Google's Response to Florida Update

[richkoi]

Here is Google's response to my feedback about their recent Flordia Update. I am impressed by how fast they got back to me. Hopefully what they say is true.

Rich

---

"Hi Rich,

Thank you for your note. As you probably know, the changes you've observed are the result of ongoing, automated processes aimed at improving the quality and content of our search results. These automatic processes sometimes cause dramatic shifts in the ranking or indexing of sites.
Because we are constantly working to improve the quality of our search results, however, it is likely that a non-spam site will resume its previous position during the next crawl.

We really appreciate your taking the time to write and express your concerns. We hope you'll write again if you have further questions.

Regards,
The Google Team

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: "Rich Koi"
Subject: Florida Update :(
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004

Google,

Not satisfied with your new update. We have spent too much time and money on optimization for your search engine just to be dropped to nothing. You
know that this has already hurt your reputation, I suggest going back to what you did before the Florida update.

Thank you for taking time to listen to your customer."

---

[cbp]

Google wrote

however, it is likely that a non-spam site will resume its previous position during the next crawl.


This is an interesting addition to the standard canned response.

Rich wrote:

Thank you for taking time to listen to your customer

This is where we will have to disagree. Webmasters are not the customer; searchers are not the customer - the customer is the person that pays the bills. So for Google this means the down stream users of the index (ie AOL & Yahoo) and Adwords customers. So all Google is trying to do is deliver an audience to those who pay the bills. So they are trying to provide quaility search results, so the number of searhers that get exposed to the adwords increases. They are not concerned about your or my site going up or down - they are concerned with the relevancy of the results (its obviously debatable if they are relevant) - but if your or my site is in the top 10 or not, are the results still relevant to the searcher? If they keep the results relevant --> searchers keep coming back and the customer (advertiser) will keep paying.

[analogy here is TV - the advertiser is the customer, not the viewer. The sole purpose of TV is to do nothing more than deliver an audience to watch the adverts of the customer (the person paying the bills) ... unless its PBS)

My $0.02

CBP

[tnt]

searchers keep coming back and the customer (advertiser) will keep paying.


You make an excellent point and I had to think about it for a moment. But after that moment, I think I respectfully disagree. The searcher IS in fact the ultimate end customer in this case.

For example, using your TV add analogy, if Ford places an add on TV, Ford only pays for the add from revenues that come from viewers that BUY Ford vehicles after viewing the add. If Ford raises prices to pay for advertising, it's not Ford that ultimately foots the bill, but Ford buyers. As with Fox News displacing CNN, many advertisers are motivated to place their adds with Fox.

So this only works for Google as long as they keep their monopoly, as long as searchers use google, and as long as those among their searchers respond to whatever business schemes that attract advertisers or VC to Google.

And they may do so indefinitely, for all I know. But if Google screws up the results for searchers so much that any competitive service begins to draw searchers (those who respond to the adds, and subsequent make it practical for advertisers and VC to support Google with their capital funds), Google may fall back like Yahoo did. I suppose time will tell.

[richkoi]

I am an Adwords customer...so that is why I put that part.

Let me paste the rest of the message...

>We also use Adwords, which we had to increase our budget for.

Rich

[mm99]

Stated by goog:

"Because we are constantly working to improve the quality of our search results, however, it is likely that a non-spam site will resume its previous position during the next crawl."

This information would be correct in what I have observed; 100% for me and my clients. Just thought I'd let you know. We had problems with some sites, but every one is back to where they were.

peace...Paul

[tykelly]

Our site's rankings keep bouncing between the top three spots on Google.

Before the florida update we held the #1 position for the keyword "music contracts" and a few others.

After the update we've been bounced around between the #1, #2, and #3 spots

I checked our rankings last night and we where at #3, today we are at #1(as of 12:15 pm eastern)

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Our site is www.Order-Yours-Now.com and we have not made any multipage changes to at at all.

I did change one page yesterday, but even that was a minor update made to a title of a book on it.

Any input would be appreciated here, you guys(and gals) always seem to have all of the right answers.

HELP!and please give me some suggesstions to stay on top.

Thanks

TY Cohen

[snowfox121]

It's touching that Google is able to reassure us that "a non-spam site will resume its previous position during the next crawl." Unfortunately, Google's playful tinkering can really mess things up in that one month. My site's most vital month for the success of our organization is January. Our normal placement is 11-16 (over the past year), and now we're ranging 53-55, with a *lot* of really low quality "ma and pa" sites rating above us. We are having to pay money for advertising and promotion at other sites as a direct result of Google's fooling.

Can you imagine some manufacturer or other business conducting experiments in public the way Google does? Ford Motor Company, for example: "We're really sorry that the wheels fell off a lot of cars driving in Florida last month, but we were trying out some new processes. We're sure everything will return to normal in a few weeks. Those of you who weren't killed will eventually see that we're improving our automobiles."

[Aji]

Google is yet not stable with the new strategy (new algos) but sure they are trying something, many of the sites are bouncing every day, in the range of (#x , #x+5).

Anyway nice to hear that we might regain the positions but you never know. I will agree with the motion that the real customers are the end users who are searching. The more satisfied and returning customers the better their market value is. The better their market value is the better their earnings are, its all about promise to deliver. If you get a adword, you are expected to get better profit thats all a win-win game.

All I want is that I can regain my position back.

Thanks
Aji

[vegasgal47]

I also dropped 3 spots in my ranking and I was #1 for years. Some of my clients dropped off the face of the earth and they were #1 or #2! Makes me look bad, not Google.

Anyway....I agree the end user (searcher) is the customer because without them Google would not be in business.

My questions is: does anyone know how often Google crawls?

Thanks!

Arlene

[Aji]

Just a little logic, if say your site is a very famous(high pr) news site where you update next hour(content changing often) then google crawl accordingly. And If your site is low in pr and no changes then it will take some time.

My site is a PR6 site it gets crawled every second to third day. The more your pr value is better it is. Also better PR helps in deep crawling.

Aji

[vegasgal47]

Thanks Aji.

I'm definitely not a PR. I'm a small web design company that mainly develops sites for small business so they aren't PR either.

Is it best to make small changes to keep getting crawled or will that not make a difference for a non-PR site?

I'm going to a Google seminar (held by them) next week so hopefully I'll find out more info. :-)

Arlene

[luvdavy]

Google is yet not stable with the new strategy (new algos) but sure they are trying something, many of the sites are bouncing every day, in the range of (#x , #x+5).

Anyway nice to hear that we might regain the positions but you never know. I will agree with the motion that the real customers are the end users who are searching. The more satisfied and returning customers the better their market value is. The better their market value is the better their earnings are, its all about promise to deliver. If you get a adword, you are expected to get better profit thats all a win-win game.

All I want is that I can regain my position back.

Thanks
Aji

I don't think that's going to hold true for vacation and real estate sites, though. We came back today for our local real estate search....in the #38 place behind all the directories. Fat lot of good that does. We were number 5 before. We still don't show anywhere that's detectable for "vacations" or "rentals" Only two local businesses show at all for them, and two are PR6 sites that weren't affected anyway. That seems to be the secret...get your site to a PR6 and your worries are over. That, of course, is easier said than done.

Jan

[Danmik]

Sorry Rich - but I also was in contact with Google regarding pagerank and I got the same reply (100% match) so it seems this is only the name that are changed in the reply from Google.

Anyway - just hope the read the mail :-)

Frank

[cbp]

vegasgal47:

I'm definitely not a PR. I'm a small web design company that mainly develops sites for small business so they aren't PR either.

I think you need to do some reasearch as to what PR is. Start here:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=10923

snowfox121:

Can you imagine some manufacturer or other business conducting experiments in public the way Google does? Ford Motor Company, for example: "We're really sorry that the wheels fell off a lot of cars driving in Florida last month, but we were trying out some new processes. We're sure everything will return to normal in a few weeks. Those of you who weren't killed will eventually see that we're improving our automobiles

But you pay Ford Motor Company money. You pay Google nothing.

CBP

[richkoi]

Sorry Rich - but I also was in contact with Google regarding pagerank and I got the same reply (100% match) so it seems this is only the name that are changed in the reply from Google.

I figured it sounded a little automated. I just wanted Google to hear me and hopefully they are keeping a complaints tab.

Rich

[cbp]

There is no doubt the response is automated, but what is new in the automated response is this sentence:

however, it is likely that a non-spam site will resume its previous position during the next crawl

CBP

[snowfox121]

Quote: But you pay Ford Motor Company money. You pay Google nothing.

That is true -- but not totally relevant. Google is in business for the purposes of income. Google purports to offer a certain service--a service that makes them hundreds of millions of dollars--and although I am not a lawyer, I'll bet that there are legal responsibilities. Even if what they did was totally non-profit there would be responsibilities.

If you set yourself up as an authority on something, advertise yourself as an authority, make huge amounts of money on the basis that you are an authority . . . and then your actions prejudice your authority, I'd say you are irresponsible at the least. You are probably legally responsible at the worst.

When Google offers something called "terms of service" then excuse me, but I do believe a legal contract has been entered.

[Mel]

Lets face it - Google has made a major algo changes and whatever and however it has been done it has resulted in more power to "expert" sites such as directories. There were probably several major algo changes made at one time on Nov 16th and there have been many tweaks of that algo since then.

While Googles results are getting closer to what they were before the infamous Florida update, they still highly stress the authority and expert sites. To assume that this major change to the algo is going to be undone in the next "update" I am afraid is simply wishful thinking.

I may not understand exactly what Google has done but I can see that internal and guest book links seem to count for less, links from expert sites more and over optimization may severely decrease rankings.

My strategy will be to address each of these issues in one way or another.

Waiting and hoping for better rankings from a new algo is not going to be very effective IMO.

[hal]

I've been following this thread with interest, but frankly I am left a bit confused, here.

For example, this morning I checked one high-ranking site in <google>, using their 2-word key phrase. Their keyword list contains the phrase 82 times, and indeed the keyword tag is 18,408 characters long. So, would somebody please tell me how they rank #2? I thought the Florida update was supposed to cut spam? Or isn't this spam? Or is the keyword tag so bad that it is merely "discounted" (not "disqualified") and other factors are strong enough to retain the #2 position? When are guidelines guidelines, and when are guidelined guidelines not guidelines? Help?! Many thanks.

Hal

[Conficio]

So this only works for Google as long as they keep their monopoly, as long as searchers use google, and as long as those among their searchers respond to whatever business schemes that attract advertisers or VC to Google.

And they may do so indefinitely, for all I know. But if Google screws up the results for searchers so much that any competitive service begins to draw searchers (those who respond to the adds, and subsequent make it practical for advertisers and VC to support Google with their capital funds), Google may fall back like Yahoo did. I suppose time will tell.

Hi TNT,
in my opinion there is a fundamental difference between customers and VC. A customer expects an (mostly) instant and fixed return on its money. Namely the product or service she pays for. But an investor (or a Venture Capital fund) does take partial ownership in the business in the hope that the business with customers will grow the value so the investor can sell his/her ownership for a profit. Which means a customer might come back for the same product (or service) again and again, where the investor only will do so, if the company has managed to grow (revenue and/or profit) and is likely to do so in the future. And believe me a VC investor does often influence the way of doing business in order to get the return he or she expects.

I'm tempted to also add a little to the customer debate: Usually a customer is the one that pays and signs a contract (or confirms an oral contract). Therefore neither the searchers nor the webmasters are directly Google's customers. But this situation is not so uncommon in other businesses. If a business hires a clown to entertain their visitors' kids at a store opening, the clown has to make the kids happy and joyful in order to deliver the promissed service to the paying cutomer (the store owner).

Never the less, Internet services such as Google do really pose interesting questions: Does the searching user have a contract with Google? Does the webmaster have a contract with Google? The terms of usage sugest so in a legal sense. But does that include an obligation to not change the way one delivers business? I don't think so. Probably the terms of service exactly state that there is no guarantee for what the results are or that the results will be constant/predictable over time.

Just my 5ct worth

K<o>

[Glenn Albert Bradley]

This is an interesting thread. I am very curious on the dropping of the so called "high quality" sites vs the "low quality" mom and pop sites. I just ordered new software for all of my sites to give that "high quality, professional look". But I have regained all of my standings since the "google dance". If these so called "high quality" sites lost thier position, then why is that? It would be obvious that the low quality mom and pops arent spammers, only that of the high quality sites, stop whinning and play by the rules.

[Reesa Marchetti]

Hey,

I don't know what's going on, but when I searched for NFL + Super Bowl 2004, I had to wade through two-and-a-half pages of gambling sites before i found the official NFL football site.

This makes me think Google is no longer the best search engine, or else those gambling site owners are really working Google over. Either way, it makes me question any results coming from Google!

Last year, the same searc h took me straight to the NFL.

[minstrel]

when I searched for NFL + Super Bowl 2004, I had to wade through two-and-a-half pages of gambling sites before i found the official NFL football site. This makes me think Google is no longer the best search engine, or else those gambling site owners are really working Google over. Either way, it makies me question any results coming from Google! Last year, the same searc h took me straight to the NFL.
Try typing in "NFL" alone (quotes not necessary) and #1 is the official NFL website.

Try type in "super bowl 2004" alone (again quotes not necessary) and #1 is trhe official Superbowl XXXVIII website.

Google's not so bad after all, n'est-ce pas? :o)

[Mel]

I've been following this thread with interest, but frankly I am left a bit confused, here.

For example, this morning I checked one high-ranking site in <google>, using their 2-word key phrase. Their keyword list contains the phrase 82 times, and indeed the keyword tag is 18,408 characters long. So, would somebody please tell me how they rank #2? I thought the Florida update was supposed to cut spam? Or isn't this spam? Or is the keyword tag so bad that it is merely "discounted" (not "disqualified") and other factors are strong enough to retain the #2 position? When are guidelines guidelines, and when are guidelined guidelines not guidelines? Help?! Many thanks.

Hal

Hi Hal;

Google doesn't even bother reading the keywords metatag so that had nothing to do with the ranking for that page.
Google ranks pages based on many things, some on page, but some of the more important off page so a quick look at the page won't tell you why its ranking highly.

If you use the google special search term allinanchor:keyword here you can see how sites which have links using that phrase rank for that term.

Most sites that rank highly for competitive keywords will also rank highly for that term using the allinachor: search.

[jackson992]

I'm sorry but that is bull. I ran across a site competing with mine the other day and the only place I found the key phrases was in the meta keyword tag

[cbp]

The word(s) do not have to be on the page or in the meta tags. They could have been in the anchor text of imcoming links. Did you also check the cached version? - the words could have been on the page when Google last indexed the site.

CBP

[Mel]

Hi Jack, well you can call it bull if you like, but I'll bet you didn't check the inbound anchor text, (one of the more important of googles ranking factors) did you?

Do that search again and when you find that page click on the cached link in the SERPs for that page: I'll bet you see a blurb somewhat like this in the Google header:

The search term XXXXXX was only found in links to this page.

Let me know what you find, I'll be happy to eat my hat if Google is ranking pages based on the meta keywords tag.

[minstrel]

I'll be happy to eat my hat if Google is ranking pages based on the meta keywords tag.
I don't think there's any doubt that how Google ranks pages is based on several different factors, the most important by far being the number and quality of incoming links. I also know that "common knowledge" has it that Google IGNORES the keyword meta tag and any other tag except the TITLE tag. I'm not convinced, for several non-convincing reasons that put together suggest to me that these things do play a small role in the Google listings.

I may of course be totally wrong about this - but given that no one knows absolutely what Google does except Google itself, I may also be dead on.

Consequently, while I would never claim that doing anything to keywords is going to make a huge difference to Google, I usually do advise people to include them and pay attention to what they include because (a) it can't hurt unless you are keyword spamming or stuffing, and (b) it might help with Google and it might help with the other 40% or whatever of people who use other search engines. I think another good reason to learn about and start thinking about the keywords meta tag is that it can help to start you thinking in terms of what words and phrases people are using that might actually help them to stumble on your site - and then making sure you have those words somewhere the spiders can find them.

[Glenn Albert Bradley]

Google definently looks at meta tags, I am absolutely positive of that, I tried one website with absolutely nothing in meta and one with keywords description etc, and the visitation schedule meta, and google comes and gobbles all of that information up. Now if I could only solve the page rank puzzle.....

[DanielDachille]

It Was definetly a bad month for changes for us an online florist and gift shop, for the last 15 months we have ranked in the top five in all our keyword phrases, now we are in the fifties. THat is the bad thing about Google being used by all the big searches, ie, aol, yahoo, iwon, too much power.

[Mel]

I'll be happy to eat my hat if Google is ranking pages based on the meta keywords tag.
I don't think there's any doubt that how Google ranks pages is based on several different factors, the most important by far being the number and quality of incoming links. I also know that "common knowledge" has it that Google IGNORES the keyword meta tag and any other tag except the TITLE tag. I'm not convinced, for several non-convincing reasons that put together suggest to me that these things do play a small role in the Google listings.

I may of course be totally wrong about this - but given that no one knows absolutely what Google does except Google itself, I may also be dead on.

Consequently, while I would never claim that doing anything to keywords is going to make a huge difference to Google, I usually do advise people to include them and pay attention to what they include because (a) it can't hurt unless you are keyword spamming or stuffing, and (b) it might help with Google and it might help with the other 40% or whatever of people who use other search engines. I think another good reason to learn about and start thinking about the keywords meta tag is that it can help to start you thinking in terms of what words and phrases people are using that might actually help them to stumble on your site - and then making sure you have those words somewhere the spiders can find them.

Hi Minstrel
I agree with you ... sort of.

We do know that Google reads and stores everything in the head of a document, including all the tags (easily verified by looking at the source of Googles cached page) but I have yet to see any evidence that the meta keywords tag is used in the ranking algo.

I would love to find a page such as Jack spoke of that is ranking on a keyword found no place but in the meta keywords tag, that would settle the issue. But I have looked in vain for such a page and while its not too hard to find pages that are ranked on the basis of anchor text alone without having the keyword on the page or in the head, that meta keywords ranked type of page has eluded me and anyone who has tried to help find one, so I remain sceptical.

I agree that it is still good practice to use a properly constructed metakeywords tag, even though at present only Inktomi (and perhaps Altavista) seem to be making any use of it, but more because when the search share shifts from 80% Google results and 12% Intomi results to about 45% search share for each it will be much more important.

I do not believe that Google totally ignores the meta description tag, I have seen pages where there was no text at all and Google has pulled snippets from the meta description tag for the page summary snippet in the serps which causes me to believe that they must at least read it. This has been widely reported and verified, but that does not necessarily mean that Google is using it in the ranking algo.

As you say no one knows for sure, but we can investigate and surmise, and all the investigation and surmising is what has resulted in the development of SEO and enables those with the best information to get better rankings.

[Glenn Albert Bradley]

Question: Arent Page Rank and Listing two different animals? For example there are plenty of 1 or 2 Page rank (importance)yet these sites, and frankly including mine, that hold number 1 2 and 3 placements. So the ideal listing would be great if you held at least the top 10, and page rank of 5 or higher. Am I on target here....or?

[Mel]

HI Glenn:
PageRank and the rank of your pages are two different things.

PageRank is a proprietary Google algo that ranks pages based on the number and quality of pages linking to them. It is a small factor in the ranking of your pages, but then again its sometimes just enough to climb a few rungs higher on the ranking ladder.

I sometimes think that Google gives us the tools to see PR just to keep our minds off the more important portions of their algo, and IMO they are quite successful at doing so.

Anchor text in your links is much more important in google rankings than PR, so I would advise spending time getting good anchor text links.

[cbp]

Glenn

See this thread:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=10923

CBP

[trsiyengar]

Minstrel wrote:
"Google's not so bad after all, n'est-ce pas? :o)"

Google is the original. Others are the replicas! Every search engine boasts it is enhanced or powered by Google! So it is "noe(t)scape" for others.

Mine is not a commercial or profit making site. I was, nearly for three consecutive years, placed on the top among less than 3000 sites; till few months ago. Search key word for "Srivaishnavam" - a community known for its orthodox. All of a sudden my site was pushed to the 3rd place.

Just as curious as anyone else, I tried to find the reason for the slip. I am awarded with a soft reply that the "link popularity" is higher than my web site caused them to raise to the top!

So what? Hits, meta and mega tags, frame or no frame, no question about algorithms - it seems not the only measuring scale. But when it is other than religion, what a fine grading, I am placed!! I am on the top among 6,040,000 sites, to a subject I am not subscribing, excepting putting some gender selection methods for the newly wed couples. Here you see: http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=sex+is+part+of+life&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
This is how a person landed on my web site, searching for something; then sending me E-mail, asking what I have to do in these site, when my web site is all about religion!

To sharpen my own idea and views, watching every other members comment, just to stay afloat!

And here again Minstrel Said in the PR Question forum:

Wow! Nice summary, cbp.

"I've bookmarked it for the next time a similar question is asked..."

I did notice it to respond.

TRS Iyengar
http://www.trsiyengar.com