June Dance

[3rd eye]

This months dance has started

[Advisor]

You sure about that? I didn't think this months, or last month's ever ended...

[Matt B]

Aren't we still seeing the May Dance, just partying late?
:drink: :drink: :thebomb: :cheers:

[qwerty]

Whatever's been going on for the past month or so is not "the dance," but maybe that's a matter of nomenclature. But that which is normally called the dance does seem to have started today.

The usual way to check is to look at the backlinks to Yahoo. When that changes, we're dancing.

[3rd eye]

Well www and www2 are showing different # of backward links for Yahoo

[ihelpyou]

It does not matter though. The changes are still taking place and will not be done for awhile. Dance all you all wish, but I ain't looking nor do I need to or want to or have to or should.

[3rd eye]

Fair enough, but the June dance has started!

[qwerty]

Doug has a point. The last dance obviously didn't give us any results we could point to and say our sites had improved in the rankings (or not), since these other changes are continuing. And I suspect the same will be true of this dance. The general consensus seems to be that things won't stabilize until some time in July.

But, there must be some reason we've got a whole section in the forum dedicated to the dance. People want to know about it. And to paraphrase Gertrude Stein (had she been an SEO), a dance is a dance is a dance.

[Advisor]

But, there must be some reason we've got a whole section in the forum dedicated to the dance. People want to know about it. And to paraphrase Gertrude Stein (had she been an SEO), a dance is a dance is a dance. It's actually so that the people who don't care about the dance don't have to see the posts interspersed through the regular Google posts!

We have a number of moderators here who have no interest in the dance whatsoever. Most of us who've been doing this for a long time pay only a passing attention to the dance. And even then, only when it's done.

Jill

[mrguy]

You can hide your head in the sand all you want to but the fact is the real dance is on and it was confirmed by GoogleGuy. I about crapped my pants when he stickied mailed me about a remark I made, so I had him check my site out and he didn't see any problems or penalties that would cause the spanking I took again. This time worse than dominic.

If you check your links on the fi, ww2 and www3 server, that is what your going to have for a while.

Yes the SERPS will change here and there as fresh activity is added in, but for the most part, what you see is what you get.

They have obviously changed a lot in the algo.

I've followed all the rules, good content, blah, blah and guess what, it did not work for my site.

It is time to start experimenting and see how they have tweaked the algo. The good thing is, with freshbot activity you can see the results of your experiments fairly quick.

It looks like they have really de-valued anchor text in links. This is just my take on it from what I see for my site.

So, I hope everybody does better than I did for this dance!!!:cheers:

[esavvy]

I agree that for a site that changes slightly from month to month - there is no need to watch the dance - but for retailers and sites that change according to the season - new products etc..
The dance means alot.

We have sites that will have 300 new pages created per month. Getting some of these pages with new products in the index at Dance time is a big deal.

It also plays a role with stocking product. No sooner a dance starts - manufacturers are called and orders are placed for new products.

[Advisor]

They have obviously changed a lot in the algo. Really?

I guess that's the beauty of optimizing through on-the-page content. The dance has very little effect. There's always some up and down movement for some keywords, dances never seem to make much difference to my client's sites.

And who's hiding their head? Since the dance doesn't make much difference to my client's rankings, it's not very important to me.

Jill

[qwerty]

Well, we've known for over a month that they've made major changes to the algo, but I don't think anyone can say with much authority what those changes are... not yet. And I've never believed that one could see the results of changes while the dance is going on. To me, the dance is just an indication that things are going to be different soon.

I have a lot of respect for Jill's methods, and her philosophy, and I try to do things that way too. But the dance matters to me because I know it's during that period that Google takes new information into account: new pages, changes to existing pages, and sometimes (certainly this time) changes to their algo.

So, if I see major changes -- either up or down -- in my rankings, it's at that point that I start looking into why that happened. And yes, I've found that it can happen, even if you're not doing anything sneaky. The dance just tells me to get ready for that.

[Net Wizard]

I can confirm the dance is on :D at www-fi one of my newer site(3 months old) that only shows 53 URLs in the current www is now showing 452 URLs :cheers:

Whoohoo!!! now let's just wait and see it propagate to the rest of the data center.

Now everybody can smile again :)

[highman]

Certainly the pages in the new index are much, much fresher. Reworked site launched Friday evening with additional 50 odd pages, fully indexed this morning on www2... now thats fast!

I agree its pointless trying to evaluate positions etc while the dance is on (which it is) BUT it is a very helpful tool (www2, www-fi, etc) in accessing any problems googlebot may have in indexing your site. Important to get changes in quick if this is the case.

[lazyz]

qwerty -

Yes the algo has changed but I think we can safely say the spamming of the <h1> tag has been limited...

Before the last update you could simply get a one page site in the top with a key-word specific heading and a few anchor text links to that site. Not anymore.... the heading has far less weight than in the past... Agree?

[qwerty]

Originally posted by lazyz
Before the last update you could simply get a one page site in the top with a key-word specific heading and a few anchor text links to that site. Not anymore.... the heading has far less weight than in the past... Agree? I don't know yet... I have a site with a rather general keyword phrase in an H2 tag at the top of the index page, and until Google went into its recent wackiness, the page had moved over the course of a few months from 38th to 8th for the phrase. When the recent changes started, we dropped back into the 30s.

I took a look using the Google Dance tool last night, and on WWW2 we were number 5 for that phrase! As of right now, we're number 36 on 3 servers, and it's pointing to an interior page. So I'd say it's just too soon to tell.

[beardsmen]

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
--Rod Serling

Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order.
--Samuel Beckett

I have the same opinion of dances that physicians have of mushrooms: the best of them are good for nothing.
--St Francis de Sales

I should not believe in a God who does not dance.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

And men must walk at least before they dance.
--Alexander Pope

Dance is like life, it exists as you're flitting through it, and when it's over, it's done.
--Jerome Robbins

They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.
--Terence (c. 190-159 BC)

If you're on thin ice you might as well be dancing.
--Source unknown

[dragonlady7]

Heh. That was quite enjoyable (Beardsmen's contribution). I was just thinking that somebody ought to write a poem or an essay or something on the metaphorical nature of the Google Dance. I'm new enough at this, and working in such a specialized subset of keywords anyway, that I can't say I've ever been aware of it, and I doubt it will have much direct impact on me since I'm still learning, but for some reason I just love the idea of the dance. Google has become this massive force, and its dances are almost tidal in scale. And like the tides, its changes affect millions-- but only those who don't have motorboats really notice the effect much.

Anyhow. I'm confident that any changes they're making are for the best, and am amused by how many others feel the same way. We don't have a belief in any deity or government in common, but we all believe in Google. What does that say about the times in which we live?

[g1smd]

When the dance started on -fi I saw several sites that have been waiting to go into the index for some time, suddenly appear at #1.

However, I also noticed that on www a lot of sites were showing fresh tags, but that many of those without fresh tags were showing listings, positions, and cache contents based on mid-April data. The www data reverted to very old data, with fresh stuff added before being overwritten by the update that started on -fi and then spread to all the other servers. Most odd seeing www revert like that for a couple of days.

[dsearchguy]

Originally posted by qwerty
Doug has a point. The last dance obviously didn't give us any results we could point to and say our sites had improved in the rankings (or not), since these other changes are continuing.... People want to know about it. And to paraphrase Gertrude Stein (had she been an SEO), a dance is a dance is a dance.



I disagree with you stating that the last dance did not "give us any results we could point to". I've met 2 new clients as a direct result of changes made last month.

I think Advisor, Doug, and you miss the point of people talking about the dance.

For some of us, it is exciting to follow the dance and see what is happening. I hope that most of us know that it will change again. The weather changes 2x a day where I am from, but I am still curious to see what the current forecast is for tomorrow.

According to your logic, how do you know it will stabilize in July?
If you never look at the dance until it is over, how do you ever know it is over?

[qwerty]

I think you missed my earlier posts. I do watch the dance, but only because I see it as an indication that I'll be able to see changes, if there are any, soon. The dance itself is the period during which things get reshuffled. It's after the dance that you can start to see what happened.

And the word about changes in the algo stablilizing in July comes (I believe) for the infamous GoogleGuy. But I see that as separate from the dance. Some say the previous dance never ended. In my view, we had a dance, but that combined with the algo changes left everything inconsistent. We now have another dance, and word from GG that this new data will be brought in and then the changes in the algo will all be stabilized by the end of July.

And then there are the rumors that this may be the last dance (as we've come to know it). We'll just have to see. Your two new clients going out in search of help during a time when the SERPs are inconsistent are coming at this under strange circumstances. Maybe they need help, and maybe they don't.

[catweasel]

I'm no expert, but if I'm interpreting the signs correctly then the May dance finally ended some time in the last 24 hours. Yes, the dance that was reported in this thread as starting a few days ago was actually still part of the May festivities.

So, if it really has finally ended we can, I believe, look forward to the June Dance in a few days.

"Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he."
(Sydney Carter)
Google's new theme song?

[g1smd]

The update has not ended.

At the beginning of the update all 9 datacentres suddenly reverted to showing data (titles, descriptions, cache) from mid-April (with some fresh data sprinkled in), except for www-ex.google.com which showed altogether newer data in the results.

This newer data has gradually spread across the datacentres except that it is not yet showing up on the www-in.google.com datacentre yet.

[jitesh]

I am getting same backward links for Yahoo and Google at almost all the datacenter.

Dance is almost over ??

[polarmate]

Is it over? Who knows! My index page keeps bouncing from oblivion to #1 and back. Actually oblivion would mean that it can be located somewhere if you look hard enough - I wish that were the case. Really weird: #1 or simply non-existent. :rolleyes: