Dumb ass question. What are canonicalization changes? I've seen this phrase all over WMW and I cannot figure out what it means.
Here is the definition supplied by Wikipedia: "to improve the efficiency of various algorithms by eliminating repeated calculations" does that sound like a "pre-score"? Caryl
Definiation: More info: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci841392,00.html Canonicalization. Making something Cannon (technical name for conforming to a standard). It's a fairly uncommon term these days.
canonical url problems refers to things like determining that www.something.com is the same as something.com
Dazzlindonna, do you agree with mcdar that google seems to have lost some of its pre-scored data and that once jagger 2 and 3 come about, that things will normalize, or do you think its something else? Someone else suggested BLOOP (egad I hated that acronym). And other theories abound.
Sorry Caryl, I wasn't trying to say that it was your server - even though it is a windows server The point I was trying to make was, if G for some reason decided to reload an ancient cache (god knows they've done it before) then they hit your site looking for that page. Because IIS (and windows in general) isn't case sensitive it will server the page. Google now thinks that it's a valid page - even though it doesn't really exist. It could be that it's only been hit once by one datacenter and then that rolled out across the rest of the DC's.
I recently penned in another thread that my main site went from #1 to #75 and beyond for all KW's, but my pagerank went from 5 to 6. Can pagerank increase if pages are "lost" or is pagerank computed and stored separately? My affected sites are only those that have co-op links, so I'm suspicious, but waiting for these other jagged (oops, I mean Jagger ) updates. My gut says I'm caught in some temporary sandbox.
I've found a good way to see if you are in the sandbox (or penalized) is to do this. Google Search like this: keyword - then - "keyword" If your site comes up for "keyword" but not for keyword, I've noticed its a good indicator of some sort of manual penalty. Not sure how accurate it is, but it helped me one time.
Seeing old data at the time of updates isn't new, Google have done it before. During Florida a group of us looked at things in detail, and it became obvious that Google were running two different algorithms.
I did a little experiment with natural linking prior to this update. I set up a wordpress blog at: http://refinancing-nightmare.blogspot.com and posted some original content with links in the articles to my main site. This site has no links to it, all I did was run pingoat every time I posted to it. This site has never been submitted to any directory, link partner, or search engine. Now it has a page rank of 4. People in the forums say content has nothing to do with page rank...I'm inclined to believe it does. I had been building backlinks like crazy (reciprocal and one-way) for my main site and nothing happened this update.
no it is GOOGLE who have said that, people on forums have repeated it. Page rank is numerical importance, content is the relevance aspect. combined to give you relevant important pages. Please read the google stuff on their site. http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html
I think McDar is right. Google seems to have issues with the integrity of its data. When I search for results from my site, I receive hundreds of results from the log-in page with a variable used only by a different dynamically generated page. For instance, I'll have lots of results like: The variable ref is only used on a different page. The log-in.php page does not use any variables at all.
I had noticed that too. I was checking out strange search referrals earlier this week with hyphens, and someone brought this up. I don't know what it means, but... keyword1-keyword2 gives different results than keyword1 keyword2 and both are different from "keyword1 keyword2" So I got to thinking after I saw this, and allinanchor:keyword1-keyword2 gives different results than a normal allinanchor:keyword1 keyword2. But the hyphenated is the same as allinanchor:"keyword1-keyword2". I am checking with a 3 word phrase, and come up about 80 spots on the oddball keyword searches, and hit #1 on the allinanchors, up from #4 for the normal. I am 99% certain there is no anchor to me with that phrase and hyphens. They all bring up the home page, not my keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.html page. Edit: Google did bring it up as supplemental at times for the straight search, but not for months. vtrader, are those 302 redirects? All within the same domain? Or are they simple cookies, tracking referals?
A perfect algorithm will not make sence..... They will pull a piece of the algo out so the pieces just wont fit.... Hopefully, as many are speculating, it isn't over yet and there are many changes and fluxes to come....
Matt cutts has stated another two over the next two weeks, and that was a few days ago. so hang onto your hat it might kick in at anytime.