Google Castle Being Breached

I currently target Google although many of the things that work for them work for the other engines. Even with that "Targeting" I am still #1 fairly quickly in Yahoo and MSN while Google takes some time.

As far as this thread goes though, I mean targeting in a different sense. When Yahoo was top dog they relied heavily on on page factors like keyword density. This brought about sites going overboard not caring about the consequences elsewhere by having insane densitys. It hurt their relevancy as they were nearly always the target.

Then the tides changed and you had Google owning the biggest chunk and suddenly we saw a shift to blog spamming, etc. If Google wasn't delivering the visitors would people be doing everything to get links. I'm not talking about your average webmaster looking to develop a long term strategy but what people commonly refer to as a Spammer.

 

No because the Title Tag is only one part of a huge amount of Factors. It is important but you can still rank without it.

That same page would most likely move up spots if they added a Title.

 

The top three positions for this search are all locked up by the same company!

I for one, DO believe Google is struggling!

I point to updates taking a month or more to complete as one symptom.

Caryl

 

If we are comparing the two on the issue of relevancy, the top spot (and 6 of the others) in MSN is (are) occupied by a company that sells Power Tools and Fasteners not Power Fasteners.
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=power+fasteners

The cited example in Google is a company that is named Powers Fasteners.

It would seem both engines don't really distinguish a "Power Fastener" as a product and to me that suggests poor optimisation for that phrase.

I believe thats a pretty easy phrase and a poor example of relevancy.

 

While ask seem to provide good results (I get a .com.au page in google for that search)...

http://webk.ask.com/web?q=Power+Fasteners&page=1&o=0&qsrc=221

Shame about all the ads

 

It is a shame as I do like their results. In this particular example though Ask is similar to Google in that it thinks the company "Powers Fasteners" is related to the product "Power Fasteners".

Again, a sign no-one is optimizing for "Power Fasteners"

 

The fact that this update (or apparently a series of tweaks and updates) is taking so long isn't evidence that Google is broken, though. I think it's evidence that the changes are deep and substantial... I suspect it's Google adding in features or the capability of adding in those features for the future.

 

minstrel,

I believe I used the term "struggling".

A simple Backlink Update ususally is completed in a few days. This current Update (started May 24th) has yet to see only a handfull of Datacenters reporting the "new" backlink totals. In fact I have recorded some Datacenters "updated" only to be rolled back to the old results by the following day.

To me, this is not symptomatic of a well planned or exectuted update. It is more symptomatic of problems encountered and trying to resolve those problems "on the fly".

There are also those that are reporting their sites being tossed about daily from page one to nowhere and back again.

I believe "struggling" is not too strong a term to use to describe these phenomenon.

Caryl

 

Yes you did, Caryl. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

I don't think this is a simple update, though. But I also don't conclude that the length of time it is taking to roll out the changes is necessarily indicative of "problems encountered".

As an analogy, a simple tweak to a page or two on one's web site takes only a few minutes. A major overhaul or redesign can take weeks with a very large site. That wouldn't necessarily indicate that anything was going wrong -- only that it was a large change in progress.

 

minstrel,

The length of time was only one of the "symptoms" I referred to. I also mentioned recording Datacenters updating and rolling back again. As well as peoples pages jumping from page one to nowhere and back almost daily.

These "symptoms" are not indicative of a steady, methodical progression.

 

Well, I did say "analogy", admittedly an imperfect one...

Perhaps you're right... perhaps not. I'll reserve judgement until whatever it is is completed...

 

Sorry minstrel,

I did not mean to be contrary!

This current update has a lot of the ear markings of the February/March Event that ravaged one of my pages.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the page I document extensively is not badly effected by the current "event". But from what I have read in the thread - Bourbon Update, many folks are experiencing similar results.

When you have documented results like this... (only a minute snippet of my data) edit: February 2nd the page was at position#13.

-These are the results for ONE PAGE and ONE KEYWORD PHRASE only


You start to view Google a little more critically and words like "struggling" and "broken" seem to roll off the old tongue a lot more easily.

Caryl

 

Give this Lady a standing ovation! She certainly has the data and seems to have moved Minstrel from his position of arrogant surety to one of reserving judgement. That's a hell of a back track for Minstrel.

 

That's a hell of a lot of different numbers...

Have ask got an API?

 

I always respect what Caryl has to say, compar...

I'm still not convinced Google is either struggling OR broken but we'll see...

 

To say that MSN is more accurate because your site ranks high or gets spidered more is nonsense. Google returns the best results currently for generic searches...

 

Proof please. On what basis do you make a statement like that?

 

ummm, I would say the searches that I make on a daily basis. You're a smart guy Bob, you could figure out that is what I meant. I use Google more than any other search engine to search for things, as do the majority of other people. I would assume that it is the number one searched search engine in the world because it is simple and returns the best results to date... IMO

 

That's my experience, too, NC.

compar: Proof please. On what basis do you question a statement like that?

 

Simple. I don't ever accept any unsupportive bald face assertion. I'm not saying I have proof to the contrary. In fact in my earlier post I suggested that based on a very small sample I thought Google and Yahoo had the most relevant results. But I'm not going to accept something simply because someone simply declares it so.

I did a small survey. McDar presented a large body of evidence. If we are talking about relevance, New Computer assertions have no relevance at all without some supporting evidence.