Random Google?
-
In 2008 we performed an experiment which showed some seemingly random behaviour by Google (indexation, caching, pagerank distributiuon).
Today I put the results together and analysed the data we had and got some strange results which hint at a possibility that Google purposely throws in a normal behaviour deviation here and there.
Do you think Google randomises its algorithm to prevent reverse engineering and enable chance discoveries or is it all a big load balancing act which produces quasi-random behaviour?
-
There were no detectable inbound links to any of those pages before the pagerank update. What other signals could have affected it... content quality alone? By the way content was written using the same writer and same quality level.
-
I strictly monitored that there are no inbound links for example and the link profile was clean until public TBPR update at least. Once suspicion I have and was not able to confirm and include in my research was that there was a plain link added to that odd page which has PR3 and it shouldn't. That would basically prove the theory that any external link fortifies the importance of the page to the point of higher indexation/caching. Something like internal link + external link = match made in heaven.
-
I wonder if those PR5 "anomalies" and the PR3 one really are not "anomalies" due to other ranking factors as external backlinks to those pages.
-
I believe there are two many other factors that are possible that could have prevented that test from being accurate. How do you know 100% for sure that there are no variables you are overlooking?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google disavow file
Does anybody have any idea how often Google reads the disavow file?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Is my site penalized by Google?
Let's say my website is aaaaa.com and company name is aaaaa Systems. When I search Google aaaaa my site do not come up at all. When I search for "aaaaa Systems" it comes up. But in WMT I see quite a few clicks from aaaaa as keyword. Most of the traffic is brand keywords only. I never received any manual penalty in WMT ever. Is the site penalized or regular algorithm issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
Dropped from Google?
My website www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk appears to have been penalised by Google. I ranked fairly well for a number of venue related searches from my blog posts. Generally I'd find myself somewhere on page one or towards the top of page two. However recently I found I am nowhere to be seen for these venue searches. I still appear if I search for my name, business name and keywords in my domain name. A quick check of Yahoo and I found I am ranking very well, it is only Google who seem to have dropped me. I looked at Google webmaster tools and there are no messages or clues as to what has happened. However it does show my traffic dropping off a cliff edge on the 19th July from 850 impressions to around 60 to 70 per day. I haven't made any changes to my website recently and hadn't added any new content in July. I haven't added any new inbound links either, a search for inbound links does not show anything suspicious. Can anyone shed any light on why this might happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | weddingphotojournalist0 -
Google does not favour php websites?
Hi there. An SEO company recently told me that google does not favour php development? This seems rather sketchy, I have not read that google doesn't favour this anywhere, did I just miss that part of SEO or are these guys blowing a little smoke?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ProsperoDigital1 -
Lost Links in Google Webmaster Tools
Last week I had over 1800 backlinks showing up in GWT. 4 days ago I had 20, and now I have 5. I have a very diverse link profile ranging from social bookmarks to YouTube, to Business Listings (Yelp, etc), and they're all gone. Clearly there is not a particular segment of my links that are being targeted here, they've all been completely wiped out. My rankings have fallen, and where I was on page 1/2 for all my targeted KWs, I'm now on Page 3, 4, and 5. There are no penalties showing up in GWT, so I'm completely at a loss as to what is going on. Please help! Website is: http://brownboxbranding.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBick0 -
Number of images on Google?
Hello here, In the past I was able to find out pretty easily how many images from my website are indexed by Google and inside the Google image search index. But as today looks like Google is not giving you any numbers, it just lists the indexed images. I use the advanced image search, by defining my domain name for the "site or domain" field: http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search and then Google returns all the images coming from my website. Is there any way to know the actual number of images indexed? Any ideas are very welcome! Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau1 -
Organic Google Sitelinks - can I edit?
A client just contacted me saying a competitor is threatening legal action threatened against a page description in a Google sitelink (just double checked and its in the serps results too). I checked the site and the content doesn't appear on that page or anywhere else on the site. I also added a Meta description to that page to see if that will have an effect. The page is the home page and I don't really want to demote it. Is there anything else I can/should do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | agua0 -
SERP Experience After You Resubmit Your Site to Google
Hello Everyone, We suddenly noticed that our keywords fell off the map and discovered that porn had been placed (via.htaccess redirects and masking) on our site. The porn links caused Google to drop us.We scrubbed our .htaccess file and asked Google to reindex our site 3 weeks ago.Does anyone have experience with reindexing?If so, how long were you down and did your keyword positions return eventually?Thanks,Bob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | impressem0