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Pongo
Joined: May 27, 2002
# Posts: 665
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Posted: 11/22/2003 10:46 pm
>>> But until then, we must adapt or look for a new line of business in the brick-and-mortar world......
Adapt.
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14504
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Posted: 11/23/2003 12:46 am
I was checking on a phrase and it gave a comma where there was nothing in the code
The snippet included a bullet list point with no full stop and an alt tag which was in the next table cell.
google just put a comma in and served it as a whole sentance in the snippet description..
getting a little clever there!
It's a petty point I know, but very interesting :D
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6794
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Posted: 11/23/2003 01:03 am
As a matter of interest, was the comma between the two cells - i.e. between the bullet list and the alt tag?
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excell
Staff
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14504
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Posted: 11/23/2003 01:30 am
there is the code as it is in reality and this is what google had:
...under12, South...
The dots all mean the rest of the words.
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hotwired
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 44
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Posted: 11/23/2003 02:42 am
Hello,
I'm in the same boat. My site has been ranked #1 under "web design maine" for 3 monts, and before that #3 & $4. All along, it's been dissappearing for a few days, coming back. Same now. Not even in top 100 for a little over a week. Still listed, not banned. I'm very careful with my recip links, all relevant. What makes me curious is that there are two sites that have wavered either number one or two forever. These sites never move. Any thoughts? I submit to Google each month, my home page plus 5 other pages optimized for slightly different search terms. Is this passe now? Any thoughts, please.
Ken
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6794
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Posted: 11/23/2003 03:29 am
"I submit to Google each month" Resubmitting to Google is a complete waste of your time as if your site is in their index, it will spider anyway.
In respect of your positioning, it would appear you may have been hit by this update. You should be trying to optimize for a range of search terms so that if you gety wiped out with some, others fill the void.
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JasonUK
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
# Posts: 5
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Posted: 11/23/2003 04:02 am
Reading through this long thread (taking small comfort from the fact that my sites not the only one to 'disappear') these are my brief observations:
1. Only 2 word keyword phrases seem to be affected. If I add virtually any 3rd word which appears on my page - I'm back in top 5.
2. My site hasn't been 'banned/removed' - 3-word key phrases return same home page which has disappeared for 2-word searches
3. Highest placed (#100+) internal site pages on 2-word phrases have fewest external links and least repetition of key-phrase but these pages are fluctuating wildly day by day.
4. Using googles 'exact match' advanced search for 2-word phrases returns me to 1st page positions
My own personal view is not to rush into making changes to my site until the dust settles and it becomes clearer what algo changes (if any) are to be introduced longer term. We've always maintained a spread of online marketing options and have decent page positions on most of the (UK) search engines - yahoo, aol, msn and google (3-word keyphrases!) as well as ppc - overture & espotting so google changes are not catastrophic even though they're unwelcome given timing.
Although Google are very important it takes weeks for any site tweak to filter through (in my experience) so how would you know whether any improvement was due to (a) google sorting themselves out or (b) your changes. Immediate changes could actually result in lower page positions if current google changes are temporary.
Jason
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rocket_rob
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 156
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Posted: 11/23/2003 06:21 am
When looking at my main 1 word and main 2 word phrases many of the top sites have remained. What are these sites doing that I am not, or what am I doing that they are not?
I have no clue on how to figure that out especially since alot of crap has made its way up the results. And how can what they are doing work pre-Nov 15th, AND work post-Nov 15th if google has made some sort of change?
Some of the top sites have alot of text, some have very little and are mostly pictures. Some don't even use alt tag descriptions. How in the world do you figure out what google "likes" anymore?
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SEOK
Joined: Jul 24, 2002
# Posts: 288
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Posted: 11/23/2003 09:03 am
It's a crap shoot... I bet most at google have no idea what is going on. To screw up this bad you had to make a big mistake, and to not fix it right away means something major is wrong with their ability to provide relevant results.
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Logan
Joined: Aug 14, 2002
# Posts: 3749
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Posted: 11/23/2003 09:43 am
And how can what they are doing work pre-Nov 15th, AND work post-Nov 15th if google has made some sort of change?
rocket-rob often this scenario has to do with 'time'. If their content/links/etc were in place pre google's data sets time frame then it will remain post Nov 15. If other sites were not in place at the time of google's data sets' time frame then they are affected - when that data set time frame exactly is should be questioned. It is as simple as that.... jasonuk is on the right track - and welcome by the way!! My observations are very similar and I agree to make changes now, often will in turn provide you with no relevant comparison point.
Just as google will use an 'old' data set to implement a new algo so that their is a known factor in place to evaluate the changes ... you should do the same by waiting for at least one further update from google to make comparisons and ensure the data being factored in is based on your recent work. It's very important.
"How in the world do you figure out what google "likes" anymore?"
That's what seo's have been doing for 9+ years (four years longer than google's even been around by the way). Make observations upon the current rankings in comparison to your site and this particular update. Wait for things to change again and see where you end up. Based on those observations adjust your pages/sites/techniques appropriately. If you do not wait to see changes take place when we have something new/different occur accross the board like this situation, you'll never have a benchmark to compare your observations with a known base line.
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haus
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
# Posts: 25
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Posted: 11/23/2003 11:17 am
One thing I've noticed - Yahoo still says "Search technology powered by Google" and yet the yahoo results on my most common keyword phrase do not reflect the recent changes from the Google results (one of my sites was dropped from #8 to infinity). The site of mine that dropped from Google is still listed prominently on Yahoo. This could mean that Yahoo recognizes something isn't right with Google's recent results, because the two have (in my limited experience) tracked fairly closely in the recent past.
My site dropped from Google on Thursday, and Yahoo still shows it at #8...so unless there's a 4+ day lag before Yahoo "picks up" Google's results, it might mean things are still in flux at Google. (but I'm starting to doubt that the longer this goes on).
Another thing I noticed is that the #1 site for the search term has *two* listings now, one still at #1 and another one on page 2. So they're getting double-exposure at the expense of another relevant site. This seems inherently like a mistake to me coming from a search engine, where I would think you would want to return distinct results, to give the reader the most information with the least amount of hassle.
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raresplendors
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
# Posts: 1
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Posted: 11/23/2003 11:25 am
Thanks to you all for all I have learned this morning reading the forum. And, as our several cottage industries realize how tenouous our successes are by our dependence and trust in Basic Submit and focused relevance, we must recall a vision of an altG in mutual ownership trust. Or get Google to ask for help to get back on the right track.
In a business climate which is squeezing the juice out of markets for short-term results to influence investment rankings, perhaps this misguided strategy necessarily lacked a sincere comviction and so unravelled as the current non-sense of search results. Maybe. Everyone here is not doing that and knows there is a simple logic to the Google search engine we all endorse, which when denied for whatever reason is ultimately suicidal. And its all one climate, we know.
In a confusion where sense is turned on its head (no, guys, from the bottom up, not upside down!) and a search engine manipulates search results by a changing set of unknown factors, my frustration, having waited all my life from dip-in pens and blotting paper to this point, is that I don't have so much time left to fulfill my business model. I suggest our dependence is not viable and we are collectively obliged to consider what is. Or get Google to ask for help to get back on the right track. cococo nowrap
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MakeMeTop
Joined: Jul 05, 2000
# Posts: 1714
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Posted: 11/23/2003 12:45 pm
I truly believe that Google have made a mistake in doing what they have done - but they have done it. Wishing for things to return to the status-quo is IMHO just that, a wish. It probably won't happen. This is not the first time there has been a mass wipe out in the SE business and it won't be the last. Some of us were fortunate/unfortunate enough to have been through this before. AV and INK wiped me in the past and Google applied the mighty PR0 willy-nilly a couple of years ago from which people are only now starting to fully recover.
Traffic on my sites over the past week has gone up slightly. Not because I am some kind of genius, but because I do this all day, every day - and sometimes all night 
My business (like many of yours) depends on getting good SE listings - but unlike many of you I have no alternative way of selling my services. If I don't supply clients with good SE traffic then my business is truly dead.
This means that I have embraced the "safe" route to getting SE traffic. I use Overture, AdWords, PFI, Trusted Feeds and "natural" free listings. It is unlikely that all of these methods will fail at once. I have never had a situation where more than 65% of traffic came from a Google database source.
SEM is now a serious market worth billions. Unfortunately this means that the rules for free traffic all the time are going to change and we are going to have to change with it.
I see that there is probably going to be a huge shake out in the SEM industry as a result of these changes but we all have a chance to not only survive but become stronger as a result of the lesson many of us have learned.
I remember saying years ago I could only really trust an organisation with which I had some form of commercial relationship. This is not to say that Google is untrustworthy, but to say I could not sell a service and guarantee anything with Google, even inclusion, because I had no contract with them to provide me with any kind of service. For years I have preached the gospel of PFI for the sole reason of having some basis of stability. I knew that my pages would be included. If they dropped, I could find out why - a mistake or "you got a penalty" - and could do something about it. Yes, Google drove the most traffic - but clients could see, before Google ever spidered their stuff that they were getting traffic - and lots of it, before they ever got listed in Google.
Google made it easy. In my opinion, a little too easy - for everyone. Businesses starting to market on the web, new SEOs who could apply the standard ABC of optimisation and the ordinary person, who could design their own website and compete with the giants with a little research.
Remonstrating about what has happened will not restore incomes, getting on and identifying other cost effective methods of gaining converting traffic will.
There is an old saying - adapt or die.
It is time to adapt - and move on.
Good luck to us all.
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bupper2
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 11/23/2003 01:01 pm
For what it's worth I think this whole thing is a "glitch" that Google is trying to straighten out. Let's face it this search engine has been bouncing sites all over the place for months. They've got some sort of problem. Could even be a virus too. If a virus perhaps they have chosen not to make it public for fear it will ebcourage future attacks.
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polarlight
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 11/23/2003 01:08 pm
haus - I concur with you - when I checked our rankings at both Yahoo! and AOL, I saw the same positions as the pre-update results. So, the feed from Google is coming from a pre-update database. On the other hand, results at Netscape seem to match the results at Google. So, why are Yahoo! and AOL not reflecting the new update results? Interesting...
My take is that we need to take a wait and see attitude - but with the holidays looming so soon, it's certainly frustrating. Any changes you make right now will not necessarily show up in the new results, since the ranking algorithm can be orthogonal to the cached pages. But we are going to take one of our less important sites and start doing some experimenting with the main index page, just to see if we can determine what is going on. But I do agree that any results you get from making changes right now will be difficult to measure - it is Google still finishing their update - or the changes you just made? Time will tell, but unfortunately, nobody has a lot of time, with respect to the holiday season that is about to descend on us. Ugh!
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philh
Joined: Sep 14, 2001
# Posts: 3050
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Posted: 11/23/2003 02:21 pm
The only constant is change...
Wise words from MMT
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haus
Joined: Nov 23, 2003
# Posts: 25
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Posted: 11/23/2003 04:06 pm
Ok, something very weird is definitely going on. The following page gets returned on a 3-keyword search:
http://sominfo.syr.edu/facstaff/xwang05/
Check it out - there is NOTHING on that page. And nothing relating to the keywords, that's for sure (it's a business term). Nothing in google's cached version, either. This about #21 or so, well above a lot of sites that have a huge amount of completely legitimate text about the subject.
So I'm feeling better about this - there's crap being returned from Google, which means either they will find a way to filter the crap or they will lose their place at the top.
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SEOK
Joined: Jul 24, 2002
# Posts: 288
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Posted: 11/23/2003 04:30 pm
"The only constant is change... " Reminds me of a saying... "You're unique, just like everyone else"
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2create
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 11/23/2003 05:24 pm
Some of you have said you haven't seen Google's updates on Yahoo. Well I have for all my terms. I'm assuming Yahoo just hasn't picked up all the updates for every search term.
Everyone thinks this is a mistake, but how could it be? I'm not an expert on how Google updates but, during "the dance" don't they load the new algorithm to the www2 and www3 servers as sort of a test before they push it live? Then once it's tested it goes to the main www server???? Well these updates have been on www2 and www3 for a while now. I think there are some glitches that they'll have to clean up here and there but for the most part this probably IS the new Google.
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Bry
Joined: Sep 30, 2003
# Posts: 207
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Posted: 11/23/2003 05:49 pm
PR IS DEAD!
LONG LIVE PR!
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