Forum Moderators: open
"I forgot to mention that site number one improved 3 positions [to number 13] thanks to the "The Ides of March". It's much closer to the Top 10."
About 8 hours ago, site no. 1 moved to number 12. I just checked the SERPs and site no. 1 is now number 11.
Also, the issue related to SERPs for "country real estate" and "country property" has been fixed.
I'm very happy about "The Ides of March". Thank you Google.
My no.1 site did extremely well the past few updates, but my others disappeared for no apparent reason. One was replaced by a lot of spammy results, the other lost it's kw positions because it is an older stagnant site that I need to update (I assume). It sat near the top of the SERPs for so long I was afraid to touch it ;)
The spammers on the Top 10 remain there. I haven't sent reports to Google.
I've been keeping track of Google changes since late November 2003. Everything looks like Google hasn't applied filters for doorways, hidden links, hidden and semi-hidden text.
A few weeks ago, GG said spam filters were waiting to be approved.
I think Google will take care of the spammers on its own.
GoogleGuy wrote: "There's still some spam changes waiting to be approved, and I know there's at least one in Dutch pending."
wellzy, I hope the above information helps you figure out the issue.
GoogleGuy wrote: "There's still some spam changes waiting to be approved, and I know there's at least one in Dutch pending."
This is fascinating, I remember reading this, but didn't pick up on it at the time: this is a spam filter in dutch, not a spam filter for the Netherlands.
On the face of this statement, it would seem that their spam filters aren't just about KW density, hidden words, repeated words etc. etc., they are language specific.
This must mean that certain words must matter - a semantic spam filter. Perhaps a spam filter where certain words are given 'special attention' ;)
I know these ideas aren't knew, but GG's statement looks like a confirmation.
Once again, thank you Google.
In late February 2004, Brandy restored only a tiny fraction of those sites back to the Top 100.
So far, those few sites remain within the Top 100 with little changes in their positions. There are other sites that were Top 100 prior to Florida within today's Top 700.
I believe the reason my site has improved its position is due to pages of relevant content that I added about 5 weeks ago.
I'm happy the current results are much better than Austin. The months of December and January were a complete nuisance to me.
In relation to 216.239.57.98, that datacenter displays my main site within the Top 10 whereas www.google.com displays it within the Top 20.
This is fascinating, I remember reading this, but didn't pick up on it at the time: this is a spam filter in dutch, not a spam filter for the Netherlands.
If there is such a thing for Dutch sites, it's not working well as far as I can tell. For almost all combinations of [keyword1][keyword2], where keyword1 is a highly commercial Dutch term I'm watching, a subdomain spammer is typically occupying positions 1 to 3. The pages at positions 1 and 2 are often even (nearly) identical. This has been the case since March 12.
I am also seeing results identical to Austin in several searches in my sector, while others are still Brandy. I mentioned this earlier in this thread, but got no response. I thought I was the only one seeing this.
I'm not encouraged by this. My Google traffic has recovered to about 75% of pre Austin, but sales are still down 50%. I don't know what to make of this.
Had to do a web search myself a minute ago. Out of habit I used google and 'UK widget makers' brought up such irrelevant results that I kept reloading the page and clicking on the adwords boxes as they were the only ones that were at all useful. Now I understand why my adwords clicks have increased.
I went from first page to oblivion - waaaah! Thank goodness Yahoo still ranks me as first page.
There was a glitch a while ago where I saw the spam effects in some languages and not others (fixed now, so I can't demonstrate it).
Adding Dutch-specific words may just not be high priority.
Had to do a web search myself a minute ago. Out of habit I used google and 'UK widget makers' brought up such irrelevant results that I kept reloading the page and clicking on the adwords boxes as they were the only ones that were at all useful. Now I understand why my adwords clicks have increased.
They are not so stupid, eh? ;o)
Google are now VERY good at finding directories and they insist that this is what we want in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. If they really want to serve up relevant results and they honestly believe that directories are relevant then they should do as I suggested a week ago in this thread.
At the top of each results page provide a link to the list of directories that they have found and leave the real information sites where they should be. Think about it, if you were trying to produce the best results then you would do this would you not? This gives people the best of both worlds.
(of course, all SEs need to generate revenue, and why shouldn't they? - but G seems more revenue driven than most these days - therin lies the problem)
Brandy, in its original form, looked like a good old honest, high quality set of serps. High quality commerce sites didn't appear to be hit, and 'info' searches were good too.
But it's not unreasonable to suggest that Google needs to balance this with its adwords revenue. Hence the constant tweaking, and move away from the much admired Brandy algo.
How do you produce a half-decent set of serps, and still keep the money coming in?
Adsense probably complicates this even further. Successful Adsense sites (like that of a pal of mine) need to be high volume, extremely high quality sites, to generate Google income. But if these are driven from the top of the serps by off topic sites, due to a silly algo, Adsense reveunue will go down.
Add into this DomainPark, where ads are served up on parked domains, with, I assume, the ad targetting based on the URL alone, and G ends up not just trying to square the circle, but cubing the sphere (?!)
Being just an individual, obviously 'whingeing' webmaster, who am I to comment? ;)
But it seems to me, that Google is pulling in several different directions at the moment, and making a bit of a pig's ear of it. *Somebody* at the top ought to decide what their priorities are, and aim in that direction.
(Quick message to those inclined to shout 'whinger,' my sites all moved up today, from #3 to #2 - but go ahead anyway :)
p.s. I've omitted all those irritating IMO, and IMHOs etc. It's obviously my opinion, and if it was humble, I wouldn't post it. :)
p.p.s. I did a management degree a few hundred years ago, most of it was 'blue sky thinking' etc. etc. - straight in one ear, out the other. But there was one principle that stuck in my mind: "Go for quality - never go for the quick buck - go for quality."
I think you just hit the nail square on the head.
Google are now VERY good at finding directories and they insist that this is what we want in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. If they really want to serve up relevant results and they honestly believe that directories are relevant then they should do as I suggested a week ago in this thread.
If I wanted a listing of directories when I searched I would have added directory as a keyword.
Does Google really think that average Joe Surfer wants pages and pages of directories? Does Google think the average Joe Surfer doesn't know how to add the word directory to his search term when he wants that kind of result?
This filtering of useful commercial results (apart from those available through Adwords) leads me to draw my own conclusions.
I continue to doubt that G could be that shortsightedly stupid. It is puzzling though, that they had in Brandy an algo that seemed to gain almost universal praise (even from the most senior, and most info-oriented webmasters) ... and yet days after its early appearance, original Brandy was manipulated into the dreky results that we more or less continue to see today.
I think the problem is simply that the PHD's are in charge of G**gle's Ministry of Common Sense. :-)
However, if they produce relevant results to surfers search terms they will stay on top. Surely it is one of the main jobs of discussions like these to point out to Google when they stray too far from the straight and narrow?
That way web masters, their clients, Google surfers and Google all win.
Right, I shall have a go at sorting the Middle East question next!
March 12th. was disastrous day for Spain, and a fairly interesting one for G, inspite of GG’s explanation, which of course I accept.
A 20 page niche site which has survived every tweak the G engineers could experiment with in the last 9 months.
Stayed No. 1 for 20 search terms.
Got to 10,000 vistors a month.
As far as we thought not an iota of SEO, just text in a niche market.
..............then bang.
Since then not a single visitor.
Can I make a claim for a world record.
At least I now feel happy that we are not to be excluded completely from the new ALGO exclusions.
GranPops
May 11th.
Despite advice from many not to tweak with sites, I could not resist playing with my own algo’s to try to detect the change, and put up the latest text changes last week.
Last night – bingo- No.1 again.
BTW I perhaps should have mentioned before that the site I was competing with has PR6 and 388 backlinks showing, my test site has PR3 and one backlink.
As a result I am still reasonably keen on the idea of page content playing a major part in our game.
[edited by: GranPops at 12:46 pm (utc) on May 11, 2004]
Kaled.
If you tell me I'll let you know how we managed to get a site from postion 7 for our keyword to....wait for it...page 40.
sounds like a fair trade to me.
haha
Marra.
