McDar Experiment

Foxy,

I find you weber bbq page in the 300's of Googles results. Where was it prior to that?

 

NEW PAGE UPDATE:
*Google PR/Backlink update
**29 DCs are NOT responding**
***27 DCs are NOT responding**

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

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

Postion #315 allinanchor: #7 - 07/23/2004 [3 DCs #293, 5 DCs #308, 4 DCs #309, 6 DCs #312, 3 DCs #316]***
Postion #315 allinanchor: #7 - 07/24/2004 [4 DCs #295, 6 DCs #308, 6 DCs #314, 3 DCs #316]***
Postion #316 allinanchor: #7 - 07/25/2004 [4 DCs #32 ,3 DCs #296, 4 DCs #306, 2 DCs #307, 2 DCs #314, 7 DCs #315]***
Postion #34 allinanchor: #7 - 07/26/2004 [7 DCs #34, 3 DCs #297, 5 DCs #308, 1 DCs #310, 2 DCs #314, 6 DCs #315, 1 DCs #316, 4 DCs #317, 4 DCs #318] ***
Postion #320 allinanchor: #7 - 07/27/2004 [7 DCs #34, 3 DCs #300, 5 DCs #310, 4 DCs #311, 3 DCs #319, 8 DCs #320, 2 DCs #321, 4 DCs #323] ***
Postion #317 allinanchor: #7 - 07/28/2004 [9 DCs #34, 3 DCs #298, 2 DCs #309, 4 DCs #310, 11 DCs #317, 4 DCs #318] ***
Postion #317 allinanchor: #6 - 07/29/2004 [9 DCs #34, 3 DCs #298, 1 DCs #315, 1 DCs #316, 14 DCs #317, 1 DCs #318, 4 DCs #319] ***
Postion #315 allinanchor: #6 - 07/30/2004 [9 DCs #34, 3 DCs #297, 1 DCs #313, 1 DCs #314, 14 DCs #315, 4 DCs #316, 1 DCs #317, 1 DCs #318] ***
Postion #Not Found allinanchor: #6 - 07/31/2004 [16DCs #Not Found, 2 DCs #39, 6 DCs #40, 7 DCs #42, 4 DCs #48] ***
Postion #Not Found allinanchor: #7 - 08/01/2004 [15DCs #Not Found, 2 DCs #46, 11 DCs #47, 2 DCs #48, 4 DCs #53] ***[/B]
Postion #Not Found allinanchor: #7 - 08/02/2004 [15DCs #Not Found, 6 DCs #45, 9 DCs #47, 4 DCs #50] ***
Postion #Not Found allinanchor: #8 - 08/03/2004 [15DCs #Not Found, 2 DCs #49, 10 DCs #50, 7 DCs #52] ***


_____________________________________________________
note: these pages are found using ( site:www.compar.com +sleeping Bags )
number of Bob's PR6 and PR5 links found:

79 - 7/15/2004
Unchanged from previous date
83 - 7/17/2004
Unchanged from previous date
85 - 7/23/2004
Unchanged from previous date
83 - 7/29/2004
Unchanged from previous date
__________________
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
2 - 6/17/2004
Unchanged from previous date
__________________
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 )
Note:Foxy & Bob removed links from Signatures - 6/11/2004
4060 - highest links reported 6/12/2004
Note:Foxy & Bob replaced links in Signatures - 7/21/2004

238 - 7/17/2004
235 - 7/18/2004
230 - 7/19/2004
234 - 7/20/2004
Unchanged from previous date
231 - 7/22/2004
600 - 7/23/2004
606 - 7/24/2004
1510 - 7/25/2004
1930 - 7/26/2004
2400 - 7/27/2004
2730 - 7/28/2004
3020 - 7/29/2004
Unchanged from previous date
3160 - 7/31/2004
3360 - 8/01/2004
3440 - 8/02/2004
3460 - 8/03/2004
__________________

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 )

200 - 7/17/2004
192 - 7/18/2004
172 - 7/19/2004
160 - 7/20/2004
Unchanged from previous date
164[/COLOR] - 7/22/2004
Unchanged from previous date
169 - 7/24/2004
Unchanged from previous date
171 - 7/27/2004
Unchanged from previous date
167 - 7/29/2004
Unchanged from previous date
171 - 7/31/2004
168 - 8/01/2004
167 - 8/02/2004
161 - 8/03/2004
__________________

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

#34 - 06/22/2004
#33 - 06/23/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#78 - 06/25/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#74 - 06/27/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#131 - 07/05/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#137 - 07/15/2004
Unchanged from previous date
#244 - 07/18/2004
#251 - 07/19/2004
#246 - 07/20/2004
Unchanged from previous date
__________________
PR/Backlink info

~ July 16 Update ~ (only Backlinks updated in this update)
sleeping-bags.htm has PR6
129 Backlinks
(backlinks reported in the 113)
14 of Caryl's links
11 of Bob's Links
1 of Foxy's Links
49 for Digitalpoint forums
38 for SEO Chat forums
___________

~ June 22 Update ~
sleeping-bags.htm has PR6
325 Backlinks
(backlinks reported in the 325)
50 of Caryl's links
56 of Bob's Links
1 of Foxy's Links
149 for Digitalpoint forums
70 for SEO Chat forums
1 for Alek's Link
___________


~ 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
___________
~ 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)
__________________

Note:Google API has page at #n/a

 

Dominic,

Sorry for the delay in getting to your request!

It has been a VERY difficult task trying to evaluate results during this experiment. When big changes ocurred in our position, I made the "big mistake" of just checking a few forums to see if any threads indicated that Google may have done something that caused many others to also see big changes.

I referred to that as a "big mistake" because every big change we experienced seemed to correspond to changes Google made that effected many other sites as well.

What I started doing is inserting links in the Complete Report to forum threads that discussed these changes.

You can view the entire report here... Complete Report

So, although I am certain changes we made had effects in our rankings, there was no way to measure the effect of our changes due to Google changes at the same time!

Major learnings, that I would include, that this experiment has shown are
- Google has made several changes in the last six months
- I would be suspect of any reported "experiment" that did not
include some reference to Googles behavior in the same time frame!

If you look at the rise and fall of our results, we could have made some grandiose claims, however, in all honesty they would really not be accurate.

For instance - This last big drop (if I was not monitoring all datacenters) I could state that we proved that irrelevant signature links absolutely have no negitive effect, in fact have shown to have a great positive effect on serps. As when we added irrelevant sig links we went from position#315 to position #34.

That is a true statement! But is it an accurate statement? No, not really.

There was no way to distinguish the result of our adding the signature links from the most recent Google changes. -see Rank Pulse

In this experiment, we are trying to report accurate, well documented support of cause and effect of some linking strategies. We are not neccessarily trying to prove for our own theories.

If anything, this experiment is letting folks witness, first hand, the reality that most endure while trying to SEO for Google. If we continue, we will undoubtedly find a way to the top one of these days.

I do feel that trying to SEO for Google these days is like trying to steer a small boat on a stormy sea.

Bob and Foxy may feel differently.

ps - Sorry this was so long.

 

Thanks for posting, I read the full report and am very interested in this experiment because of the way you are running it... as much as possible in a measured and objective manner.

Hence the desire to hear of 'major learnings' as I think they are more likely to unravel some great insight for us all.

I guess we just need to be patient and see this one over the longer term.

Thank you for the time you put in to this - and for your reply.

 

They view DP pages as more important now don't they?

 

It is this very reason that I feel that site size plays a major role in the serps.

If you are a very large site, just a few links can catapult you to the top. Smaller sites must compensate for their lack of size with significantly more links. IMHO

That is the absolute ONLY thing DP has going for it for this keyword phrase!

If I am missing something here - please point it out.

Caryl

 

43

How did you look that deep ie in the 300s? Manually?

Yeah - real strange! But I have come up with a small rationale and it centred around the fact that I placed on Liquid Markets a free advert pointing at the pages. By chance I happened to see these pages [LM] at 2+3 and Dp at 3+4 and then some seconds later it dropped to 10 - where it is now. It made me think a little.

I had already proposed, by PM, to Compar and McDar that I felt that OBLs [forward linking] had more importance than IBLs [back linking] in the latest Google algo and here on this non competitive term was a prime example of "authoritative" sites having OBLs.

Now I have altered my thinking slightly on OBLs as the LM dropped quickly but in essence it is a strong factor.

The only other factor that seems to be effecting things with the weber bbqs is the "php?" - and it seems that the brakes have been taken off. That is perhaps why initially we saw a great plethora of directories/forums in results after the Feb update and the relevance came from the OBLs on those pages.

 

I used this tool...

Datacenter Quick Check

Caryl

 

It keeps coming up with the liquidmarkets results not the growlers results

 

Foxy,

I was using www.growlers-sausages.com/weber_bbqs.htm as the url and weber bbqs as the keyword phrase.

 

Oh what a plonker I can be!!!

I finally entered the full url and hey presto!!

However if you enter the www.growlers-sausages.com/weber-bbqs.htm you get the liquid markets results - I guess it is picking up the address off LM

 

I don't know what you mean, Foxy. I have check this out manually on the Datcenter Watch Tool as well and it is your page that is returned at position #340 NOT Liquid Markets.

 

Here is the screen

 

Here is a screen shot of what I am getting.

It must be a difference from US to UK

 

That is the page with the underscore.._..whereas I am showing the dash -

 

OK, I see now we were talking about two different pages.

 

I have just read a theory in a thread in SEO Chat posted by pk_synths (who is also registered in this forum)

I am wondering if anyone would see a problem in testing this theory with our experimental page?

Currently, the page has a 15.54% keyword density for the phrase sleeping bags. I have modified a copy of the page that would reduce the keyword density for the same two words to 5.92%

IF pks theory is valid, this should give us a significant rise in the serps.

Please comment on this suggestion!

Thanks,
Caryl

 

What is his evidence for this conclusion? The theory seems counter to anything we have ever thought.

I personally don't pay any attention to KW density at all, but there is no way that I can see, or think, that Google would be diluting link or anchor text value based on on-page kKW density.

But there is nothing wrong with testing it I guess. Although I don't think we should do anything until we know what Google is presently doing. The site can't continue to be in the 40s for half a dozen datacenters and other wise not show up anywhere. This situation has to straighten out.

Google is still badly fucked up in my opinion. They report 8 backlinks for my PageRank article and give it a PR0. Eight backlinks is not a lot, but it certainly doesn't give you a PR0.

If we make any change now we won't know what their impact is in my opinion.

 

Right you are, Bob! We should hold off making changes until Google comes to it's senses.

What interested me in this is that here is a theory put forth that seems to have nothing to substantiate it. It should be easy with our experiment to see if it holds any water.