NEWSLETTER September 2003

IN THIS ISSUE

Google Dance Causes Widespread Confusion

Courtesy of MarketPosition Monthly

If you've been involved in search engine marketing for long, you may have heard of the phenomenon known as the "Google Dance." No, this is not a hot new dance step you'll see at your local nightclub. Instead, it describes a scenario where Web pages tend to "dance" up and down in rankings on Google, generally over several days each month. The technical reasons for the so-called Google Dance vary. Usually, they coincide with Google's introduction of a new, fresher index at the end of the month. At this time they may also introduce a change in their ranking algorithm, an unintended bug in their system, or a combination of the two.

Each time this happens, some people drop in rank and some rise in rank. Those that dropped in rank or disappeared entirely often fall into a panic if their business was receiving significant amounts of traffic from Google prior to the change. Since Google has become so popular, even a handful of rankings can net a business thousands of visitors per month.

If the Webmaster made a change to his or her site when the dance started, they worry that they did something to inadvertently spam Google, causing their site or page to be dropped. This, in turn, leads to countless rumors on the Web. These rumors can develop a life of their own until they are considered undisputable fact, rather than what they normally are -- speculation.

On the other hand, if the person did nothing to their site since the last time Google indexed it, the Webmaster may fall into a state of confusion as to what is going on. A few weeks ago the number of messages regarding Google on various discussion forums spiked at an alarming rate, far more than any recent Google Dance.

Hundreds of messages were posted in a matter of days indicating that this was no ordinary dance. This one was "special." In addition, the instances of pages appearing and disappearing, and rankings fluctuating wildly have persisted beyond just a few days at the end of the month, going on for a full month or more. Many folks contend that things have still not settled down as of June 5th, while others feel the worst of it is now over.

Theories on what has been happening run the gamut. Planet Ocean, a well-known search engine research firm, speculated that pages containing the mouse over tag, or links to major affiliate networks such as Commission Junction were being penalized. However, they later learned other pages with these tags and links maintained their rankings. Therefore, they admitted this may have little or nothing to do with the wild fluctuations on Google.

One of the more common theories is that the Google dance is a combination of factors. While Google has not given a full explanation for the recent anomalies, based on comments from their representatives, we know that they have been in the process of updating their index in a bigger way than usual. This process has been ongoing, being executed in phases. For example, there have been credible reports that Google's index of page content has not been kept in sync with their link analysis database. This along with other technical factors have caused Page Rank scores, link popularity scores, and rankings to fluctuate wildly, at least for some Web sites, over the past month. This should calm down as Google puts everything in sync again.

Other Web sites have disappeared in the index, only to reappear days, or even hours later. Many have concluded that Google's attempt to bring in fresher content along with other changes in their system did not go as smoothly as planned. There's also indication that changes are propagating across Google servers at varying speeds. That's why you can sometimes see different results on the same search from your West coast office versus your East coast office.

According to a recent Search Engine Watch interview of Google engineer Matt Cutts, the search engine has been testing among other things, new spam filters. The article implies that these tests may explain some of the anomalies that webmasters are seeing. While Google remains fairly tight-lipped about the new filters, Cutts admitted that they are trying to crack down on hidden text and hidden links on Web sites.

Obviously not all hidden text is "bad." For example, meta tags are hidden, but you'll not be penalized for using them. However, Google does try to penalize pages that use certain other techniques intended to hide text or hyperlinks from the end user while making them visible to the search engine. One common tactic to hide a link is to use a tiny, 1-pixel image that contains a link. Considering that Google already has the technology to index image content, it is a fair bet that you will be penalized for using such a common technique, or will be penalized in the very near future.

Rather than hiding links to pages, consider creating a site map page that contains links to all your other optimized pages. You'll need to link to this page from your home page for Google to consider it as a legitimate sub-page. In my opinion, you should avoid using any images for this link that are smaller than what would be considered a small button on a Web site. So long as the image is of sufficient size and does not consist solely of transparent pixels, Google would have great difficulty penalizing it in any kind of automated process.

Technically, you could still make any image, or a portion of a larger image on your site serve as a link to your site map page. Therefore, a clever Webmaster could still effectively conceal one or more links from the average human visitor without being caught by Google's new spam checks. However, you should be very careful not to simply create GIF images that contain nothing but transparent pixels. If you do, you will surely be red-flagged for spamming. Even if your site is still listed today, now is the time to make sure it is "clean" before Google completes all of its new spam tests.

Some of the clever ways to hide keyword TEXT on a page will likely be targeted as well, so bear this in mind! The best thing to do is to design your pages in such a way that hiding links and keywords becomes unnecessary.

As for the Google Dance, I'd recommend that you be patient. Run your pages through the WebPosition Page Critic, and make sure your pages are free from spam, particularly hidden text and hidden links. Work on building new incoming links to your site and then simply wait until things settle down. Take a deep breath and repeat after me, "Everything will be fine -- I just need to relax."