What the heck is going on ?

effisk · #1 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 05:16 AM

Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. Hundred billion pageranks reset to zero.

Here in France, news have been reporting a lot of websites being removed from google's results because of unethical referencing practices (SEO websites as well as their clients) in the last few days.

The toolbar PR is not working anymore, "no pagerank info. available" on all websites.

Google.com (google.co.uk, google.com.au, google.fr, etc.) seems to be down at times, this occured last friday, and again this morning.

Is something big happening ?

cbp · #2 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 05:25 AM

My toolbar is working fine. Maybe you need to reinstal.

There has been a bit of a "shuffle" in the seach results a few days ago - most likely due to an internal update in PR and backlinks ... I did ot think so originally, but there may also have been a minor "knob turn" on the ranking algorithm - nothing big though.

CBP

effisk · #3 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbp

My toolbar is working fine. Maybe you need to reinstal.
CBP

Nope. I forgot to say: tested on 27 computers, in different locations (in France) all with the toolbar installed.
No pagerank, no google.com

edit: google.com back up, google.fr down now...

LinkMaster · #4 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by effisk

No pagerank, no google.com

No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

cbp · #5 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 07:51 PM

Quote:

No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

DMOZ :-)

CBP

**crankydave** · #6 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Quote:
No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

DMOZ :-)

CBP

ROFL!

flood6 · #7 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbp

Quote:

No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

DMOZ :-)

CBP

BAM!

effisk, are you still seeing the stuff you saw this morning? It might make sense that if G was going to roll out this "big change" that everyone seems to be anticipating that they would try it out on some of the regional sites first. (?)

Who knows...

jackson992 · #8 (**permalink**) 09-27-2004, 10:32 PM

My traffic has doubled on two of my sites since Saturday. Looks to me that results are still shifting too:)

soulja90 · #9 (**permalink**) 09-28-2004, 08:43 PM

No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

Sorry about the above line mr in france. Just some friendly humor. I'm pretty sure google will figure out something!

Cheers!

JB

flood6 · #10 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 02:14 AM

I know how much cbp hates these update speculation threads, so I'll keep this one alive since he's had such a boring week.

I use the digitalpoint keyword tool to keep a running log of the stats google throws us like so much scraps from a table. If you don't use it, start...no wait, first slap yourself, then start using it.

Anyway, it is a good way to keep track of what G is reporting for your SERPs and backlinks.

One of the keyword phrases I have recently been targeting jumped from "N/A" (which means "not in the top 1000") to 196 sometime in the past 12 hours. Over the past few weeks I have seen some phrases shuffle 1 or 2 places, but this is by far the biggest shift yet.

If anyone is keeping track of their SERPs, check and see if you have seen any shifts of this size.

Christophera · #11 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 02:56 AM

Thanks Flood6, that is a handy tool :)

Quote:

which means "not in the top 1000"

I thinks it's "not in the top 200" though, at least that was the highest number of results I could set mine to check.

Chris

flood6 · #12 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 03:11 AM

Ahh, does it check only the top 200?

I assumed it checked out to 1000 because it uses the google API and it will go out to 1k.

A change from somewhere below 200 to 196 makes much more sense. I never bothered to check on my assumption that it went out to 1000; nice catch.

cbp · #13 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 03:50 AM

Quote:

I know how much cbp hates these update speculation threads

Thats because I am really starting to wonder how much of what gets said in those update threads are really symptoms of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder :-) ... where is minstrel?

CBP

groenie · #14 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 06:26 AM

flood6

I have also been using this tool extensively for a while now, and have noticed a lot of changes in Google. Pages have dropped -9980 places, and others gained 9978 places. At the moment the trend seems to be more dropping than gaining, although Googlebot has been actively spidering my pages, spending hours here, both bots. I have no idea what to make of all the changes.....

sfowler · #15 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 07:05 AM

Is this maybe where they update teh index to a five or six byte system to be able to index additional pages? There has been talk of this for 6 months or so. 4 bytes must have seemed like Utopia when they made it, but we have exceeded that already.

groenie · #16 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 07:28 AM

Maybe this is Google creating a new index, which would explain the frantic spidering, or maybe it's Google cleaning up the index they have... who knows.

**crankydave** · #17 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 12:05 PM

Musical SERP's

Over the past couple days I've been watching my SERP for "fine religious jewelry" minus the quotes. From 31 I went to 204, 180, 120, 87, 71, 112, 127, and now 174. Total results fluctuate, at least hourly, between 988,000 and 1,200,000. Not sure I like the trend here.

Edit to add: Another page I've been watching for the same term has been bouncing between #11 and #28-#31. Also noticed that my meta decription has been dropped from being displayed and has been replaced by page text.

Dave

greeneagle · #18 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 12:37 PM

cbp:
"... where is minstrel?"

LOL - I have used that line before.

Google is splashing around in shallow waters. They are pulling out some new guns this time. Watch what happens to huge Sites with Pseudo-Gateway pages, that don't really contribute value.

All at once now:

"... where is minstrel?"

I haven't been there in a while but I hope he has added a Forum on "Obsessive Compulsive GOOGLE Disorder" on his Internet Psych pages.

There are going to be a lot of webmasters and Site owners that will need it very soon.

Ken

**jawn_tech** · #19 (**permalink**) 09-29-2004, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Also noticed that my meta decription has been dropped from being displayed and has been replaced by page text.

I noticed as well for some of my pages, but not all. On one site a homepage still has meta desc showing in serp.

effisk · #20 (**permalink**) 09-30-2004, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LinkMaster

Quote:

Originally Posted by effisk

No pagerank, no google.com

No PageRank? No Google? Then what is there to live for?

héhéhé, that's pretty much what I thought (of you guys) at the time. Imagine this disease spreading over the internet!
Anyway, things were back to normal the next day, google.com has PR10 again, and I haven't seen any notable change in my ranking.
Sorry about this false alert.
It's still bizarre this happened here and nowhere else.