I personally feel that it is age of BL's that has been given more weight so far in the J1 & J2 updates.
I thought it was more the change in backlinks that seemed to matter the most. Or better said, the rate your site gets backlinks from the previous update to Jagger.
I think this will end up as a mix of where we were before Jagger with some of the Jagger results mixed in. In other words I think some words will revert back while some others may lose and some will gain. Just my theory.
Assuming that Jagger is behaving just like Google wants it to (which I don't believe is happening, I think google really fouled this update up)...my personal theory (somewhat related to mcdar's) is that google has tossed out their previous "pre-score" data and is in process of currently rebuilding it. They did this, in order to shake up the results a little bit, so that the same sites aren't always on top of the searches. My alternate theory is that BL's are being given less weight; ie the bar has been raised for links, to try and dissuade link buying and upping the "cost" of getting so-called "natural" rankings. Possibly more on page factors are being taken into consideration. My tinfoil hat theory is that google thinks 1.7billion in profit isn't enough for a quarter and want more people to buy adwords, so they have totally randomized the algorithm so results are not awful, but random enough to let sites who rely on free clicks know that the free ride is over.
I think that with Jagger they have slightly tweaked the algo in favour of older sites. Whether that means a bias towards older inbound links or older domain creation date is open to debate. In my sector I am seeing older sites totally dominate the top 10 results. Anything created after 2000 doesn't even get a look in. Using a tool like the one at http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/ really paints the picture.
I think 1/ It aint over 2/ Your sites genre in google's eyes are directly measured against the links/relevant of links from other sites. I have one site which lost 30 top10's but kept 4 No.1's which can only be equated to the fact that they were more relevant to the original site's genre and keywords google deemed unrelevant to the site which previously had top1,5,10 positions disappeared.
I think main motivation was killing seo service business (i don't like it either). Some innocent sites seems to be affected and some s p a m m e r s became winners.
As much as I like to disagree with our friend Fryman, I'm beginning to think that this is the most likely answer. Certainly looking in my area of expertise no domain newer than 2000 is ranking anywhere for anything AT ALL. However, if 'quality of links' is a measuring factor then the big G needs some serious improvement. The biggest gainer in my market is a domain from 1996 that has clearly bought sitewide footer links on dozens of completely unrelated sites.
Interesting, because everyone here seems to be complaining about how those kind of links seemed to have hurt their sites... However, if the site is 10 years old as you say, then that alone must be a huge factor for Google... not many scraper or spam sites manage to survive 10 years
Just to clear any confusion up ... the tool belongs to Jim Boykin's WeBuildPages and is nothing to do with me. The guy knows what he's talking about though - that tool is worth paying for. I've ran a few tests ... I'm finding it hard to find any site youger than 2000 in the top 10. Although the sites in the top 10 are good, how long can Google afford to basically ignore sites launched recently? Of course they'll argue that their SERPs are more relevant than ever, but can you realistically say that when there are 1000s of young sites out there that are 'better' than the current old crop but don't get a look in because of their age? I think not.
Well, many webmasters here have complained about sites on the top 20 that on their homepage have something like "recent news" and have a date of April 2004 Meaning that they are old sites that haven't been updated in a year and are still ranking better than sites that are updated every single day.
If this really is the case then this is mind bogglingly stupid on Google's behalf. Imagine if you went to a library and they had a catalogue sorted by date order rather than by title / keywords. An encyclopaedia telling you that the world is flat, that your sore tummy is caused by demonic possesion, and that you owe 40% of all earn to the king would be considered the source of all knowledge. The librarian would look at you with horror if you picked up an encyclopaedia britannica. After all, what would new, fresh, relevant, and accurate content have to do with anything? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Well... I'd see it like this: would you go ask a complicated math question to Mr. Smith, the professor that has been teaching math for 10 years in the University, or to Johnny, the substitute teacher that has just started giving classes last week? Seems that Google would say "Lets put Mr. Smith first, and Johnny can slowly prove to us that he deserves to climb up if he keeps his good attitute"
I agree, to an extent. I've come across many well ranked sites that: were created prior to 2000 have one / multiple DMOZ listings have one / multiple Yahoo listings a few one-way links from various Geocities fansites little content I mean fair enough, an old site with lots of inbound links from an assortment of authority sites is worthy of a place at the top of the table. The problem is that Google seem to have wiped out a few years of history. Aside from age, why should a site with the above attributes be any less worthy of a top 10 placement? It just seems so unbalanced.
Nice analogy. But what if Mr Smith hasn't picked up a journal or bought a new text book for 10 years. And I wan't to ask a question about using a new statistics package to process some data. Mr Smith will look at you as if you'd just asked him for a pickled herring with ice cream on top. Johnny the substitute will likely be a lot more help.
Sure, but here Google is saying "what is it, a math question? Go to Mr smith, he knows about math". Doesn't matter if Mr. Smith hasn't taken a math course in 2 years while Johnny is up-to-date with all the modern theories. Just giving a priority to age... don't really know if it is good or bad, but I guess Google just wants you to prove to them that you are a reliable source and aren't just playing around with a site that will vanish in a few months.