McDar Experiment

NEW PAGE UPDATE:
*Google PR/Backlink update

The "New Page" sleeping-bags.htm
04/07/2004 "New Page" went live

Search for "Sleeping Bags"
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NOTE: Due to size constraints, the entire report can no longer appear in a post.
You can view the entire report here... Complete Report
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Last 10 days

Postion #29 allinanchor: #5 - 06/02/2004 [ 9 DCs #28] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #28 allinanchor: #5 - 06/03/2004 [ 4 DCs #26, 4 DCs #27] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #27 allinanchor: #5 - 06/04/2004 [ 2 DCs #19, 6 DCs #26] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #25 allinanchor: #5 - 06/05/2004 [ 5 DCs #26] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #24 allinanchor: #5 - 06/06/2004 [ 10 DCs #25, 2 DCs #26] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #27 allinanchor: #5 - 06/07/2004 [ 1 DC #26] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #28 allinanchor: #4 - 06/08/2004 [ 3 DC #27] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #27 allinanchor: #4 - 06/09/2004 [ All DCs] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #27 allinanchor: #4 - 06/10/2004 [ 3 DCs #26, 4 DCs #28] **29 DCs are NOT responding**
Postion #30 allinanchor: #4 - 06/11/2004 [ All DCs ] **29 DCs are NOT responding**


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note: these pages are found using ( site:www.compar.com +sleeping Bags )
number of Bob's PR6 and PR5 links found:
56 - 5/18/2004 (All datacenters)
Unchanged from previous date
57 - 6/2/2004 (All datacenters)
58 - 6/3/2004 (All datacenters)
Unchanged from previous date
57 - 6/7/2004 (All datacenters)
58 - 6/8/2004 (All datacenters)
57 - 6/9/2004 (All datacenters)
Unchanged from previous date
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note: this page is found using ( site:www.komar.org +sleeping Bags )
Alek's PR 7 Link:
Not reported by Google 4/17/2004
Reported by Google 4/18/2004 (all datacenters)
Unchanged from previous date
Link removed / no longer pointing to page 6/2/2004
__________________
note: this page is found using ( site:www.ski-france-ok.com +sleeping Bags )
Foxy's PR5 and two PR4s
0 - 4/20/2004
3 - 5/04/2004
Unchanged from previous date

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Bob and Foxy added link Sleeping Bags to their sig files on this forum 5/06/2004
Results for - ( site:forums.digitalpoint.com +sleeping bags )

3530 - 6/1/2004
Unchanged from previous date
3590 - 6/3/2004
Unchanged from previous date
3740 - 6/5/2004
3750 - 6/6/2004
3790 - 6/7/2004
3920 - 6/8/2004
Unchanged from previous date
3990 - 6/10/2004
4020 - 6/11/2004
__________________

Caryl and Foxy added link Sleeping Bags to their sig files on the SEO Chat forum 5/11/2004
Results for - ( site:forums.seochat.com +sleeping bags )

429 - 6/1/2004
427 - 6/2/2004
435 - 6/3/2004
Unchanged from previous date
457 - 6/5/2004
452 - 6/6/2004
431 - 6/7/2004
414 - 6/8/2004
Unchanged from previous date
397 - 6/10/2004
374 - 6/11/2004
__________________

"Sandbox" info - this search theoretically removes "sandbox" link filter
Results for - ( sleeping bags -dsa -dsa -dsa -dsa -dsa -das -das -dsa )

#19 - 06/1/2004
#20 - 06/2/2004
#18 - 06/3/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#17 - 06/6/2004
#19 - 06/7/2004
#20 - 06/8/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#22 - 06/11/2004
__________________
PR/Backlink info

~ May 31 Update ~
sleeping-bags.htm has PR6
170 Backlinks
(backlinks reported in the 170)
37 of Caryl's links
46 of Bob's Links
1 of Foxy's Links
85 for Digitalpoint forums
1 for Alek's Link
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~ April 23 Update ~
sleeping-bags.htm has PR5
49 Backlinks
(backlinks reported in the 49)
5 of Caryl's links
42 of Bob's Links
1 of Foxy's Links
2 for Digitalpoint forums
Nothing for Alek's PR7 link(the link on Alek's page is 53rd link - may validate the 50 link/page theory)
__________________

 

leed1,

I have read your post both times you posted it and I do not know exactly what you are talking about.

I've the site/pages in your sig and find none of them near the 6th position.

Could you restate your findings?

Caryl

 

I have added 100 links to the two new experimental pages. Most of them PR4 and lower.

I know Foxy has not posted back to this forum regarding changing his page name, but I know he has read the info.

Caryl

 

If you're interested in using an excel spreadsheet to monitor this, I've updated the one I made some days ago.

It now holds three tables to monitor data in relation to:
1) the index page of Bob's site
2) the experimental page of Bob's site
3) the experimental page of Foxy's site

If it is possible, maybe we could divide up the monitoring? If Bob is busy developing links/content for the index page, maybe we could divide it like this: I could update the first table, Caryl the second, and Foxy the third. Or do you have enough to do monitoring your own experimental site, Caryl? These are just suggestions, anyway.

It would be nice if we could have all the data in the same spreadsheet. I think the risk of two working on the document at the same time is minor, but to avoid this, we could for example just write a one-liner post "Currently updating the spreadsheet"... then the other would wait until the updated version is posted.

Regarding the link building, I also think that we should do this in a very controlled fashion. Meaning... one person adds his links, we wait for them to be indexed, checks the results, then the next person adds his links... we wait for them to be indexed, etc.

The same goes for Bob's index page. If it is possible to do the different things we spoke about some pages back in stages (i.e. adding size/internal links/internal anchor text/reciprocal links, etc.), then it would be easier to isolate the effect of each variable.

Do you like the idea of a spreadsheet and what it contains? Anything else you would like to measure?

As for the lenght of this thread, yes, I agree, it is getting very long now... but I'd like to keep the discussion related to all the monitored sites in one thread. Personally, I don't mind writing at the bottom of this huge thread either. Maybe we could have as another goal to create the SEO world's longest thread?

 

Oopps... forgot about the spreadsheet

 

I was quoting g.co.uk not .com - sorry about that

I notice that ALL the listings above me hardly have the KW1KW2 combo in the links pointing the their pages.

Maybe there's been a change in the algo that I can't explain but that exact anchor text is not actually helping a lot

See the sleeping bags - down like a lead balloon now.

The top ranker for my KW1KW2 combo has a lot of plural links into their site (ie: KW1KW2s) but ranks for the non plural and from what I have seen, no direct anchor text with KW1KW2 in it !

Have I explained that well at all ?

 

Two issues:

1. I worked with Shawn on the possibility of moving all the "new experiment" posts to a new thread. The problem is that the two threads -- old and new experiments -- are so interwound that there is no way to separate them with the forum interface. So we continue in one thread.

2. The results of our original experiment are starting to concern me. There are a couple of claims being made by many people that I have tended to dismiss. In fact I thought this experiment specifically disproved them. Those theories are:

a. Google will devalue links that all have identical anchor text. If not devalue then permanently assign them to the sandbox, which has the same effect.

b. Google has radically devalued forum sig links.

c. Google does give more relevance value to links from thematic or topically related pages.

The question is, if we think we have come as far as we can go with this page under the current methodology, what can we do to test some of these theories I list above?

One thing we could do is take down all the forum sig links and see if there is any change.

For point (a.) above I guess we could vary the anchor text, but what would the alternative be? And that would certainly reduce the allinanchor: ranking. But as I illustrated in some thread just a couple of days ago lots of site rank #1 in the SERP with absolutely no allinachor: ranking as a result of stemming.

 

Bob

That's effectively what I was trying to say in my previous post(s)

I just searched g.com and the sleeping bag site when you search for sleeping bag (no plurals) comes in at #32 - not bad considering there is no anchor text for this.

I think if you change all your links to sleeping bag you may have more success for sleeping bags

It's only a theory of what I have seen and experienced. Of course there may still be the issue of

a) g not taking account of sig links
b) a penalty on links that all have the same anchor text

 

Goog ideas, Bob!

I think we should attempt to test these factors one at a time.

The first, and easiest, would be to remove the sig links from this forum. See what effect this has. Then replace them, wait for serps to re-adjust, then change another aspect of our links.

So, perhaps we should all remove our sig links today. Once we have all agreed and done so, I'll note it in today's update.

Caryl

 

That would be my first thought. We need Foxy to agree so that we can coordinate this. Let"s hope Foxy checks in soon. I don't think he was online at all yesterday????

 

I have some questions about the spread sheet.

1. I wonder if a daily update is necessary? Maybe weekly would be often enough and save a lot of work. Thoughts?

2. I don't understand the three categories. What is 'regular' and 'inanchor'?

3. I don't think we need to record the keyword variations that include words not in the anchor text on a regular basis.

4. On the test pages the word "rooms" and "room" should be replaced with "games" and "game" I believe.

5. It would be interesting to track my home page, but strictly speaking it isn't part of this experiment. Maybe I could just report the progress on it from time to time for everyone's interest.

6. If we drop my home page a more useful layout might be to compare the two test pages side by side for easy visual comparison of results, rather than two separate charts. Thoughts?

I just went and played with inanchor: and now I understand the search. It reports all the pages that have any of the words in them whereas allinanchor only reports the site with all of the words in them.

 

I do think we should keep track daily. I am currently building a tool to simultaneously search for both sites on "online poker games", online poker", and on "online games". It will return position, pages, backlinks, allinanchor, and inanchor for every look up.

All that will be needed is for someone to enter the values to the spreadsheet.

If I can get urls of links, perhaps I can add those look ups to the tool as well.

http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtoolExp2.asp

Position, allinanchor, and inanchor.

Agree!

Yes, they will need to be changed on the spreadsheet.

I agree!

I also, agree. I would like to see them side by side as well.


Caryl

 

The combination you have missed is "poker games".

Now if we want to test for stemming at the same time you should add, all the above that include games only now the phrase will only include game. So "online poker game", "online game" and "poker game".

We still haven't heard from Foxy.

1. Has he got the control page set up in unison?

2. Is he ready to dump the sig links to 'sleeping bags' as we discussed for the original experiment.


And in regard to this experiment who is going to put up the duplicate links?

 

I have added "poker games" to the tool.

http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtoolExp2.asp

 

Look at the tool and let me know what you want added that will be checked on a daily basis.

Caryl

 

Looks good. You know that we seem to have lost Foxy. Infact he hasn't even change the URL to his page yet to match the URL you are running reports for or put up links to.

So we really need to get him on side or this whole thing is a bit of a waste.

How much work would it be to add Yahoo to the daily results. It's looking more and more like Yahoo really is getting a significant amount of the search traffic so maybe we should try and find out what turns their crank also.

 

I think it would be too much to try and analyze both Google and Yahoo in the course of a single experiment. Not to mention collecting and recording all of that data.

The simpler we keep it, the easier it will be to interpret.

Caryl

PS I will be out and about for the rest of the day as I prepare to head off to camp. I will be checking in, however, every now and then from now until Monday.

 

It is done

 

I just read this Article on the LED Digest. I have a lot of respect for Dirk Johnson.

I had a quick look at the Link Survey page he references and you can download a copy of the software or buy it for $49.95. If it is as good as he suggests it might be very useful in our experiments.

Is anyone familiar with this package?

 

As a Mac user can't comment!