Because I am a naif. Till quite recently, all this was esoterica to me, and much still is. There are, I gather, software packages that will do log analysis, but I have none. My very few experiences with raw logs is that they are a colossal pain in the ass to comprehend. I reckon that for folk at my level, the end result ought to be sufficiently demonstrative. I still am in a tizzy over Google's cache of my log page reverting back 9 days for no reason I can detect.
I think you will find this happening quite a lot with Google at the moment - it really does not know where it is at as it tries to implement changes. It has most probably just reverted its data back to the "one before" because of .... I don't know but you may find the position that matches in the 56 databases and do a comparison You should check the 64 databases [listed as new] on mcdar http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php for your NEW positions that will apply most likely in the future
Remember also that Google has lots of servers and thay are not always in complete sync. It is for all these reason that Mr T and I so strongly doubt that the change you saw in 24 hours was the direct result of hiding a few links. BTW how many links did you hide?
. . . Mr T and I so strongly doubt that the change you saw in 24 hours was the direct result of hiding a few links. My log page is now cached by Google at a version that is at most 24 hours old. Since that is a minor page of my site, and my site is, shall we say, not MSNBC, I think we can take it as proven that Google catches changed pages fast these days. And what they catch, they must surely take into account:: it would be literally indcredible to say they slurp and cache pages without taking the contents, including linkage, into their ongoing system accounting. They do not seem, from a trifling sample, to have yet caught the 6812 new mod_rewrite "pages" on the site, and it will be interesting to see what happens when they do (over the next day or two, I guess). [H]ow many links did you hide? Assuming my count today hasn't changed from a few days ago: 1780. Not, I would say, trivial in number. For perspective--the site's numbers as of the moment I am typing: Actual (physical file exists) pages: 1529 Additional virtual (php) pages: 6812 Apparent site pages: 8341
Rankings are done by the page not by the site. I do not think you removed 1780 links from any one page. And while Google does indeed seem to be caching pages very quickly, given the delay in the last link count upgrade and the associated PR ranks I doubt very much that they will totally rerank a page or a site taking all apparent links into account in 24 hours. Try unhiding your links for 24 hours and see if it makes any difference.
Maybe in a week or so, after the effect of the new php pseudo-pages has been seen and stablized. I had a typo in the hastily made count-checkscript: I hid 1810 links. And no, of course, they were not on one page (though one page had many); but it is my opinion, and that's all I claim for it, that Google gives a certain amount of significance to a site as a whole, and that that determination has some impact on that site's individual pages' serps, and also that individual pages' PRs have some effect on the site's front page. Only your Google know for sure . . . .