Google dance

From: Allan Pollett <allan_at_ucanbuyart.com>
Date: Tue 25 Nov 2003 11:48:09 -0600

Well possibly the worse thing, that could have happened has happened,
Google updated. Unlike most updates where Google's results show
development and improvement, the current update has filtered out of
existence many excellent resources. The main filtering seems to happen
on terms, which are commercial or where many would pay for Adwords.
These are called money terms. If you a search on Google for example for
"Winnipeg real estate" (without quotes), you get a long list of sites
not in any way related to Winnipeg real estate. Now if you want to see
the real results, as they should be, do the following search "Winnipeg
real estate -ghghghgh -ffffff" (without quotes). The minus sign tells
the search engine to look for pages that contain the search phrase but
do not include what appears after the minus sign. Well, if you use
random characters as I have, it is very unlikely that any site would
have this term on its pages, so there should be no effect. However,
you'll notice very different results, and actually the number of results
is greater. The first search produces 26,200 results and the second
search with the double minus shows 89,400 results. Approximately 50,000
pages were filtered out. This double minus works because it fools the
search engine into not using its filters.

There are a lot of theories as to why Google has updated this way. There
are the conspiracy theories that suggest that the timing near Christmas
will force eMerchants to spend on Adwords. Others suggest that they are
trying to make on page factors less relevant, therefore, page rank would
become more important. It would force site owners to make a choice
between marketing for Google based on page rank factors (links and
anchor text) or to market using on page factors (text, title, font
sizes) which other search engines like Inktomi, Fast, and AltaVista use.
Google suggests that they are trying to make the search results more
relevant to users. They suggest when people search they are not looking
to purchase they are only looking for information on that product. With
the current results, even finding information on a product is difficult.

The new Google algorithm seems to determine if a page is over-optimized
for a particular keyword phrase then removes the site, if this is the
case. This would happen if the exact phrase is used too many times on
the same page. Also, I believe it employs Google's newest technology of
local rank. Local rank is used to determine where a site's links are
coming from. Using local rank sites on the same server or IP would not
be counted towards the ranking of a site. The local rank factor would
make it difficult for those who attempt to use multiple site ownerships
to artificially boost a site's ranking. Another theory suggests Google
has developed a dictionary look-up, which is used to filter results.
This last theory is very likely. Dictionary look-ups are fairly trivial
to set up, and Google has shown in the past that it uses a dictionary
look-up, when searchers use an incorrect spelling.

Now SEO's and users alike are playing the waiting game to see the impact
the last Google dance will have. If history is any indication, then
users will quickly switch their search behavior, if the search engine
does not produce relevant results.

Some food for thought.


Sincerely,
Allan Pollett
SEO and eMerchant
http://www.UCanBuyArt.com
~~Where the world shops for art!~~~




Received on Tue Nov 25 2003 - 11:48:09 CST