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Kackle - can you explain the "dictionary" for me? And how I might benefit from it - Im reading your posts hard but dont see where youre coming from.
Sure. But you have to act quickly. Google will fix this one just like they fixed the hyphen.
1. Google is depreciating pages/sites that are over-optimized for certain keywords or keyword combinations. It does this by looking up search terms in a dictionary of target keywords or keyword pairs that it has compiled. This dictionary is Top Secret, because if you knew what was in the dictionary, you could avoid these words in your optimization efforts.
2. If the search term or terms hit on a dictionary entry, the search results for that user's search are flagged. This means that before the results are delivered, the order of the links, or even the inclusion of links, are adjusted so as to penalize pages that have overoptimizated for those terms. Most likely the title, headlines, links and anchor text are examined. It's possible that external anchor text pointing to that page has also been pre-collected and is available for scanning, but this is much less likely. (Besides, external links are not something within your immediate control, so don't worry about it right now.)
3. You want to find out which keywords that are relevant to your site are in Google's dictionary. Compile as many relevant keywords you can think of that searchers might use to find your site. Now take these words singly and in pairs, according to how users might search. Run two searches for each combination and compare the results.
4. If the results are strikingly different for the pre-filter and the post-filter search on a particular term or combination of terms, it means that some variation of those terms has been flagged because something was found in Google's dictionary.
5. Do lots of searches and you can come up with a list of "sensitive" words that you'll want to avoid when you re-optimize your pages.
It's a nice weekend project.
>Wht ds tht mn?
Wll ppl chng thr srch bhvr?Like on Jeopardy, would you like to buy a vowel?
I would like to buy an E like Esmeralda ;)
I would buy a D like Dominic, too, but that is not a vowel =)
1. over optimization:
(I can see sites in the top ten that have the searched keywords in the title, H tags, text, links, and image tags.)
2. internal achor text:
3. external anchor text:
(I can see sites on top that have hundreds of incoming links with the searched keywords.)
4. "money words":
Does anybody have any ideas?
Now that i think i might perhaps claim at least a little bit more than no understanding at all, i find the whole idea excellent.
Broad matching is the main new component. I'm not in doubt about that.
Only.... right now the www serps seem pretty boring...are we back in the garage again? Please don't tell me that some management or marketing guy got cold feet...
/claus
These were just words on my site and not keywords. Crazy words that we should never come up for.
Exactly my point. Taking this approach results in poor SERP quality, which is why even AltaVista decided this approach to search rankings was not a good idea years ago.
Doing this to fight SEO, and destroying search quality in the process, is insanity.
Every single search that I did with the content on my site we came up number one for. These were just words on my site and not keywords. Crazy words that we should never come up for.
1. How many results were for these searches?
2. would a 'real' searcher use these search phrases for that topic?
I doubt that Google did/will tweak it's algo to revert to the stoneage of search engines.
Google's success lies in link popularity.
Google can change it's algo but it can't change ppl's search habbits.
Like on Jeopardy, would you like to buy a vowel?What is: Wheel of Fortune.;)
<<In Google's history to date, ranking has been primarily determined by PageRank. >>I hope you don't seriously believe this.
Such nitpicking.
The key word is "primarily." PageRank broke down last April, when the deep crawl stopped, and I argued that Google was broken in this thread [webmasterworld.com].
But for the 2.5 years I was watching prior to that, PageRank was primary. Moreover, the crawl was driven by PageRank. This was important for large sites. If you didn't have the PageRank, you couldn't get your whole site crawled. I'd always get about half of mine crawled before Googlebot got tired and went away.
The importance of PageRank was further evident on large sites when the deep pages had to inherit their PR from the main page. Typically, on a site with a PR 7 that had 50,000 deep pages in Google, each deep page would end up with a PR of zero. This was with optimum internal linking. It wasn't a penalty, it was a simple lack of juice. The situation is a lot better now for my deep pages; most are 3 or 4 while the home page is still a 7. This makes a huge, huge difference when 99.9 percent of your new visitors discover your site via a deep page hit in Google. Really, really huge. Like 1,000 referrals a day two years ago, vs. 25,000 now -- almost all from Google in both cases.
So yes, after three years of trying to get all 120,000 pages in Google, and watching how well they do, I'd say that in Google's history to date, ranking has been primarily determined by PageRank.
And GoogleGuy would probably agree with me, and he is all-wise and never lies. So there.
Broad matching is the main new component. I'm not in doubt about that.From message 741
Yup, Didn't like it with adsense, don't like it here.
Plasma, methinks the update thread posts don't count towards your totals.
To me, Broad Matching should be a dating service.;)
A change in the algo should not have any adverse effect on PPC click-throughs.
I wonder if users are simply getting frustrated with the poor quality results and going elsewhere?
I wonder if users are simply getting frustrated with the poor quality results and going elsewhere?I just had to look up restaurant industry stats and I did it with altavista. Both SE's had the info I was looking for, but i am not happy with G and am happy wit av.
Actually, neither had what i was looking for. That's a good thing because what i am looking for is behind members only stuff and if a search engine had it, that would be bad.
Kackle and otnot and myself all seem to be onto something that can be scientifically proven....I can get real true predictable results on a whole range of websites when you use the following tests.
Although all of us are junior members, I wish Steveb would stop spinning this into a conspiracy theory, stop making condescending remarks, and actually go and test the theory out (your '-fufuf = allinanchor' theory was comlpletely wrong, so go do some tests before you go on the attack).
I'm not saying Google is doing anything wrong, and I don't think they have a sinister motive...I'm just doing tests, analyzing the results, then trying to show predictability...that's how theories get proven, right?
First of all, there seems to be just one main database/index that Google is pulling from to return results....In its raw unfiltered form, it will return results similar to pre-florida update. (nobody's pages have been kicked out of the main index, and there are not seprate databases for spammers and seprate for non-spammers). The only thing different, is Google is now applying a new filter as results are returned to the user...if you know anything about database design & query statements...If you want to refine/filter your results, you don't delete the records from your database, you just add more if/then criteria to your database queries...
It is quite obvious that there is just new filters/refinements being applied to the same old index we had before (maybe slight updates were made to this index by the last crawl, but it is more or less the same).
The records are still in the database, because you can still find your site at its pre-florida position if you use the following techniques:
1: keyword1 keyword2 -gggg -ddddd
I've checked this with multiple sites, and this has been tru with all of them....(let me know if this is not the case).
2: Use otnot's test: search for 1 unique word from your title, and 2 unique words from you body text that are not the 'optomized keyword combos'... most likely your site will come up in the top 10 (if you were there pre-florida).
3: Now try searching with your optomized keywords....You vanish! This is because the new FILTER is checking to see if those 'popular' 'commercial' 'money' keyword combos are being used excessivley on your pages (in the title, density in body text, possibly external anchor text)...If they are excessive....then you are filtered out. You are not erased from the database, you are just filtered out of the results that are returned to the user.
Now where does Google get these optimized spammy keyword combos? WE created the database for them...Google Adwords combos is my guess.....THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY! THIS IS NOT SINISTER! (Steveb) I think Google is wise if this is the case...who spams? People selling things, right? Who uses AdWords? People selling things, right? If Google wants to filter blatant spammers, then just check for 'fishy' activity with these AdWords keyword combos...the databse is already created for them (no need for AI) makes sense to me, and I applaud Google if this is their intent....I just think they have cranked up the threshold of the filter a bit TOO high.
Current Basic (dumbed down) Filter Example: Filter out all pages that use $$$ keyword combos over 3 times on 1 page...Perhaps if they just turn it down a notch to allow 5 times per page...then more 'white hat' sites will suddenly re-appear....This could apply towards titles, text, anchortext, etc.
Before slamming this theory, give it a try. I think you will find some educational results.... I wouldn't make any adjustments just yet though...the new backlinks have not been added....check -va for the NEW backlinks..but search results on -va seem to be the same as plain old google results.
the -fufu technique that Kackle discovered is a nice bug, but I'm not sure if google will race to fix it....You can also use otnot's technique to reveal which keyword combos are being filtered...and this is not a bug..it's just scientific method.
Adios.
As pointed out by other users...the -fufu -ffff -gggg things need to be different...sorry, on my tests I'd just slam my fingers on the keyboard to get: qwor qowiu oqiwu yrqw etc... but for this message I cut/pasted the -fufuf..sorry for the confusion
[edited by: willardnesss at 8:20 am (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
I guess Napoleon's steps to a Google update must be correct. I forget which step it was, but this must be the one where the SERPs are verifiably messed up and GG is absent and without any meaningful input.
seasalt
P.S. The obfuscation wears a little thin. IMO
The only exceptions in one search Im seeing are two sites that had huge backlinks relative to the niche, but little onpage optimization. They appear to actually be there because of the user-centric on page content.
Not smart enough to know what any of this means, but I'm betting Googleplex is burning the candle at both ends.
Dazzlindonna, at first I meant codejam as a joke - not so sure anymore.
The records are still in the database, because you can still find your site at its pre-florida position if you use the following techniques:1: keyword1 keyword2 -fufuf -fufuf
I've checked this with multiple sites, and this has been tru with all of them....(let me know if this is not the case).
Not the case! Back to the drawing board.
2 word city real estate -ggg -dddd -fffff -iiii -sssss
Make sure ot put multiple -fufu -ytyty the search!
Let me know what happens now.
[edited by: willardnesss at 8:21 am (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 -argf -argf will show pre-Florida until the programmer fixes the bug.
<EDIT>What willardnesss said</EDIT>
The site which has been at #1 for five years shows up #4 and the #2 site for the past four years shows up as #5. A major spam site shows up #1 and two of my sites are #2 and #3.
kw1 kw2 shows the old #1 site at #1, old #2 site at #2 spam site at #3 and my sites at #4 and #5.
Pre Florida my sites were #8 and #9 and the spam site was at #18. #1 and #2 were at #1 and #2, just like they have been for five and four years.
But I just checked pure search and 7 out of 10 of last month's Google results are there for my kws... and Im #1 for the 2 main ones. So while G may have knocked me silly for:
A. Over optimization of H1, title, etc
B. Specific anchor text
C. Actually having words that describe my site on my site
D. all of the above
E. Who the heck knows
...INK decided to put up decent results that closely mirror Google's serps of two weeks ago.
IMO, outguessing Google is pointless. Even if you do "figure it out", dont make any changes because G isnt going to let this stand. They will get this fixed since there is no way to defend these serps when compared against AV and INK.
2) Strange thing happens when you type keyword phrase and -dfdfd -dddddd (I noticed the two minus thingy's have to be different). Suddenly more results appear than the natural search results. This would imply that there is some filter being added to the serps. Possibly based on a dictory look up or possibly based on over optimized sites.
3) The break down:
sample search:
normal search: 1,620,000 results
allinarchor: 2000 results
quotes around phrase (exact search): 32,300 results
phrase -fgfgfgf: 1,650,000 results
phrase -fgfgfgf -fgqqqqq: 1,650,000 results
(all results show fresh tags)
The best qulaity results were shown with the double minus. Even the exact phrase shows signs of filtering.
Actually it is plainly right. One bit of evidence is that people have been saying over and over again that they see themselves where they were before the update. If you'd actually look you could see that the anchor text results now very closely correspond, and this is true for all types of searches where anchor text was the key factor before, and it has nothing to do with some imaginary dictionary. A simple command shows a search phrase (at least now) under the previous algorithm.
They changed the alogorithm. Like with anything where there is a major change, some things did not go smoothly.
Instead of myths that can be disproved in ten seconds, people would do well to examine the algorithm: the increase in words on the page factors, diminishment of anchor text, increase in generic authority, etc.
==
"allinanchor always produces fewer results and results which use the phrase in the anchor text only."
I give up. If you honestly didn't know how anchor text was effecting the previous serps, then there is no way for you to discuss any of this.
With regards to the title relevancy tests I ran then, I have since tried the same tests with a couple of other SEs, to see how Google compared. Here are the results -
Search 1 (8 million in Google, Top-10 results)
values = all keywords in title, exact phrase in title
(larger # is better)
AllTheWeb: 10, 7
old algo (-): 9, 8
AltaVista: 8, 8
New Google: 6, 0
values = only 1 keyword in title, no keyword in title
(smaller # is better)
AllTheWeb: 0, 0
old algo (-): 0, 1
AltaVista: 1, 1
New Google: 2, 2
Search 2 (4 million in Google, Top-10 results)
values = all keywords in title, exact phrase in title
(larger # is better)
old algo (-): 9, 8
AllTheWeb: 9, 4
New Google: 7, 5
AltaVista: 6, 3
values = only 1 keyword in title, no keyword in title
(smaller # is better)
old algo (-): 1, 0
AllTheWeb: 1, 0
New Google: 3, 0
AltaVista: 4, 0
Note that in Test 1, the New Google consistently got the worst scores of the 4 engines, and in Test 2, it in was second to last place.
BTW, on the other SEs I tried, ALL of the Top-10 listings for the search "jewely", were - guess what - related to jewelry!
(I noticed the two minus thingy's have to be different).
We have a winner! Back to good results 1-10. So this means that all 10 from pre-florida pi$$ed off the Google gods?
They changed the alogorithm. Like with anything where there is a major change, some things did not go smoothly.Instead of myths that can be disproved in ten seconds, people would do well to examine the algorithm: the increase in words on the page factors, diminishment of anchor text, increase in generic authority, etc.
steveb, I believe this is the answer.
quoting myself >The only exceptions in one search Im seeing are two sites that had huge backlinks relative to the niche, but little onpage optimization. They appear to actually be there because of the user-centric on page content.
Without and we're down on page 3! We got replaced by a book review on a cooking web site, that just happened to include the keywords sprinkled somewhere in the text, for a search that has nothing to do with either books or cooking.
But it's definately a money search, with lots of AdWords on the results page. Funny, all of them are dead-on for the money topic I searched on (unlike the "new, improved" Google listings!)
Isn't progress wonderful?
I think you're wrong. I don't believe on page factors are producing a benefit. In fact I'm seeing the opposite. Sites was with excellent page text ranking extremely poorly. In fact for many searches allinanchor and natural top ranked serps are the same if not very similar.
If anything anchor text has become more important. However, I believe in a third case where sites are being dropped for over-optimization. I seems Google is testing a filter which has gone too far. Possibly they will reconsider its use.
Pre-Florida, my site was listed well in both normal and allinanchor: for key1 key2 key3. The thing was, the only anchor text where I had those keywords were internal backlinks to my home page.
Post Florida, my site along with dozens of others killed for that phrase. As predicted doing the search with -dfdf -dfdfd brings back all those sites.
Now, if I use the phrase key1 key2-plural key3 I'm back! I don't use the plural of key2 in my internal anchor - but make no mistake I use as richly onpage as its singular. Google didn't like so much anchor text using it.
To summarize:
key1 key2 key3 (nowhere)
key1 key2 key3 -dfdf -dfdfd (top 5)
allinanchor: key1 key2 key3 (nowhere)
allinanchor: key1 key2 key3 -dfdf -dfdfd (top 5)
Notice that the filter also kicks in on allinanchor!
key1 key2-plural key3 (top 5)
allinanchor key1 key2-plural key3 (nowhere - to be expected)
And, for those still skeptical about the filter and the -dfdf thing, try a search on, lets say "Roman History" with and without the -dfdf -dfdfd - in both cases the results are a near exact match - as would be expected. Now pick lots of different commercial type searches and you will see a marked difference - lots of sites excluded without the -dfdf as the phrase should make a filter kick in. Clearly, a bug is stopping the fliter kicking in when you type in exclusion phrases.
I highly doubt that the filter is being applied to the SERPS directly ("on the fly"), because I noticed that different sites are being nuked on different days even though they all ranked well for the same keywords.
I think the keyword penalty is assigned to the specific page and then it sticks like glue, and perhaps it is a permanent penalty which cannot be released until the next major spam filter is run in a few months...
I believe this because one site of mine was nuked for a certain keyword phrase last week, so the next day I lowered the keyword density a bit (and google re-spidered the page quickly). Anyway, the rankings for this page just went up nicely for two similar keyword phrases which have just one word different from the phrase I was nuked for -- however, this particular page won't rank at all for the keyword phrase which it was flagged for last week (it won't even rank in the top 500 for that phrase anymore, even after being reindexed and receiving a ranking boost for other very similar keywords).
So I think that this page has a keyword penalty which sticks to it like Elmer's glue (for those who don't know, Elmer's glue is the strongest glue in the universe;)).
In fact, I think this keyword penalty is not only assigned to each page, but I think that it also cannot be released until a major spam filter is run again (next year or whenever).
Or, maybe the penalty is a permanent penalty since Google seems to be in a "shoot first, ask questions later" frame of mind.
By the way, the keyword density for my page was 1.4% last week and this page had very little anchor text for the specific keyword phrase it was flagged for (and keep in mind that this was BEFORE I lowered the density to less than 1% afterward)
If web pages are flagged as spam for using a KW density of 1.4% then god help the future of the Internet;), because pretty soon the google-police will flag any site that uses a keyword more than ONCE on a whole page:)
Who knows, maybe in 5 years it will be illegal to use keywords even once on a page (in 5 years only STOP WORDS will be allowed in order to reduce keyword spam) ;)
In fact, in 10 years from now a person might wake up one morning to the sound of the google-police crashing down their front door with a battering ram, all because they used a keyword at more than .0000001% density on their web page:) Of course, the jail time would be reduced if the person agrees to go to a rehab center for people who are addicted to using keywords at more than .000000001% density on their web pages:)
After all, the reduction of spam seems to be the most important part of search results now, with the concept of "relevant results" running a 'close second' to heading off those pesky spammers who won't stop using keywords at more than 1.4% on their web pages ;)
[edited by: Brenda_J at 9:03 am (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
It is clear that your last post will not show up when people search for ";)"
:)
Markis00, I would also like to know the answer to that question you asked.
I can deal with the losses and I can deal with being labeled as a spammer (for my 1.4% density;)), but before I make any serious changes I want to verify that the update is done.
Anybody? I don't know how to interpret the Datacenters so I would like to know if the Florida massacre is done.
In answer to Brenda_J, I think the filter is run on the fly as part of the query. However, the data used to satisfy the the over-SEO part of the query is probably updated as part of the ongoing monthly update cycle. So any changes you make now probably won't be incorporated for at least a month. So the effect would be that the penalty is a semi-permament one. Patience will be requird - remove a few obvious tricks and wait to see what the effect will be in a month or so.
I'm sure Google will be expecting smart webmasters to now be removing obvious tricks that are now being picked up by the filter.
There are two scenarios here. One scenario is what we are seeing is the new Google filter/algo addition that is coming around and completely nuking/penaltying things that are blatently optimized for keywords (my homepage disappeared from the SERPS for using keyword 1 in title tag, header tag, and keyword density of around 20%. The site was new with around 20-30 backlinks, and ranked 200-300 but rising quickly for optimized keywords)
I have also looked at some of the sites that a firm I used to work for has. All of their sites have dropped from top rankings for optimized keywords using the normal optimization procedures.
So, either what we're seeing here is that there is a new filter, changing the way we will optimize for a long time, or that the update isn't done and everyone's pages who were dropped completely from the SERPS are someone safe and being slowly re-evaluated, etc. while the update continues.
I really hope for the latter but the update was supposed to be finished Wednesday, and a theme is occuring here...that theme is people who have optimized for keywords are getting dropped left right and center, while people who haven't optimized but just happen to have the keyword in their text are getting top rankings.
If this is the new method of optimization, we're all in big doodoo.
By the way, go do a search for sex right now on google. You won't find a single dirty site in the top 10 - only safe sites that talk about it. AND, the keyword is used in a sentence. Perhaps the new method of optimization is using keywords in sentences, not using stop words or just the keyword in your title tag...it's worth investigating.
Anyways, I really hope the update continues, or some kind of new filter testing is going on, because if this is the update, if it is done, if this is the new filter that will be in place for a long time, our entire view of search engine optimization for the google search engine is going to change.
I Wonder Google is more of Do's or of Dont's
>1044: markis00> Is the update done.
Compared to 2PM (GMT) yesterday, things still seem to be in flux. I shall take another shot in three hours.
I've got some terms that have been first out of 300,000+ throughout; terms that were well placed and dropped into the abyss and one term has come out of the abyss and is now third this morning (was at 14 yesterday PM).
These are for a client where I have been doing extensive changes over the last weeks and months, so that kills the theory that was arround at one stage that only old static / stable pages were being included.
Bearbrian
And jesus christ, all this crap just in time for Christmas too.
And jesus christ, all this crap just in time for Christmas too.There's just something inherently wrong with that statement.;)
I suppose Google expect people to drift towards the Adwords. It will be interesting to see what happens to the bids - should be rocketing going up!
You should never have stopped!
aspdesigner - very good :)
My backlinks on -va are also double what they are on all the other DC's.
Will these backlinks be included in the final results?
I didn't ask the question, maskis did. I already guessed the update was over. Thanks for the confirmation of new PR spreading though.
Cheers,
merlin
until today I have refused this "-owfho theory" but now I am not sure at all.
All my sites except one, are german sites, german language and of course german keywords.
Nothing happend with them, they stayed at the positions the had before Florida. Nothing changed.
But this morning I have checked my sole english-language page. It was used to be listed on #50 on a "money keyword" and indeed it is gone. When I add -egfkihef to the keyword it is back on its usual position.
Thank god most of my keywords are german one's. I hope nobody at the plex is able to speak german! ;-)
But to get back to the topic:
The search results for this english keyword I talked about look VERY VERY bad. Barely index pages on the 1st result page, many results looking like www.mydirectory.com/search.php?string=kw1%20kw2
If results stay that bad people will stop using google and if google really intends to make webmasters use more adwords it will bring them no efforts because users will not use a search engine where only adwords bring up good results.
greg
I would say the update is done and has been since at least tuesday.
What do you mean? Are you saying the results haven't been changing since Tuesday? They've been going haywire!
It's been more than 72 hours that directory results are the same as the main search results.
Let me explain.
When I search for a popular term and obtain medicre results and then click "Directory" on the page upper menu, the directory results include sites that aren't included in the Google directory.
If I click "Directory", I would expect to see only sites that are included in one of the categories at [directory.google.com...] . However, Google shows sites retrieved by its search engine mixed with directory sites.
The snap shot I've just taken is identical to 3½ hours ago; so things may have settled or just not fluxing on the sample and method for 58 terms used. For reference I am seaching against api.google.com using a SOAP script.
powdork,
- me too thinks it's been cooked for a long time... Some salt and pepper still needs to be added, though.
Now, this -asdfd and double -asfds thing.. Please consider this:
Write just one keyword:
You obviously don't know what you are looking for or you are looking for a very specific thing. It could be widgets, but it could also be gadgets or gizmos. G put the best matches on top before, now it mixes it a bit with broader results so that you get something to choose from.
Write two keywords:
Okay, so you're not content with widgets, they also have to be blue. Or is it that you're not content with blue, it must also be widgets? Or it it really blue gadgets you want, but you don't know the name? Before this would get closer matches, now the broad match kicks in.
Write three keywords:
Now, for each of these three you could in fact be wanting something like it, but not the exact phrase. Cheap blue widgets could really be affordable turqoise gizmos.
Write any amount of keywords in quotes
You want pages matching the exact phrase and that is what you get. Pages optimised for that exact phrase will of course show.
Write three keywords and "-something"
Ah, that was an advanced command. Now there's something you don't want. That means it must be clear to you what you do want, eg. cheap blue gizmos that are not from Arizona. Do an "Exact phrase" search and filter out the filter-word.
Write three keywords and two times "-something"
Double advanced command. So the cheap blue gizmos should not be from Arizona and they should not be the cool kind either. Obviously you are missing something in the search results. Do an "Exact phrase" search, but do it on an expanded set of data, that involves some broad matching terms to the keywords you did not put a minus sign before.
There is no such thing as a commercial filter. There is an understanding of search patterns.
/claus
[edited by: claus at 1:51 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
I think the suggestion that Google is temporarily messed up makes more sense than some of the wackier theories in this thread. There may also be less emphasis on allintext: and more on anchor text.
should hire 100 guys going through spam reports....
that would keep the results a lot clearer.....
Their are some things that humans can do better then computers :)
However....
Google does respond to Spam reports and sites have been deleted due to human intervention. Google is trying to build a fool proof system without the requirements of a human being.
With billions of web pages indexed already and the expected growth of web pages in the coming years it will make it very difficult for humans to manage. Google has already managed to indexed all those web pages, display the correct results and update on a daily basis.
When you start to employ many humans to do the job you will run the risk of sites being banned for no particular reason(a few dollars in pocket would do the trick).
Although I have suffered in this update so far I have more trust in computers then humans, computers don't make mistakes thay just need to be re-configured.
Google is going through this reconfiguration period and it's going to be a very bumpy ride but at the end of the day they will have the best freely indexed search engine producing the most relevent and update results on the internet.
This is no short term tactic by Google.
:)
If this is the case I would say Google has lost its direction and forgot what got them so far in the first place.
The results are no good. People don't have time to sort through search results that are no good.
JMO
It made sense a few days ago when Google delivered poor results to Yahoo! It was a good idea to make Yahoo! perform low bandwidth until the switch occurs.
During the last 72 hours, Google has been displaying the same poor results as Yahoo! In addition, Google's directory results look really bad.
If a Yahoo! user obtains poor search results, he or she has the option to access Yahoo!'s directory results which look better than results in Google's directory.
There is something wrong with Google.
On the worlds largest search engine, if my existing customer base or future customers type in "widgets.com", no page exists.
Is that even legal? At this point, I don't care about google referrals, but I would like the ability for customers to type in my domain name and get my site.
Cut as a break Google!
jd
[edited by: johnnydequino at 1:20 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
Our site is a two word (no hyphen) .com named after an Island off the coast of SA. It has an English way of saying it, and two Spanish ways of saying it, one with "de" between the words which returns different results than the two word search without it. Our tile and description has been the same way with minor adjustments since it was created in 1995. It gets us wonderful placement in ALL search engines and is filled with content.
My fear is that if the update is over and I have to change the home page title and description as well as the text because the name is repeated many times to provide the 3 ways of saying it, what impact will this have on the other search engines?
Are we back to doing doorway pages which will just be filtered at some future update?
Google has to return to a REASONABLE level of optimization to reflect the real world problems that we face in creating proper web sites. Because we have this problem of multiple names with one recurring word is our web site to be penalized?
I would guess that there are thousands of web sites dealing with two word locations that have this same problem.
I might say that as soon as we append the country name we show up just fine. Unfortunately most searchers just enter the two word version.
paniced me too, but try "+widgets.com" instead
It's been this way for weeks! There are several threads that talk about it.
Directory search is just showing the same results as the regular search, and has been for some time. It has nothing to do with this thread.
The last UPDATE this happened to the major keywords but the minor results seemed to stay good -- but now the minor results have become irrelevant (less quality).
When you search for key phrases such as "dry hair" and all you get are message board listings and guestbook pages then things are not good.
Great - now only if I could tell all my prospective customers that!
I think I am in the last stage of the google update - whining.
Then why oh why have I just searched my keywords and for this example I will use "Great Widgets" got a site with 32 uses of the phrase great widgets and then 47 uses of just widgets.
This is a very big money keyword and this spammer has 2nd place in Google is he lucky?
Well a little detective work and this site is a member of googlesyndication.com which means onward transition of visitors (because this site doesn’t actually offer anything they are just a portal) benefits the site by money from Google. Is this a new way for people to get good listings in Google I always thought they were above commercialism!
If when Google Guy wants to respond he can tell me how to join this club and get my site back onto the first page I for one will be very pleased.
It appears that a few things are happening:
1) Im getting more 3 keyword plus traffic, as customers are figuring out that single and two keyword combos returns crap.
2) The adsense traffic has increased, as customers are finding that the ads of the right is much more relevant that the results on the left.
I don't know why Google likes to spend so much time tweeking its algorithm. All the bad guys are eventually going to poke and prod the system until they find out what is causing the penalty, and the level of spam will slowly increase again, and the cycle will repeat itself.
Meanwhile all the good guys are doing the same thing, because we feel that we have unjustily been dropped. It basically forces companies that don't do SEO, into SEO.
On our top search phrase their used to be around 8 million
results, now over 16 million! We were no.3, now nowhere -
although we have still keep most of our rankings for less
competitive keywords.
If a filter is in place, it has let in a lot more sites!
TM
.
Google Directory results have changed again though. Some datacentres are still showing old data, and some have new data. One datacentre with new data reverted to old data yesterday. One datacentre that wasn't responding last week, now has the new version in it.
Responses: -fi timeout; -in old; -va new; -ab old; -dc new; -cw new; -ex new; -zu NO; -sj NO; -mc NO; -kr NO; -gv NO.
(... where "new" is meaning "includes a cat added to dmoz.org in May, that then showed in Google SERPs in July, but only appeared in the Google Directory for the first time on November 2nd")
[edited by: g1smd at 3:46 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2003]
