For about the last 5 days, the number of backlinks that Google is showing me has varied between 9 and 90. What's strange is that until the recent update, I was at a flat 42 backlinks for a long time. After the update, the backlinks that Google showed to me dropped to about 20, but my PR went up. Then, in the also 5 days or so, the number has really bounced around. I've also seen traffic spikes and troughs. 700 uniques one day, 7 the next. The numbers are really all over the place, a lot like the backlink situation. What the heck is Google doing?
They are updating their algorithms. The next few weeks will be very crazy! Check out the Google section for more info.
Can't get any worse for me, my important sites have been nonexistant in google for a month now, so bring on any updates
It's pretty frustrating when you're trying to track the performance of a website, and the numbers are swinging so violently. Plus, since the update I've been getting a lot of garbage sites at the top of the SERP when I'm doing searches. Some searches I do give me 8 or 10 directories and spammy sites instead of anything relevant. For example try the search term "Boise Accountant". There are a few actual accounting firms in the first few pages of results, but most are BS pages.
Yeah it's the norm for a lot of searches now. Many quality sites have fallen off the planet and crap has taken over. For a few searches I've tested all I get is wikipedia pages (including empty ones that only have a headline) and amazon pages in different languages.
That damnable Wikipedia is really starting to irk me also. Since the home page has such high PR, the sub-pages get pretty good PR passed down to them. Wikipedia is usually the least relevant site when I'm searching. That's backwards to Google's stated mission of providing the most relevant searches on the internet. More and more I find myself using Yahoo! and MSN for searches. I get more relevant results at the top of the list, and it saves me time. (Plus, it doesn't hurt them that I can get my sites listed in the top 10 fairly easily while Google has me languishing hundreds of pages down the search results).
Google has been getting worse and worse, especially since mid April or so. And I don't only say that because my google traffic has dropped to exactly 0 per day. Even had a couple of friends ask me if I can suggest a better search engine because they only find trash with google, I've never had anyone I know ask me that until about 3 weeks ago.
If this is what Google wants to end up as, I guess I'll build a couple hundred automated directories and use those to blast high PR links to my own relevant sites. Google seems hellbent on "fixing" all the problems with their algo, but what results is a lot of hurt webmasters, and a less efficient product. Yoohoo! Is there anyone from Google listening? Get your sh*t together!
The way i've built my sites that really matter, i get found with around 10k different search terms every month. So if a handfull take a dive off the first few pages there's plenty of other terms to take up the slack. All i can say is keep adding regular and original text based content that's keyword rich, and keep applying backlinks. Even if your niche doesn't lend itself to much text content, say a Digital Photography website then set up a blog or even static HTML pages and write article about photography, taking photos, different film, tips on photographing landscapes etc. You will prevail.
well what ever they are doing, my numbers keep going up everyday. Indexed pages is doubling, links are up by 100, and I haven't done anything special. It's scary, I'm waiting for the let down.
I completely agree with the opinion that Google is getting worse. I see many irrelevant results with important keywords. Before the last update all the backlinks of my site DrugInfo disappeated and I got PR0 despite my listings in DMOZ and Google directories.
My blog suddenly had almost no backlinks at the time of the latest PR update and dropped from 5 to 4. Now all the reported backlinks are back to normal.
From the same computer on the same IP address? I thought the DC's were geographically separated? If it was a datacenter issue, why would my traffic bounce up and down at about the same frequency as my listed backlinks?