Here it is from google alert for "property in france" Search 1: property in france (tracking top 30 of about 2,160,000 results) 1. Amazon.co.uk: Books: Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide ... Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide to Realising Your Dream, Clive Kristen, How To Books. Amazon.co.uk, ... http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857037693 - Cached Oh isn't that just great!
Setting aside all biases about amazon.com results in the SERPs, it does seem relevant at least... - Shawn
And here's another one which indicates they haven't got it right. I searched for budget accommodation manhattan beach and this was the first site in the serps http://hotel-manhattan.cheap-accommodation-budget-accomodation.com Check out the text at the bottom of the page, after the huge blank space. Really frustrating for those of us who try to abide by their rules and common sense.
Well non-spam sites will be much better long-term (and a lot less work always trying to beat the system). I don't think there will *ever* be a point where there is nothing questionable anywhere in the SERPs. It's just impossible. But I do agree that it shouldn't be there... - Shawn
One needn't be biased against Amazon to feel that including links to books for sale as responses to searches for web pages on a topic is perhaps inappropriate. Aside, though, from overt spammers like the page cited above, one questions what curious balance of factors Google is using for rankings. The pages-referring paradigm must have seemed a bright light bulb when it was new, but somebody somewhere needs to rethink that one. One of the several niches I fiddle in is a rather narrow one, but it is annoying to not only bounce from #34 to #51 to #37 to #48 for my keywords in as many days, with no material changes in my site or the sites above me; more annoying is to see several sites ahead of me that have been closed down for a year or two or more, but that no one ever cleaned off the server. I had a sense--I don't follow these things closely, and am a newbie here--that Google was supposed to have started recently paying some attention to the freshness of content, an idea that would help right the boat, but I see no evidence of it yet. As a nonexpert, I wonder also if someone could help me out with an explanation of whence Google gets their links listings, and of how they treat them. When I ask Google who links to me, I get a list far shorter than the one I personally maintain (and those linking pages are checked nightly for validity, so my list is current); if they are basing their page ranks on only what they are showing me, that suggests that they are missing a lot. Also I wonder: do links to the pages of a site have any effect, even if indirect, on the ranking of the front page of the site? Common sense suggests--at least my common sense--that a site with many pages linked to is of some weight, even if links to the actual front page are fewer (perhaps by far) than links to the site as a whole. -- Cordially, Eric Walker
Well not being in the industry of a manhattan beach accommodation, I would find a book on it quite useful as an average user. I don't think it should be the #1 spot, but from a pure relevancy standpoint, as an end-user, I do like it somewhere in the first page of results. Maybe that's one of the approaches Google is taking... Maybe books or informational only sites are given a higher weight, but only a select few pages so the results aren't spammed out. In the end, Google is trying to give good results to the end user. They are going for most relevant (for that end user), not the most optimized. I don't think anyone can objectively judge relevancy on something when they have a bias towards any site within those ranks. I of course think I should rank higher for every single one of my keywords. But that's because they are my sites. In regards to Google giving a fresh content bonus, that's been happening for some time now. Google seems to give a ranking boost to anything that is "fresh content" for about a week (give or take a couple days). - Shawn
>In regards to Google giving a fresh content bonus, that's been happening for some time now. Google seems to give a ranking boost to anything that is "fresh content" for about a week (give or take a couple days). Which still leaves me wondering how literally dead and abandoned sites can rank well above live ones with decent in-links, substantial page counts, and reasonably fresh content. Allow me the electrons to give a sample; this is a particular search of interest to me, but there is no reason it cannot stand as a general example. Here's the text from the #40 Google hit under the terms <fantasy "science fiction">: The requested domain is no longer available on our nameserver. The #4 hit was last updated, by its own statement, 2002-08-03. The #20 hit also hasn't been touched since mid-2002. Perhaps most hilarious, the #26 hit is a domain-redirect page made in 1996, redirecting to a site not modified since July 2002, but which site (at the new URL) is the #32 hit--and they are far from being the only pair in the top 100 that are the same site with only slightly different URLs (which I thought was supposed to be deadly). The #47 hit is a "non-page" (its body is a single Javascript command to 'close window"), both live and in Google's cache (moreover it's a relatively new hit). And the #3 hit is a page merely listing a large numberof links within that site, a very general one, only one of which contains the phrase "science fiction" and most of which are about fantasy sports or sex. That page cannot have any real in-links from any sites to do with the search topic, and barely mentions it itself. None of this is pique over some site I just don't like being ahead of me (though the two Amazon books annoy me)--it is a matter of dead sites that never did have much, or nonsites, or sites with multiple URLs that are not to different site parts getting high ranks. So I'd agree, yes, Google is well off the rails, indeed about into the river.
Well the fresh content bonus is a very small part of the whole thing. If the sites have tons of links from relevant website that Google considers "important", they will rank well regardless of what is actually on the pages themselves. - Shawn
What I think has happened here is that we have gone back to post Austin pre latest shuffle/dance [end feb] as these look familiar So in answer to some of the above - if google is using old material at the moment then those old pages will still show up before they reshuffle again There is a definite feeling of google going back and back to old algos in order to get this one "right" and judging by the stats being quoted they are losing customers in droves. The point is if I wanted a book on the subject I would go to amazon or whatever - but I am not asking for a book on property in france I am asking for <b>property in france</b> Look at the first five here Amazon.co.uk: Books: Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide ... Buying a Property in France: An Insider Guide to Realising Your Dream, Clive Kristen, How To Books. Amazon.co.uk, ... www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857037693 - 47k - Cached - Similar pages Amazon.co.uk: Books: The Complete Guide to Buying Property in ... The Complete Guide to Buying Property in France: Buying, Renting, Letting and Selling, Charles Davey, Kogan Page. Amazon.co.uk, ... www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749440163 - 52k - 16 Mar 2004 - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.amazon.co.uk ] French Property News - Buy and sell property in France FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS The most widely read publication for buyers of property in France Today's Exchange Rate (
While I agree it's annoying (depending on the end user you ask of course), I don't think that books and news automatically should be removed from the SERPs just because the user can get them elsewhere. If that were the case, Google would have no users, because anything in Google can be located elsewhere. Google is about making the massive amount of info on the Internet useable. Google wants to draw users so they want to be able to be both broad and relevant at the same time. We forget sometimes (myself included) that Google is not our personal little money making tool. - Shawn
Oh I quite agree Don't get me wrong - I like Google [ I've been using it since it first started in 1999] and I want it to succeed - perhaps not at 75% market share but 50% is OK - and I use these forums to let Google know [they do read them don't they?] the problems and relevancy of their searchs as well as the fact that we are watching and commenting on what they and others do. Sort of a thought police! Now I'm not claiming any credit here, but the post I made [in a previous life] about adsense and being Hammered by Google had the desired effect and all my testing nowadays is showing very little problems in that area - but I still keep adsense out there on non critical sites to test the waters.
but the key and main factor why that site is top ranking is its domain name ! hotel-manhattan.cheap-accommodation-budget-accomodation.com domain name is one of the key factors in favor of any site if all else is equal and in favor if even title and discription are partially missing or wrong such as in this case. and his main bonus point is that he separated each word in the domain name - so it really counts in many SE. same applies for dolder names and file names
I gather that most or all who post here are professionals, so I am somewhat out of place as an amateur. Still, I simply do not get what is going on here with Google: right now, it is showing 17 backlinks--yet I have, by my own count, 111 All 111 are live pages--I check that much daily--and even if, somehow, one or several had decided to omit my link (which I doubt, as those who add rarely subtract), that's still a whacking great disparity. I do not believe, either, that it is as I have seen suggested elsewhere, that low-rank link sources are not shown, because of those that _are_ shown, there are a couple or three that more or less have to be rather low-ranking, and conversely some that I know exist but are not shown are definitely high-ranking. (I would not be at all surprised if there are other links I don't even know of--I rely on Google, and occasionally some other lists, to find them for me unless I am told by the linker.) On another point: books from Amazon as search hits is bizarre because Amazon itself (and B&N and maybe others) are explicit centers for finding all available books on a given topic. As was said above, when we search, we want web pages on a subject--if we wanted books, we'd search for books. My 2 cents on that, anyway.
Well low PR links definitely do not show. At least I've never seen one that does. Do you have an example of a low PR page that shows up for anyone when you use the "link:" query? If they did show, digitalpoint.com would have 100,000 back links alone just from the internal links. - Shawn
Go on Shawn tell us how you do that! 100,000 internal links can never be done by hand or is there a program out there to do it - I certainly don't know of one. In reply to the other post - the problem comes from the link text I would think. Up to May 2003 it did not matter whether you linked by url or by the actual text in the link eg http://www.housingdomain.com needed to become <a href........>Housing< etc So all the links now need to be themed - and once before I used to have all the links showing - now I don't and am in the process of theming every godam link that there is - that means coming from a page of similar theme to the page that you wish to link to. It sort of goes like this - I have a site that is black.com and I greate a sub section that is Grey and explain on that page that you need white with black [both linked] to make grey and then the white page is linked from a relevant source that was originally the opposite. Make sense? or .....
I don't bother with theming... not because I don't think it's a good thing to do, rather I don't have the time... I figure it will all work out in the end on it's own. Google is smart enough that I don't need to "help" it out. As far as having 100,000 pages... it's just content... {shrug} http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...w.digitalpoint.com+site:www.digitalpoint.com+ The estimated results for Google is bad when it gets over 5,000 or so, BTW. - Shawn
Google only reports backlinks of PR4 or higher. There are some exceptions to this general rule, but it will explain your question about not seeing all known backlinks.
With all due respect, Google's choice of books instead of a list of sources for buying real estate (e.g. local agents, lists of homes for sale, etc) is part of the problem that I think all search engines have. In other words, what exactly are you looking for? Is it general info, when a list of books on the subject are perhaps the best route to take? Or are you trying to buy something, when a real estate company is going to be a more sensible starting point? Much the same thought applies -- at least as I see it -- if you simply punch in "science fiction." Books? Well known authors? Movies? Somewhat academic discussions about how it's predicted so many things that we now take for granted? Or what? I'm inclined to think that Google et al need to encourage (and become better designed to handle) more complete (and therefore considerably longer) search phrases. As perhaps an extreme example, my logs today showed that someone did a search about "legal rights when a verbal agreement to buy something and then found out it was not worth what I paid." Now there can't be much doubt here about the sort of answer they were looking for, can there? And although, the first Google page includes several legal eagle sites, it also (Eureka!) gave a link to one of my own webpages in which, albeit in something of a roundabout way, I deal with this very question. Indeed, despite the concerns about the Florida shakeup and its apparent ongoing tweaks, I suspect that Google are simply fine tuning results with some recognition of what their own log stats are perhaps telling them about the basis/bias of searches that people are making. Or, in other words, maybe they can see that books are what most searchers are looking for, etc., etc. Duncan PS. Not with any thought of self-promotion but rather to account for the search example I give, let me explain that I'm in the real estate business.
Google has never stopped fine tuning their results since the day they opened their door. Which is part of the reason they took over the search engine market. Back to the original point though... I still have a different opinion on a book being in the results. As an end-user that knows nothing about the topic, a book on the subject is welcome within the results. I surely don't want *every* (or even most) of the results to be books, but for me personally, I like it. I'm in the isp billing software market, and while I of course always want to be #1 and #2 for "isp billing" and every related search, I think a book on the topic would be relevant for the average user (again, as long as it's one or two, and not the entire results). - Shawn
I could be wrong, but I swear I read somewhere (can't for the life of me find it again) that Google only counts an official "link" if the site has a PR of 4+. Anyone else heard anything along these lines?