Google and Yahoo seem to like my site quite a bit. MSNbot too. There seem to always be bots roaming my forums all the time. So to me, same thing, different day
I've said it before -- The serps seem to be behaving a little unusually, like google isnt paying attention; There hasnt been a Toolbar update in a long time; There has been increasing Googlebot activity; The Googlebots have been behaving unusual; This all leads to one thing in my opinion... Some kind of big change is coming. Maybe a dramatic algorithm change, incorporating new factors not previously considered by google. If true, it would explain why there hasnt been a toolbar pr update. It would also explain why google seems to be 'broken' - its not broken, its being ignored while a new list is built. It would also explain the strange and frantic googlebot, which would be scanning everything looking for that new factor(s) it previously hadnt paid attention to. It would also explain why backlinks of -PR4 sites started showing 6 weeks or so ago. And it would explain the dissappearance of www2.google.com and www3.google.com 2 months ago.
I have to agree. I have a "gut feeling" as well that they have been working on something big, hence the delays with the toolbar update etc. Anyway, there's also the fact that since the IPO, Google now have to be very careful with any changes they make to their site/algo. As any change that the users see as having a negative impact on the site's useability can have a negative impact on their shares ...... which is probably why any changes they make to their algo will be rigorously tested before being implemented (hence causing delays).
Ok, well here is another twist... Maybe a little far fetched but who knows. I've been getting heavy and deep crawls by the JetEye Spider, and it seems to be behaving similarily to the google spider. The JetEye Spider also has no known search engine its attached to - and contacting JetEye gets you a very vague and uninformative response. Nobody has a clue who JetEye is. Could the JetEye Spider be connected to google somehow? Could google have a whole new SE its building? Might seem far fetched, but remember, you heard it here first.
I don't think Google is broken at all, in the process of change yes, but not broken. IMO its only broken if it does not function as Google intends, and none of us can provide much information in that area. Nor do I think that the results of the link: search are broken. While you may want the link: search to provide you with this or that information its up to Google to decide what it wants to show. I do think that all the recent changes may well be an indicator that there are changes afoot at Google. Some of the things that I notice are: Variations in the results of the link: search Variations in the results of the site: search Many previously indexed pages now showing up as only being partially indexed. More and more pages are being moved to the supplmental index. Googles recent crawling frenzy Some funny trends in the results: If I do an @url search I see an unusual order of the results, in that the top xxx results seem to be all from the main index and all recently (last two months) cached, and about halfway down that list suddenly I am seeing only pages from the supplemental index, and none of them have been cached more recently than five months ago. I am not seeing any pages that were cached in the period June-August 2004. I am not drawing any conclusions from this as it is a very restricted study, but it seems to me that google is at the very least doing some unusual housekeeping, but in prepartion for what I am not quite sure. Google may not be showing the results you would like to see but it is showing perhaps the most complete and relevant results of any search engine.
Really doubt that Joey, according to a post in WMW jetbot is the spider for a new search engine about to go beta and which has licensed some of its technology from Gigablast.
Google just changes with the times. It can't keep the same algo for years and expect to be the best. As times changes, people, products, and services change. The only way google would ever really be "broken" is if the engine started spitting out sites that weren't relevent to what was inputted. No one cares about site 200 on google except for the SEO who does the work on it and the owners. Users of google only care about the first couple of pages (if that much). Most of the time I can get what i need from google within the first couple of pages of searches.
There may be a million people saying it -- it still doesn't make it true.... any more than all the people claiming that Linux is overtaking Windows and that Mozilla/Firefox is about to dethrone Internet Explorer makes those claims any more credible.
What makes you think the toolbar PR thing isn't by design? It seems to me that the most defensible conclusion is that Google is attempting to implement things that make it a little harder for webmasters to manipulate the results -- I doubt that's accidental or a sign that anything is broken...
I would like to be added to the Google worshipper list, please. They have a lot more money than Compar or Anthony.
Even if it is by design, it is flawed. Google states to the public that PageRank is a measure of the importance of the page. Google includes this measurement on its public toolbar. If what is shown on the toolbar is no longer accurate - and I think it is quite clear that this is the case - then by design or by accident or by lack of updating - a component that Google serves the public is flawed - i.e. broken. If Google no longer wishes to display PR publicly, then they need to REMOVE IT FROM THE TOOLBAR. Until they remove it, or they update it, it is flawed/broken.
If it is by design, by definition it is not a flaw... or to use a cliche, it's a feature, not a bug... No. It's like a webpage that hasn't been updated. It's not flawed. It's just not current. Click on the "Google" button at the far left of the toolbar. Select "Options". Then where it says "Page information", uncheck the "PageRank display" checkbox. Voila! Toolbar removed. Blood pressure declining.
I have to respectfully disagree. If Google's internal (real) PR of a page (i.e. the importance of that page) is showing one thing, but the public is seeing the WRONG thing, then that goes beyond "not current". Google is telling the public, "This page is a PR0" (for example), when that is not true. The public is being misinformed about the "importance" of a page (using Google's terminology). Let's take the example of an air conditioner's wall thermometer. If it shows the temperature in the room is 72 degrees, when in actuality, the temperature is 90 degrees, the thermometer is displaying "not current" or "wrong" data. The thermometer is then considered to be broken. If and when the thermometer displays the "real" data, it will be "current" and no longer broken. ADDED: Actually, I do not need to remove the toolbar. I am not debating whether or not my blood pressure is affected by the lack of toolbar PR updates. Merely discussing whether or not a system that has flawed components can be trusted to not be flawed in other areas.
jsut because google results arent what you think they should be doesnt mean google is broken.... just means they think differently then you.
I'm afraid I have to disagree and I fully agree to what DazzlinDonna says ....... the thermometer analogy. If Google have the PR display feature on the G toolbar, it becomes their responsibility to make sure that info's updated and current at all times. If they can't update it, they should take that feature off. It's like a website having an "Events calender" displaying last year's events!! Same for the "link: " option. If Google doesn't want to display accurate BL information for whatever reason (presuming that this has been deliberately done by Google), they should just take the feature off. It doesn't make sense having a feature that doesn't give correct or current information.
That PR bar is for webmasters. It is not even enabled by default. Other than webmasters, most people probably do not even know (or care) what PR is. Those who care, know what it is and most know (or should know) it hasn't been updated in recorded history (well, for quite a while anyway) -- who's being misled? Your analogy is flawed. The thermometer exists only to display the correct temperature. You purchase one to do that job. If it doesn't do that job, you throw it away and buy another one that will. In the case of Google, their "job" is not to display PR anywhere -- it's to display relevant search results. One (and only one) of the things it uses to order those search results is PageRank. Whether or not that PR is displayed on the toolbar is not an essential part of its service. Some fancy thermometers also display things like the time or humidity -- but if those things should fail, as long as it displays temperature correctly, you might well continue to use it. Or for another example, my security alarm displays the time -- it's been an hour off since we started Daylight Saving Time in April -- but the alarm system is working fine, with no flaws at all.
Ahem. The toolbar is a FREE service and only a part of that service and a nonessential part at that. They have a right to do what they want with it. You have a right not to use it... or to disable that component. If you disable the toolbar PR graph, the rest of the toolbar works just fine. Who is pressuring you to use it? It's still there to give webmasters who obsess about these things something to do while they're waiting for the next click-through. And to give forum dwellers like us something to argue about.