Forum Moderators: open
Hello All,
By now many of you have probably noticed several things.
1. Your not getting as many referrals from me.
2. Your not getting as many referrals from LTWHA.
3.Your not getting as many referrals from Google, Yahoo, AOL.
Here is the lowdown. Late on Friday, November 14th, Google underwent a MASSIVE change to their ranking algorithm. Currently, for commercial search queries, Google is PENALIZING RELEVANT SITES for commercial search queries in which they stand to earn money from Adwords (the results on the right hand side). To verify this, click [url=here to see the current results for 'Lake tahoe weddings' (no quotes). You will not find one of your sites there, including tahoeweddings.com (mine) and tahoeweddings.org. You can also click here to view the sites that are missing from the top 100 since Google's change.
What do we do?
For starters, no knee-jerk reactions. At least no risky, expensive ones. Experts are up in the air over whether Google is temporarily broken, or this is an intentional attempt to increase revenue prior to going public. If it is the former, we can expect relevant results back soon. If it is the latter, we don't need to worry about Google anymore.
Rest assured I (and I assume all my competitors) are doing their best to get back the relevant traffic Google once provided. The quality sites will again rise to the top at Google, or someone will rise above them. Yahoo is poised to drop Google search results in favor of either Alta Vista or Inktomi, both of which they recently acquired, along with FAST and Overture. Microsoft is also expected to enter the fray soon as well with search features integrated into the Longhorn Operating System.
What else can you do?
For now, search with Alta Vista and Spread the Word.
Feel free to call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Jenny
-asdf.com
info@-asdf.com
867-5309;)
<to mods: there's a problem with the formatting of this page; and please remove my post criticising his grammar - I should have stickied it. >
That bit was just too much for me, frankly. People like Powdork have actually attempted some OBJECTIVE research using decent consistent metrics (as indeed, I have). The outcome? Google has slipped behind some of the others.
I'm sorry, but loving Google to bits, and posting repeatedly that it is fine, isn't going to change the flow... or the reality.
"And, w.r.t these idle boast about Adwords revenue conspiracy, I haven't read one post in Adwords forum saying "Since the G update, my clicks/sales increased 50% from Adwords". This indicates users are fairly satisfied with the searches, even for commercial oriented kws, since if the serps are so bad, more people would be clicking Adwords."
Okay, I'll weigh in on that. Our SERSP listing plummetted, and now all our hits come from the adwords ads. Our clicks on adwords are crazy this weekend, and the average stay length (using Webtrends) is WAY down. THis suggests to me that people are NOT happy with the SERPS and are resorting to more clicks on the ads. Sales are NOT up, but overall clicks are WAY up - which would support a conspiracy theory, but regardless of that, it means that Google is less relevant, and providing crappy hits for us, and therefore non-relevant results for the searchers (as they are leaving faster - obviously NOT happy with the site, it doesn't match what they wanted).
I think a 20% decrease in time spent on the site, combined with a 40% increase in clicks is pretty significant.
karembeu
people are NOT happy with the SERPSbecause the serps are being censored up to a point on commercial keywords.
Censorship is wrong, unless applied intelligently. Google are currently withholding thousands of good sites from the serps.
Take a long hard look at the history of search engines Google. Do not dismiss my comments as being rubbish.
I'm sorry, but loving Google to bits, and posting repeatedly that it is fine, isn't going to change the flow... or the reality.
Absolutely spot on!
I mentally question the motives of every poster who answers specific evidence with blanket generalities.
Sid
Censorship is wrong, unless applied intelligently. Google are currently withholding thousands of good sites from the serps.Take a long hard look at the history of search engines Google. Do not dismiss my comments as being rubbish.
If you do a search on Google for "google spam filtering" you will see that there is quite a bit of analysis on this subject.
I still haven't found any answers but my questions are getting more specific.
Sid
Perhaps you have followed some of the very bad advise found here and been pinged by Google for it
I look forward to December when Yahoo will possibly dump Google.
Google serps have been gone from Yahoo for weeks on my end.
It is so dangerous that Google has so much power.
And you blame Google for this? The *only* reason they have any power is because people use them, which obviously means they like their serps.
The *only* reason they have any power is because people use them, which obviously means they like their serps.Despite my horror at Google filtering "white hat" sites out of the equation, I still think it is potentially the best search engine.
The current filters are not doing Google any favors.
Censorship is wrong, unless applied intelligently. Google are currently withholding thousands of good sites from the serps.
And I suppose under that logic, if the NY Times rejects an article you wrote, and you can only get it published in the Dubuque Herald, that's censorship by the NY Times.
And I suppose under that logic, if the NY Times rejects an article you wrote, and you can only get it published in the Dubuque Herald, that's censorship by the NY Times.
It's actually more like it did get accepted for the New York Times but they have this fancy new printer that produces a personalised copy of the newspaper for each reader. The neat trick is if you are interested in a particular subject the software makes sure that your copy doesn't have articles on that subject or it provides some lame ones that are not really what you want to see including this great article mentioned in your quote above.
I suspect that if this whole Google Florida thing is not an accidental cock up then it was done with the best of (anti spam) intentions which by the law of unexpected results has produced a cock up non-the-less.
Sid
And I suppose under that logic, if the NY Times rejects an article you wrote, and you can only get it published in the Dubuque Herald, that's censorship by the NY Times.
webified, get real. We are talking about a search engine, not a newspaper (even though Google is spewing up old news items where good sites used to be).
The logic is as I said in my post, "intelligent censorship". How many spam emails actually make it into your inbox every day? Even if you apply "filters" to block them out, spammers will find ways around this. Filters are not intelligent enough to decide friend from foe and may delete the email from your boss because he uses the word "enlarge".
Lets not compare onions with apples please webified. :-)
I hope the RANDOM results provided by Google are fixed in a matter of days and not weeks.
I cannot find consistent, across the board proofs that support any of the hypothesis put forth here. The last thing I would do is send a letter to clients telling them why things are different. The expected response from the client will simply be, "OK, since you know whats wrong, fix it". This is a dangerous business move and puts your credibilty at risk if you bet on the wrong theory.
Sorry. I deleted a bunch of old stickies. My comment about the list you provided is that of the top 10 you listed, almost all were by your estimation relevant, and some you called EXCELLENT. In fact, 3 of the top 10 you called EXCELLENT. Including #1. Now why would the average punter who was searching that found 3 sites in the top 10 EXCELLENT, and most of the rest at least relevant, find this unacceptable? If 9 of the top 10 were sites about penguin breeding or such other irrelevancies for that search, I'd expect them to be pissed. However, IMO that SERP is more than adequate.
Google's current results are useless for someone looking to buy a property in the short-term.
The results are useless for a US citizen looking to relocate soon. All regional franchise sites such as Century 21, RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker completely removed under the term "mycountry real estate."
Google, put those cheap servers to work properly!
Anyone here who still thinks only WW members care about these serps are out of touch. The 100,000+ member strong real estate industry in the US is the most powerful lobbying group in the US and the news in the industry this week is that Google is applying filters to real estate.
A word to the wise - this group may not be the most web design savvy, but they make money, spend money and use Google to do both. Believe what you want, but these consumers know this isnt Google's best effort and are complaining loudly.
<edited by kirby>
I just did a search on "breastfeeding clothes," a topic I'm quite familiar with (as a consumer, not a seller). The top nine Google results are six stores selling breastfeeding clothes (three of which I've shopped at myself), two directories of breastfeeding clothing, and one duplicate URL from one of the six stores already listed. Problems with this search: 1) there are only nine results returned (?), 2) there shouldn't be two results for Motherwear, and 3) the Momshop link goes to their checkout page instead of their homepage, which is inconvenient.
Searching for "breastfeeding clothes -humbug -humbug," the top ten results are six stores selling breastfeeding clothes, three affiliate sellers (two of which link only back to Motherwear), and one spam site that is called www.breastfeeding-clothes.com but has no content about breastfeeding clothes. Problems with this search: 1) spam, 2) affiliate duplications.
I'll take the New Google on that search. The directories are valuable sources of further focused information and it's clear from their listings what they are, whereas the affiliate ads and spam do not offer anything useful, and since they are pretending to be something else in their listings I might waste my time clicking on them when I don't want them (though the long keyword-keyword-keyword-keyword domains would probably tip me off, personally).
I think Google does have some kinks to work out in its new algorithm, but I don't see death, destruction and mayhem in the commercial search I'm probably most familiar with. The educational searches I've been doing are even better.
