Strange periodic Google "update"

[rfgdxm1]

I know of a certain site about "widgets". For the last week or so the PR of the home page of this site, and one internal page, alternates about every 2 days from PR7 to PR6. The site before never had a PR7 page; before these pages were PR6. When the toolbar shows PR7 on these 2 pages, it also gets the #1 and #2 spots on the SERP for "widgets". However, when it drops to PR6, it drops to #3 and #4 on this SERP, behind a subsection of a site specifically about "widgets". This other site always shows PR6 for the 2 pages in question.

The way it works is every time these 2 pages jump to PR7, within a day these 2 pages get the top 2 spots on Google for this SERP. The SERP in question isn't at all competitive. Realistically, a good argument could be made that either site deserves the top spots on Google for this SERP, and a coin toss would be a reasonable way to determine this.

It seems to me that at the moment Google is alternating between 2 databases, and switches every 2 days. That toolbar PR seems to confirm this. Has anyone else noticed the same for a site?

[thumpcyc]

Hey rfgdxm1,
I have not seen page rank between datacenters the last few days, but I am seeing different backlinks on datacenters. When I checked just now. WWW had pre-most-recent-update on backlinks, but www2 and www3 were displaying the updated backlinks for my site. This has been flopping back and forth for days, and may be related to the pr changes you are seeing.

Later,
Thumpcyc

[netguy]

>>PR alternates about every 2 days

rfgdxm1, yes, I have been seeing the same thing on two of my sites. I first noticed it on a couple other computers, then pulled my modified host file to show the 'public' PR on my main machine.

In my case, the two sites have been moving between PR5 and PR6 several times throughout the day - and this has been happening since April 7th when PR updated.

I can still force the PR update by changing the host to 216.239.57.98 (the old CW datacenter).

Unlike your example though, I have not seen any change in the SERPs at all. These are both sites that have been stable as a rock for more than a year, so is less susceptible to minor PR and/or backlinks changes.

Steve

[djgreg]

I have seen this on one of my sites about 4 weeks ago. PR was alternating between 6 and 7 every 2 days.
Now it has become consistantly 7 but the site has dropped dramatically in rankings. In fact I can't find it in the SERPS while it was #1 or #2 before I got PR7
Strange isn't it?

Also Google seems to have lost backlinks for my site. It shows 92 but there much more, and before PR7 it has shown these (about 400) but now they are gone.
again strange things going on

greg

[billygg]

i agree with u rfg, my sites have increased page rank last week when google did that midday update. now every so often it will display a lower pr for a little bit. then go right back up. they definitely are switching databases hee and there, my question is, i wonder if that updated rank with stay. someone said that google was gonna do PR updates every quarter now. (think it might have been googleguy) but yet they are seeming to update PR often once again, lets hope it stays that way.

[sandor]

right now i'm seeing a pr change for a couple sites ... compared to earlier this week.

[rfgdxm1]

>Unlike your example though, I have not seen any change in the SERPs at all. These are both sites that have been stable as a rock for more than a year, so is less susceptible to minor PR and/or backlinks changes.

Based on what I believe I know about the Google algo, my best guess is that the 2 sites are very close to equal. At any moment, one or the other has to be #1. My assumption is when that one site hits PR7, this is enough to put its score in the Google higher than the other, and thus it gets the #1 spot. Note also that PR is an effect, and not a cause. Things like Google recognizing more inbound links is the cause, and the higher PR is the effect. And, I suspect here that other algo factors are in play. That site which is switching between PR6 and PR7 is titled, in the generic terms this forum allows, something like "All about widgets". Most sites that link to this one use as the anchor text either the full title of the site, or just a hyperlink with the anchor text "widgets" (such as when this site is mentioned in a blog.) Thus if when it hits PR7 it is due to more inbound links being counted, then its score in the algo for number of sites linking with the anchor text "widgets" will also increase.

[mrnoisy]

I've been monitoring the PR and backlinks of 12 of my sites for the past few days. All of them have been alternating between old and fresh values. The fresh values are very positive for with at least 1 jump in PR across the board and a vast increase in backlinks. I hope these new values stick around for a while.

[MikeBeverley]

I started a thread on this days ago:

[webmasterworld.com...]

and no-one seemed interested. Get a senior member to comment on different datacenters however ...

I don't think it's just every couple of days, I think it's random throughout the day.

[Marcia]

A site I've been watching very closely has been going back and forth between PR6 and PR5, both the homepage and interior pages. I know that links from some pages are now gone; sometimes they're not showing and sometimes they are.

[kaled]

I noticed cycling on one of my pages some months ago. It used to vary between #4 and #10. Having reached #4 it would fall gradually to ~#10 then jump back to #4 (over a period of about a week). I'm still seing similar behaviour but I've lost a few places.

Small but regular changes in the algo bias are probably normal. Indeed, from the thread I began a while back on learning algos, they may be necessary.

I don't watch PR but I think any such movements are probably unrelated. It will probably settle in a couple of days.

Kaled.

[au_sammy]

Okay I hope this is kind of the same topic.

After the April update, my PR jumped from 2 to 6 and from 1 backlink to 60.

Two days ago, my google toolbar showed me the PR is back to 2!.

I did a bit of investigating, as my site is in Australia - google.com.au shows PR 2, but google.com show PR 6 ... same with the links, if I do a link:MYURL on google.com, 60 links show, but on .com.au, only the one.

Sounds like more of a problem or something has gone wrong - but very strange. None of my other sites have been affected.

[jackson992]

Don't use the link command. It is very skewed. Insted use this:

+mydomain.com

[Kirby]

PR has been fluctuating along with the number of backlinks. The one thing that has not changed is the PR indicator in the Google directory. I havent seen any sites listed that have increased toolbar PR have a similar increase displayed in the directory toolbar.

Also seeing fairly dramatic changes for a few serps (not all) with www2 and www3 showing previous results and www showing widely fluctuating results.