Update Jagger

I know it has been discussed before, but Matt Cutts has decided to post more info...see latest post:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Does that mean the update is over

 

I find this comment a bit strange

Are they looking to actually remove spammy AdSense accounts from the index? Just thought it was curious he is asking people to put in "jagger1" which would indicate this rather then a suspension of their account

 

Yeah I thought that was really strange too.

 

Yes, you can now get emails from the adsense team warning you that adsense isn't allowed to be placed on spammy pages and as a result your account will be terminated unless the ads are removed from the pages in question.

 

I realize that but its the deindexing he seems to be hinting at is something new to me

 

Well if they know that the pages are spammy, then it stands to reason that they would want them removed from the index... the "Ads by gooooooooogle" reporting link just makes for an easy way to say "SPAM HERE!"

 

maybe they are looking for spam pages that accidentaly got better ranking during Jagger

 

i think the most interesting thing about "jagger1" is the addition of the 1.
does this mean they intend to have a jagger2?

 

seems an odd way to weed out spam pages. G was full of spam before and it's still full of spam now.

it just occurred to me, five years ago, the major issue with search engines was broken links. i remember searching at altavista (or was it hotbot? lycos? webcrawler?) and getting annoyed as one link after the other came up 404.

now the 404's are gone but the SERPS are full of spam... a bit harder to fix than 404's i guess.

 

I would say that is possible, or they are trying to remove any chance of getting comments that aren't related to this update. While it is conceivable that the word jagger could appear in a contact, jagger1 would be near impossible.

 

perhaps jagger would occur, I would guess rarely, but I'll agree that it is possible.

 

I think its a step in the right direction though. It's google's fault that these spammy sites are being made (because of adsense); it only makes sense that they try and remove them thru spam reports. If I had time, I'd report more of them, but its easier to click back or just move on.

 

personally i think at least one of the new steps is a re-evaluation of the way Google handles internal and external on-topic and off-topic links, as well as more "spammy" linking methods.

they also seem to be trending towards a more hands on approach to removing spam, notifying webmasters and opening up report channels.

 

I like the bit about notifying webmasters, you can never be too sure exactly what Google will deem as a spammy site.
Personally I'd prefer to see them take a more proactive role in which sites are actually accepted into adsense. At the moment, it's only your initial site that needs to be cleared through them. I think it would make a massive difference if you had to clear all sites through Google prior to being allowed to put adsense on them.

Opening up more channels of communication can only be good (imho) it's not really something that any search engine has ever done that I can think of.

 

I think however, in clearly defining what it considers spam and what it doesn't google is opening it self up to webmasters who'd like to "toe the line" in how they game google.

 

Do people here have a lot of ads on their site?

I know that mine does and i am wondering if that has anything to do with sites being removed.

Just add it to the list of theories.

 

The "jagger1" reference could become "jagger2" and "jagger3" if we follow what Matt Cutt's has announced about two more possible index updates.

 

I agree that is it most likely now because of the update phases.

Does anyone know if google has asked for update specific feedback before? I personally haven't seen them do it before.

 

Yes, they did during the height of the redirect issues. Googleguy gave out a special email address.

I have also seen Matt Cutts encourage people to use the current methods also. - Just not in such detail

 

well according to the post at seochat homer posted about in the mcdar tool thread, the sandbox isn't for new sites anymore, it's for new *and* suspicious sites; now you can go in and out of the sandbox according to your activities. i guess that makes sense. since google can distiginguish between reciprocal links and one way links, this idea of punishing a site which rapidly exchanges recips can't be abused by BH guys to try and get at you.

but anyway the term sandbox was coined specifically because that's where baby sites went. so perhaps it's time for a new name. what do they call that little box they have at hockey games? penalty box?