Is there to be a December Update?

[UKNick]

Is the team at Google on Holiday until the New Year? Still waiting for the dance.

[troels nybo nielsen]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, UKNick

It is indeed possible that the december dance wil happen in january, though there are some signs that it _might_ be very near.

Troels

[HuhuFruFru]

which signs?

[Beachboy]

Which signs? The 200 signs reading UNFAIR TO WEBMASTERS! UPDATE NOW! carried by unhappy webmasters picketing the Googleplex.... ;)

[Macguru]

jomaxx summed it up pretty well here [webmasterworld.com]. ;)

[steveb]

GG as much as said New Year's Eve.

[Hardwood Guy]

Are the folks at google ever predictable? They probably sit back and chuckle at the comments here. If it was up to me I'd press the button when people least expect it like January 2 when many don't wanna go back to work. Who knows.

[BigDave]

It is very clear that it is not at a controlled, scheduled time.

Three billion pages, with over 100 factors in the algo, makes for a hell of a lot of calculations. Then there is the testing for how tweaks in both the indexing algo and the search algo turn out. This is also happening throughout the month. If any of those tests show a problem, they have to back out the data to a previous step.

Then when everything looks like it is at least as good as the previous month in most areas, then the real processing starts. There ain't no big red button that starts the dance that we see. Look at the times that the dance has started. If it was not automated, then it would always happen before noon pacific time so that they could monitor it. The dance is well past the point of no return. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the point of no return was before Christmas.

The 5 days of the dance are probably just the recalculation of PageRank.

[yankee]

Or maybe because of the holidays it will take a little longer. Even Google employees get a few days off. Lets see...we've had updates on Halloween, Thnaksgiving,....hmmm, maybe New Years Eve?

[Helpmebe1]

Look for the dance on Tuesday/Wednesday here in the states :)

[mack]

I honestly thought it would have happened between xmas and the new year because web traffic is lower that usual...

Or is it just traffic to my site... I'm all worried now lol

[bobmark]

I half agree with BigDave (Hey! Is that Letterman?) but I don't think its entirely automated. While I'm sure most of the work takes place before the update that we see and there is no red button, I got to think there's at least an "Are we good to go?" conversation before it starts as it has to mean extra monitoring work for at least some sections of Google so is scheduled at some not totally inconvenient time.
Hey Mack, try having a site in an industry that traditionally experiences its worst monthly business in December and see what your traffic looks like!

[Helpmebe1]

Nah.. Dave Letterman is out with Paul Shaeffer and the models..

[Beachboy]

OK time for Big Dave's Top 10 Reasons why there will be no December update. Everybody contribute. Number 10....

[Helpmebe1]

HelpmeBe1 was tossed the keys to the google command center while GG locks himself in the office to catch up on work and Helpmebe1 has messed up some of the system (Im sorry, Im sorry)

[bubbleman]

what you talking about helpmebe1?

[Beachboy]

Top 10 Reasons Why There Will Be No Google Update in December. Helpmebe1 was #10. OK, who has the #9 reason?

[quotations]

#9 Manifestation of Y2K problem at Google was delayed until 12/2002 due to Y2K problem.

[dcheney]

#8 the office pool at Google won at the lottery and they all left

[nell]

#7 They're still in shock over Yahoo buying Inktomi.

[born2drv]

#6 Sergey is still pissed off he's not #1 for "Sergey" even though he has a PR10 and lots of inbound links :)

"... Go back to work and redo the algorithm you idiots! I want to be #1! #1 dammit!" ;)

[coconutz]

#5 One of the office staff stole the big red update button and hung it on the plex's Christmas tree down in the lobby.

[Zapatista]

#4 - They are all still hungover from the office Christmas party and everybody has been calling in "sick."

[bubbleman]

# 3 - Osama Bin Laden hijacked google's server but has no clue how to deal with it..lol

[PFOnline]

#2 - The pigeons got loose and are flying around the Googleplex.

( [google.com...] )

[Beachboy]

And now the Number 1 Reason Why There Will Be NO Google Update in December....

[Zapatista]

#1 - The Engineer in charge of updates is too busy downloading jpegs from a Tijuana Chicken Porn web-site.

[Beachboy]

There ya go! (That was fun!) :)

[bubbleman]

what are you going to do now beachboy?

[Beachboy]

Go to bed. I am whacked. Too whacked to even contribute to the Top 10 List.