133 replies to this topic

[doughayman]

Well, all I can say, is that Big Daddy crushed me, but I am very confused. With minimal, and very controlled changes this year (content only), I saw my traffic (and yes, profits) skyrocket in February and through mid-March. Traffic levels were at an all-time high.

Since mid-March, my traffic is off 30-40 %, and of course, my profits have followed suit. I took notice as of mid-March, and started noting how many of my keyword phrases went from Page # 1 to Pages # 2 and # 3. All in the last few weeks.

What confuses me is that I would have expected to see some gradual downward trend changes during Feb and all of March, but only notice traffic being way down since mid-March. Very odd.

IMO, lots of the pages that have jumped me, and are low PR pages with fluff content at best.

Not sure if Google got this one right.

Also, from the BB's, it appears that BigDaddy is fully deployed.

[dianeski1]

This is all Geek to me, I confess, but I find it fascinating.

I checked the search phrases that my company's websites always ranked well for, and they still rank well (first page of results). So, I guess Bigdaddy hasn't blitzed us...yet. So, I guess I won't worry about it. Yet.

Meanwhile, my colleagues and I hafta focus on getting better rankings for some of those more competitive (but also more popular) search phrases that we've never ranked highly for---even though they're directly relevant, and we're tops in the field.

It's hard to tell whether Bigdaddy affected our rankings for those phrases. How do you assess going from nowhere to nowhere?

Dianeski

[doughayman]

Diane,

Not sure how you assess from going from "nowhere" to "nowhere", but to assess where you rank in Google over time (starting now), for any number of phrases, use the free tool put out by Cleverstat, called GoogleMon.

You can find it on the website:

www.cleverstat.com

You will need to register for a Google API Key, and you will be limited to 1,000 queries a day, I believe, but it's free, and I find it reliable.

Still trying to make heads or tails of this Big Daddy update. A key phrase of mine which always ranked # 9 or # 10 on Page 1, has dropped to # 23 on Page 3, in just the last 2 days. All I've been doing of late is adding content and adding more content.

Maybe Google thinks I'm adding content at too high a rate relative to my historic content addition rate ???

Anyway, plenty to think about.....

[Jill]

Maybe Google thinks I'm adding content at too high a rate relative to my historic content addition rate ???

Rankings go up. Rankings go down. It isn't (necessarily) you. If G wanted to hit you, you wouldn't be on page 3 that's for sure. You'd be on page 3 million.

[doughayman]

Yes Jill, you are absolutely right, and thank you for your vote of confidence. Unfortunately, I am a very analytic person who needs to ascertain a reason for everything (part of my compulsive personality). You would laugh if you saw all the back-end statistical processing that I do of my log files, and other path analysis that I capture.

I had been very stable SERP-wise for a year, so this Big Daddy shake-up has been a slightly disconcerting for me.

But, you are right. I need to continue on focusing on the positive things I have done over the years. This isn't the 1st fluctation that I've been a part of.

[Jill]

Unfortunately, I am a very analytic person who needs to ascertain a reason for everything (part of my compulsive personality).

You're in the wrong biz then!

[xpertcoder]

Hi all,
I was just wondering if the big-daddy update is complete. I have been keeping track of some specific keywords since last 5 months and find that the results on google has back-tracked (for those keywords) to results displayed on January 2006 ? I am wondering if the update is yet complete. One of my websites was thrown from #13 to #26 in an hr since the update began and the result displayed was same as in Jan 2006 with some of my sub-pages being ranked between #20 - #26 (This was the result before I started link building with my keywords as anchor text). So any idea if the google update is complete or when it will be completed if not completed yet
regards
Mark

[doughayman]

xpertcoder,

Same here. I've reverted to SERP placement from several months ago, and it all started about 3 weeks ago or so. I'm slowly drifting downward, and my organic traffic is about 30-40 % off. I know I'm not supposed to look at this stuff, but when profits are down, there is reason for concern. Looks like the Big Daddy algorithm has cost me some.

Good luck to you !

[Jill]

I'm slowly drifting downward, and my organic traffic is about 30-40 % off. I know I'm not supposed to look at this stuff, but when profits are down, there is reason for concern.

Yes, that is exactly the stuff you ARE supposed to look at! (It's rankings you're not supposed to look at.)

[xpertcoder]

Yes, that is exactly the stuff you ARE supposed to look at! (It's rankings you're not supposed to look at.)

Well said Jill but when a person gets most of his business from google he is definitely gonna look at the rankings.
Anywayz Jill is this Big-daddy thing over cuz I still very varied results each day (even between 12hrs), depending on which data-center I hit.

Edited by xpertcoder, 11 April 2006 - 08:36 AM.

[Jill]

Anywayz Jill is this Big-daddy thing over

Beats me, I don't pay any attention to it. I'm sure Michael knows.

My guess is no, since everyone is complaining that their rankings and stuff keep changing.

[Michael Martinez]

Google is finished with the update. Post-update data adjustments may continue for several months, for all we know.

I would regard any rankings changes at this point to be permanent or semi-permanent.

I have moved into a new phase of analysis and don't have anything further to share on this topic.

Sorry.

[Jill]

I would regard any rankings changes at this point to be permanent or semi-permanent.

I dunno...they seem constantly moving to me still.

[Michael Martinez]

I dunno...they seem constantly moving to me still.

I think Google has started a rotation process, but I'm still gathering data (including anecdotal accounts from other SEOs). It's too soon to tell.

But I'm not seeing any indication of continuing "update" activity, in the classic sense of a major shift in available index data.