New Google PageRank, Backlinks On Tap

dutter · #1 (**permalink**) 10-18-2005, 10:58 AM

Google’s resident rock star, Matt Cutts, has posted that a little Google Dance is underway again.

Google probably doesn’t derive any pleasure from sending the ranks of SEO and SEM pros hustling to tweak hundreds of web sites for better placement each time they update the index. Keeping the index relevant and effective for its search users does mean updates are necessary.

“(W)e are constantly working to improve our algorithms and scoring,” Matt Cutts posted on his blog. If you’re reading this article and wondering who Matt Cutts might be, he was one of Google’s first search advertising engineers.

Now, he is discussing the latest update, one in the ongoing series of mini-updates that the search engine performs from time to time. At one time Google could do one big update of everything, but the search engine has had to switch to the more frequent, smaller updates it performs now.

The latest version may include an update to PageRank, as Cutts noted:

Just to give you a heads-up, I think a new set of backlinks (and possibly PageRank) will probably be visible relatively soon; I’m guessing within the next few days. I still expect some flux after that though, just to let you know.

Google updates the index for reasons beyond page rank. Cutts wrote about some of those other reasons:

Some changes are hardly noticed at all. Some changes (e.g. user interface improvements) are more visible. Some changes have nothing to do with spam, such as the changes for Chinese and Europe…. Some changes do try to decrease spam or increase core quality.

Keep an eye on those Google search results. It may be time to update your site again.

dnelson · #2 (**permalink**) 10-18-2005, 05:01 PM

Dear All,
One of my web pages took a nose-dive in rankings for several keywords. I have an intuition that the new Google update may be aimed at the buying and selling of text links. Why do I have this intuition? I looked at my own page which had a long list (with hyperlinks) of some of my client sites at the bottom of it. These were all sites that are not related in theme to my search engine optimization site, and then I thought, mabye my client links are being confused with the kinds of links that people put on their pages when they sell links to other unrelated sites. Anyway, I have taken most of them down and will see if I bounce back!
Donald Nelson

glenng · #3 (**permalink**) 10-18-2005, 07:15 PM

Or, could be so basic as not theme related? Just a question.

yjones · #4 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 01:55 AM

I have found that google isn't worth its weight in anything. A search engine's first and primary responsibility is to "find YOU" for others! It's not the other way around!!! We should NOT have to be a slave to a "search engine"!!! What the heck is that about??!! With all the new search engines out there fighting to be #1, google takes a back seat in my opinion!

For example: On Yahoo's Search Results
My website is #1 of about 86,900,000 for "how to pay for a home with no money down"

On google for example: of about 71,000,000 for "how to pay for a home with no money down" it's NOWHERE to be found!

Google can't even find my website if you type it in exactly: Home Sweet Home Mortgages !!! What a crock!

It's obvious that Yahoo is bigger AND better!!!

Again, isn't that the SOLE purpose of a search engine -- to FIND YOU?!!!!

google is a joke!

Google can go bye-bye as far as I am concerned!

kgun · #5 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 05:51 AM

Keeping the index relevant and effective for its search users does mean updates are necessary.

Could not agree more. Wrote my post in this http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=54444 thread before I read your post.

DavisJms7 · #6 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 07:09 AM

I own Davis E-Book Publishing company and I publish authors from around the world. Right now I am considered the largest electronic publishing company in the world in new author listings. I advertised on Google and all the other top search engines and when I type in one of the hundreds of search words pertaining to my business I can not find my business listed anywhere on Google or any of the other ones. I have to type in my company's name or url before I can find my site. What is the purpose of search words if Google is not going to use search words so customers can find your site? How can you get Google, and the other ones, to use the search words you list in your meta tag?

Faglork · #7 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavisJms7

[...] I can not find my business listed anywhere on Google or any of the other ones. I have to type in my company's name or url before I can find my site. What is the purpose of search words if Google is not going to use search words so customers can find your site? How can you get Google, and the other ones, to use the search words you list in your meta tag?

This comes as no surprise. Just look at your source code. If you had this done by a "professional", fire him.

This is a prime case of "how sloppy code can hurt my SE ranking".

Please do not be offended, but this is the worst code I have seen in a long time.

Clean up your code and your site will get indexed, no doubt.

Regards,
Alex

DavisJms7 · #8 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 07:48 AM

Since you viewed my source code you know it was generated by Submitt Express. I viewed both of our source codes; what makes makes mine sloppy and yours not? I am interested if you have an idea in how to tidy up my source code.

Faglork · #9 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 08:03 AM

Just one example: Check your KEWORDS metatag.

You specify it TWICE, and twice WRONG ([...] by me):

Code:

<META name="Keywords" content="Publishers, publishers, Publisher, publisher, Publishing, publishing,  [...] experimental, in-depth, light, literary, mainstream, niche, popular, positive, progressive, satirical, serious, traditional<o:p></o:p></p>

and

Code:

<META name="Keywords" content="publishers, Publishers, publishing, Publishing, book publishers, [...] author, authors, editor, editors, editing, book, books>

In both cases, the tag is not closed properly: in the first case not at all (it is "closed" by a </p>!!), in both cases with missing quotationmarks for the VALUE attribute which effectively leaves the VALUE useless.

Another: the <font face=" size="2" Arial> has wrongly nested attributes, additionally, it is appearing in the HEAD section where it is just completely out of place.

If you want to try to confuse spiders, this is perfect.

Quote:

I viewed both of our source codes; what makes makes mine sloppy and yours not?

Just have a look at the difference between the mumbo-jumbo generated by Frontpage like

Code:

<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#00FFFF" size="3">Become
an employee with</font><font face="Times New Roman" color="#00FFFF" size="4"> </font><font
face="Times New Roman" size="3" color="#FFFF00"> DAVIS E-BOOK PUBLISHING.</font><font face="Times New Roman" color="#FF0000" size="4">
</font><font face="Times New Roman" color="#00FFFF" size="3">We are the fastest growing electronic book (e-book) publishing company in the world.</font></p>

and clean code which would in this case be a simple

Code:

Become an employee with DAVIS E-BOOK PUBLISHING. We are the fastest growing electronic book (e-book) publishing company in the world.</p>

I can clean it up if you want.

Regards,
faglork

DavisJms7 · #10 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 10:08 AM

Thanks for the information. Please check my source code again and tell me if it is better now. Tell me how to clean up the rest of the HTML. Front Page is the easiest to use but it sucks when it comes to functioning properly.

christudorprice · #11 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 10:27 AM

This last little dance by Google has crippled us... our volumes are down 90% so far. Every single key phrase that we had in the top 10 has disappeared into the nether regions of 50+ - at best. I have no clue why this has happened and am so angry that if I could sue Google for this, I would. I question how a company upon which so many companies have become reliant for business/referrals can simply drop you one day - nothing gradual or gentle about the effects of that on our revenues. If this doesn't get fixed we'll be looking at laying off sales staff very soon.
Pumping mad.

Faglork · #12 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 10:57 AM

We have both - sites that went up and sites that went down. So far I can't make out why one goes up and one goes down - they are built acoording to the same principles so they should behave equally.

I am waiting till the dancing is over, as it makes no sense to analyse while the SERPs still change like mad.

faglork

kgun · #13 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 01:37 PM

I am waiting till the dancing is over, as it makes no sense to analyse while the SERPs still change like mad.

Agree, and Google uses advanced statistical thechniques, Bayesian filtering, to detect KW spamming.
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=54112

May be it is the Kalman filter, a recursive empirical Bayesian filter. There are more general filters, that do no have as strong assumptions about the residuals (noise) as the Kalman Filter.

theape · #14 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 09:57 PM

I am a Weber carburetor distributor and lost my position last November in Googles turmoil. I feel I shouldn't have to have all these links for people to find my website because not everyone is a distributor. You have to qualify. People need my product and WANT to find it. Why is this a problem??

Duncan Pollock · #15 (**permalink**) 10-19-2005, 10:49 PM

Somewhere in the midst of all the anger, disappointments, and total confusion I think there's a need for a sense of perspective.
For example, how in heaven's name can any webmaster expect to continuously show as the First / One and only / Numero Uno in a collection of 86, 71, or any other amount of millions? There's has to be, on the one hand, an element of sheer luck and, on the other hand, either a largely coincidental match with the precise makeup of the algorithm that makes the choice or a conscious and thoroughly thought through application of the necessary and appropriate SEO.
With all due respect, sites that previously enjoyed a good web position haven't perhaps deserved it -- and faglork's analysis of the DavisJms7 source code is an excellent example of how easy it is to be taken by surprise. It isn't altogether an analogy, but finding faults with the search engines is rather akin to the workman who blames his tools.
As many posts have observed, the search engines owe us nothing. It's up to us to fathom out how to make use of them and to make adjustments as best we can when there's a switcharoo in the results we've become accustomed to.

Duncan