McDar Experiment

McDar, Excellent tools excellent thread. Just want to chime in to say we need to count up the number of links leading out from digitalpoint (PR6) , your profile signature leading out to mcdar.com/camping1/sleeping-bags.htm and add them to compar's count.

 

sadcox66,

Welcome aboard! It is easy to see how many links from my signature each day by looking at the upper right hand corner of my posts.

As I do add more posts durring the course of a day, it will probably be safer to just monitor those that way.

It is important to add, even though the PR for this forum is a PR6, the actual PR of the pages in this thread are a PR0.

At this point, the links may count towards total links, but will not add any PR value.

Caryl

 

Alek,

Thanks for the link! I will add the search to tomorrows UPDATE:

The link is fine as it is, with no Title at this time. I think it would be interesting to add to this experiment, later down the road though.

Say, if we get to a certain position that seems to be stable, then tweeking by simply adding titles to the links.

 

I have long suspected that directory categories are also used as weighing in Googles results.

I have taken the liberty of adding a column to today's keyword tool results. (see attachment)

I have highlighted the sites in the top ten that I think we can most closely approximate their "numbers" (total site pages, Backlinks, etc.)

The main difference will be that the "New Page" is on a site listed in Googles Directory: Shopping > Recreation > Outdoors which is much lower on "the feed chain" than are the manufacturers. Recreation > Outdoors > Equipment > Manufacturing

I have noted that the Retail Sites in the top ten have significantly higher numbers one or more of the columns in the results.

 

NEW PAGE UPDATE:

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

Search for "Sleeping Bags"
Position#n/a allinanchor:#n/a - 04/08/2004
position#104 allinanchor#32 - 04/09/2004
Postion#232 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/11/2004
Postion#193 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/12/2004
Postion#136 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/13/2004
Postion#133 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/14/2004
Postion#108 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/15/2004
Postion#104 allinanchor:#30 - 04/16/2004
Postion#92 allinanchor:#32 - 04/17/2004

_____________________________________________________

number of Bob's links found:
19 - 4/13/2004
24 - 4/14/2004
40 - 4/15/2004 (most datacenters report 40 but some as low as 31)
37 - 4/16/2004 (7 datacenters report 36, 7 report 42, the rest - 37)
37 - 4/17/2004 (8 datacenters report 36, the rest - 37)
__________________

Alek's Link:
Not found yet 4/17/2004[/B]
__________________
# of Links from my posts to this thead
89

 

sadcox66,

You were right to suggest I add the count of my posts each day to the total as, what is reported in the top corner always updates!

Thank you!!!

 

Things seem to be progressing very nicely and about as you would expect. We have to be prepared for a reversal if it happens. Google isn't always exactly consistent. But so far so good.

What is interesting, or seem to be proven, is that you can advance without a PR or backlink update. I think a lot of people feel nothing will happen until the backlinks are reported, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Bob,

I have seen where there seems to be a "cut off" an "x" number of days prior to a backlink/PR update. Where links not picked up prior to that time, are not included.

With keeping daily stats on the progress of this page, I am hoping to get a good idea of that "cut off" time frame.

Also, it will be interesting to see if, once the pages acquires a PR rating, if that value gives some kind of extra boost.

Regarding a reversal. It has been a very common event these days to see Google reverting to an "older" cached version of their database. If and when that occurs, we may very well be able to determine how dated the cached version is.

I also want to bring up a "phenomenon" that I have witnessed in Google behavior.

I have in the recent past made some big changes on a page (ie. removing text, link text, and title change) and Google crawled and cached the new version just fine.

HOWEVER, for almost another 2 weeks, Google would return the page in the results for a keyword search on the text that was NO LONGER ON THE PAGE and was never a part of anchor text leading to the page. If I clicked on the cached version that Google was showing in the results, it was indeed the new version and the keywords were not there.

I have also read threads from others seeing the same thing. It seems that maybe on keywords returning over a certain number of results (say for example 2 million) they had some stored information somewhere that was used to expedite returning the results.

This sort of thing could cause some lag in the progress.

 

FYI FWIW: Googlebot showed up right on time last night and indexed my home page - attached is the apache log entry. BTW, Googlebot slurped down 127 files yesterday - looking at the last couple days of log files, this is actually on the low side for a typical day.

I often see SERP results withen a few days for stuff like this on my internal pages - be interesting to see if similar behavior for external stuff.

BTW, just a thought, but if you wanted to change the anchor text to something like "sleeping bags komar" or maybe some stemmed variation of sleeping bags, just let me know. Ditto as we have discussed for any title tag - you are driving the show! ;-)

alek

64.68.82.58 - - [16/Apr/2004:22:25:40 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 6494 "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)"

 

alek,

Thanks for the info. Let me think about adding to the anchor text. There may be some merit in doing that. Especially AFTER Google discovers the link.

Caryl

 

Why would you want to change the anchor text? In my mind that ruins the experiment. I think we want to leave everything exactly as is until we can reach some conclusion.

Then you can screw around with some of the variables. I'll be really disappointed if you make any changes until then.

 

Sit tight, Bob!

We are not going to be changing anything. It would indeed complicate our experiment at this time.

I said the idea might have some merit because I have read threads in some forums that people WARN others to vary the anchor text or "you will be penalized".

The thing I have personally concluded is that extraneous words (any other than target keywords) weaken the strength of the link.

No changes should be made unless all concur (Bob, Foxy, Caryl)

 

NEW PAGE UPDATE:***

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

Search for "Sleeping Bags"
Position#n/a allinanchor:#n/a - 04/08/2004
position#104 allinanchor#32 - 04/09/2004
Postion#232 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/11/2004
Postion#193 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/12/2004
Postion#136 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/13/2004
Postion#133 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/14/2004
Postion#108 allinanchor:#n/a - 04/15/2004
Postion#104 allinanchor:#30 - 04/16/2004
Postion#92 allinanchor:#32 - 04/17/2004
Postion#29 allinanchor:#13 - 04/18/2004 [11 datacenters #30, 4 datacenters #27, 2 datacenters #22]

_____________________________________________________

number of Bob's links found:
19 - 4/13/2004
24 - 4/14/2004
40 - 4/15/2004 (most datacenters report 40 but some as low as 31)
37 - 4/16/2004 (7 datacenters report 36, 7 report 42, the rest - 37)
37 - 4/17/2004 (8 datacenters report 36, the rest - 37)
38 - 4/18/2004 (10 datacenters report 37, 16 report 32, the rest - 37)
__________________

Alek's Link:
Not reported by Google 4/17/2004
Reported by Google 4/18/2004 (all datacenters)
__________________
# of Links from my posts to this thead
69 4/17/2004 [Edited to remove 20 posts in this thread that did not have link]
75 4/18/2004
__________________
Caryl's Links [links posted 04/07/2004]
2 PR6s & 5 PR5's (no way of telling which are accounted for)

 

Anybody that happens to be following this thread is welcome to join in and add comments or questions!

We are all learning here.

 

Sounds like maybe the www.komar.org link kicked (that was some BIG movement! ;-) - I normally see this in a day or two in the SERP's, so interesting to me that consistant for external links too. You have two 4/17 data points - was that last one actually the 18th?

BTW, not only did I get my "normal" late night visit from Googlebot last night, but Googlebot/Test came by for the first time ever on my main page - see this other forum thread.

I often seen upward movement after the first jump, so I would not be surprised to have this climb up a bit more. I know we have more than my link being added; so other factors are also at play.

alek

P.S. Bob: I'm just tossing out ideas - again, you guys are driving the show and I won't change stuff until you guys agree to do so - I agree that changing one thing at a time is ideal.

 

You are correct, people do WARN about repeating exactly anchor text, but I don't really believe it. That is one of the tests within our test as far as I'm concerned and explains why I reacted to strongly to the suggestion.

I also agree with you about dilution. I've just had a fairly length dicussion about this on another forum I think. I'll see if I can find it and post it here. And this is just another reason not to mess with the anchor text.

Today's Results

Well we have certainly seen a dramatic leap in the SERPs today. Now the question? Were we on track for this, or is this the result of the one additional backlink?

Here are some of the problems in intepreting these results.

1. All of my links are from a single domain -- run of the site type links. While obviously they were promoting the site, the new link is from a separate domain on a different IP block. So did the fact that it is from a different site give it extra importance?

2. All of my links are PR5 or PR6. The new link is PR7. I personally don't think the PR value of a link contributes anything to the relevancy value of the link. But if we argee that today's jump is because of this one additional link was it the PR7 that was responsible.

3. Was today's jump just coincidental?

 

Alek,

YES, Something obviously kicked in. Analysing our datapoints, though, I would not be inclined to believe that your link has had any effect yet.

This is why I think that way:

If you look at the position on 4/15 and look at the number of Bob's links reported for the same day, you'll see that Google reported 40 of his links YET we were in position 108 and no allinanchor. The first day Google listed the page the site came in at position 104.

To be honest, I think that what we are seeing today is a combination of some of the original links I put up and FINALLY credit for some of Bob's.

I would predict that if what you suspected was true than we really would not see anymore improvement in position because all of the links we have listed above have been accounted for.

The only advancement we would see now is when Google finds a few more of Bob's links and when Google finds Foxy's links that she will be adding tomorrow.

If ANYBODY sees a flaw in my thinking here PLEASE bring up your ideas now. This is the only way we can really learn from this.

Caryl

 

Hi Caryl et al

Great experiment - strangely echoing something I started myself a few weeks back. Caryl may have noticed my use of the tool recently to check the Allinanchor position.

I have noticed the same steady rise in the allinanchor results as each new backlink is added/discovered confirming that G is using the data before a Backlink update takes place.

The only difference being that G doesn't yet show the page in the SERPs (probably as the domain is very recent). I'm continuing to 'grow' the allinanchor results to see what impact that has if and when the page hits the main SERPs.

URL and anchor text in sig.

Keep up the good work.

Mick

 

OK - again, my past experience has been a day or two delay and BAMM, things rocket on up. Note also that there are very few outbound links on my page, so I think that helps you. Unknow what PR7 "truly" means and I have no idea what type of theme Google would apply to my page.

I don't want to micro-analyze too much, but Googlebot didn't pick up the link until late at night, and I don't know how quickly that percolates into the various search results, but the timing is consistant with what I've seen in the past informally.

I.e. if I read things correctly, my link was added the morning of 4/16, Googlebot got it that evening, mcdar did NOT see it on 4/17 (what time BTW!), but did see it on 4/18 when there was also a resulting JUMP in rankings - that sounds like good correllation, but yea, other things are happening, so they may have kicked in too.

Have kinda lost track where you are in your "link collecting", but might be a good time to pause for a bit and let things stabilize (that was discussed earlier) - i.e. let everything you guys have done "settle" down.

Also, when I pull that link (sorry, I only promised to put up for a month! ;-), it will be interesting to see what differences, if any, that makes ... although I've seen SERP's "stick" for a while before they decline - seems to be a dampening function applied somehow.

We can also play the "fiddle with the anchor text" game that I suggested earlier when you guys are ready.

alek

 

FYI: I have updated my included quote to reflect the 4/18 date since it appears that mcdar has updated his original data - i.e. I'm assuming he made a typo in the original posting.

BTW, as alluded to above, I don't want to micro-analyze too much, but what TIME are you doing your queries?

alek