From: Google To: Phil Message: You Suck.

It looks like our year of living abnormally high in Google’s search results is coming to an end with this update.

Probably as a result of not having enough current news results last September, Google has spent the last year tweaking their algorithm and their crawling habits to make frequently updated pages appear higher in the results, which, combined with weblogs commonly being linked by the author’s name, resulted in our being ranked extremely high for many things, including our names. Last month, I was crowing about being the number two Phil on Google. After this month’s update (assuming it’s now over), I’m number 14. That dramatic drop might be due to Google finally catching up on the fact that I no longer repeat my name below every single entry, but even Dave (you’re welcome) dropped from being the number two Dave to an ignominious, below the fold, number five. Oddly, others seem not to have taken such a hit: Meg, Evan, pb, Jason, and Doc are still at either number one or number two. Hmmm, maybe it’s a special penalty for having mentioned your ranking (I don’t have a clue whether any of them have or not).

But the main thing is, Google still knows who the most important Shannon Campbell is.

32 Comments

Comment by Marcus #
2002-09-30 14:56:14

Noooo. I’m back to the third page again for ”marcus”. *waves fists* Why, Google? Why? :/

 
Comment by Dorothea Salo #
2002-09-30 15:24:50

Hm. Dropped to 11. Of course, I *did* also move blog recently.

 
Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-09-30 15:44:34

Ouch. And in a not very competitive market (less than half a million Dorotheas). Probably a bigger problem than moving is that you have a very good blog name: even people who quite often link to poorly named blogs by the author’s name are going to link to CavLec by its name rather than yours. You’re number one for Lector, and two for Caveat, which isn’t too shabby.

Marcus is in a competitive market, without ever having splashed his name all over the page, and with incoming links probably pretty split between digiboy and Marcus – focus! You must have focus in your marketing!

 
Comment by Kafkaesquí #
2002-09-30 16:09:01

As I’ve ranted frequently about: we need to give — or create for ourselves — UNIQUE *ahem* first names. If only the world of parents was more original about these kinds of things. Then we’d all be so much happier with our ego-driven Google results.

 
Comment by Kafkaesquí #
2002-09-30 16:09:41

As I’ve ranted frequently about: we need to give — or create for ourselves — UNIQUE *ahem* first names. If only the world of parents was more original about these kinds of things. Then we’d all be so much happier with our ego-driven Google results.

 
Comment by Jonathon Delacour #
2002-09-30 16:11:56

Still the #1 Delacour, but I’ve slipped down to the #3 Jonathon. Damn that ”Goddess Art of Jonathon Earl Bowser”.

 
Comment by Jonathon Delacour #
2002-09-30 16:12:36

Still the #1 Delacour, but I’ve slipped down to the #3 Jonathon. Damn that ”Goddess Art of Jonathon Earl Bowser”.

 
Comment by Kafkaesquí #
2002-09-30 16:12:39

Grr.

Got a config error upon posting. Posted again… but only after checking to make sure the first one didn’t make it through. Nothing is full proof.

Phil, go ahead and remove the previous one. And uh, this one too. Thanks.

Grr.

 
Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-09-30 16:18:45

Sorry. That’s starting to get on my nerves. What happens is that your comment is saved, but the MT script gets clobbered before it has a chance to rebuild the page, so you don’t have any way of knowing that it was saved. I might need to cut down on the number of templates I’m building (five RSS feeds, the index page, the individual archives, it probably rebuilds category and date archives too…)

Comment by ar #
2004-04-23 09:46:52

google sucks so i spend hours to get one search back.

Comment by arian #
2004-04-23 09:51:17

Last week i spent all night trying to get rainfall graphs on google images for over 3 hours and i still have not found it.

My tip is DO NOT EVER USE GOOGLE.

YOU SHOULD LOOK AND LAUGH INSTEAD

Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2004-04-23 11:10:39

Heh. Well, sadly, we don’t have DWIM search engines yet, so you do have to learn how to spell (Goggle is terrible?), and you have to have some idea of the words that are likely to appear around what you are looking for to stand a chance of getting good results.

 
 
 
 
Comment by djwudi #
2002-09-30 19:23:04

Nowhere near even the top 100 for either my given name (Michael) nor my nickname (Woody) — however, while I’m nowhere near as well-known as anyone else around here, I do appear to be the only ’djwudi’ (my online nom-de-plume) on the ’net.

Something to be said for that, I suppose. Not sure what. But something.

 
Comment by Phil Ringnalda #
2002-09-30 19:31:43

I think what’s to be said about that is ”Hey, you’re a stalker’s dream come true!”

 
Comment by Breyten #
2002-10-01 00:07:59

The reindexing seems to have a positive outcome for me, I am both the #1 Breyten, and also the #1 bje this month :)

 
Comment by Breyten #
2002-10-01 00:08:15

The reindexing seems to have a positive outcome for me, I am both the #1 Breyten, and also the #1 bje this month :)

 
Comment by michel v #
2002-10-01 02:54:09

Be happy that you appear on Google at all. For some unknown reason tidakada.com does not appear on Google at all, even when I search for ’michel corsica weblogs’. Instead, Google returns pages that link to it, but that’s all.
Anyone with a spider bot care to tell me why my site just doesn’t get indexed ?

 
Comment by andersja #
2002-10-01 10:16:09

Michel; occational outages happen. Usually you’ll be back in next time Google ”dances”:
http://www.jacobsen.no/anders/blog/archives/2002/07/24/google_paying_less_interest_to_weblogs.html
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/4331.htm

 
Comment by Phil Ulrich #
2002-10-01 10:54:45

I am now the #36 Phil on Google. Ringnalda, you’re a wily rogue–Google hates you and you STILL beat me!

 
Comment by Mr. Nosuch #
2002-10-01 21:10:10

Doc frequently delights on his blog about his own high Google ratings, so keeping mum isn’t a factor in the least.

(Not that you really thought it was.)

 
Comment by Dorothea Salo #
2002-10-02 09:00:55

Well, in *quantity* Dorothea doesn’t have much competition, I admit, but the *quality* of the competition is pretty high. I ain’t arguing with Dorothea Lange or Dorothea Dix.

Never thought to look up Caveat or Lector. Goes to show how dumb I am. Thanks, Phil.

 
Comment by Marcus #
2002-10-03 01:13:45

Google must have felt sorry for me. I’ve moved up a few places…

…not that I’m repeatedly checking, mind.

 
Comment by PJ #
2002-10-13 14:49:07

Instead [of posted at 10:00 AM] beneath all your blog posts, use [posted by Phil at 10:00 AM].

If you make that Phil a link to an about Phil page, even better.

Thanks for the blog bookmarklet ping, probably the best one I have bookmarked.

 
Comment by msd #
2002-11-15 05:10:51

Hey guys and ladies,
Google is always modifying his Algo. It’s the neverending fight to show the most relevant results. That’s why the ranking is moving all the time… ;-)
Don’t worry about the ranking of your names. Who have to earn his money with the web has more problems with loosing positions!

 
Comment by Gerald #
2002-12-24 16:40:10

Reading these comments motivates me to try it for my name too ;-) But I am happy if I have success at least at the german version of Google, it must not be the whole world.

 
Comment by netflix #
2003-05-14 13:41:55

I didn’t think to look up Caveat or Lector. Goes to show how dumb I am. Thanks

[Formerly spamming for http://www.netflix-for-free.com from 207.88.76.143 (now banned) – Phil]

 
Comment by Anonymous #
2004-09-27 15:39:52

You all need a vacation.

 
Trackback by Sam Ruby #
2002-09-30 15:59:30

Demoted by Google.

From: Google To: Phil Message: You Suck.. It looks like our year of living abnormally high in Google’s search results is coming to an end with this update. Ouch! I’m no longer on the first page either. Oh, well, I guess I need to find other ways to …

 
Trackback by andersja's blog #
2002-10-01 10:11:47

Google’s new search algorithm

Google never made any promises towards webmasters relying on inbound traffic from them, but a lot of people are upset…

 
Trackback by andersja's blog #
2002-10-01 10:11:55

Google’s new search algorithm

Google never made any promises towards webmasters relying on inbound traffic from them, but a lot of people are upset…

 
Trackback by Reflective Surface #
2002-10-01 18:28:40

Google ranking worries

I was amused to see people complaining – some good-naturedly, other not so – about their page rankings in Google.

 
Trackback by Burningbird #
2002-10-02 10:03:50

The Beauty of Change

It would seem that Google has changed its algorithms and webloggers no longer dominate. I checked my own name, Shelley, and found I’m an ignominious second pager now. Still, we webloggers are facing this algorithmic demotion in stride, with humor,

 

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.