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I guess the bottom line is that the only way google will continue to have good results is to confuse the hell out of all of us.
Well, if you are thinking of penalties, there are probably about 20 sites I would look at more often than my own ones. It might be a bit unfortunate for Everton Football Club and the sites where I mod however...;)
I use the tool bar and my sites improved.
Toolman is not suggesting that Google would penalize for visiting WebmasterWorld, but is tracking SEOs that are regular members of WebmasterWorld.
I am sure Google is way to busy finding automatic solutions to all the spamreports. There are so many obvious spam traps to still resolve; from multi-linking to too many keyword url's to buying Pagerank and automatic anti-Google bombing.
Futhermore Googleguy enjoys this forum too much and would prefer an intellectual competition to a I spy - I found you.
I thought crackheads had a loyal addiction. Hats off to the Google PR machine for brainwashing the masses into submission.
Anyway. Think about it. If you had the capability Google has in the toolbar to track seo's, would you?
I have it on my Windows machine, but I don't use it much. And I almost never use IE to come here. For the most part I always use Opera on that computer to visit here.
However they rank, is how important each optimization technique is. Come to think of it, I like that idea, I think I will try it myself :)
<sarcasm>The real thing to worry about is when you go to the page with the spam reporting form, they are sure to track down the site of the person doing the reporting and check that out too! If you are a snitch your site better be squeaky clean.</sarcasm>
The simple fact is that the shuffle in this index can EASILY be explained by the changes that they had to make due to some problems and added features.
Definite
1. Go to hell (My guess is added a PR weighting directly to link text)
2. PR sales (Something on those sites got dinged. If you have the same you got dinged too. Anyone downstream from those links also lost PR)
Probable
3. Lots of added dynamic links to all the calculations.
Possible
4. Various other spamming techniques killed off as would happen in just about any update.
5. changes to the search algo as opposed to the index algo, that might not be finding things as well in certain circumstances.
I actually know a LOT of peolpe who use the google toolbar, including some libraries on their public access computers. And visiters to WW are likely to spend most of their day online hitting hundreds of sites, including their competitors. They might use the data for something, but I doubt it is for hunting down people at webmasterworld.
I think there are spies among us. Time to institute the WebmasterWorld User Relocation Program (or WURP, for short)
;)
The only thing you hear out of the Google PR machine is that they "want a better search for their users".
That toolbar data sure would be worth alot of money, the stats could provide countless new blocks of information that google could use to fudge into their algo ;)
I assume the next step of "personalized search results" will require some personal information.
there are other ways of tracking that are available to Google.
Yes, and they are all easily thwarted, by the knowlegable user. Keeping privacy on the web is not difficult if you know how.
I believe they want to do the best the can to provide excellent results and keep manipulation (who me?) somewhat contained. Tracking the behavior of individuals would be a waste of resources. However, those who suddenly come up on the spam police radar might get more attention than they want.
Insofar as the toolbar issue is concerned, yeah I use it. As reported elsewhere, this go-round found general improvement in positioning, but one site fell out of the index, hopefully to return next month. We shall see.
Why would Google want to hurt anyone just for visiting webmasterworld
I think this place might be of benefit to google believe it or not. They're able to come here and get the scoop on optimization techniques. For those of you that discuss your gems, you are actually helping these guys weed them out in future updates. Secondly, how many times has GG posted that spam abuse link here @ WebmasterWorld? What better way to eliminate spam then having an entire community who is very savvy at locating it, report it? We work for google, they don't work for us.
Bravo. Well stated.
If you had the capability to track seo's as Google may have with the toolbar, would you let anyone know you did? That would be a disaster for the PR guys wouldn't it? Poor GoogleGuy would look like Bill Gates trying to convince you that Outlook isn't really an electronic petri dish.
Think about the advantages there would be in doing such a thing. You could snag all the ip's from the automated rank checkers and start pairing it with requests for pages through the toolbar. Think about the valuable information you could gain about new tactics seo's may not be spilling out in public places like this. Or you could snag the requests made at places like this and then track the page requests to sites with obscure owners in unconnected networks of sites. It would make their whois tools look ancient.
Oh what a toy that would be if I were inclined to do so and my privacy policy allowed me to do it. Could be a simple 15 minute ordeal for a Google engineer to set it up. Who knows, I sure don't, that's why they are Google engineers and I'm not.
I don't have secret info or proof about anything. I think it's healthy to ask "what ifs" every now and then. Judging from some of the responses so far it's probably a good thing to let an objective thought or two freshen the space where the "accepted facts" linger.
What better way to eliminate spam then having an entire community who is very savvy at locating it, report it? We work for google, they don't work for us.
Good point. Googleguy has mentioned on at least a couple of posts that if we do use their spam form, to add a note about "Googleguy" or "webmasterworld" so they know the report is likely to be coming from a webmasterworld reader.
I never surf without the toolbar, never turn it off. If I get hit it'll be because I missed it, and that's easy enough to do, even by accident, which I believe happens to a lot of people.
I don't believe for one minute that they're "out to get us." Why would they be after people? They're after the things some people do that corrupt their search results. Why would they be out to damage people who are no threat to the integrity of the results?
imo this is nothing more than senseless FUD.
