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Anyone see similar things? Is it me?
It seems unlikely they would test an algo live, but:
The "new" SERPs appeared to include results based on semantic interpretations of the search phrase. The results looked as if the semantic part of the algo needed more work. Not yet ready for prime time.
Anyone else get a chance to review these phantom SERPs?
It seems unlikely they would test an algo live
I disagree. I think they do it all the time. Every release is a test for them, otherwise they wouldn't track clicks in the free SERPs.
Where did you see it?
On www. I don't know what datacenter/s it was pulling from. Several refreshes changed the SERP's back, so I assume I was pulling from different machines in the same datacenter.
[edited by: jcoronella at 4:20 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2004]
But actually we view it as an extension of what we've been seeing for months. In a few of our cat's the SERP's change quite substantially every couple of days. Some sets of SERP's are littered with affs, then others far less so. One might guess that they identified a base and are evaluating a series of changes and how each measures up versus the base.
It seems to us that they've generally been playing with filters/algo elements relating to dup content and code (html, text, meta, title, anchor text, Hx and more). Then there's the big crawl now underway.
I feel tremors in the force.
More puzzling to me is something possibly related, which is every few days on some of the minor datacenters their appears a significantly different result set that is much superior to the normal. These better results appear on two or three datacenters for awhile, but they *never* move over to the others.
Google has so many blatant problems right now that they obviously have to be working behind the scenes to fix them, so maybe some of the work pops up once in awhile, but it seems more likely we are just seeing the death throes of the problem-plagued, mediocre 2004 Google.
I cannot recall a time where I have seen more stagnant, stale, results with so little changes. I have junky little one page sites sitting for about a YEAR now in hyper-competetive spots - this would NEVER have happened in the old google!
That being said, I do NOT see tremors in the force, just business as usual with "Google light", which, frankly, reminds me a bit of Inktomi of old. Sure, they rolled out a few brash, sloppy, unsuccessful filters, but nothing earth shattering for certain.
IMO, folks are giving google WAY too much credit for the minor iterations and general snafus they are seeing. For months people have been saying, "Something BIG is coming", but nothing ever happens really, still anchor driven serps with nearly identical techniques as 3-4 years ago....yawn....methinks google has hit the wall....
Thank goodness there are 2 lively engines out there for those who like a little excitment! :)
Thank goodness there are 2 lively engines out there for those who like a little excitment! :)
There are?
Actually, I just like saying that. :-)
I feel they are too significant to be an incremental weekly/biweekly data merge and that they are more likely to be filter and/or algo A/B tests.
The same type of thing that is silly to talk about unless anyone has anything significant to add, which is why I asked and why this thread will either soon die or degenerate into doomsday speculation.
(And for me non-english Googles like .it and .fr are showing results with Directory links and the old layout)
A few days ago I noticed that most of the PDF results dropped out of a number of searches where the were previously prominent.
There is no determination yet that it is a new set of results. These could just be business-as-usual tweaks. Although they looked to me more significant that that, I am more consistantly wrong than right.
But no, I did not check any sites that may/may not be stuck in that filter, nor did any of the SERP's I've been seeing stick around long enough to check more than a few searches before rotating back (dissapointingly) to the current SERPs.
For the areas we monitor there was a bit of a change-up today, nothing major. However, what does amaze me these days is how fast changes roll through all the data centers.
Now that Google is public expect the company to be run by crybabies and not by Googlies.
Sad but true serps and results will now favor pocket stuffers, dont care what anyone else feels, I know the show.
Now watch another search engine start moving higher, only thing Google has now is Adwords... thus the Adsense changes... all a scam now - just one's wise opinion.
Hollywood
All of those 6 sites are all over Yahoo in the top 10 for a range of keywords. I just dont promote Google like I used to they have moved on we need to do the same.
One of our sites keeps switching from 10 to 14 every time I check.
