Author Topic: The "Shifting" Google Algo  (Read 14358 times)

JamesR

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The "Shifting" Google Algo
« on: November 03, 2010, 05:11:07 PM »
Think there is just one Google algorithm?  Well you are right and wrong.  Google has confirmed that different parts of the Google algo apply to different sites at different times:

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Various parts of our algorithms can apply to sites at different times, depending on what our algorithms find. While we initially rolled out this change earlier this year, the web changes, sites change, and with that, our algorithms will continually adapt to the current state on the web, on those sites. While it might be confusing to see these changes at the same time as this issue, they really aren't related, nor is this a general algorithm change (so if other sites have seen changes recently, it probably doesn't apply to them as well).

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=61b28e6184e66255&hl=en

Commentary here:

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/023150.html

That is why in some serps you may see a strong anchor text relationship with ranking while in another you may see domain authority win out with very little anchor text match to the query.

littleman

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Re: The "Shifting" Google Algo
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2010, 07:33:02 PM »
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for a specific query, Google may use 200 or so factors, but they likely have thousands. but they use different algorithms for different search intent.

You just have to wonder what the thousands of factors could be?  I mean, there are on page criteria, off page criteria, and (though Google wouldn't want to admit it) market criteria, but yet "thousands" seems kinda hard to imagine.

rcjordan

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Re: The "Shifting" Google Algo
« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2010, 07:47:04 PM »
>but yet "thousands" seems kinda hard to imagine

Thousands, yes, but if you widen the matrix to include the personal search history data they are gathering and -particularly- the (controversial) use of their backside copy of a site's Analytics info then it wouldn't be too hard to get to a thousand.

JamesR

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Re: The "Shifting" Google Algo
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2010, 08:25:22 PM »
We think in broader categories but those thousand can be created by all sorts of little minute pieces of data that we could probably brainstorm if we had the time (and desire).  Some of those data points might be situational - like you wouldn't apply them to some sites but you would to others (i.e. Twitter data points in relation to news items but not necessarily to ecomm)

Rumbas

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Re: The "Shifting" Google Algo
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2010, 09:23:19 AM »
There has been some discussion around the net about Google traffic throttling and the idea of Google balancing out traffic to a site based on previous traffic patterns.

I've seen at least one site sitting firmly over a year with the same level of traffic, rankings go up and down and the amount of traffic from Google evens out over say a week or a month. No matter how many links and how much content is produced, the volume stays the same.

I think they somehow set a range of traffic and adjust rankings based on how much is delivered. Having a flat line traffic graph with lots of quality being added to the site on a daily basis and a natural link growth, doesn't add up.

TallTroll

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Re: The "Shifting" Google Algo
« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2010, 01:14:50 PM »
>> I've seen at least one site sitting firmly over a year with the same level of traffic, rankings go up and down and the amount of traffic from Google evens out over say a week or a month

Hmmm, you'd expect some variations in truly natural traffic. Flat lines are suspicious. Sounds like Google though...