Florida #2 ? - Page 3

John Scott · 01-25-2004, 12:01 PM

It went down? The Adwords CTR should go up if the SERPs are irrelevant, and down if the SERPs are exactly what the searcher is looking for.

...

I, Brian · 01-25-2004, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compar

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonsimons

so how do we improve our results? lower anchor text?

I don't think you can jump to that conclusion yet.

It two months plus since the original Florida and knowbody has proven that they know how to adjust for that one. So it's riciculous to suppose anybody has figured this one out yet. No way! Sit tight for a few days at least.

To *prove* a Hilltop algo would require a much more painstaking link building campaign - link exchanges, directory submissions, etc. It's a far more organic process, and a much slower one at that. I think the clues are all in there that there's an expert system at play, though what exact form it may take is anybody's guess.

John Scott · 01-25-2004, 12:11 PM

It's not hilltop. It's not expert system. It's rubbish.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Seattle+Hosting

No expert system would do that. Read the Hilltop paper - http://www.cs.toronto.edu/%7Egeorgem/hilltop/ then try to reverse engineer those SERPs.

It's more of an over-applied exact phrase/ perfect match filter, IMO.

Pimpen 2010 · 01-25-2004, 12:14 PM

I'm loosing a lot of keywords.

I can't believe Must Have Software has got me off the 1st ranking

juliany · 01-25-2004, 12:16 PM

It is rubbish for sure.

I'm checking for a spanish site and I found this:

"poemas" (poems): #1 a site about christmas poems with no seo.

I do "allinanchor:poemas" and I am #2, when before this I was #5. Does this count to anything???

Julian Yanover.

POR-15 Depot · 01-25-2004, 12:25 PM

Using allinanchor:rust bullet returns the EXACT results that the search term "Rust Bullet" use to have before this (&*)(*&*( -- up started yesterday.

Rob · 01-25-2004, 12:26 PM

*comment deleted, I have trouble reading on sundays*

POR-15 Depot · 01-25-2004, 12:27 PM

Same results for allinanchor:Rust-Oleum , it's the same results that USE to show before yesterday

John Scott · 01-25-2004, 12:40 PM

We should just start our own allinanchor-based search engine.

Pimpen 2010 · 01-25-2004, 12:41 PM

What about Bluefind, whats happening with that?

John Scott · 01-25-2004, 12:45 PM

You've got me there. "It'll be done by Monday" was the last I've heard, about a month ago.

Pimpen 2010 · 01-25-2004, 01:14 PM

lol.

Monday the 12th, that is.

You're catching up on my posts, John

I, Brian · 01-25-2004, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnScott

It's not hilltop. It's not expert system. It's rubbish.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Seattle+Hosting

No expert system would do that. Read the Hilltop paper - http://www.cs.toronto.edu/%7Egeorgem/hilltop/ then try to reverse engineer those SERPs.

It's more of an over-applied exact phrase/ perfect match filter, IMO.

I mean that there appears to be a degree of expert system engineering in the Florida results in general. And in some cases I'm seeing similar hints in some of the raw SERPs for Austin.

Even then, an expert system most certainly could not be the only component.

Immediate post-Florida the SERPs were ridiculous, but calmed down gradually. No doubt this "Austin" will also calm down and then be tweaked.

As a general point, though - is anybody seeing terms hit now in Austin that were also hit bad in Florida? By that I mean search terms not sites?

And the reverse - anybody seeing terms not hit by Florida now being hit? Again - search terms not sites.

Answers to those questions should quickly test the hypothesis that this is an extension of the Florida criteria to a wider field of search terms, rather than something completely new and different.

jonsimons · 01-25-2004, 01:50 PM

the florida didn't effect my site.. but the Austin has big style..

compar · 01-25-2004, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juliany

Someone in WMW said his Adwords CTR went from 20% to 12% because of this...

I find those very high CTR in any case, but they are the opposite of what you would expect. If the relevance of the SERP goes down it is supposed to drive the CTR up. The conspiracy theory that says this is what it is all about -- which I totally reject BTW -- should see the CTR going up. That is why Google is supposed to be doing it.

Let's suppose for a moment that the conspiracy theory is correct. It is a hell of a dangerous game. They would have to be taking the gamble that the public will continue to use their search engine despite the garbage relevancy of the SERPs just so they could click on the AdWord ads.

Even if the public is forced to the AdWord ads to find relevant sites, if their over all traffic drops 10% or 20% because of the poor quality of the SERP do you think that their AdWord CTR will prosper that much despite the reduced over all traffic????

Rob · 01-25-2004, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonsimons

the florida didn't effect my site.. but the Austin has big style..

A Florida extension is possible.

Say this is the case, what exactly were the consequenses of the Florida changes?

compar · 01-25-2004, 02:12 PM

Quote:

what exactly were the consequenses of the Florida changes?

Where have you been for the last two month? I don't mean to be rude. But just go any read any topic in the Google forum that started after Nov 16 and you can't miss it. Thousands of site dropped out of the SERPs without any good explanation. We all thought things had settled down a bit and then Friday the same thing happened all over again.

SVB · 01-25-2004, 02:16 PM

Does anyone know what changes were actually made in the algo first time?

Rob · 01-25-2004, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by compar

Where have you been for the last two month? I don't mean to be rude. But just go any read any topic in the Google forum that started after Nov 16 and you can't miss it. Thousands of site dropped out of the SERPs without any good explanation. We all thought things had settled down a bit and then Friday the same thing happened all over again.

I know there has been a LOT of discussion about Florida. I haven't had the time to go through it all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealfragmaster

Does anyone know what changes were actually made in the algo first time?

That's what I was wondering.

I actually find it quite likely that Google is expanding the Florida changes to more keywords and the first period was a test.

I, Brian · 01-25-2004, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealfragmaster

Does anyone know what changes were actually made in the algo first time?

There's no general consensus in the SEO community, so far as I know - but I go along with the idea of a combination of factors - Hilltop, Applied Semantics, and possibly a third complicating factor.

We can certainly see strong suggestions of an expert system at work in Florida - though whether it's based on Hilltop, or TopicSensitive PageRank, or another variable, there just isn't the means as yet to make a clear judgement.

Google almost certainly applied some element of Applied Semantics technology as well - keyword order and stemming are issues of particular note there.

And is there anything else? How about LocalRank? Maybe. It requires time to tell how everything's moved.