Google Algorithm Update Analysis

[Webnauts]

I would like to start a discussion about this article:
http://evolt.org/google-algorithm-update-analysis

I would appreciate your participation.

Thanks.

[rumblepup]

Because it's coming from none other than Dave Davies, I can only critique here, because as everyone knows, I'm not a SEO expert, just an entrepreneur, who's business relies on web searches.

I, as did Mike McDonald, and a few guys out there, did notice some algo goofiness a few weeks ago, but everything seems to be back to normal, and well SEO'd sites still feel the same benefit of good SEO practices.

While I'm not an "SEO expert" professional, like yourself, or the other SEO rockstars out there, I am hopeful that his assertions will become evident. Worst part is, I'll probably bump into him at SES, and be all bashful like.


So I'm gonna remark here on a section by section basis, and try not to sound too much like a big dummy head rumblepup.

Domain Age

It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weight to the age of a domain and, in this SEO's opinion, disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site is, there are many newer sites that provide some great information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these sites got spanked in the last update.

It was my understanding that Google always gave some weight to the age of a domain, after establishing authority on certain keyphrases or subject matters. However, I don't think it has been disproportionate. In fact, I have seen Google actually give a little more weight to newer, fresher content, as part of it's new "we re index everday" thing it's doing.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers. Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are outranking sites with fewer but more relevant link. Non-reciprocal links lost the “advantages” that they held over reciprocal links until recently.

I think that this really is a holdover from the Google gaming days, where reciprocal links where the way to go. I'm not convinced that all reciprocal linking is bad, and in fact Matt Cutts says that it all isn't, especially if it's relevant, but I think you have to imagine Google's position here. What if the site has established itself as an authority on a subject (keyword or keyword phrase) and they did it back in the day. Now, this site also has the on site content and natural organic links that a site over time is supposed to acquire. Can they just KILL that serp position? It's a good resource and search result for the Google customer. I think that's where the problem that Dave sees is, or around that area.

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have lost some of its importance including the importance of PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks.

I agree, and disagree, with this statement. Understand that I think PR WORKS WITH relevance, not just...because. If sheer numbers was the answer, as Dave had stated as an observation before, then I, as a site owner, with only 1800 backlinks, would not be beating out a site with 5600 backlinks and 5 years in existence for the same, and very competitive key phrase. I've always believed that if a relevant site, with good PR, gives you a link, it's better than a whole bunch of unrelated sites, with Great PR, giving you a link. When authority on a subject, points to another site as authority in a related subject, then that's the bomb.

I think we are all misunderstanding PR as it exists today. I think it's still a part of Google's ranking schema, but only a part. That's just me. I can be completely wrong and admit it when I'm proven wrong.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gague a site's trust on

Someone PLEASE HELP ME HERE, CAUSE DAVE DAVIES JUST MADE ME STUPID.

TrustRank is, or was, a Yahoo patent, not a Google property. If fact, I remember a very long argument right here in our very halls concerning TrustRank, and how Google was going to use it, before a very smart guy pointed out that the patent was a Yahoo! property, not Google's.

But, just so you know that rumblepup ain't crazy, or all that crazy, here's some Proof.

The original TrustRank Paper, written by Zoltan Gyongyi, Hector Garcia-Molina and Jan Pedersen. Jan Pedersen happens to work for Yahoo! And to further my cause, here is the US Patent, United States Patent Application: 0060095416

But, if Dave is saying that Google is using a TrustRank type scenario, then that's different. It's possible that I just didn't understand this part.

A site from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from 2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold steady or at most, hold a very slight weight. This is an area we are very likely to see changes in the next update.

Wait a minute. You mean that just because I established my site as an authority on the subject in 2000, and I work at my site, and I refresh the content, and I bring new parts of the website in, and I kill off parts of the website, keeping it up to date and such, but I don't deserve the top spot cause I ain't that young? Huh? I don't think Google can or will take that stance. And if they do, I think it will be based around content in relation to the age of a website. Of course 5 year old information might not be the most authoritative on a subject, but I don't think you can completely rule out a site because of it's age either. If the owner of a site hasn't done his due diligence, and kept his website up to date and fresh, well, then I can see an older website losing ground. Again, just rumblepup here.

Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is getting extremely good and determining relevancy and so I assume the current algorithm issues has more to do with the weight assigned to different factors than an inability to properly calculate a links relevancy.

Not what he asserted before. Of course this is his prediction, and I hope it comes true, because it makes way more sense to me. So I'm a little confused. Does this opinion come from his previous observation, or from what he believes Google will do.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or over the weekend we're going to see a shift back to last week's results

and

if you've used solid SEO practices and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics – keep at it and your rankings will return.

So, we went through all of that because, Google weirdness.

Google always goes a little weird. I just don't play on the same court as Dave Davies does, but I agree I am saying should always watch for changes, and that good SEO work is what it is, good SEO work.

[scanmonkey]

The use of domain age has always been a factor with Google. I believe that Google looks beyond the domain registration date and factors in the age of the sites backlinks as well.

From my observations, reciprocal links are losing some of the juice they had last month when this article was written.

[Rephrase]

Yes, I've noticed that reciprocal links are losing their valor greatly. I have a site that has tons of reciprocal links (and just that, as I've had no time to get some one way links for this website) and it's not getting the traffic I've had with other websites doing the same strategy before.

[incrediblehelp]

Domain age, page rank, back links? These have always been VERY strong factors in Google weighting of documents.

Like said above reciprocal links, linking networks, inter-linking has been de-valued a lot in the last few months for Google.

"A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gague a site's trust on (good call Google). With this in mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weight from PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely). Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been clear due to it's weight in the overall algorithm and with this shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident"

Huh? I would like to see a LOT more evidence of this. PR and TR are used in tandem. One doesn't replace the other.

The problem with Google current ranking system is simply. They simple put to much weight on the anchor text of a link making them highly susceptible to spammers.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by rumblepup

TrustRank is, or was, a Yahoo patent, not a Google property. If fact, I remember a very long argument right here in our very halls concerning TrustRank, and how Google was going to use it, before a very smart guy pointed out that the patent was a Yahoo! property, not Google's.

The smart guy was CrankyDave.

But look what other smart guys say about this:
TrustRank - Does Google trust you? An Article by Old Welsh Guy
and
SEO - How To Make Google Trustrank Trust You

In addition, I never had doubts that TrustRank is or was a Yahoo patent.

Any way...

[rumblepup]

Wow. Hey John, they're everywhere! LOL.

PR and TR are used in tandem

Hey Jaan. You know something I don't? I'm still not convinced that Google uses anything called TrustRank.

Do they have a similiar or somewhat similiar tech, I'm sure they do. I like to use authoritative sites, since Vanessa Fox used the term.

But you know me bud, crazy as a loon.

We need to get Crank Dave in on this thread.

[kgun]

I bring him in.

Here is the paper:

Combating Web Spam with TrustRank.

There was a fierce discussion here at WPW about TrustRank.

I wrote a short article on my blog Sunday, August 14, 2005

Trust rank and trust

Call it TrustRank or whatever. Of course Google is one of the most advanced spam filtering SE's.

You will see that my reference,

http://dbpubs.stanford.edu:8090/pub/...df&compression=

in the above blog post, is a link to an earlier version of the same document.

Related links:

Search Engines TrustRank and P3P

A Little Piece of the Google Algorithm - Revealed

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by kgun

Call it TrustRank or whatever. Of course Google is one of the most advanced spam filtering SE's.

Exactly. I rather call in the future trust rank or trust degree instead of TrustRank to avoid misunderstandings.

Originally Posted by kgun

Search Engines TrustRank and P3P

Is Rand incorrect there saying:

Domain Strength

• Registration history
• Domain age
• Strength of links pointing to the domain
• Topical neighborhood of domain based on inlinks & outlinks
• Historical use & links pattern to domain

Originally Posted by kgun

A Little Piece of the Google Algorithm - Revealed

Unfortunately I never got a definite answer there. Never mind....

[crankydave]

The thing not to confuse is "TrustRank"... the white paper and "TrustRank" the term.

Google will use the term, last I checked they received another extension on their intent to use patent for the term.

The problen I have is when "TrustRank"... the white paper... get's intermingled with Google and how they're going to use or apply it.

Despite the "goofyness" Google tends to exhibit every once in a while, I've really not seen anything that would lead me to believe that a hard core change in what they value, as far is ranking is concerned. Yes, I'm familiar with the answers.com press release stating that their short term loss of 28% of their traffic was due directly to an algo shift. Bah. Changes, tweaks, tweaks, tightening, loosening, not to mention a competitor simply outperforming you happens all the time.

Most of the time, I simply smile when I read about how badly "devalued" reciprocal links have become. Another bah. What I have seen is lousy, spammy, uncategorized link pages get deindexed or shoved into the SI. What I have seen is sites that relied heavily on reciprocal links find some/many of their pages relegated to the SI. What I have NOT seen is sites that utilize solid, relevant reciprocal linking practices as PART of their linking campaign lose good rankings or PR. Some sites are simply not going to attract "natural" links and Google knows it.

PR is what it is. A measure of how important people like me and you think a website is. How many random surfers link to to you? There's a whole lot more of them than there are of us. Relevance on the other hand, is in the eye of the beholder. Trust is in the eye of the beholder. Think along the lines of what a random surfer is likely to "trust" or what "opinions" they're most likely to consider and it's a good chance you'll find what the algorithyms like.

Dave

[kgun]

Originally Posted by crankydave

PR is what it is. A measure of how important people like me and you think a website is. How many random surfers link to to you? There's a whole lot more of them than there are of us. Relevance on the other hand, is in the eye of the beholder. Trust is in the eye of the beholder. Think along the lines of what a random surfer is likely to "trust" or what "opinions" they're most likely to consider and it's a good chance you'll find what the algorithyms like.

Yes, and members write here to get answers, some of them relevant / related to surfers.

They get answers from (too) sceptical webmasters, that hates pop ups, redirections etc. etc. Most of the surfers did not even note the redirection from the affiliates site to the merchants ecommerce site. The surfer does not see the affiliate id and don't either care about it as long as they can buy what they wanted.

So

1. Think webmaster when that is relevant.
2. Think surfer when that is most relevant.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Absolutely, Yahoo were involved in that white paper (as pointed out to me a while back). Google speak of domain trust and trust factor etc when all it is , is a value. Once again people have gotten all hung up on names, rather than affect.

What is domain authority? (OK I know all about HITS, but am not speaking particularly about authority in that respect). Because that is another phrase that could be considered the same as trust rank. Google also bought the Hilltop algo in 2003, that could be another way of indicating some form of trust.

As for Google doing away with PR and replacing it with the trust factor/trustrank/poopy rank (call it what you like), well that is plain nuts.

Google will not (IMO) be getting rid of the silly green bar anytime soon.

And again as Dave says, and to misquote Oscar Wilde with regard reciprocal linking being dead 'rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated' it makes ABSOLUTE LOGICAL SENSE that two site on the same subject might cite each other, why would a search algo punish this or devalue it?

For sure shotgun linking and shotgun reciprocal linking has been devalued, but people are confusing cause and effect IMO.

[Webnauts]

Old Welsh Guy, I just wanted to say:

Welcome aboard and great to have you here.

[Old Welsh Guy]

Thanks for the welcome. I really should get out and about more shouldn't I LOL. I will add WPW to my daily visit list.

[ctabuk]

I'll gladly add my greetings too - a highly respected SEO -

Old Welsh Guy said 'What is domain authority? (OK I know all about HITS, but am not speaking particularly about authority in that respect). Because that is another phrase that could be considered the same as trust rank. Google also bought the Hilltop algo in 2003, that could be another way of indicating some form of trust. '

I have often thought that you could almost get semi blackhat on this - in theory you can copy anyones domain name and simply add

fromxyz.whatever

Given that the opening title would be the given search term it would not take a genius to obtain high rankings for a lesser site. Or am I being too devious??

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by rumblepup

Hey Jaan. You know something I don't? I'm still not convinced that Google uses anything called TrustRank.

Authority = TR

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Unfortunately I never got a definite answer there. Never mind....

I liked this comment

"I will give my two cents worth... In my experience as of late... TRUST is one of the most important variables Google is looking at... If you have GTrust then your site has a much better chance of ranking well then if you go after all of the assumed variables being listed above... You can "perfectly" optimize for on-page and off-page factors all you want but if you don't have GTrust I just don't think I will see you in the Top 10 of anything competitive... My mindset changed a few months ago when I noticed this and I now "strategize" about what I can do to gain more TRUST then "link power" or focus on "density & quantity factors"... I also personally "think" that some highly trusted authority sites are "whitelisted" in a way that the new "GFilters" don't seem to have much affect. Anyway.. that is my two cents worth "

in that thread.

I am setting up some new sites now and think of the following:

1. Code shall preferrably (not all affiliate (included Google AdSense) code are and you do not know the effect of making minor modifications) be X(HT)ML valid.
2. I write content as I would write it before the internet. Why should I look for competitive KW's. Am I then writing for human beings or bots.
3. Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler.

[rumblepup]

Authority = TR

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm officially STUPID. Thanks for the help incrediblehelp. (Now say that 10 times!)

Now I understand that the reference to TrustRank is a Google "we might be doing something like this but we're not going to tell you" thing.

All I know is that the Googler's called it Authority, so I called it Authority.

The thing not to confuse is "TrustRank"... the white paper and "TrustRank" the term.

Google will use the term, last I checked they received another extension on their intent to use patent for the term.

Thanks Dave. Oh and BTW, I did not mean to call you Crank. That's a big whoopsee on my part.


Old Welsh Guy, welcome!


I also believe that the "death" of PR is highly overated. I don't think that we, as lowely webmasters, site owners, and generaly SEO speculators, will ever really know what Google's INTERNAL PR for any given site is, but I do believe that the recent changes in effect have, what Jaan, was saying, made more of an evident change to use PR in concert with Authority.

[ctabuk]

Hey Robert don't bother -I've called him far worse -he soaks it up so well -he knows we dig him

But my point seems to be being avoided - if your rival has

www. greenwidgets . com

What's stopping you from registering

www. greenwidgetsfromthe XYZInc. com

The initial keyword search is the same - Black Hat or cunning?

[kgun]

Good artists copy, great artists steal

Last post in that thread. There you also find a link to this important old thread:

Google's Patent - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data

Especially note section 2: "How Changing Content can Affect Rankings"

[rumblepup]

But my point seems to be being avoided - if your rival has
www. greenwidgets . com
What's stopping you from registering
www. greenwidgetsfromthe XYZInc. com

Nothing really. But I think that Google is a tad more sophisticated than that.

Maybe being a bit too devious on that one. I've been around the blackhat world, to much f@#n work! LOL.

[ctabuk]

I thank you both - but done discretely and slowly it would be possible. Hmmm

[kgun]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

I thank you both - but done discretely and slowly it would be possible. Hmmm

My bolding.

Hm

[Old Welsh Guy]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

I thank you both - but done discretely and slowly it would be possible. Hmmm

Naaaa, just scrape their entire site, cloak it for google on identical page files and structure, make sure your pages are on a higher page rank pages and just remove their pages

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Old Welsh Guy

Naaaa, just scrape their entire site, cloak it for google on identical page files and structure, make sure your pages are on a higher page rank pages and just remove their pages

LOL, so simple isn't it!