12 replies to this topic

[Marc Williams]

Good morning!

Today's update is pretty big. Google rolled out search results using a new algorithm which favors "original content" (you can read more about the change at Downloadsquad). The change was made to counteract "link farms" and other attempts to game Google's search results.

The following tests were done using a clean setup to eliminate Google giving me tailored results based on past use.

So what does all this mean? Well, just a few days ago I could search for "world's fair" and on the first page of Google results I would find links to the home pages of ExpoMuseum and nywf64.com. Today neither of those websites are in the first ten pages of results. The first link I found for ExpoMuseum was on page 31 and it was to their page for Expo 86. I went all the way to the end of the results and never found a link to the home page (other links into the ExpoMuseum website were at pages 38, 44, 54, and 57). Searches for specific fairs still yield good results, but a high ranking for a general term like "world's fair" is akin to striking gold.

A search for "NYWF" was equally fruitless for nywf64.com (I only searched through the first dozen pages of results). The only way I found Bill Young's website was to search for "New York World's Fair" and his home page was on the third page of search results.

The World's Fair Community did not move. When searching for "world's fair" our home page is still on the third page of search results (where we have been for as long as I have been keeping track). As I have said in previous posts keeping our ranking high has been a constant challenge. Because of their high level of noise Google has never favored community websites such as ours. Our continued high ranking says a lot about the high quality contributions our members make to the community. We really stand out for highly specific searches.

To highlight Google's emphasis on original content, links to Bill Cotter's World's Fair Photos are usually in the first five pages of results. Why did nywf64.com sink and World's Fair Photos didn't? Google doesn't talk about how they go about doing what they do so my guess is the construction of nywf64.com is hurting their ranking. Instead of having long pages of information the articles on nywf64.com are broken into multiple linked pages. Google does not see the pages of an article as a whole and that reduces keyword density. In spite of being 100% original content nywf64.com may look more like a link farm than a content site. To test this I searched for "The Singer Bowl" the first featured article on the nywf64.com home page. On the first page of results there is a result for Bill Cotter's page for the Singer Bowl and a result for Bill Young's announcement of the article here at WFC, but nothing for his website in the first twelve pages of search results.

So, things have changed. Try doing some searches and report back with your findings

Update: An example of the highly specific searches I mentioned. A recent post asking about a 1939 underground house has already been indexed by Google and WFC is in the first three listings when searching for "C.M. Chorpening underground

Continuing my nywf64.com tests, searching for "Texas Pavilions and Music Hall," another article on Bill Young's home page, turns up one page of Google results, the first three results link to posts at the World's Fair Community, and nothing for nywf64.com.

Continued searches for content I am taking directly from the pages of nywf64.com seem to confirm Bill's site has mostly disappeared from Google's results. Try "Fountain of Progress South" (with quotes) and see what you get.

[xl5er]

Thanks for that, Marc.

NBC's Parks and Recreation used the search engine "Alta Vista" as a joke punch line. That and your post reminded me how I have come to use Google exclusively, merely out of habit. Back in the interweb's Stone Age of the 90s I always used multiple search "portals."

Been meaning to mention, my iPod Touch IPB app always tells me there is "No new content," when I know there have been many new PTU posts. Has there been some change or is the problem on my end?

[Bill Cotter]

Boy, Google sure seems to have blown it. I did a search for "new york world's fair" (with and without the quotes) and neither my site nor Bill Young's are there. Instead there are some sites that haven't been updated in years, and others like Mitch's site, http://64nywf65.20m.com/. Not knockingMitch at all, but there's a hell of a lot more info on the fair on my site and Bill Young's, but we're both mot on the first page. I found my site on the second page, but nywf64.com seems to have vanished. This site was down around page 3. How Bill's site could have plummeted like that is unbelievable.

Do a search on Unisphere and we're not there on page 1 but http://www.unisphere.cc/ is. Try that site and see just how useful it is. I didn't see us on the first 5 pages - and think how much great stuff Bill has on the Unisphere on his site.

Google has just become far less useful to me. Happily nywf64.com is still there on Bing - or until they change their formula.

I wonder how one can protest this change, or what clues there are to get a site visible again.

[Marc Williams]

Here's everything in Google's index for nywf64.com
http://www.google.co...site:nywf64.com

worldsfairphotos.com
http://www.google.co...sfairphotos.com

worldsfaircommunity.org
http://www.google.co...ircommunity.org

expomuseum.com
http://www.google.co...:expomuseum.com

[Marc Williams]

xl5er, on 25 February 2011 - 07:22 AM, said:

Been meaning to mention, my iPod Touch IPB app always tells me there is "No new content," when I know there have been many new PTU posts. Has there been some change or is the problem on my end?

Nothing has changed here. You may try clearing Safari's cache in the system settings. It may have become stuck for some reason.

[Marc Williams]

Things change fast. Both ExpoMuseum.com and WorldsFairPhotos.com have appeared in the first page of results for "world's fair" and both websites plus WFC have appeared on the second page of results for "new york world's fair."

[Bill Cotter]

I submitted a new sitemap.xml file and that may have helped. I'll suggest that to Bill Young.

[Randy Treadway]

It used to be that all you had to do was put something like ladygagaladygagaladygagaladygaga on your home page, and you'd get instant top indexing by all the search engines.

[Bill Cotter]

They clearly needed to fix things, as searches were becoming more and more cluttered with junk, but when a site like nywf64.com doesn't show up in a search for "new york world's fair" it's just wrong.

[Bill Cotter]

I've been working with Bill Young and we think we see why Google isn't properly indexing his site. He's making some changes and hopefully things will improve shortly.

[Mike Kraus]

That's great news!!

Ah, I see Bill has changed his index page, with a link to the sitemap, which is essentially the old index page.
FWIW, nywf64.com is the 4th listing on Bing for the term "new york world's fair".

[Marc Williams]

Very good news!

With the improved results I'm thinking there's less of a need to continue developing the Links section. What do you all think?

[magikbilly]

Well, I don't know about everyone else, but I am loving this new whatever-it-is. My searches are wayyy more effective!

Best wishes,
Eric