Jagger3 update

November 5, 2005 @ 10:20 am · Filed under Google/SEO

Starting yesterday, Jagger3 was visible at the 66.102.9.104 data center. There’s still some minor flux on that data center, but it includes Jagger1, Jagger2, and Jagger3.

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219 Comments »

  1. Stephen Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:42 am

    At WMW GG said perhaps to expect Flux over the next few days.

    I am slightly surprised that the DC includes all aspects of Jagger1,2 and 3 as some of the Jagger seem more advanced in different aspects from Jagger3.

    Does this flux include bringing all aspects of the Jaggers together ?

    Cheers

    Stephen

  2. Harith Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:43 am

    Hi Matt

    Thanks for Jagger3 update.

    Wish you a great weekend!

  3. pteam Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:46 am

    Matt thanks for the update during your weekend. Much appreciated. Will this be the datacenter that migrates to the final google.com results + or - a little bit of flux, but mainly this is the one?

  4. ModemMike Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:48 am

    Matt, does 66.102.9.104 have any canonical name fixes in place and how can one tell if a canonical name issue is a factor?

  5. Joeduck Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:49 am

    Thanks for keeping us posted Matt. Watching Jagger 3 sure beats doing all the remodelling chores I’ve been putting off... during Jagger 1 and 2!

  6. Mike Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:54 am

    Matt,

    Thank you :)

    Michael

  7. Mark Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:57 am

    Thanks for working on weekends to keep us informed. When this change will be propagated to other DCs?

  8. Matt Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:57 am

    ModemMike, there will still be some settling on canonical name fixes. My hunch is that sometime next week I’l put out a call for people who believe that they have canonical name issues after that. I wouldn’t mind spending some time in the future collecting indexing reports, looking for bugs, etc. and trying to making sure that we get them into good shape.

  9. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:08 am

    If that datacenter speaks the truth I am very unhappy with the results I am getting, oh well, I will put some extra muscle into breaking concrete block out back.

    News: Yahoo passed Google today in my stats, if you care.

    A little sad,

    -Aaron

  10. Mike Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:13 am

    Matt,

    One last thing, I noticed the cache dates changing on that DC this morning and it looks like some are more recent and the more recent cache dates are providing good signs with some rankings.

    Is there a tie in with the cache dates on that DC and when the “settling” will occur?

    Thanks,

    Mike

  11. Natalia Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:14 am

    Matt,
    thank u for information:) As a matter of fact I”m not webmaster. just the editor of my own architectural site (Russian). So I see the great differense between Russian & English serps at the 66.102.9.104 & want to know which is real Jagger3 =English or Russian. Maybe both?

  12. nutsandbolts Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:19 am

    Matt, thanks for the clarification on the canonical fixes... will e-mail once the green flag is out on Matt Cutts canocial towers.

    Btw - do you miss North Carolina? Moving over there (Charlotte area) in a matter of weeks from rainy England....

  13. Carol Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:22 am

    What are canonical names? Everyone keeps mentioning this and I have no idea what it means.
    Thanks,
    Carol

  14. CEREBRU Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:26 am

    As I thought
    thanks Matt :)

  15. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:28 am

    I am with you Carol, LOL!

    (it is a little too geek for me to comprehend)

  16. Adam Senour Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:38 am

    First of all, I have to disagree with Aaron. From the testing that I’ve done, it looks like you’ve got a lot of the spammy-type issues out that were plaguing J1 and to a lesser extent, J2.

    (I also like that my site jumped from #60-someodd to #8 for my major keyword. Feel free to, y’know, leave that alone or bring it up a few notches, Matt. I won’t mind. Really. :)

    Seriously...I like it overall, but I noticed one pretty obscure but nonetheless pretty severe spammy situation that came about in J2 but doesn’t appear to be resolved.

    http://66.102.9.104/search?hl=en&q=web+development+pricing&lr=

    I see the #8 listing as Sygon.com, and the subpage listing for it shows “Web Development Pricing, Web Development Pricing, Web Development Pricing, Web Development Pricing, Web Development Pricing, Web Development Pricing...”

    Mind you, it’s the only one I’ve caught so far (other than the infamous “i90 ringtones” search and I don’t think you guys will ever win that battle...the spammers are just too numerous).

    Also, I know the cause of this is because the datacenter URL starts with an IP instead of a domain name, but none of the local/Froogle/Images/etc. links on the top work. I tried it just to see what would happen and Señor DNS Error made his way to the forefront.

    Not a big deal to me personally, but I just wanted to bring it up as something to fix.

    But all in all, I think you’re on the right track. I definitely think futureGoogle (TM?) is better than nowGoogle (another TM?)

  17. Adam Senour Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 11:44 am

    Addendum to my previous post:

    The “web development pricing” issue wasn’t originally discovered by me, but I did do the check from the J3 datacenter all by myself. (It was very difficult typing out all three words. I’m exhausted. I need water.)

    So I can’t take credit for that.

  18. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:08 pm

    Please do not misquote me Adam, I think the SERPS look pretty good and many splogs have been forced down to fight for mispelled words, BUT at the same time, I am not sure why one of my sites is being seen as lesser than others for it’s main keyword.

    I might actually have to say sorry to Matt, I found this tool: http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php and is shows my site getting better results, looks like this “flux” thinger Matt speaks of, sorry to jump to conclusions guys, I am still a bit of a newbie and tend to not have patience.

    Sorry,

    -Aaron

  19. Adam Senour Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:15 pm

    Sorry, dude...I didn’t intend to misquote you. I was just pointing out that overall, the results to me seem a lot better than they did before, and I’m pretty happy.

    Granted, each of us are only one person and our opinions really don’t amount to all of that much in the grand scheme of things. But it’s always good to voice it to someone who could conceivably make a difference (we hope).

  20. seolid Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:16 pm

    Thanks for the update Matt.
    Our own site has some great competitive rankings after exactly 1 year (we’ve been sandboxed for exactly 365 days) after we registered the domain, is this a coincidence or intended Matt?

  21. Justin Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:21 pm

    Matt, personally for me this DC is not looking good at all. My canonical issues have not been fully resolved and my site is still nowhere.

    Is this it or can we expect some “vanished” sites to still make a reappearance? Can’t see I’m breaking any Google guidelines with my site.

    Thanks for your help.

    Justin

  22. sam Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:32 pm

    I had some hope that Jagger3 would be a return to sanity for my business. Unfortunately the past few weeks have all but destroyed our business.

    Our website http://www.younevercall.com which had previously been served thousands of Google visitors each day has been destroyed by Google’s update. Our keywords “Treo 650″ and “T-Mobile Razr” for example used to rank at the top of the Google charts. Now it seems that Google has relegated us to the 500’s.

    While I am impressed by some of the spam removal that has taken place here, I am hurt by the fact that Google feels no responsibility to even address issues caused by updates. In this case a 3 year old business that has provided service to many thousands of customers, is being totally decimated. And Google wont even answer our emails explaining why a superstar site has been punished.

    We simply don’t know what to do.

    Sam.

  23. Gary Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 12:43 pm

    Matt,

    Thanks for the weather reports.

    It seems like 66.102.7.104 has better results for my site rather than 66.102.9.104 and that only started appearing a couple of days ago.

    My site, which is a very popular authoritative-like baseball site, is nowhere to be seen on 66.102.9.104 which is apparently Jagger3.

    Is 66.102.7.104 going to end up like 9.104??

    Thanks
    Gary

  24. Evan Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 1:29 pm

    Hi Matt,

    Should we take what we now see on the datacenter you posted as our new rankings, or expect fluctuation in the next couple of days? This seems to be the big question among the people I’ve talked to.

    Thanks very much,

    Evan

  25. Raymond Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 1:49 pm

    Question 1

    Matt I’ve noticed that there are tons of very spammy pages on 66.102.9.104 that still tend to dominate my search queries. But my question is why do link pages and directory pages gain such high rankings on competitive keywords on this data center, is it because they are connected to websites that are very well aged and have a lot of links pointing at them.

    Question 2

    Is there something happening on the data center located at http://66.102.7.147/ because if so I enjoy it’s search queries and find little to no spam at all! ^_^

  26. Daniel Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:03 pm

    Matt, thanks for the heads up -- I’m hoping there will be some good news for my website with this last update. I have been working hard during the updates and hopefully will see some results soon.

  27. Kelly Jones Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:03 pm

    66.102.9.104 ????
    Back to the abyss for us?

    Matt, there has to be some way for Google to tell us why we’re penalized. Support has stated (twice) emphatically that we’re not but when you go from the top ten to positions for thousands of keyword combinations to 350+ overnight that’s a penalty.

    How can this issue be resolved?

    KJ

  28. lots0 Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:10 pm

    Thanks for the heads up Matt!

    You know I was right after all, it is going to be a month long update... ;-)

  29. TearingHairOut Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:16 pm

    Matt,

    Can you please comment on the issue that I raised in comments here previously and also at WebMasterWorld (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/31842.htm)

    Quote:
    “For a given search phrase, an inner page with hardly any BL’s is the first page from a site that appears in the SERP’s, and the homepage is nowhere to be seen.

    This is despite the fact that the homepage is targetted for the KW in question, and has far more ‘anchor texted’ BL’s.

    An example to illustrate:

    http://www.abcdef.com sells widgets.

    The homepage ranks first for ‘abcdef’.
    The homepage previously ranked well for ‘widgets’, and has many BL’s with ‘widgets’ as anchor text.
    Now, the homepage does not show up in the SERP’s for ‘widgets’, but an inner page, call it ‘www.abcdef.com/specs.html’ with a title of ‘List of widget specifications’ shows up in position 98 for ‘widgets’.

    In one example that I am aware of, the inner page which does appear in the SERP’s for a search phrase has NO external backlinks. ” (end quote)

    Other webmasters have stated here and at WMW that the exact same situation has happened to them. Please can you tell us what this situation indicates, and how we might resolve it?

    From an outsider’s point of view, it looks as if there is collateral damage to the anti-spam measures in the Jagger update. If you recommend submitting a report on the ‘Dissatisfied with Results’ screen, fair enough, but I’d be hopeful that the issue could be resolved in a way that would help the other legit webmasters affected, and not just myself because I might report it.

    Thanks for keeping us informed.

  30. TearingHairOut Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:18 pm

    Follow on point from the post above:

    I used ‘abcdef.com’ simply as an example. I didn’t realise that blogger would turn it into a link, and that there is an actual site of that domain name.

    I can provide true example url’s if needed.

  31. Daniel Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 2:59 pm

    Thanks for Update, Matt

  32. normasp Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 3:04 pm

    Thanks so much for the information Matt, it’s very important for me think that behind google search engine exist someone who has this detail whit us.
    Thanks again.
    When do you think that these results will visible in other data centers?

  33. John O Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 3:51 pm

    Hey Matt,

    Can you explain difference in the updates of Jagger 3 at 66.102.9.104 and at 66.102.7.104 and which is closer to final version ??? Also when and where to report canoical issues ???...sorry if these were answered somewhere else.....

    JO

    “Where’s your Karma now Dummy ?” - Joy, My Name Is Earl

  34. Marc Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 3:51 pm

    I don’t like this update at all. I’ve dropped with every key phrase. I am amazed at some of the websites with no content ahead of me.

  35. Josh Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 4:14 pm

    No-one has yet given an explanation on what exactly is meant by canonical issues. I’m glad I’m not the only one confused :-)

    It would really help if some of us could learn about what is going on.

    Thanks

  36. benj Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 4:22 pm

    Thanks for the info, but this is bad.

    I prsume Google has decided to:

    a) Not concern themselves with relevance
    b) Not concern them selves with spam
    c) Not concern themselves with ridiculously obvious hidden text & keyword stuffing
    d) completely ignore the spam reports they request regarding b & c (at least the weekly ones from me!)

    At least we now know!

    (PS - happy to give examples, but don’t tell me to simply report the these violations to Google. The 10-15 times I have reported these 2, top 10 sites have resulted in exactly squat being done about them)

  37. Website Hosting Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 4:36 pm

    IMO, jagger2’s search results are better than jagger3

  38. What a Maroon Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 5:31 pm

    Any progress on the supplemental page problem? I see them on both 66.102.9.104 and 66.102.7.104.

  39. AnneJ Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 5:46 pm

    I’d like to know if J3 will clear out the supplimental results for pages that have been taken down. I’m still getting some in supplimental results that I removed from my site months ago. They show up even on the J3 centers.

    I’m also concerned if we could be penalized for duplicate content if Google still has the old URLs and the new ones both in it’s index. I’m referring to pages that are not online anymore? I see some cached back in July.

  40. Jason Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 5:59 pm

    Matt,

    Our site has been negatively affected by Jagger. Therefore we just requested the transfer of 30,000 site wide links (paid in advance until July 06) to our main competitor who is currently ranked extremely well in Google for our main keyword.

    Our entire website is legit SEO so our site wide links are the only thing that could have caused such a drastic drop in our ranking.

    You guys have effectively created a new technique “Google Bowling” to eliminate the competition.

    I honestly don’t know what you were thinking but thanks nonetheless.

  41. Dave Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 9:30 pm

    Google SERPs look really good from my position. Overall we have had a slight increase in Google traffic to our site.

  42. EzhilRaja Said,

    November 5, 2005 @ 10:14 pm

    Matt, you are wrong, i find changes in 66.102.7.104 and not in 66.102.9.104

  43. Joe Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 12:31 am

    Hello Matt,
    I would have to say I don’t see any change from the jagger1 or 2 updates.
    My site was taken out behind the woodshed and whipped in jagger1 and just never recovered.
    Main keywords:
    Fishing Reports was #6 now #100+
    Saltwater Fishing was #8 now #90+ and on and on and on. I have the 3rd or 4rth largest saltwater site on the net and it has just been crushed as far as Google ranks go.
    My MSN ranks are tremendously good. Yahoo average.
    This update just doesn’t take to my site. All my secondary pages are just gone - and it is so bad I did a re-inclusion on the possibility it is a penalty for something. I included everything questionable and re-did or blocked or removed even the most trivial items in case they were hurting me.
    We will see and who knows, maybe things will get better down the road.

    And here is the kicker, there is some good news from Google - I have another site that was just released fully into the index that deals with freshwater specific content in the fishing sector and is ranking just fine. It ranks way above my saltwater site for the keywords that both freshwater and saltwater sectors turn up for. Keywords that both sites may have in common like ‘NC fishing reports’ for example (not one of my keywords).
    My new site has top tens all over the place, it is a good site in its own right but I will be the first to admit it has no darn business ranking above my original site - No business at all, it has less detailed info, lesser resources too, but I will take it.
    Thanks, Joe

  44. Stephen Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 12:56 am

    Matt

    As someone posted at WMW - Jagger3 just seems to be attempting to order results in a site:domain.com search - eg the home page at the top - do you expect that this ordering gets applied to the rest of the serps.

    Eg if I do a site:www.domain.com http://www.domain.com the homepage should rank ? or if I search for “www.domain.com” the page ranks ?

    GG talked about order level 1 and 2....... ?

  45. Ernest Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:20 am

    Hi Matt talking about spam cleanup have a look here
    http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:rqE-Ba1F0OoJ:www.reisebox.de/service/Alghero-billig-&hl=en&lr=&strip=1
    They are top in all Jaggers 1,2,3.

  46. Eduardo Maio Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 4:32 am

    66.102.9.104 still has some spam issues with hidden text :( Other then that, almost all those spammy and scrapper websites are gone!

  47. Bruce Wayne Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 4:50 am

    Not too happy so far as my site has vanished. If you search for the title of my site there are 4 websites that reference my own in the top 10 but mine is nowhere to be seen.

  48. luvcube Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 4:51 am

    You are absolutely right since we are seeing an upswing in our traffic right now though it is hard to confirm that through a basic Google search yet

  49. Box Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 5:25 am

    First positions (J3) on 66.102.9.104 - blogs, wikipedia, error 404 etc. LOL!

  50. seo black & white Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 5:34 am

    It seems that 66.102.9.104 is still affected by what I call trampolines problem in a bad way. You can check this by just walking throuh the pharm’s `buy $drug’ google’s serps. Here are just to most clear examples:
    1) buy adipex #1,2.
    2) buy meridia #1,2,3,4. Btw #5 seems to be result of linkor.pl, but I’m not shure abput this one. I haven’t yet analized the whole linkor theme well enough to be shure. Hope I will write about linkor on my blog someday.

  51. Dave Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 5:40 am

    Matt-

    In an earlier post you mentioned that Jagger3 was supposed to address Supplemental issues. Is that still the case?

    For any number of searches of just of our site on 66.102.9.104, the most relevant pages are buried beneath a slew of Supplemental URLs, most of which have been 301′d for ages.

    For example, this search -- [site:trailspace.com the north face denali jacket] -- returns what I would consider the most relevant page (http://www.trailspace.com/gear/the-north-face/denali-jacket) all the way down at #103, while the top 7 spots (and most everything else) are ancient Supplemental Results.

    This example is probably the worst I’ve seen, but other queries return similarly bad results. Also, for the first time I’m seeing Supplemental tags on some current pages (in additional to old, redirected URLs).

    Thoughts? (Yes, I have submitted a Dissatisfied report about this.)

  52. David Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 6:42 am

    Matt,

    I always notice a flux after index updates that seems to “correct” itself, but I wanted to know if it is just my imagination.

    There may not be many listings that this applies to, but industries that are typically country specific (like insurance products, etc.) and not international. The sites offer content and products for certain countries and good sites try to develop partnerships for all visitors. I have noticed:

    Google offers those geograpic sites in the country listings (google.co.uk), but exclude the US sites. But at google.com they offer the US sites with the inclusion of the international sites. There is no option in the US to select USA only, like there is in other countries (search UK only, etc.).ies.

    It seems after an index update the google.com queries include a lot more international sites and then over time they are gone.

    Is there any truth to that? How do updates and index changes handle the international indexes? Is there any chance to have a US only search like in the other countries?

  53. Martin Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:01 am

    can you give us an idea when jagger3-DCs will start to spread results to other datacenters?

  54. SEOKnight Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:25 am

    Wow! I’m liking this update. It looks like G is getting better at recognizing reality.

    I have a site that is 1yr old. I have never tried any SEO tacts other than a good meta title and description and a single H1 with a 3 word keyword phrase. However, I believe I do have great content and I’m adding to the site almost every day. At last check, Gbot visits every day too.

    Prior to Jagger 3 I was on page #5 of the SERPS for a competetive keyword phrase. Since yesterday, the same phase turns up my listing at #3 (Page #1). Another competetive phrase landed me on page #10 prior to the update, now I’m on page #2.

  55. Tracy Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:56 am

    David -- where is the Dissatisfied link? I read that it was at the bottom of a search results page, but not that I can see. Anyone?

  56. Paul Gillman Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 8:33 am

    I checked out 66.102.9.104 in my website neighborhood with searches on snippets from our site and the results are still sub-par. One typical search was the following:

    “IVR Application Software Toolkit ”

    Pre Jagger, our “Real” Home page was always number 1.

    With Jagger1&2, our site showed up #1, but with a very old copy of our non-www prefixed HOME page. Another copy of our HOME page appeared later with a tracking code. I’m assuming these were “canonical” issues. “Real” Home page was nowhere to be found. Our HOME page remains a PR5 with virtually all of our pages indexed by Google.

    With Jagger3, NONE of our pages appear in the first 10 results.

    1st result is a dead link, unauthorized complete copy of our HOME page that was cached in Sep 2004! Talk about summing up our frustration with Jagger. This catches most of my complaints about the results I’ve seen so far. Adsense spammming is the only thing missing in this result!
    2nd result is a “live” unauthorized complete copy of our HOME page from a different website.

    5 (yes FIVE) of the results are Google Adsense Spammers that copied all or part of our website as the “content” for its advertisements.

    The other three are “authorized” links from directories to our website.

    All 10 results are one way or another related to our website HOME page, mostly unauthorized copies.

    This pretty much sums up the problem we (and quite a few others) are having with this update. Google seems to have gotten everything backwards here. Spammers, dead links, old cached entries, etc. were unleashed with Jagger. Original content is now being penalized.

    I could repeat this test on many different search expressions.

    Right now my only hope is there is a Jagger 4, 5, 6, 7....??? until Google gets it right.

    In the meantime I’ve declared war on these Adsense parasites. The only successful way I’ve had them removed is using DMCA copyright complaints.

  57. Ben Pate Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 8:44 am

    [Quote:] What are canonical names? Everyone keeps mentioning this and I have no idea what it means.
    [Quote]

    Carol, canonical names is when your site is indexed with http://www.domain.com and domain.com. As you can see, the second example does not contain http://www. Sometimes they are viewed as different domains and you can be penalized for duplicate content.

  58. Jason Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 9:48 am

    Matt,

    Our site has been negatively affected by Jagger. Therefore we just requested the transfer of 30,000 site wide links (paid in advance until July 06) to our main competitor who is currently ranked extremely well in Google for our main keyword.

    Our entire website is legit SEO so our site wide links are the only thing that could have caused such a drastic drop in our ranking.

    You guys have effectively created a new technique “Google Bowling” to eliminate the competition.

    I honestly don’t know what you were thinking but thanks nonetheless.

  59. JohnC Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 9:49 am

    Matt,

    Thank you for the previews and the updates. But this update looks like a big problem for me.

    For the #1 keyword search term for our site, Jagger3 has us on page 4, after we’ve been on page 1 for that term for years! The first couple pages are loaded with informational sites from foreign governments. This can’t be right.

    Is what I’m seeing now at 66.102.9.104 really what I’m going to see soon on the main google site?

  60. David Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:20 am

    Paul,

    I am sorry to hear about your problems. Even with Jagger 3 our area is a mess as well.

    The unfortunate reality is that Internet companies cannot rely on Google results for their business. Google’s slash and burn technique during updates is ridiculous. Webmasters everywhere go into a panic completely clueless as to what Google is trying to achieve and after the smoke settles we just hope and pray that our site is still around.

    The reality is if you are right and Google’s results are poor then people will eventually look around for other search engines like MSN and Yahoo.

    Personally I am pretty sick and tired of Google’s ridiculous shakeups. Just like a lot of large companies who have skyrocketing growth. They have completely forgotten about their humble beginnings and now treat their customers like absolute crap.

    It is comforting that Bill Gates/MSN has its eye on Google. I would love to see Google’s monopoly in the search engine world take a hit. It would be sweet payback for all the pain and suffering they seem to enjoy putting us through.

  61. David Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:48 am

    Tthe site that Adam Senour mentioned is also using hidden text links.

  62. lots0 Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 11:18 am

    Matt how do you deal with all this negative input?

    I do think a bunch of whiners have showed up at your Blog Matt. I can’t believe some of the comments here.

    “My rankings are down - google sucks...”
    and
    “My ranking are up - google is great...”

    Seem to be the two topics of conversation in this thread. Amazingly like some long threads at a well known webmaster forum that is known for webmasters whinining and crying about the google updates.

    For all you that ‘lost out’ - Build better sites, the kind google wants in its index and quit whining...

    For all you that gained - Way to go! Now shut up about it and go back to work.

  63. Del Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 11:48 am

    My own site does much better on J3 than it did on J1 or J2! That makes me very happy.

    The only problem I see with J3, is all of the spammy sites surrounding my listings. I guess that in a way, I’m glad they are all so spammy, because my listing sure stands out nicely among them.

    I’m talking about very blatant repeated hidden (and sometimes visible) keywords, gibberish text, doorway pages, duplicate sites, sneaky redirects...and what hurts, is that the sites are actually relevant to the search, they are just spammed to high heaven to achieve those SERPs. If they ALL removed their spam, they would probably rank about the same, relatively speaking!!!

    You guys at Google must get frustrated at how people continue to use these techniques. I know I would if I were you. Ah well....I guess it gives you something to do ;)

  64. mrunderhill Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 12:11 pm

    Lots0, it’s good to see your still out there speaking your mind. That’s the Lots0 i remember:-)

    Where on earth have you been?

  65. Matt Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 12:15 pm

    Kelly Jones, that probably means that you don’t have any manual penalty. But the algorithms can still change and that can affect the ranking of your site. A reinclusion request doesn’t do much in such a case, because it’s the scoring that is causing the site to rank differently, not any sort of manual penalty.

    Eduardo Maio, if you see hidden text or spam, please let us know at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html and make sure that you use the keyword jagger3 in the description area.

    Stephen, site: pretty much selects a random sample of urls to show.

    Dave, Jagger3 ended up being less about supplemental results. I believe we may still do more on that in the future.

    Martin, Jagger3 will probably move slowly over to other data centers. I was expecting it to stay for 2-3 days at one data center before it started to shift, and it first was visible on Friday.

    lots0, I’d don’t mind getting negative feedback--I like to hear what people are saying. And I try to approve most comments. Right now, if a person has been approved once, I believe I let them post from then on. So there’s a little bit of a backlog because it takes a while to wade into the non-approved comments and read them. If someone is negative but has something constructive/useful to say, I try to approve it.

  66. Stephen Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 12:40 pm

    Hi Matt

    Thanks for looking at my question - perhaps I did not phrase it correctly.

    Yes site:domain.com search does tend to show random results (except on some DCs which seem ordered)

    But what I am saying is the Canonical page does not rank within a site search - eg:-

    http://www.google.com/search?hs=HN&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=site%3Awww.webmasterworld.com+news+and+discussion&btnG=Search

    Most relevant page is the Canonical - it is returned top.

    Against:-

    http://www.google.com/search?hs=MN&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=site%3Awww.mirago.co.uk+Mirago+uk&btnG=Search

    Where is the Homepage which should be the Canonical - it is the most relevant for that search within the site!

    You cant say that site:www.domain.com keyword is random - as that is how the Site search works on Adsense site seach and everything.

    Sorry if I was not clear ;)

    Thoughts ???

  67. Gary All Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 1:05 pm

    Jagger3 results are just alot of scattered sites many are useless.
    66.102.7.104 has much better results.

  68. Chic Girl Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 1:19 pm

    Hi Matt - I don’t understand whole lot about these things but can you please tell me why my site lost pretty much all traffic from Google?

    My main keyword is “Wedding Favors”. My ranking for that keyword moved up from 39 to 25 in Google but my site is not ranking at all for many other keywords. Say for example, for keyword “Pastel Favor Vases” I used to rank #2, now I am in Page 3 :-(

    I used to get over 600 visitors from Google (not for my main keyword) and now I am getting only 20 per day.

    Thanks for your time and advice!

    Sara

  69. Pascal Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 1:29 pm

    Hi Matt,
    Thanks for this update and good to hear that you are also reading negative comments.
    Data center 66.102.9.104 is currently showing the following results for the search term Noni Juice:
    #1 – a MLM company
    #2 – a news site which wrote an article about the above company
    #3 – same company as #1 under different domain
    #4 – a news site writing a negative article about the same MLM company
    #5 – same company as #1 under different domain
    #6 - same company as #1 under different domain
    #7 – Amazon selling a book from the same MLM company
    #8 - Amazon selling another book from the same MLM company
    #9 – same company as #1, this time in French
    #10 – same company as #1 under different domain. Page title; New Page 51

    2.5 million websites showing under this search term - if I wouldn’t know better, I would say this company must be a major share holder of Google. I hope this result isn’t what Google had in mind with this update.
    Thanks for taking on negative feedbacks

  70. Marcin Frąckiewicz Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 1:46 pm

    Matt,

    Thank you for your J3 update. I am looking forward to any next infos on your site. If it is possible let us know more details about keywords management.

    Marcin Frąckiewicz

  71. Martin Ice Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:05 pm

    Hey Mad,

    greetings from Germany.
    Now Jagger3 is up on one DC, i´d like to write down my disappointment anbout the serps.
    Sure my Side, clean, has been affect very heavy, but what i don´t catch is why are Google going to list ebay stuff. Isn´t ebay a search engine for itself? So Google don´t have to present serps out of ebay.

    Next thing i´d like to comment is that since Jagger1 , sides with doorways, linkfarming and linkbuying did a boost up to top positions.
    In my sector are pretty much of this sides up. Spamreports didn´t help up to now. Even Keyword Googleguy + Jagger2 didn´t help.

    This for now,

    wish all a nice start into the new week

    Greetings
    Martin

  72. michal Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:09 pm

    Hi Matt,

    66.102.9.104 - this DC is now showing 3-week old ccache for my site. SERPs are as bad as during jagger1
    66.102.7.104 - are still good ones. clean and comprehensive.
    can you confirm thatJ3 will be more of 66.102.7.104?

  73. Sophie Lee Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:10 pm

    I have to say that the results in my area are looking very good on Jagger 3, with no spam or rubbish at all in at least the top 30 (and I’m saying this despite the fact that my second site looks set to drop 20 places!).

    The only way for webmasters to remain sane is to recognise that the Googlers are not out to get us - each update is an effort to improve quality, not bash us little people into oblivion. Conspiracy theories are fun but it’s usually the more mundane explanation that wins out IMHO, and it must be almost mind-bogglingly hard to sort the great from the garbage these days.

  74. Walkman Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:23 pm

    Pascal,
    maybe becuase amazon doesn’t suggest that the juice will help you aginst the bird flu.

  75. maxd Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:34 pm

    Pascal, you wouldn’t happen to be in the..... ahem Noni Juice business? That is shameful, trying to get your competitors banned here. Bad show. Matt tank his site for being an asshole. I see your site is on the 3rd page mr noniz.com and that is what you do with your frustration?

  76. curious Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 2:58 pm

    Matt, here’s an honest question for you. I see that the Jagger updated has had zero effect on signal42.com, Signal42.com is a linkfarm that has over 500,000 pages, all completely scraped from others sites and jumbled so it’ll have keywords to get to the top page of literally millions of listings. No matter what I search (I’m a constant Googler), I see signal42.com on a daily basis, polluting the results.

    Example, google this without quotes: pencil neck geek lyrics. #1 in Google. Look at the bottom text of the page, it’s all just mashed-up text to fool Google. Yahoo doesn’t show the signal42.com result on the first page. Neither does MSN. I know at least six people who have reported this through the Google spam form. Nothing ever changes. It’s quite frustrating.

    Other signal42.com #1 results (all with garbage pages):
    Spongebob Squarepants Band Geeks
    Othello Hypertext
    Village People Macho Man Streaming Audio

    I could literally type all year and not be finished with the examples. So I won’t. :) The site has an Alexa rating (unreliable, I know) of 16,000, so they’re getting a LOT of hits per day, mostly from Google. Yet they provide nothing. Just wanted to respectfully ask for your two cents on this one. Thanks, and I’m a big fan!

  77. Paul Gillman Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:30 pm

    Maxd,
    It’s perfectly logical that Pascal would write about Noni Juice if his company or site is related to that term. After all, he’s probably very familiar with all the competition and the Google search results pre-Jagger. The point he made well was that the search results are now either “tricked”, irrelevant or duplicates.
    Remember the pre-Google days with some of the original PPC and search companies (circa 2001). A lot of small search engines and directories were flooded with duplicates and clone websites that dominated the first pages. Users got savy and when the results became irrelevant or repetitive to people using them, these small companies faded away. Google has a well earned rep. for producing quality search results.
    But some examples of “bad” search results need to be exposed, especially during a major update, and this seems to be a good forum to do that. If we chose to write up an example, please don’t question the motivation - just look at the results.
    If this forum becomes nothing but a cheerleader locker room of cronies then you’re right, there’s no place for any of us whiners.

  78. Justin Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:40 pm

    I have noticed that this update has given a huge boost to some sites I know of using the coop ad network, and they have come out of this doing even better than they were before (whatever happened to relevancy of links?).. This is not spam yet these sites are using a technique which does not adhere to the Google guidelines. Some things just don’t seem fair.

    I suppose I’m just bitter as my site is still in hiding...

  79. Harith Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:47 pm

    Good evening Matt

    I understand of what GG wrote that Jagger3 shall continue through out the next week, then followed by the flux.

    That means that we are not seeing yet the final Jagger3 and things might change during next week. Right?

    Thanks.

  80. Eddie- Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:52 pm

    Isn’t this how this Iraqi war started?...speculation and worthless debates? With respect to everyone here, I think we should all just chill. Your energy is better spent looking forward and planning your next marketing strategy. Wait until this update is over before laying any definite fault on Google and be thankful Matt is doing the best he can to keep us updated. I could only imagine what kind of “panic forums” there would be without a guy like Matt calming the storm and taking a little edge off the suspense. Many of us have been impacted negatively by this “Jagger” update, including myself, but, I say keep the faith and keep moving forward without to much fear and bitching. Things will come together in time. Find the “wrongs” after this storm has blown over and work on them at that time. “Upset”?, You should have been there done that by the end of Jagger1. It simply takes to much energy to be so upset for so long where this energy can be spent elsewhere in more productive way. Focus ;)! Good Luck Everyone. Thanks again for the updates Matt, keepum coming!

  81. Pascal Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:52 pm

    I am not suggesting our product helps against the Bird Flu as clearly stated on our website. Please read the whole page Walkman – it’s called marketing.

    Maxd – of cause I am in the Noni business. I am not trying to get my main competitor banned in any way, which according to Google news just reached the $3 billion turnover mark in a period of 10 years. I just wanted to point out that the search results presented don’t seem to be what they should be in my opinion regardless of my own websites position. Matt pointed out in his last post that he doesn’t mind getting negative feedback – exactly what I am doing. I am sure Matt will tell me if I stepped the line.

    Thanks Paul for your comment! I am not at SEP specialist but just a small business owner who is trying to get some help and answers from forums like this one. I am watching my competitors very closely and accepted changes in the search engines over the years, but the latest update is beyond my understanding for what reason I post on forums like this one. I agree with you, examples need to be exposed so that they can be commented on and fixed if needed. No one is perfect – including Google.

  82. Collection Agency Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 3:55 pm

    My site retained it’s pr, but backlinks dropped by 50% and rankings for most keywords got shot to hell. anyone else see this?

  83. Roberto Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 4:27 pm

    I’m seen a page that is redirected since June to other in the results, this web page was dropped from results three months ago, and now is there in the serps of the DataCenter that Matt says, and I continue watching SPAM in Spanish Language results.

  84. Roberto Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 4:35 pm

    The results are strange, I have seen html code into they:

    Foro Social Chileno
    . .

  85. Dave Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 5:04 pm

    Personally, I think the last people Google should listen to on SERP relevancy are those that have a vested interest the same SERPs. Having said this though, I guess Google could pass on the complaints to someone at Google who has no vested interest.

    Lotso, please don’t whine about the whinning AND the praise.

  86. Manuel Ramirez Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 6:11 pm

    Hi Matt,

    Thanks for this update during the weekend, it’s good to know that Jagger3 it’s visible, now let’s pray to survive this Jagger3 update !!!

    Have a great weekend to all...

  87. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 6:14 pm

    Dave,

    This type of talk fires people up, believe me!

    I made the mistake of calling a guy who mentioned that he has two websites, one a taco bell site and the other on HIV a spammer yesterday in a forum. He came back and said, “I am not a spammer, I am a guy with HIV who works for taco bell”. It looks to me like everyone today wants to know why they DO or DO NOT show up in the search engines. I have a few websites that I slave over for a couple adense dollars (to fund my backyard projects) but they are highly educational. My neighbor makes really cool gift baskets for dogs and I want the site I made for her to shine as well.

    You see, we are not all gamers and marketers with high paying clients, but even the “big boys” should show up in the results yes? If I am buying a cool gadget at Best Buy I want to search in google and find it, then compare at Circuit City, Pricewatch, Ebay but not before reading a few blogs by regular folks who know their sh*t when it comes to electronics, eh?

    I just hope that while Matt sips soda and listens to drunken spammers blab about their craft the other ear is open to those who believe Google is still relevant and a

    REALLY

    USEFUL

    ENGINE -- TOOT! TOOOT! :-)

    -Thomas

  88. Bryan Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 6:45 pm

    Thomas Jefferson once said that the man who will trade liberty for security deserves neither.

    I would add that a search engine that would trade relevance for less spam deserves neither.

    The results I’m seeing are filled with weak directories, links pages dedicated to the search phrase, single pages related to the search from big sites offering almost nothing, affiliate sites with large page counts (listing tons of public domain articles on an internal blog, active message boards used to increase rank on any marginally related term, then of course 1,000s of affiliate product pages), and niche sites that are ranking for reasons I can’t grasp yet.

    But less spam overall. Just at the cost of a lot of sites actually related to the search terms.

  89. Dave Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 6:51 pm

    RE: ““I am not a spammer, I am a guy with HIV who works for taco bell”

    DOH! :)

  90. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:02 pm

    LOL @ Dave, Yeah sad and iky at the same time dude! ;)

    I spam your blog, sorry! :)

    -Aaron

  91. Michael Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:24 pm

    What is the definition of spam? Is too many links one of the issues? Is this one of the Jagger spam issues you have sought to resolve?

    To get top of the search engines you need to have the best onpage seo, the best onsite seo, then if you are still not top even with a powerful website, you need links, and specific links for that page. Then there are all the vagrancies that can spoil best efforts. How is one to get such links in such a way that does not offend your search engine? Especially when you have many pages that are competitive phrases, and so you need many links for each.

    Reciprocal links are hard work and so many of the pages on offer are low value. But then to get recip type links for many pages is a big ask. What if you are involved in non web savvy industries where people are not giving links. Many in my industry have so few links even after being around for years.

    Why would getting many links be an issue with you? Why would purchase of links be an issue? How else are you to get to the top of competitive phrases? Why can’t it be in the end a competition as to who can afford or get the most links? If you can afford it, you surely have a product that can afford that expense, or can afford that time involved in getting links? How is it different from being able to afford high adwords payments? Why would there be a preference that someone got an SEO to get recip links for them from related sites, rather than get a smaller number of paid links and so cost less time ie similar cost.

  92. PhilC Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 7:33 pm

    The people who are unhappy about drops in rankings are fortunate that they can do things to improve the situation. Some people are not as fortunate. For instance, I have a site that always did well in Google until a short time ago when it was penalised. A few weeks ago the problem with the site was sorted out, and the penalty was lifted. For a very short time it ranked as it did before the penalty - as it’s done since Google first crawled it, but it now appears to have been penalised again, and there’s nothing wrong with it. I can’t do anything about the rankings, but those people whose sites have merely dropped in rankings can take steps to deal with it.

    And yes, this *is* intended as a “what’s up with the site now, Matt?” post ;)

  93. Dave Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 8:51 pm

    RE: What is the definition of spam?

    Anything outside the SE guidelines.

  94. Matt Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 8:51 pm

    Stephen, I know that mirago.co.uk had a lot of search result pages, so there might be something different going on with that site.

    Harith, there is definitely still some flux to go.

  95. Dave Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 8:54 pm

    RE: but it now appears to have been penalised again.

    “appears”, or is? If you supply the URL I think many here could let you know.

  96. scott fish Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 9:14 pm

    I dont understand why google isn’t using the results that are on:

    66.102.7.104

    These are by-far the best results...

  97. Google Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 9:28 pm

    Hello Matt,

    I just like to say something , this update clearly focusses on backlinks and sorting backlinks as negative, good, authoritative,

    We know some areas which google thinks as negative areas for backlinks, Sites which got backlinks from these areas got completely booted, We are going to run a test to see if competitors are loosing their rank the same way,

    We have access to some 100,000 negative area backlinks and we are going to point those links to some competitors and see how the system works,

    will post here after the test, :-) good luck

  98. born2optimise Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:11 pm

    I agree with scott fish :)

  99. Marc Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:14 pm

    Hopefully there are still some flux’s going on because they are looking a bit shitty from my end.

    Not too bad but I know some of the sites in the top for a phrase I research should not be there.

  100. SMSwarehouse Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:31 pm

    I have been monitoring daily now over the last 4-5 days and must say that overall positioning in Yahoo improved - Google fluctuated a bit but only keyword that I cannot find this site for is searc term Bulk SMS.

    It does not worry me too much as we focus currently on streaming SMS and for that I am no.1 in Yahoo, Google and MSN at this stage.

    I have a hunch that there is some link to higly bid for or competitive keywords. Everybody in the SMS business tries to position their sites for search term bulk sms.

    I launched new routes this week end which became available regardless of the updates taking place as it is very important information for my customers.

    I will continue to monitor the changes to see what the end result is.

    Thanks for such an informative blog Matt

  101. porkchopper Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 10:54 pm

    Dumb question.. Are you definitely penalized when you don’t show up for your own web address? When I search “widgets.com” in get “Sorry, no information is available for the URL “widgets.com”

    Just a few notes, my home page has a PR of N/A after being a 6 (some internal pages are still ranked), and I do show up in some searches but usually on page 6 thru 10. Finally, I think I’ve been penalized pre-jagger1.. Wrote several emails to Google, made corrections, and nothing!!

  102. Joeduck Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 11:18 pm

    Matt - do you think Ale 8 is every better than Noni Juice?

  103. scott Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 11:23 pm

    So is it pretty much consensus that Jagger 2 is the best of the 3?

  104. Andrew Said,

    November 6, 2005 @ 11:33 pm

    It was Benjamin Franklin (not Jefferson):
    “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

    I’m wondering my three years out-of-date page with practically no content (”This page has moved”) and only serves to point to the corresponding page at my new URL ranks 40 places higher than my real page with all the content . . . ?? (And the new page shows two using “link:” and the other shows one site with “link:”—yes, tiny amount of links, most sites link to my main page!)

    —Andrew

  105. Adam Senour Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 12:50 am

    Okay, an open comment and then a question.

    First of all, to all of you who are asking “why did my keyword positioning fall off the map” or “why did my site drop in SERPs”...take a long hard look at what you’re doing. You’re asking an employee of a search engine that indexes over 10 biillion pages to take a look at yours and tell you why your site isn’t performing like it used to.

    There are millions of people out there that are all in the same boat. I’m sure Matt would love to spend the time to help each and everyone with legit, honest SEO intentions improve their rankings but there are a few problems there:

    1) How does Matt distinguish who’s legit and who isn’t?

    2) How does Matt deal with everyone’s requests and still manage to get his Google work done to help contribute to the improving of the product?

    Cut the guy some slack and, if you’re going to ask a question that in some way has an impact on the quality of the engine as a whole, try to make sure that someone else receives a positive impact from it too.

    Okay, I’m done ranting, and on to my question, which I will openly admit I’m asking for partly selfish reasons. But, as you will see, I’m asking it because it could conceivably affect someone else too. In fact, by reporting it, I could conceivably be hurt by it (loss of an IBL), but it’s still something that should be addressed.

    Now, on to the question.

    Via a Google query, I recently stumbled across a site that I had nothing to do with the development of at http://www.coldfusion-tools.com .

    The article on the site’s home page is my own article, which someone has taken the liberty to reproduce (which I’m not complaining about, because she did so legally, and I don’t even know who this person is). But what’s odd about it is that it IS the entire home page content. In other words, it’s a low-content site containing nothing useful, and certianly nothing related to ColdFusion tools.

    This article/site remains on the Jagger3 update.

    The question then becomes twofold:

    1) (Asked purely for clarification): This isn’t something I or anyone else that happens to have the same thing occur with an article of theirs get punished for, is it?

    I would suspect that it falls under the idea of “you can’t get punished for an inbound link, since that site’s controlled by someone else, as long as you don’t link back”, but I just want to be sure. And I’m not the only one affected by this either; if you click the “Site Map” link, some other guy’s article appears there as well. So there are at least two affected parties.

    2) Is this something that will, or even can, be taken care of in a future update?

    The unique thing about this form of spam is that it does contain a large degree of legitimate content. As someone who has done some programming in the past, I can’t see how you’d shake out this particular pages vs. the millions of other pages which contain this and other articles I and others have written.

  106. slivesf Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 1:28 am

    The best results they are in 66.102.7.104

  107. Linda Vincent Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 3:37 am

    Well i think this jagger 3 update should finally come to an end, well my site site is back to its normal rankings in some datacenters an hope the final flux will move it up further; and as proposed google has been able to do away wd some spammy sites. But me too would be very much thnakful if someone could explain in details about the canonical issues. Hey Matt how about you giving an answer??

    Thanks,
    Linda

  108. Peter Faber Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 3:54 am

    Matt,

    I noticed some sites that lost 90% of their indexed pages, but now seem to slowly return into the index (couple of pages per day). That´s great, but what I don’t get is the cached version dates,... they seem old (as far back as january this year I saw).

    Doesn’t it hurt the quality of the results if Google uses old pages in the index?

    Thanks,

    Peter

    PS. Great job on the misspelled words!

  109. Masood Rushdee Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 4:58 am

    Matt,

    Thanks for letting us know of the Jagger 3.

  110. hobo Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 5:17 am

    hi folks, what do you think about this theory about the whole cannonical thing.

    for me this post seems to be a great appendage.

    http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/31888-40-10.htm

    msg400 from g1smd

    greetings
    hobo

    .....sorry, but my english is not so good....so i only mentioned the necessary informations.

    ............thanks matt for keeping us informed :)

  111. Martin Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 5:58 am

    Hello Matt,

    today, 7 November it`s my birthday. The best present comes from Google, my website, who had very heavy problems after the Bourbon Update, is slowly coming back in the Serp`s with very good positionings.
    Thank you, googlers!

  112. Greg Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 6:44 am

    Argh not 66.102.9.104 :(
    I am on the first page of every other datacenter but this one :(

    Well 9th for one keywords (3rd on others), but 34th for another main one (5th now on others)..
    What mostly annoy me is the #1 top site on all keywords related to our topic who is blatantly using frames to show a content to google and another to the customer ... is this allowed ? this site at the top on query “bijoux argent” ..the source is just filled with links and all possible keywords

  113. William Donelson Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:05 am

    Here’s a weird one-

    Google.com searches-

    Type in: overseas travel
    Type in: armchair travel
    Type in: virtual travel

    In the 3rd case, the screen is SPLIT into 3 sections!

    What’s this all about?

  114. PhilC Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:25 am

    Dave > “appears, or is? If you supply the URL I think many here could let you know.”

    I don’t want to make the site a topic for discussion here, Dave. My post was just my way of asking Matt if it had been penalised again.

    The site had the hallmarks of being sandboxed, even though it’s been in Google since Google began, or it could have fallen foul of a large increase of pages profile (the new pages are the workaround for the previous penalty). But in 66.102.9.104 (J3), the site’s homepage is suddenly ranking near where it has always ranked. Until I just looked it wasn’t ranking ‘properly’ in that DC or in any other. It was in the high 800s, and a lowlier inner page was beating it. I’m happy now :)

  115. Jagger is a Joke Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:43 am

    Jagger is a joke: Look at all the hidden text. Haha Google.

    http://www.facemaker.ca/

  116. Jaimie Sirovich Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:50 am

    Personally, I’m glad that Google is finally addressing the canonical name issue, but I think properly architected sites should simply 301 the bad domains with mod_rewrite; I mean, c’mon guys. I’ve been doing this for YEARS.

  117. John Tourloukis Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:55 am

    I cried tears of joy, I’m actually finally ranking after a little over a year in the sandbox. I just hope this sticks, thanks for all the help and advise I’ve gained from this blog. I’ve made so many changes recently I wish I knew if it were time or a change I made.
    John

  118. PhilC Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 8:22 am

    For the flux-watchers:-

    Not all apparent flux is actually flux. Google normally diverts traffic to different DCs, even when a specific IP address is used. It’s done to relieve load, or when a DC needs to be out of action for a while, or both. So we don’t always get the results from the DC that we query.

    Matt can correct that I’m if mistaken, but I’m sure it’s no mistake.

  119. Paul Gillman Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 8:36 am

    Dave, you stated

    >Personally, I think the last people Google should listen to on SERP
    >relevancy are those that have a vested interest the same SERPs.

    I must respectfully disagree. A million set of eyes, each familiar with their own neighborhood would be an incredible asset to help Google with the quality of its results. Yes, there is going to be competitive whining and reporting, but who better to spot spam or sneaky link farms and techniques than those view it in their daily jobs.

    With this will also come a responsibility. If an SEO with a vested interest moves up in ranking because of his report, he better have his own house (website) in order.

    I look at this as being nothing more than an electronic “block watch”.

    BTW, I would really like to see a Google “report dead links” program. I’ve reported dead links several times but they still show up in SERPs. I know Google has automated this, but websites that have been dead for several years still remain only because another old active site has a link to it.

  120. Mr. T Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 9:30 am

    I like the similar/related sites to 66.102.9.104. Does this give us a heads up on Google’s new direction(s) :)

    http://www.google.com/search?q=related:66.102.9.104/

    includes
    Smith Scale Speedway - Slot Car Hot Rods, 1/32 Scale Slot Car Customs (slotcar.7p.com)
    Dance Music Directory: DJ Music Sites - Dance Mixes (www.trugroovez.com)
    Free Development Tools Downloads (www.freedownloaddevelopment.com)
    Another Adult Board - The Board that Pays You Back? (www.anotheradultboard.com/board/)
    Dogpile Web Search Home Page (dogpile.com)
    Google Italy (www.google.it)
    and... Yahoo! Canada (ca.search.yahoo.com)

  121. William Donelson Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 10:14 am

    I think that this whole Jagger series will be all for naught, if AdWords revenues suddenly plummet when it’s done. After all, Google is a public company now.

  122. Jamie-foxly Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 10:19 am

    Hi Matt!
    Quick question: I have a clean site and write my own articles. In the
    start of the Jagger update my site dissapered for all its keywords and i
    can only find it when i search for “my website name” or
    MyWebsiteName.com. Does this mean anything? Also, when i do site:mywebsitename.com some of my URLs dont have www in them. Should i put in a 301 redirect asap? From what i discribed do u think my site may return by itself if i dont put in a 301? thank you for your time Matt, it is much appreciated.
    -Jamie

  123. Danny Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:06 am

    Is it still usefull to report spam while using Jagger3 in the description or can we safely assume that all spam reported after Jagger2 will be verified and taken into account ?

  124. paul Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:11 am

    Suddenly today we are kicking butt on 66.102.9.104 . . . I guess this is called flux. Results are appearing better too.

  125. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:42 am

    Yes indeed!

    I see good things for myself and others on .104, a balance between .edu, .org, .com, .net and geocities.com -- very fair and honest results in the informational fields.

    For my product site (I can not thank Google enough) #1 for my rain barrels again and again which is cool cuz this one is who I am really. :)

    AND for my friend Peter up above I see that his lost index is coming back, 600 pages re-indexed and only another 600 to go.

    Impressive!

  126. adrian Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:42 am

    Some comical observations regarding Romanian language searches. If one searches on that datacenter (66.102.9.104) for “stiri” (”news” in Romanian), it will find in top-10, 2 dead websites (last updated centuries ago) and 1 semi-dead (last published news was on 7th June). When it searches for “jocuri” (”games”), the third position is occupied by... God and Holy Virgin help us... a religious (catholic) website that has nothing to do with games.

  127. Lorenzo Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 1:00 pm

    Site PR6 308 BL
    35700 page indixed, until today 5000 unique visititors...
    after this tragedy called jagger3: 800 visitors.

    With some(all) hotkey my postion dropped to 900° from 3°

    AHHHHHHHHHHHH ;((((((((((

  128. Renato Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 1:14 pm

    Sorry. I’m not a person interested near a particolar site. But now in Iyaly after this big update google have give a big help to spammers. In the keywords that I study , I observe a the top of serp the biggest spammers that i’ve just comunicated to google, but they are now at the top.

  129. Stephen Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 2:13 pm

    Matt - you said:-

    “Stephen, I know that mirago.co.uk had a lot of search result pages, so there might be something different going on with that site.”

    Yes, and I know that this is something that you obviously do not want to have in the index (eg the link to your own serps situation) - but Ask Jeeves (UK) also has the situation but the homepage can still rank within the site. EG:-

    http://www.google.com/search?hs=1aD&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=site%3Awww.ask.co.uk+ask+jeeves+uk&btnG=Search

    Ok, moving on from the Mirago example.

    I am still seeing sites that if you do a site:www.domain.com http://www.domain.com search the http://www.domain.com does not rank.......These sites dont appear to have a penalty (eg Googlebot seem to be happy to crawl internal pages within the site - just not the homepage, eg the internal pages seem to have more value than the homepage - some work on this to be done by Google ? - or is there a possibility that this might improve as Jagger3 evolves - eg a crawl required - more flux still to come?)

  130. RuiP Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 2:52 pm

    jagger3 put spammers out ??
    a pratical sample
    http://66.102.9.104/search?q=hospedagem+gratis+fortaleza&lr=
    this a search for webhosting free fortaleza in portuguese language.
    n1-spam redirect
    n2-spam redirect hidden text and links
    n3-spam hidden text
    n4-hidden text
    n5-spam hidden links
    the first non spammer user is
    yahoo directory
    i don’t know if it is because isn’t in english, but brasil is a big market.
    Rui

  131. Ron Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 3:25 pm

    Hey Pascal,

    That was a very interesting case you mentioned. From a human perspective, there’s also a very interesting research paper exploring two cases of liver failure likely caused by Noni Juice ingestion that also should have had a shot at page 1. I’ve been studying some areas that I think have similar algorithmic difficulties.

    Here’s a wacko amateur theory you can try out if you get really desperate. Suppose, due to the volume of pages by, for, and about the “tahitian” noni juice, that Google has decided that “tahitian” (root: “tahiti”) is highly relevant to “noni juice”. If this wacko theory were true, it might rank your home page lower because it fails to contain any mention of that word.

    If you get bored, and are still in the dumps after this update has finally settled, try jamming in several mentions of “tahiti” and “tahitian” just for giggles.

    Of course, maybe you just took a hit for having so many, shall we say, not entirely organic inbound links. But testing that theory would take a lot more work :-)

  132. David W Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 3:26 pm

    Is that it!

    One of our sites has gone like this over last three weeks.

    PR5 - IBL 40
    PR6 - IBL1900
    PR4 - IBL4

    Which one is correct? We reckon about 100 is right - had been showing 40 for over a year. Where did the 1900 come from (and go) Now settled at 4 links but I know there are at least fifty as I can visit them but why are these not showing up?

    Seems that other sites I watch have all had the number of links decreased by a factor of ten or so - but not sure on what basis! Even huge the huge tesco dot com shows only 50k links compared to Y! - who show 500k which is probably more realstic. Not sure whats goning on - why the huge reduction in IBL - they can’t all be bad.

    This all leaves me thinking - is google going anywhere with it updates - is there a prupose or are they just going round in circles - chasing spammers! I think they should spend more time on improving the relevancy of SERP for the vast number of users/ publishers who are not spammers!

    (Originally posted on jagger2)

  133. Scott Fish Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 5:39 pm

    Ok... Now I like DC 66.102.9.104 !! :)

    It looks like a mixture of the good from J2 and J3 updates.

  134. Peter Faber Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 5:53 pm

    Matt,

    Why is it that when I do a site search for my site I get only around 340 results (I´m in Brazil) while when somebody in the USA does the exact same site search, he gets about 600 results? (both in Google.com)

    Am I not allowed to see the same results, just because I am in Brazil?

    And the even strange thing, when he coppies that SERP URL into MSN and I click,. then I do see the 600 results,... but it is the exact same URL.

    It´s a bit confusing.

    Peter

  135. Jeff S Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 5:59 pm

    Looks like Jag 2 results on that datacenter, dont see any Jag 3 results anywhere

  136. Peter Faber Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 6:20 pm

    ah never mind that question. My friend in the usa did the site search without the www and I did with http://www.

    still strange that that gives different results.

    Peter

  137. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 6:28 pm

    site:knowledge-finder.com ( shows 625 indexed pages )

    site:www.knowledge-finder.com ( shows 338 indexed pages )

    That is what I am seeing over here Peter.

    Anyone?

    Thanks,

    -Aaron

  138. Brad Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 6:40 pm

    Hi Matt,

    Any idea when 66.102.9.104 will propogate to all of the google dc’s? it doesn’t appear that my geographic area is being served by a jagger3 updated server yet. can we assume that the SERP on 66.102.9.104 is pretty much teh final rank when jagger3 has fully propogated?

    Brad

  139. Paul Gillman Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 7:05 pm

    Aaron & Peter,
    Try the same thing using 66.102.9.104 and the results are getting closer.

    site:knowledge-finder.com - 352
    site:www.knowledge-finder.com - 346

    I’m going to hazard a guess that Jagger3 is now getting a better handle on this canonical issue and now associates www and non www pages better. I’ve seen the same effect on one of our sites as well.

    I’ve also seen fewer tracking code duplicates in some of my searches using this Google test site.

    Double slashes still seem to be common, however.

    http://www.databasesystemscorp.com/demonstrations.htm
    http://www.databasesystemscorp.com//demonstrations.htm

    both still appearing in same search result.

  140. Marc Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 8:11 pm

    I don’t understand this update. I have a real estate website and was was #1 or #2 for “lido key real estate”, “longboat key real estate”, “bird key real estate” and other numerous phrases before the update. Now I am not even in the top 100. How does that make any sense? I don’t do any black hat SEO stuff either - content, links, blogs, etc. - Nothing tricky. Am I being penalized or something?

    Aren’t the results supposed to improve? Here is an example:
    http://66.102.9.104/search?hl=en&lr=&q=sarasota+florida+real+estate

    #1 - crappy site, gathers leads and sells them to Realtors.
    #2 - good site
    #3 - good site
    #4 - crappy site, little content, never updated, very little information about search phrase
    #5 - ok site, duplicate content issues with #6 result, stale information, rarely if ever updated, generic realtor template website.
    #6 - ok site, basically identical site as #5, stale information, rarely if ever update, generic realtor template website.
    #7 - Good site, lots of original content, easy to navigate, updated frequently, frequently used blog, #1 in allinanchor links for numerous search phrases (my site)
    #8 - ok site, duplicate content issues with #5 and #6 (see sitemap). Basically #5, #6 and #8 are the same exact websites.
    #9 - A website about Venice, Florida. I thought I searched for Sarasota, Florida. Venice, Florida is 30 minutes away from Sarasota. That is not what I seached for and who wants to live there? It is just a link site anyways.
    #10 - Probably the best site in the top 10, most user friendly site on the list, great original content, tons of links.

    Sorry if I sound a little bitter. I can see all of the time I put into making a good website has gone down the drain. From the looks of search results #5, #6 and #8 I should get a template site, with the same exact content, get a few websites to link to me and I will rank well.

    Thanks for letting me vent Matt. ;-)

  141. Marc Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 8:15 pm

    The time it took me to write the above comments the search results for that page changed. However, not for the better. Page #5, #6 and #8 are now page #3, #5 and #10. Does Google like duplicate content now?

  142. Green Lantern Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 9:25 pm

    Adam,

    Google created the greatest content theft machine the world will ever witness with Adsense. I doubt most people had ever heard of or considered a DMCA complaint prior to the introduction of Google Adsense. Google is not the least bit interested if somebody is stealing your content even if Adsense advertising appears on it. They are though required to do as federal law mandates when a DMCA complaint is filed with them. The law on the other hand does not protect you from retaliation by Google when you file the complaint. Since Adsense is the predominant income of Google they will protect their turf whether it encourages content theft or not.

  143. Adam Senour Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 9:38 pm

    Green Lantern,

    I apologize because I should have made one thing completely clear and I didn’t.

    The article I wrote isn’t stolen. It’s free for redistribution as long as the backlink is maintained in my author bio. In this case, that was done and I was given credit. From a legal standpoint, the “webmaster” (and I use that term very loosely) didn’t do anything wrong.

    So I’m cool with that. I’m even more cool (and in a twisted way, somewhat honoured) that someone I’ve never even heard of would use part of an article I wrote as what would seemingly be the primary content of the opening page of the site.

    My concern, albeit a slight one, is that if and when Google picks up on things like this as the spam/lacklustre effort sites that they clearly are and ban/penalize them, do the webmasters that indirectly supplied the content get punished as well, other than the very slight drop in PR caused by the loss of a backlink?

  144. MtraX Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 10:32 pm

    Hi Matt

    Do you have any idea when the update will be finished? My client site is still out of top SERPS and I need to start giving them explanations. What would you say is a good explanation for me to give them? Anyone else can pitch in, I’d really like a reference to a good informative article or discussion than will calm my client down!

    Regards
    MtraX

  145. All4dreams Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:07 pm

    Marc, those sites look very informative to me. Everyone is biased, so am I and you.

  146. Dave Said,

    November 7, 2005 @ 11:23 pm

    RE: “What would you say is a good explanation for me to give them? Anyone else can pitch in, I’d really like a reference to a good informative article or discussion than will calm my client down!”

    Probably impossible to say without seeing the site, what’s the URL? I would tell your client that until Jagger3 settles down any ‘tinkering’ yo exsiting pages would be counter-productive.

    Also, no site should be so reliant on one keyword/term. The more you can rank for the better you are insured against algo changes etc. That is, it’s better to get 1000 hits from 100 keyword/terms than 1000 hits from 1-10 keyword/terms.

    Content is still King :)

  147. Green Lantern Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 2:04 am

    Adam,

    Google has always remained evasive on the issue of whether duplicate content penalizes any or all domains that use the same exact content. The answer though is rather simple, it either does or doesn’t. But Google refuses to answer the question which arouses suspicion. To take it a step further if you created a 1000 page domain and then replicated it with 20 other domains you would assuredly draw a penalty or a ban with some search engine. Would it not stand to reason that somebody who was granted or not granted permission to duplicate your content could not in effect lead to penalization or banning of your domain. It’s a money question in the end.

    Google remains quiet on the issue because there is a likely a financial advantage to do so. That financial advantage comes from the fact much of that duplicated content contains Google Adsense ads. Some would argue that Google isn’t divulging trade secrets but who would argue that duplicate content somehow increases the quality of the Internet as a whole.

    Right now I’m dealing with 1000 Google Adsense scrapers and I watch my rankings tumble with every update so what can I say more.

  148. trogons Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 2:05 am

    Please stop all your updates as it is making mess of results for example when you search for false cellings when get results from air india and some thing like that. It is almost a month and good websites are no where despite having every thing so good no spam etc, and those websites are in results are only those website which have nothing to do with trade but they have make one page for products and placed links related to that products and enjoy good rankings because they are much older then us, Is that good update?

  149. Dave Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 2:17 am

    When/if Google encounters duplicate content, no easy feat with 10 billion + pages, it usually keep only the one it encountered first.

    Having said this, I believe it’s unlikely Google (or any SE) can spot duplicate content from different sites, let alone know who the righful owner is.

    Frankly, I don’t think it’s Google’s job to protect our content, that is up to the owner of the content. To say otherwise is like holding Google responsible for a Google searchers that gets bad code/info from a page in its Index!

    JMHO

  150. Enrique Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 5:15 am

    Hi Matts,

    I would like that you look the follow searchs, a lots of spams, and with Jaggers 1, 2, 3 not change:

    http://66.102.9.104/search?hl=en&lr=&q=spanish+school+in+spain

    http://66.102.9.104/search?hl=en&lr=&q=learn+spanish+in+spain

    http://66.102.9.104/search?hl=en&lr=&q=spanish+courses+in+spain

    Thanks a lot,

    Enrique

  151. Kim Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 7:54 am

    Definitions of Canonical Name on the Web:

    The real name of a host. Used in CNAME records, PTR records, NS records and MX records. A Canonical Name is something of a fiction because many servers have more then one equally valid name. Basically, any domain name that has an A record.
    customersupport.websiteproviders.net/glossary/c/

  152. Aaron Pratt Said,

    November 8, 2005 @ 8:19 am

    Dave & Others,

    This concerns me as well because my new website on water gardens uses a RSS feed which serves up fresh content to scrapers and spammers. What if someone with an older site copies all my stuff and google crawls them before they crawl me? If google was to ignore this spammers would rule so I think there is a way to detect.

    What I do immediately after I add some new content to my site is I send the sitemap.xml to google, in root I have a bar