Jagger analysis

If the Jagger update is now complete and I am not sure whether there is another phase to come....

However, we have been analysing the effects to date on our 30+ sites. We have 2 sites that were deployed at about the same time with the same template. They are about 6 month old abd did not seem to be in the sand-box for long. The amount of content is similar.

We are in real estate web sites who have supposed to have been hit by the latest shuffle.

On Google, both sites prior to update were enjoying some page #1 positions and indeed some #1 positions. We actively exchange 2-way links but we do try to make sure that they are relevant. Rankings on MSN, and Yahoo are page #1 too for our main keywords.

The results for Google - on less competitive keywords (below 600,000 competing pages), we have maintained our positions. Above 600,000 we have lost top rankings and in some cases are off the radar.

Our guess is that "new" reciprocal links have been devalued and this shows on particulalry competitive keywords. However, we think new reciprocal links still have some value.

On older sites where we use a similar strategy, the effect is not seen so much --- so we think that the "age" factor might be crucial. But even here we think reciprocal links have been devalued.

We would be interested if anybody else is seeing the same trends.

Are 3 way links or 1 way links showing any better SERPs?

 

My trends are not the same.

My site's been open since 1996, lots of one way links, some very old, most developed during the last two years for our 'money' pages.

Gone from number 1 rankings for medium competitive keywords, and number 3 to 5 rankings for extremely competitive keywords - to - rankings in the 200's and 300's.

No recips at all.

I hope this update is not complete.

Last night I was doing research for some electronics I'm thinking of buying. The google results were poor overall. Lots of cnet and zdnet 'review' pages with no content ("review for this product not done yet"). Lots of bizrate pages. In actual use, serps overall were pretty poor.

Google needs to factor backlinks back in. Most of the useless results I found had none, but still their were listed in the top ten for medium competitive phrases.

 

I had a personal experience of not liking the new google results. I was trying to find a site that showing fantasy football (american NFL) rankings for various positions. So I go to google and try 'nfl wr rankings'. After 10-15 minutes of finding nothing on the first few pages I go to www.msn.com and type 'nfl wr rankings'. Low and behold I found what I was after at #4 on the first page.

This is just one personal experience example where I am now finding better results on M$N then G.

 

I also I had a 'negative search experience on google' recently.

Someone on a forum was searching for a particular peice of webmaster software by its name which is a unique name that is not a common term on Google...(which now I can't remember)....but anyway they said they couldn't find it.

I decided to try the MSN and guess what? Number 1!! Yahoo! first page!!

Google did not even have it in its results pages. It was not a piece of blakhat software I beleive it was stats software, and it has been around for quite a bit of time so it is definitely not something new.

So Google definitly is having issues with search results. IMO

 

I've pretty much switched to using Yahoo or MSN altogether now. Partly out of google hatred for being so tough on new sites but more and more because the results I got were total rubbish. The devaluing new links theory holds for my site

 

We don't see any shift any of the sites we run - so has jagger3 hit?

 

jagger isn't done yet. jagger 3 hasnt even started yet, as far as i can tell. i dont even see jagger "2" results very often either.

 

I think J3 has started take a look at 66.102.9.104

 

I've been hearing this "reciprocal links are devalued / discounted / penalized" silliness for months now.

Give it up. It's not happening and it's not going to happen.

And while I'm at it, it has nothing to do with Coop links, either.

 

someone mentioned that googleguy posted on WMW that Jagger3 won't start til wednesday, so theres hope yet!

 

How do you know? it seems to hold true for a lot of people, if you want to state that you disagree with a theory why don't you post some evidence to back it up

 

The evidence is the lack of consistancy.

Right now, sites are all over the place, up and down, whether they use the coop or not.

 

I am detecting some changes on the following DCs
216.239.59.99
216.239.59.104
66.102.11.99
66.102.11.104
66.102.9.99
66.102.9.104

anyone else?

 

I have made up a web page to show the results I have recorded for one of my pages throughout this Update.

You can scroll across and see the changes per Datacenter.

Note: the Datacenters are grouped by C-Block.

October Google Event - Jagger

Also;
If you are interested in seeing similar data that was recorded throughout the February/March Google Event

Caryl

 

seeing slight changes (for the better) not as drastic as I was hoping for though