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steveb, I believe the 64.x.x.x data center has the change, but I'm not positive. We use different terminology inside Google. :)
Powdork, I'm not sure if you'd call it an update exactly (different algorithms play more of a role than different data). But I'm guessing the change will probably roll out over the course of the weekend.
Dave
even tough i'm ranking much better on 64 for all sites, still think 216 has better results - spam almost eliminated, hard seo sites are given a slight penalty.
but don't listen to me =))
If this sticks, it looks much better.
Checking my personal sites I see a mix of gains and losses, but this time I agree with the logic (although I am a little upset that one of my undeserved cash cows appears to have dropped like a stone, but then it never should have been up there in the first place)
Those of us that run a large number of sites could see that under Austin and Florida the variations lacked logic - good sites dropped and other sites got ranking that frankly they didn't deserve.
This has at least partially resolved that.
I think that to find the right balance, we get valuable feedback from both regular users and from site owners. We'll keep doing our best to find the balance that makes users the happiest, but we're open to suggestions from both sides of the spectrum about how to make searching better.
I agree with Think's suggestion of a search box that gives the user options, and my own suggestions would be:
"I'm looking for information on:"
"I'm shopping for:"
If the search page would remember the user's last choice or allow the user to specify a default, so much the better.
The index wouldn't even have to be split along information and commercial lines: Selecting one of the two options would simply invoke one of two slightly different algorithms, one weighted toward information and the other toward commercial results.
Obviously, you'd have to use some judgment in determining what's "information" and what's "commercial," but you're already doing that with Froogle (at least in a limited way), so you're off to a good start.
For users, the benefits would be clear, but there would also be benefits for site owners: (1) Information sites wouldn't be competing head to head with heavily SEO'd commercial sites, and vice versa; and (2) More sites would have a chance to rank high for their keywords and keyphrases.
I do think Google's index is becoming unwieldy in its current form, and that having two separately weighted sets of search results would largely solve the current problem of having an index that's like a blend of The Magazine Index and the Yellow Pages.
There are still throw away domains with hardly no content at all but yeah, I've notice a slight improvement.
However, it doesn't mean the serp is A+ good never the less it's an improvement.
We'll see.
Cheers
...I absolutely agree that both commercial sites and info sites provide value to the user. At different times, a user may want either commercial results because they want to buy something, or they might just be looking for info. We want to return what we think the user is looking for, whether it be commercial or info. Historically, Google often started more as a research tool/informational resource. If you did a search for something like "sex," for example, Google was much more likely to give G-rated informational pages than other search engines.It's not a no-brainer to find the right balance. I think if you asked a sample of WebmasterWorld folks, they might lean toward returning more commercial results. My hunch is that if you asked regular users, they would want fewer commercial results in their search results than a typical SEO would prefer. As for me personally, as long as the user is happy, then I'm happy. I think that to find the right balance, we get valuable feedback from both regular users and from site owners. We'll keep doing our best to find the balance that makes users the happiest, but we're open to suggestions from both sides of the spectrum about how to make searching better.
Hey GG. That's just about the most enlightening post you've ever made here at WebmasterWorld, IMO. I think it bears repeating. Thanks very much for the perspective.
"I'm looking for information on:"
"I'm shopping for:"
mm..what ya think those ugly boxes on the right stand for?
lastly - this may be a mega thread. Do *not* turn on notification of replies...
mm..what ya think those ugly boxes on the right stand for?
um they stand for "lets make this paid inclusion if you have a business website and actually want to be listed." :E
I think its
http://216.239.37.98
http://64.233.161.99
http://64.233.161.104
from what I'v seen.
I think its[216.239.37.98...]
[64.233.161.99...]
[64.233.161.104...]from what I'v seen.
Hi,
216 is quite different to 64.
216 seems to be feeding Aol search here in the UK already both Aol .com and .co.uk.
In my niche I think that many sites/pages including my own were dropped because they had a term used in the search in their domain name. In 216 many of those have come back and replaced the crappy directory portals that have filled the top of SERPs since November but the three word terms that I lost in January have not returned. 64 has returned many more pages with the term in their domain names to the top 20 with the directories dropping down further and this is repeated for the pages dropped through Austin.
Its therefore quite a big deal which of these hits www www2 and www3.
As an aside the word in question is a registered trade mark in the US but a generic name for something entirely different in the UK. All of the sites and companies using this word in the UK are pretty genuine and there is no way that they are trying to pass of as anything to do with the US trademarked product. Makes you think, was this a filter?
Best wishes
Sid
Observations:
--More relevant overall
--More SEO's sites appearing again, but for the most part pretty good quality (eh em, it *is* possible for an SEO'd site to be of good quality, right?)
--Fewer of those silly directory, .edu and .gov sites that were linguistic matches, but did not address the real intent of many searches
--Larger authority sites still doing far better than was so pre-Florida (large authority sites are fine, but so far, they are still squeezing out too many quality small and mid-sized sites)
--Backlinks and anchor text do appear to have beendialed up a bit.
Also, there appear to be some still tough, if not tougher, hurdles to overcome.
We have some sites that popped up a few pages, but others that have virtually disappeared, and I mean disappeared, except that they are technically in the index. No differences in quality. It may have to do with some combination of: age? number of pages? number and/or quality of backlinks?
I'm not sure about the 'age' piece; the number of pages and number of backlinks is nothing new. What is new, or perhaps still the case since Florida/Austin only more stringent, is that if you don't clear some hurdle(s), your pages are *nowhere* to be found, rather than just further down in the pile. I say more stringent because for some of our sites, all of the pages that were surviving recently just vanished. It's a sort of all or nothing thing. Once you're in, your pages qualify to be ranked in the top five-ten pages of the SERP's. If your site doesn't clear the hurdles, forget seeing many or any pages in the SERP's. Also, I say 'your' when I really mean just 'my' FWIW.
Litmus test: My cousin's hobby site is still nowhere, and it's a great site, not commercial, etc. Just a labor of love, with some very loyal, involved users. I won't agree that G has it totally right until this site regains it's pre-FL ranking, which was near the bottom of page one for its main kw's.
Still, all in all, a very good step in the right direction. My twenty-two cents worth. ;-)
Do a search for just about any <snip> related term you can think of.
The serps are FULL of spam. Sites with little to no usefull content, ie. template sites.
We work hard at creating sites with REAL content that users would find usefull, and with these latest "updates" we keep getting slammed month after month.
Doesn't seem like Google serps are getting better, quite the opposite in my opinion.
[edited by: Marcia at 2:55 am (utc) on Feb. 14, 2004]
[edit reason] Not even close to specifics, please. [/edit]
