Update time lag

How long between updating a page and seeing the results in SERPS

[darex]

I have been reading the google knowledgebase in which it says that there is a time lag of 60-90 days between making an update to a web site and seeing the update in the google SERPS. Is this information still accurate?

The last update was on JAN 1st. If I change the contents of my website on Jan 2nd and the site is crawled by google bot on Jan 15th would I not expect to see the changed website appearing in the serps in the Feb 1st update.

Or does it take the whole month of February for google to process the crawl results and create a new database - which would mean that the earliest that I would see the results of my changes would be the march 1st update. (this would explain the 60-90 days above). Surely it can't take a month to convert what has been spidered into a database?

[fathom]

I doubt the original post you are quoting from is recent, however depending on the authority status of your site pretty much determines the frequency of Googlebot return.

If low PageRank the quoted lag time can be accurate.

Google's Refresh Bot also changes things at least in the short run, where changes made one day can appear the next -- at least for a short period 1 - to a few days before the next refresh occurs around those "themes".

In the end it is the inbounds that decide Google's frequency of return, primarily since the bot has many entry points which again usually reflect higher PageRank and more authority.

[darex]

Given that you know the frequency of return of the googlebot - say you have observed from the logs that it is once per month. (This is presumably the norm for a smallish site?)

Do you then expect changes to be in the next months update?

E.g 1) Last update occurred on Jan 1st 2003
2) I make an update on Jan 2nd 2003
3) Googlebot visits on Jan third

Do I then expect my new pages to be in the database on the Feb 1st update or is Bretts knowledgebase correct in suggesting that the new pages won't appear until the March 1st update?

(I am presuming that all this doesn't apply if you have a high enough rank to be visited by the freshbot) Incidently - how high a rank is that does anyone know?

[fathom]

The likelihood of being in the end January update is a good bet.

doesn't apply if you have a high enough rank to be visited by the freshbot) Incidently - how high a rank is that does anyone know?

How high a rank is... is a bit subjective, as rank is also dependent of keyword/keyphrase competitiveness.

If Googlebot returned on January 3rd and you have not seen it since.. not high enough on more competitive terms.

Inbound links to your site develop its return as Googlebot (& Refresh bot) will follow the maze of links to and from your site.

If these links are many (in both directions) they have much more work to do than just a few.

Pages at about PageRank 6 the crawl can be near continuous (daily) at PR4 possibly a couple of times per month.

[Iguana]

If I remember correctly, for much of last year one of the signs that the update was coming was Googlebot deep crawling. In other words -
Dec 30th Google visits
Jan 1st update
Jan 2nd change pages

so your changes appear on March 1st.

I still have my changes loaded before the update in case Googlebot reverts to a pre-update schedule

[darex]

So Iguana you are saying that there is a months time lapse between the last deep crawl of the month and the results of that deep crawl appearing in the serps.

It takes them a month to process the deepcrawl results - wow thats a long time! - I would have thought it would be much quicker.

The sites I am looking after have a pagerank of 4-5 so I guess from what fathom said I would only get a couple of visits per month.

[Iguana]

For the last few months the crawl has come after the update so you will see Jan 2nd changes in the Feb 1st update.

But yes, it does seem to take about 20 days to process the results of the deep crawl and re-calculate PR