Except that so-called "predictor" is virtually useless. It isn't a predictor at all, actually, but rather a record of when previous updates occurred. These days, toolbar PR is updated whenever Google feels like it, not on any regular schedule. The next update could be tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, or six months from now. There is no way to be more precise than that.
No kidding, I'm desperate for SOME kind of update via Google. I'm getting okay traffic, about 100/day from Yahoo and MSN combined, but I'm almost 100% sure (going by the last time Google had me indexed and showing up in the serps) that I would get about 4000 extra uniques/day if Google starts showing me in their SERPs again. Right now I'm in the index but hopelessly sandboxed. I guess it's a good sign that Google has just dropped another 3000 of my pages into their index over the weekend, but an update sure would help me out a ton.
I'm no expert at this in no way, but will give my opinion. Is Google loosing focus on what it's suppose to be providing to the general public. Isn't the main purpose of a search engine to provide the most current relevant results to a search. I say this because why does Google take soooo long to do anything. Why can MSN and Yahoo do their job in half the time Google does. Is Google just playing BIG BOY on the block. Google reminds me of MTV. When it first started you seen nothing but music video's now your lucky to even see a music video. Is Google offering so many other services that it's loosing focus on what it's suppose to be doing. Listen, we have these websites to make money, at least that is my purpose, so why BOW down to Google like they are KING of search engines, when we have MSN and Yahoo indexing and ranking our website much much faster then Google. Once again this is only my opinion and it's not meant to bash Google in no way. (thank God for spell check )
Maybe the reason why people have so much issues with Google is precisely the reason why Google is happy for people to have issues with them -- That is, if they weren't the dominant force on the Net right now, would anyone care what they do, or don't do, or does well, or doesn't do well? Just ask MSN/Yahoo. Those guys are fantastic, but on one cares.
That's just my point...as website owners we know that Google doesn't look out for our best interest(not that they really have to) or do the best job that they can be doing (by not holding back information)... but because the general public doesn't realize that they are being deprived of the best search results and view Google as the dominate search engine on the net, then we are pretty much stuck with Google running the show.
If Google were not providing the best search results, don't you think "the general public" would simply use another search engine? Most new systems don't even come with Google as the default search engine... The problem is that the only way you'll get "the general webmaster public" to like Google is for Google to make it transparent and crystal clear how they rank sites so that webmasters can manipulate the system and get to page 1 -- which of course is impossibla anyway because (the default) page 1 has only 10 spots open.
The 'General Public' has no idea how a search engine works and how websites get listed and I'm sure they don't even care. My point is that if Google takes soooooo long to update anything, might it be indexing web pages, ranking websites or what have you, how is the 'General Public' getting the best search results. And the 'General Public' uses Google the most because it is the most popular and most talked about search engine on the net, but that doesn't necessarily make Google the best search engine. Furthermore, I'm not asking Google or any other search engine to reveal the way they rank websites, I'm just asking for them to do their job and update the information they gather from these 'spiders crawls' on a regular basis.
And what makes you think they don't do that already? Google search results are updated on an ongoing and virtually continuous basis. The "updates" that everyone talks about are primarily the public reporting of those changes, which do change only periodically. Have you noticed how after a "PR update" nothing really changes in terms of your Google rankings or traffic?
That's not exactly true. Google chose a pretty funky (but "cool" name), and either they paid for it, or they were just lucky that TV shows, movies, and magazines started using the phrase "Google it" as a punchline. Next thing you know, they've gotten massive exposure via the idiot tube and movies, and suddenly they're buried in the consciousness of JoeBlow. Even the ones who don't know how to turn on the computer has either heard of or knows that if they need to find something on the net, all they have to do is "google it". So when they DO jump on the net, what do they do? They go straight to google. I have no idea if Google paid for all those mentions on the TV and movies, but if they did, they're friggin' geniuses. So, no, I have to disagree with you, I don't think the general public flocks to Google because they're the best, etc. I think they do it because mass media tells them that if they need to find something on the net, all they have to do is "google it".
Does Google have to pay anything when they get a plugin from a movie? Like I noticed they used Google to do a search in the movie "Hitch"
Very likely. I know that Apple computers pays for all those apple laptops people use in the movies. I once saw "24" use nothing but Alienware laptops and you know those were product placements. When it comes to such blatant product placement as someone sitting down to use a search engine in the movies, I'm almost 100% sure Google pays for that. It's all those TV show mentions that I think they might have gotten for free. Just because the phrase "google it" seems awfully "hip", etc.
Isn't the public reporting the most important reporting. Isn't that what we all want, is for the public to see the most up to date reporting that the search engines has, isn't that what we are striving for.
No, what the "general public" wants is relevant search results and that's what they're getting. They don't care or in most cases even know about PR and backlinks, etc. The only people who care about those things are webmasters.
Relevant results from Google yes but Yahoo.. Not a chance. Yahoo does infact sucks pretty bad when it comes to giving relevant results. Yahoo needs to hire a guy from Google
All I know is that I'm at the top of everything in my field in MSN and I still only get about 50/hits a day from them. That may be super relevant, but it still sucks from a webmaster's POV.
Yes. I rank pretty well in all three but the vast majority of my traffic comes from Google... often, second place goes to AOL, not MSN or Yahoo.
I think my whole point was lost somewhere in translation...but again it was only 'my' opinion. But just to recap my point. I feel that the 'general public' is not getting the most up to date relevant search results from google because they, Google, takes soooooooooooooo long to update anything that deals with web pages websites and so on to the 'general public'. Let's put it this way. If Google is taking months and yes I said it, MONTHS to update and put out the the information they have been gathering on a daily basis from all these webpages for the 'general public' to have. And MSN is updateing thier information they gather on all these web pages on a daily basis and put out these results on a weekly basis, which search engine is really putting out the most up to date information for the 'general public' to have. Hold on let me ask my son that question who is going into the 1st grade.
Yes, I understood what you were saying the first time around. But I disagree with both your premise (that Google takes months to "update") and your conclusion. My opinion.
Google updates all the time. Try making a big change to the onpage optimization of a page on a site. If you make a major change you will see that that page will move within a week.