Google's November Shuffle

[SEO 0]

As we alluded to in other threads, Google is definitely in the midst of a dance. I have received multiple e-mails, and messages asking me for a follow-up and my opinion on this latest round.

 

To be honest, you really should not look until it is over (which I would think should be in one more day [or two]). At this point I can say that all the sites I manage fall into two distinct groups. One set has maintained high rankings (with minor up/down fluctuations) and the other set has fallen drastically or disappeared completely from the rankings.

 

Another distinction between these two groups that I have noticed is a difference in the page cached within Google. The group which maintained high rankings has a ‘fresh’ page cached. The group that has fallen or disappeared has an old cached page. This would suggest that the ‘fallen’ group has not been put into the mix (i.e. dance) yet.

 

Again, no sense of speculating what this new scenario brings us until… well until it does.

 

Time will tell and I will follow up with comments at the appropriate time.

Edited November 18, 2003 by TCH-Scott

[surefire 0]

Thanks, Scott. Some of the Google-watching forums out there throw out some pretty wild theories.

 

It's always good to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about.

[SEO 0]

As of 12:39am (EST) November 20, 2003 the ‘November Shuffle’ continues.

[surefire 0]

I've noticed that several of my sites are moving in and out of the index. And when they're in, they're MUCH lower down on the rankings than they have been before the dance began.

 

I've gone from concern to confusion as to how in the world Google would stand for (what I consider) 'weird' results for several days. Not that my opinion matters to Google... but if we are to assume that the current results do not reflect what the results will be after the dance... it doesn't seem to make sense. Why wouldn't they run the dance behind the scenes and show the new results when finished?

 

I don't really care. Just seems silly.

 

Anyhow, it seems to me that the lesson to be learned is: Don't depend on any ONE way of aquiring new customers or depend on any ONE website for your income.

 

Over the next several months, I'll be doing whatever I can to make Google just one piece of my marketing mix, rather than the key factor.

[SEO 0]

Over the next several months, I'll be doing whatever I can to make Google just one piece of my marketing mix, rather than the key factor.

 

Very wise words Thumbs Up

 

 

The only problem is that Google is so darn important. If you look at real numbers of sites that have top rankings for their most relevant search phrases among all the major search engines you will see that 'Google' is the search engine, bar none.

 

Then when you look at search engine derived Internet sells (again across an array of sites that do possess top rankings) as it compares to 'other' forms of derived Internet sells... well again, no comparison. Thus, we logically conclude that Google needs courting.

 

If we are conscience of the ‘power’ of Google, we focus our efforts appropriately on Google. However, by putting so much dependency on Google we flirt with devastation (i.e. the source could dry up) - potentially damned if we do, definitely damned if we don’t.

 

This is why so many are interested in the relatively recent turn of events within the search engine world and hope that someone (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) will give Google a run for their money. But for now, Google is the only dance in town.

[DarqFlare 0]

Actually, Google's shuffle has improved my main website's PR from 5 to 6. So.. I s'pose I'm happy, because now I have the PR of my top competitor. Good day, good day.

 

I have yet to search my site on Google extensively, maybe I'll take a peek at my top searches and see how it's changed.

[SEO 0]

DarqFlare:

 

Remember PageRank is important but only one 'part'. More importantly is your actual rank.

 

You choose 'online multiplayer gaming' to be your most important phrase. I see that you are now listed 4th for that rank... I do not remember where you were before but 4th is not to shabby Thumbs Up

[Deverill 0]

Google has definitely gone goofy. My regular fishing site was 30-something and is now way further down while the page I optimized for corporate fishing trips comes in at #1 for "corporate fishing trip key west".... and I only added that page about a week ago!

 

It's vory good to diversify because rank on Google goes up and down like the stocks on Wall Street and if you put all your eggs in one basket they may all break.

[SEO 0]

Looks to me like things have normalized across all data centers (as off last night, it is early in the morning here now). Over the next several weeks (months and years too!), I will be sorting through data to see what I can find out about the latest algo and new filters that were obviously put into play this round.

 

It is also worth noting that this was a 'real' dance. A lot in the SEO world expressed that the dance was dead and that it would be a continues update from now on. As I have stated elsewhere, I do not see how this is possible. PageRank, which is the 'core' of calculating rank with Google is dependant upon PageRank for the entire index... each individual site is affected by all other sites. The only way to truly update the index is to do a number of iterations calculating and recalculating PageRank across the entire index. The fluctuations in rank of any one particular page is the shuffling or movement during this period of updating all the pages. This ‘movement’ is what originally lead to coining the phrase 'dance' to describe the massive update.

 

I think the good news is that Google did do this 'real' update, the next 'hope' is that the update will get back to a more scheduled event (remember it used to be every 4-5 weeks). I much prefer predictability!

 

I will not be able to comment further after this post as my wife and children are going to spend Thanksgiving in the beautiful state of Colorado...

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all

[MothaCuss 0]

How often does google update its whole index, or rather, do another crawl? Do you figure they'll warn us of another "update"/dance?

[Deverill 0]

As Scott said, many SEO experts were commenting that the dance was dead and that it would be a continuous update. The whole thing with Google is that they keep stuff secret so noone can manipulate their programs to get unfair positions on searches. Because of this we just have to watch and see what is happening and go from there. As such, it is very unlikely that they will warn us of anything they do.

 

A dance is a massive recalculation of where pages should rank on a search. It is different than Google crawling the internet looking for new pages or updates on existing ones. There is some info about the dance at dance.efactory.de but I don't really know too terribly much about it and can't vouch for its accuracy.

 

Hope it helps!

[DarqFlare 0]

Yeah, my phrase "online multiplayer gaming" has shot up quite a bit in my search results.

 

Unfortunately, "online multiplayer games" is horrible, horrible for my website.I don't even register at all. Beh.

 

In any case, I am ranked 4th, yes. I think I was #12 last time... :-D Good jump for me!

[SEO 0]

How often does google update its whole index, or rather, do another crawl?

 

The question for the last 8 months! It used to be pretty darn predictable (about every 38 days or so). Now, well now nobody knows. This last 'rearrangement' was more like the typical dances of the past (with some strange results I will add). If things begin to normalize, I imagine it would be on a more regular basis (insert large quantity of Hope here ).