest of the optimisation is pretty poor, that probably works better now! Not that I suggest you do it!
Basically, I feel this score is created on the fly when a search is made
Which would be the end of "the index". That would be an entirely new step for SE's wouldn't it? If Google wants to stay as the #1 SE, it might be a clever move to make. No index, totally dynamic, drawing on a hidden database... it might be a next step after rolling-updates.
...do you not agree that the large majority of people making specific product searches, which indicate they know what they are looking for, are indeed looking for somewhere to buy that product?
With my user hat on - no.
I normally start by researching particular products, looking for specs, reviews, user comments etc. A typical search for me would be:
widgetcorp megawidget1000 review
As a user I get irritated when this returns dozens of price comparison and affiliate sites with the phrase "Write the first review of the megawidget1000!" at the bottom of the page.
When I'm ready to buy I repeat the search with added keywords such as "buy", "cheap", "back of a lorry" :-)
Here are my ramblings on the subject [webmasterworld.com] (goto #72)
[edited by: merlin30 at 12:58 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2003]
We don't use SEO techniques, we don't go searching for links to increase PR. Are main goal is content and it has kept us at the top of google, as it should.
We have always been a major player in our niche market, so we expected to be near the top.
But as of today, we are so buried in the google listing, nobody will ever find us.
Good thing we are diversified.
I suspect that google will realize in a couple of days that they have gone to far, and have eliminated major sites, and will perform another tweek.
Since this is our slow season, it is good that google is working out the bugs now.
With my user hat on - no.
Well I disagree. When I type in the specific product name and the type of film I want to buy for my video camera I don't expect to get a site about amateur photography. Neither do I want the DMOZ category of all film manufacturers, or a personal home page with video shot with that type of film.
Ok, if I was using something generic like "digital camera" maybe I would be looking for information on how a digital camera works etc. but when I type in the specific product name...then I am normally looking to buy.
That said, I agree to 100% with steveb's comments:
But the direction is extremely positive. The previous "all anchor text all the time" algo was ridiculous.
I just think that they have turned the knob a bit too far in the last day or so. As I understand it people are speculating that the -va index is the latest one used before things "come out", and I have to say that this is looking a lot better IMO.
In general I am happy about this move by Google. I just hope they don't turn away every searcher looking to do online shopping with this new algo.
google has had froogle beta and now wants the froogle
site big before christmas. they want outside money big time!
lets just whipe out the normal searches that make money in google search so we can show new investors how well froogle will work in ecommerce.
well they forgot about the end user: surfers.
my stats are so high in alta vista it's not making sense?
surfers are now going to other engines.
my stats are also high on email visitors and searches for
my domains. THANK YOU SURFERS FOR KEEPING ME ALIVE!
I give the surfer what they want and they come back thank god!
I always check the Inktomi results through position tech true search and in my niche the surfers get nothing but
bull shopping network sites that are not even close.
Yahoo if you start this than damn where do the surfers go.
Allot of us have unique content that the surfer wants and
I know they are as confused as the rest of us right now
that use google.
Too much happening right now within the search spider business and the ones that have unique content on our sites
suffer and the end user "the surfer" is the rat in the lab.
Google should publish the server with the latest changes.
It would sure cut down the load on all the other servers,
during update time.
