continuous vs monthly updates

[RoySpencer]

I realize there is the prevailing opinion that Google has gone (is going?) to a more continuous crawling and update strategy. However, we had a huge change in both SERPs, number of pages indexed, and resulting traffic on August 11. I found others posting at another Google forum that said the same thing. Anyone else notice this? Maybe there is still a quasi-monthly "mega-update" in addition to the continuous "mini-updates"?

[qwerty]

I think it was around 11 August that people started saying that they noticed toolbar PR being updated and rankings stabilizing a bit. So something happened; I'm just not sure what we ought to call it.

[polarmate]

Yes, it started on Aug 11 or at least I noticed it then. Our backlinks went up from 490 to 639 and we moved up a spot from 6 to 5. We moved to 4 a week ago. I also saw a web site that was not in the first 10 spots till a few days ago show up on the first page. It's a redirect because the site moved to its own domain and the page is not the index page for that site. It has very few backlinks and is a very busy overwhelming store entrance page. I am watching it to see how it will fare cos I cannot understand how it made it to the first page.

[Peter (IMC)]

It hasn't stopped yet,... and if it is true that Google is now continuesly updating the index,.. then it will never stop.

Today a client site went up 7 places, but the last crawl was from 4 days ago. Right after the crawl it was on 32, now on 25,... Now he just needs more incomming links to get higher up, but I´m curious if his site will go up further with what he has now in backlinks (2).

Regards,

Peter

[polarmate]

My backlinks were updated today. 810 from 639. They were at 639 for just about a week. Wow!! This is a rolling update!!

[RoySpencer]

..and in the last couple of hours, my PR went from 4 to 6 and my backlinks from 11 to 96! Woo-Hoo!

[RoySpencer]

FYI, these are the dates when major new additions of sets of pages were made by Google to its index for our main site. You are invited to see any pattern you wish.:)

[Peter (IMC)]

No pattern visible. July seemed to have been passed without anything happening. Was that the month where they did all the upgrades?

Anyway, I have an other question:

Do you mean here that these are the dates that the google bot visited, or are these the dates that google was showing them in its cache?

Is there a time diference between the google bot visiting and the moment they get indexed and show up in the cache?

Regards,

Peter

[chrishirst]

On the site I'm taking notice of simply because it was launched in early July in the midst of the confusion, It's now been visited twice by the googlebot (about 5 weeks apart) and in both cases the cache was updated about 3 days later. Though of course it may have been between 48hrs to 72 hrs, as I only check once a day and in about the same period the toolbar PR went from grey to PR1.
I did start doing this 'dance stuff' and checking the datacentres a few times (soon got hacked off with that!) and now just check whatever results Google danes to serve up at the time (the same as any other searcher gets) and it gets great results (3rd & 16th)considering only the index page has been spidered as yet and the spam infested marketplace it is in (it's not 'adult' related btw).


Chris.

[Tyler Durden]

However, we had a huge change in both SERPs, number of pages indexed, and resulting traffic on August 11.

I came to the same conclusion from analyzing my sites stats.
It appears to me that GG moved to 3-weeks cycle for the significant PR and SERPS update (minor updates are going on with different frequency though):

August 8 - PR showed in toolbar (end of cycle 1)

August 11 - recalculation of PR and update SERPS started (begining of the cycle 2)
August 25 - SERPS settled
August 29 - PR showed in toolbar (end of cycle 2)

September 1 - recalculation of PR and update SERPS started (begining of the cycle 3)
September 15 (Estimated) - SERPS settled
September 19 (Estimated) - PR and backlinks show in toolbar

Also I have noticed that more competitive SERPS tend to be updated earlier than less competitive ones. That possibly could be explained by the assumption that PR recalculation happens during the long period of time with PR for more important (higher PR) pages recalculated first.