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Google algorithm change launched

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google algorithm change launched

#21

Post by Matt_Cutts »

tristanperry wrote: post #19

Sounds good, thanks for the update Matt. I must ask though: I wonder whether you've seen the "January 26 2011 Traffic Change - Back to 'Zombie Traffic' " discussion over at Webmaster World? A number of webmasters there (who own websites with fully unique content) are reporting that they've seen lower quality content sites and/or content scrapers rank above their established sites with good content, starting from arou…

I love Webmaster World, but one frustrating aspect of webmaster forums is that specific sites and queries are rarely given. It can be very hard to assess what's really going on since you don't know the specific site that's being discussed.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#22

Post by furyg3 »

tomrod wrote: post #17
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The high-order bit for me is that Stack Overflow is #1 for both pages. We can do localization based on TLD: the query [bank] will return different results on google.com vs. google.ie, for example. Without doing a deep dig yet, we might have thought that open-mag.com was more helpful for European searchers, for example. It looks like that site is based in Portugal.

Kudos for keeping locational variety. Is there a flag/keyword we can enter into the search to ignore location?

Such a flag would be reallllllly handy. I constantly switch between google's .com/.nl sites based on what language i'm searching in and what I'm looking for.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#23

Post by seanalltogether »

Matt, I just went through my search history because i remembered a very specific instance of seeing this. Here's the query.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nstoolbar+bottom+bar&ie=u...

You'll notice that efreedom.com shows on the first page with content taken directly from stackoverflow. While stackoverflow does show in the results, the exact page that efreedom copies does not. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are taking this seriously.

For reference here is what I see right now - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1437645/googlesearchresult.png

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#24

Post by andybak »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #15
bhavin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I am even more surprised to see that when I logged out of my account and searched again on google.ie, one of the efreedom disappeared!! So, does this mean that Google search now takes into account my past search result clicks (or rather mis-clicks)? Or ranks contents in someway that proves efreedom is somehow more relevant to me?

If you're using personalized search, we do look at past clicks to change your ranking. So if you clicked on efreedom in the past, that could affect your ranking. You can add "&pws=0" (or use incognito mode in Chrome without logging in) to turn off personalized search and see whether that's the factor for you.

If I'm clicking around to crappy sites to figure out why they rank highly I don't really want them to get even higher in my personal search ranking!

Is deleting them from search history enough to correct this effect?

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#25

Post by bhavin »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #15
bhavin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I am even more surprised to see that when I logged out of my account and searched again on google.ie, one of the efreedom disappeared!! So, does this mean that Google search now takes into account my past search result clicks (or rather mis-clicks)? Or ranks contents in someway that proves efreedom is somehow more relevant to me?

If you're using personalized search, we do look at past clicks to change your ranking. So if you clicked on efreedom in the past, that could affect your ranking. You can add "&pws=0" (or use incognito mode in Chrome without logging in) to turn off personalized search and see whether that's the factor for you.

Adding &pws=0 turned the personalized search off and hence got rid of the efreedom.

Also, I cleared my web history and searched again. The results are same now signed in or signed out. Problem solved! :)

Thanks!

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#27

Post by Matt_Cutts »

seanalltogether wrote: post #23

Matt, I just went through my search history because i remembered a very specific instance of seeing this. Here's the query. http://www.google.com/search?q=nstoolbar+bottom+bar&ie=u... You'll notice that efreedom.com shows on the first page with content taken directly from stackoverflow. While stackoverflow does show in the results, the exact page that efreedom copies does not. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are taking thi…

It looks like we've got SO above efreedom for that query, but it's always nice to find a url that we didn't have that we'd like to be indexed. That lets us check whether we can improve our crawling/indexing. Thanks for the example!

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#28

Post by Matt_Cutts »

bhavin wrote: post #25
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using personalized search, we do look at past clicks to change your ranking. So if you clicked on efreedom in the past, that could affect your ranking. You can add "&pws=0" (or use incognito mode in Chrome without logging in) to turn off personalized search and see whether that's the factor for you.

Adding &pws=0 turned the personalized search off and hence got rid of the efreedom. Also, I cleared my web history and searched again. The results are same now signed in or signed out. Problem solved! :) Thanks!

Glad to hear it. &pws=0 is handy to diagnose whether personalized search is causing something to rank higher for you.

Re: Google algorithm change launched

#29

Post by AndrewHampton »

seanalltogether wrote: post #23

Matt, I just went through my search history because i remembered a very specific instance of seeing this. Here's the query. http://www.google.com/search?q=nstoolbar+bottom+bar&ie=u... You'll notice that efreedom.com shows on the first page with content taken directly from stackoverflow. While stackoverflow does show in the results, the exact page that efreedom copies does not. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are taking thi…

I'm seeing two SO URLs (5 and 6) before efreedom (8th) when I click that link.
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