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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.
2 Spammy competitors in top 10. My site - gone!
D'oh!
Jon
Hope 64 is the real thing. Sites I've brought back since Austin stiill there and some I thought I had lost forever moved up to 2nd page position 12-15. In my sector, some of the fluff gone at the top. A step in the right direction for G.
With all the changes made to figure this out, if pre Flordia alog was applied to current content it wouldn't look like pre Florida.
All in all, I have to say these SERPS look clean.
Bleary GoogleGuy just rolled out of bed, and I'm already 2 minutes late to meet someone--and I'm at home instead of work. :)
I'll check in over the course of the day though.
Thank you Google for taking note and again getting the SERP's *mostly* :) back to normal.
GoogleGuy - I am sure this has to be a much needed refreshing thread based on the other death threads.
Again nice changes.
This is by far the best Google SERPs ever. 64.233.161.99.
[edited by: bull at 7:21 pm (utc) on Feb. 13, 2004]
The keyword I'll be looking for is "brandyupdate" as all one word, either by email to webmaster [at] google.com or via a spam report.
Shucks, just submitted one via spam report as "brandy" attn: GoogleGuy. Hopefully you get it <g>.
Great algo adjustment overall :-)
Welcome back!
That is the oddest, and most troubling part of the "new Google".
Also, this is the strongest case that they are in fact using some sort of filter. The problem is, that the pages/sites getting caught in it are pretty good in many cases while others that maybe should have been weeded out remain.
There are areas of improvements, but as EliteWeb pointed out a few hours ago, the real estate industry SERPs are still a mess, even more so if you use a cityname.
I understand the difficulty in trying to determine what a user wants. But when the query is CITYNAME REAL ESTATE, can't we assume that 8 or 9 out of 10 people are looking for web sites that list real estate or homes for sale in that city, or perhaps real estate agents or agencies in that city? This current algo still fills the Top 10 with Yahoo Directory, Google Directory, AOL City Guide, and other similar directory/city guide sites.
And secondly,
I'm not sure the idea of letting a user say "I want info." or "I want to shop" will settle anything. Many excellent commercial sites ARE excellent because of the great info. they offer. In fact, don't we consider those the best examples of great commercial sites? (One thing that makes Amazon so great is all the information they have about the products, including user reviews, etc.)
Why should such a commercial site be excluded from the SERPs when someone indicates they don't want to shop?
That is the oddest, and most troubling part of the "new Google".
The issue in my view is that this mechanism is cutting out some of the lovely/cool/unique/informative hobby and mom & pop sites that should be reappearing by now, but still aren't.
Perhaps it's a way of targetting small spammy e-commerce sites with an insufficient number of pages and/or backlinks, but again, it's the baby/bathwater problem. Maybe on the next go-round, G could take this set of hurdles and attach them to an 'and/if' stmt that relates in some way to OOP measures they trust...which might let more of the smaller but legit hobby/info/enthusiast sites back in?
BTW Update seems better in terms of killing out some quite visible spam.
Google,
Your destination is still too far though.
BTW, given the enormous negative vs. positive responses from Florida and Austin, I find it uplifting that the positive responses are leading the way here. Thanks to GG and the plex for "adjusting" and seemingly reacting to feedback.
