Google Update: "Yorkshire"

[Brian Turner]

Another Google update - and I christen this one "Yorkshire".

It hasn't actually happened yet. But expect to see it happen within the next 3 months. And don't act surprised when it does.

Certainly there's no immediate consensus on what Florida even was, though it is quite emerging that whatever Florida was, or is, it is almost certainly rooted in an "expert" based system.

Now, whether this system is a modified version of Hilltop, or TopicSensitive PageRank (as Dan Thies has championed), or else another unknown form, there's a particular common ground: it is spreading.

An expert system apparently requires a specified set of terms to work upon, but this set can also be expanded upon.

It was generally noted that Florida was not a blanket disruption of keyword searches, but a selective one. It was the introduction of the starter "expert system" set.

And the complaints that it was orientated at commercial terms was almost certainly based on a single issue - that of higher traffic terms being implicitly selected as the starter set in the expert system.

Austin is nothing more than an expansion of this expert set of keyword search terms.

Which is why those hit by Florida were mostly untouched by Austin - and those mostly untouched by Florida were suddenly hit by Austin.

There are still a lot of search terms out there unaffected by either. The expert set is bound to grow. You will probably see this expanded in the next update. That’s when the next round of webmasters are about to get flattened.

And I name this update "Yorkshire".

How do you SEO against an expert set? Well, to do that you need to set up links from expert pages. That means directories for starters - any that are indexed and have unmodified links are of great value to sites looking to SEO against the Florida/Austin/Yorkshire system.

Lots of directory links. As many as possible.

And don't just stop there - links pages on sites related to your theme could also be an invaluable resource for setting up "expert" connections. Link exchanges in themselves are hard work, but just remember to aim for quality - and related-topic only, for starters. Find them by doing a backlink check on your competitors, and also trawl DMOZ and Yahoo for sites quality link partners.

SEO used to be about Content SEO and Link Building SEO. In fact, link building with its anchor text and PR advantages was such a big issue that sites could be backlinked from anything and anywhere, and gain tremendously so long as just the text anchors were properly targeted for keywords.

Now it’s different. The page counts. The site status counts. The days of hogging PR are fading away.

Wake up to a new dawn. It began with Florida – it continued with Austin – and you can bet that even Yorkshire will not be the last.

Welcome to the new world of Google.

[Rust Bullet]

Nice scope on the next updates name brian

[becki]

I don't really understand all this. Do you have a simpler explanation about how google works? I don't really know what you mean when you talk about updates, experts, florida and austin.
And hi to rust bullet.

[Rust Bullet]

Originally Posted by becki

I don't really understand all this. Do you have a simpler explanation about how google works? I don't really know what you mean when you talk about updates, experts, florida and austin.
And hi to rust bullet.

If there was a simple way to explain it it would be easy to get top ranks

Updates are when google changes the ranks of the sites.. This use to happen about every 4-6 weeks. Now it's kind of a rolling update and happens all the time. Florida and Austin ate the names of geven to radical changes in the way Google had decided to decide who gets what rank. These normally don't happen often. But latly Google has been on speed.

Hi Becki, Just call me Dave.

[Brian Turner]

Hi Rust Bullet - nice to see you around - I've missed seeing your hat at IMR.

And thanks for that concise explanation.


Anyway...some people have asked me why "Yorkshire". Well, why not?

Seriously, it's where I live, and here it serves as a metaphor - "Yorkshire" is just a little tongue in cheek - but a point I'm trying to emphasise is that people should realise that the New Google that is shaping up is not the same as the Old Google we're used to.
That may sound obvious, but a lot of SEO that I've seen is still stuck in treating New Google as Old Google. That's asking for failure. New Google is effectively going to be equivalent to a new form of Search Engine. It demands closer and more considered attention.

People in SEO communities are still talking about Content SEO and getting backlinks. The warning about "Yorkshire" is that a lot of this will become irrelevant - unless an expert system is specifically catered for.

Maybe some SEO’s can batter Google through sheer force of linkage, but for the majority of webmasters who enter SEO communities looking for advice on getting their rankings back, they need to be told that New Google needs to be dealt with differently.

In the olden days there were no hurricanes - there were dances. These were, generally, smooth and musical affairs, moving to a distinct rhythm - once a month you saw the SERPs update, and could therefore evaluate your SEO efforts.

Florida wasn’t a hurricane – it was a quake, and one that will rumble on, crashing through until it affects the entire range of keywords. Austin was merely a specific expansion – there will be more yet as more keywords fall under and expert set.

Google changed the dancing tune last April. Or, more to the point, Google stopped the music - and when it finally restarted, Google was dancing on the rolling updates.

Some SEOs seem to still see the monthly updates of PR and backlinks as the important machinery of Google, but these are merely Public Relations offerings - Google already has PR and backlinks calculated and incorporates this information in the rolling updates. There is no longer any monthly dance, but all too often people still regard the monthly public updates as something more relevant than they are.

Lower PR and self-SEO webmasters absolutely have to recognise that PR is not the ranking model to be followed in an expert system. It can be a guide to link popularity - and that's great if that's what your measuring - but such webmasters need to be entirely warned that Pr is not the first port of concern in an expert ranking system. Forget PR - forget quantity over quality.

The entire SEO world is changing face this year – in 2004 Yahoo will almost certainly use technology it has purchased under the companies of Inktomi and AllTheWeb to set itself apart.

But even this loss won’t drag Google down too far – even if Google suddenly stopped supplying results to third-parties, it would still command around 50% of the search traffic. And, of course, this is New Google, that by the time of the IPO (let alone end of the year) will almost certainly have covered its keyword set with an expert system.

When the search engines change, then SEO has to change, and adapt to survive. Some thought they had it bad with Florida, and Austin. But Yorkshire is coming. And that is what the webmaster world needs to be prepared for.

[Rust Bullet]

I'm always there Brian just don't say much.. Reading my last post.. Gezz I need to stop posting before reading what I post. I really can spell I promise...

[Brian Turner]

Heh, I didn't notice - and, really, you should see how bad I get when I'm tired.

Btw - happy birthday! Enjoy your big one.

[Rust Bullet]

Yes I got the Happy Birthday email.. it's not for 2 weeks but I guess it's planning ahead BTW the return email on that birthday email is invalid and gets returned

[Rust Bullet]

Oppsss just checked my settings, I had my Birthday set as the 2nd and not the 12th.. Guess it was my issue..

[Brian Turner]

LOL!! I'll try to remember that in 2 weeks time.

And I'll sort out the mail settings here as well, while you've reminded me.