Clink. Google Guy Spills Bourbon. Cheers.

jmiller · #1 (**permalink**) 06-02-2005, 08:57 AM

Ol’ Mr. Anonymous himself, a masked employee of Google who hangs out in crowded search forums with a big GG on his chest, calling himself Google Guy while addressing the concerns of Googlites everywhere spilled a few hint-drops about the current algorithm update, codenamed “Bourbon.” This here Kentucky boy accepts the nod.

In a thread run on WebMasterWorld entitled “Questions For Google Guy,” GG offered up this advice:

“Here's the advice that I'd give now: take a break from checking ranks for several more days. Bourbon includes something like 3.5 improvements in search quality, and I believe that only a couple are out so far. The 0.5 will go out in a day or so, and the last major change should roll out over the next week or so.

"Then there will still be some minor changes after that as well. So my "weather report" along the lines of http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000095.html would be a recommendation that rankings may still change somewhat over the next several days.”

Lee Odden helped point out a few more interesting posts among a thread that runs longer than a Nazarene dinner prayer.

"I've been aching for a long time to mention somewhere official that sites shouldn't use "&id=" as a parameter if they want maximal Googlebot crawlage"

"We only export new visible PageRanks every 3-4 months or so"

"I recommend absolute links instead of relative links, because there's less chance for a spider (not just Google, but any spider) to get confused."

"My opinion is that spam is getting hit faster, and that for the rest of this year, it will continue to get harder to spam."

Once again, GG you’ve aided Googledom in escaping the clutches of presumptivitis. Cheers, big ears.

webmasterjunkie · #2 (**permalink**) 06-02-2005, 01:52 PM

IMO
This makes sense with some of the fluctuations in IBL's, amount of chached pages per site, and how pages are being cached.

A couple of sites that I keep a constant watch on:
For a while now, the way the datacenters have been displaying information has been inconsistent. It makes sence when you hear of an algo 'update.'

I read something about this on another site. I think the most important part of the update will be the filter on duplicate content.

divinewrite · #3 (**permalink**) 06-02-2005, 07:41 PM

I've read every post and response in the QA session. Great stuff! I was prompted to check it out by your article in WebProNews. In particular, I was interested in your mention of &id:

Quote:

"I've been aching for a long time to mention somewhere official that sites shouldn't use "&id=" as a parameter if they want maximal Googlebot crawlage"

However, having read every post, I wasn't able to find the one where this was discussed. Can you please point it out for me?

Cheers.

nelsonez · #4 (**permalink**) 06-03-2005, 03:39 AM

I also did not see any post referencing the Quote below by Lee Odden.

Quote:

"I've been aching for a long time to mention somewhere official that sites shouldn't use "&id=" as a parameter if they want maximal Googlebot crawlage"

Anyone know what this is in reference to??

We use things like wwww.slickrockweb.com/?source=34ddw to allow for specific tracking in our weblog analysis programs. I would hope things like that which are crucial to our web traffic metrics programs are not now somehow being penalized.

I am assuming he is referring to some other use all together. Anyone here know what he was talking about??

jmiller · #5 (**permalink**) 06-03-2005, 07:43 AM

that thread was smothering to sift through, so I decided to reference where I got it ot begin with...so here's the link to Odden, where I first heard it

http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/06/...e-bourbon.html

toprank · #6 (**permalink**) 06-03-2005, 12:28 PM

Here is the Webmaster World post url that made reference to "&id="

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29720-1-30.htm
message #3.

nelsonez · #7 (**permalink**) 06-03-2005, 04:39 PM

Now I understand what was being referred to. I thought session id tags were generally used during the login of a specific user or database calls associated with something like a message board? Not something most site owners would want crawled anyway.

Thanks again. I know I have said it before but I will say it again, this board is truely a wonderful resource. Lots of great people who are very knowledgable.

Eric

divinewrite · #8 (**permalink**) 06-09-2005, 07:44 PM

Hi to everyone who responded to my question. Thanks heap for doing so. Your help is much appreciated!

Cheers.

dvduval · #9 (**permalink**) 06-09-2005, 11:38 PM

I might point out that "&id=" is used for many functions, not just session id. I think mod rewrite is becoming increasingly important. I have several scripts running that us "&id=" but it is not referring to session id, so I need to do some script rewriting. :)

adbart · #10 (**permalink**) 06-12-2005, 08:18 AM

Who is Googleguy then? I'm guessing this is a question that will go unanswered...

**brian.mark** · #11 (**permalink**) 06-12-2005, 05:15 PM

If you go to SES in San Jose, he's at the party at the GooglePlex. Last year, he was in a dunk tank. That was a hoot.

In any case, the &id= doesn't black flag, but they pay more attention to what's going on and if they hit duplicate content, there stops the crawl. &id= is a good indicator that there could be a lot of duplicate content.

I have a few sites that us &id for categories (old code that I haven't bothered changing) and they get spidered just fine. It's just a caution, not an absolute rule, not to use &id= in your URL's if you can avoid it.

Brian.