Anyone know what Google changed?

[768768]

After months of trying I finally made the 1st page of results for my keyword. It really helped my traffic. Then at the end of Dec. I went from the bottom of the 1st page (# 9/10) to page 20. A week later to page 40 (#400). During this time I hadn't changed a thing. Sure makes a difference in my traffic. Damn!

Does anyone know what Google might have changed?

[harleyx]

Google's really screwy lately. PR just updated a few days ago, but they've been very flaky with results since they doubled the listings.

[768768]

Thank you for the reply.

[webchica]

Thank you for the reply.

Thanks for the information. Screwy certainly describes it. One of my client's went from PR0 to PR11, then the week after to PR16 and now back to PR0. I'm getting much better results from MSN and Yahoo for keywords optimized for Google!

[David G]

Thanks for the information. Screwy certainly describes it. One of my client's went from PR0 to PR11, then the week after to PR16 and now back to PR0. I'm getting much better results from MSN and Yahoo for keywords optimized for Google!

Really? When did they go to PR's beyond the very rare PR 10?

[OgieOgalthorpe]

It looks like a depreciation of internal anchor text.

[webchica]

I meant PR2 position 1. Methinks I'm spending too much time in front of the computer!

It looks like a depreciation of internal anchor text.

Could you explain more about what internal anchor text is? Thanks!

After months of trying I finally made the 1st page of results for my keyword. It really helped my traffic. Then at the end of Dec. I went from the bottom of the 1st page (# 9/10) to page 20. A week later to page 40 (#400). During this time I hadn't changed a thing. Sure makes a difference in my traffic. Damn!

Does anyone know what Google might have changed?

I realize the ranking results are probably still unstable, but I have to wonder whether they changed the weighting on links again. One of my clients came up number one on a product that they manufactur despite the fact that their biggest reseller has hundreds more good links to their site. The reseller has always appeared number one until today. Very odd...although my client will be pleased.

[petertdavis]

You know, your position can change even if you didn't change your site at all, and even if Google didn't change anything. The sites linking to you might have been the thing that changed.

[mike031]

google reshuffles its index every other day or so.. if it finds a site that might be better then yours for whatever reason you will get slammed... you can be for example, #9 for a week... #90 for 2 weeks and #50 another week... the ranking can be switching every other day for you and you will notice everytime it crawls your site you either move back up to were you previously were or go further down... especially if you are dealing with really popular "blah blah blah blah" keywords, ie; all new free games, brand new hot free music, right now photo galleries, etc.

[Zinc]

Google has changed something 'again' (around the beginning of Dec '04)
I had several first page sites in the SERPS which were in the top 5 for
particular keywords which have now dropped off completely.

I also have two sites which are updated with new content daily and have
many inbound links, these don't seem to have been effected that much at
all. I can only assume Google is now favouring sites with lots of inbound
links and sites which are updated daily with 'fresh' content.

I've noticed that while Google's traffic has dropped off, Yahoo's and
MSN's is getting better.

It's great when the worlds top search engine boffins can't decide what
'relevancy' means.

Beam me up...

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After months of trying I finally made the 1st page of results for my keyword. It really helped my traffic. Then at the end of Dec. I went from the bottom of the 1st page (# 9/10) to page 20. A week later to page 40 (#400). During this time I hadn't changed a thing. Sure makes a difference in my traffic. Damn!

Does anyone know what Google might have changed?

[768768]

Well, the site which started this thread is now #1 on MSN Beta Search. Good to see somebody got it right!

Current status on Google: page 44 :disappoin

[lz83ny]

MSN beta search says it all, don't take the results for granted because the final product will be different.

[HLK]

"It looks like a depreciation of internal anchor text."

Hit it right on the head.
All sites that had internal or external site-wide links got a major bashing.

MSN & Yahoo are still liking them though

[Castlemelody]

I agree. Sites with fresh and relevant contents are favored. Personally, I found that writing for the site visitor and not for search engine is also interesting. I am not sure. They must have found a way to "educate" Googlebot to read like a human being.

Take care all.

... I can only assume Google is now favouring sites with lots of inbound links and sites which are updated daily with 'fresh' content.