Google rankings developments

[mario]

As some of you may have noticed, I changed the home page (it's considerably shorter now), and the previous homepage content is now available in the new FAQ section. As a result, Google positions for Gixen seem to have stabilized now, more or less.

I say "more or less" because today I noticed that ezsniper jumped ahead of Gixen to position #1 for search phrase "free ebay sniper", and #3 for "ebay sniper".

This is a fine example of how badly broken Google is. The only thing free about ezsniper is a free trial - three snipes only. They put a phrase "free ebay auction sniper software" in their title tag, and voila - they jumped to #1. It doesn't matter at all they do not provide what they claim. As for what is Google concerned, I can make a site that claims sightings of flying pigs - if I get fairly decent links, I'll be pretty high up, and as there are always some people ready to believe in anything, you can bet I would find a way to generate some income (flying pork sales?).

On the other hand, decent, good new web sites have very poor chances of getting it to the noticable position no matter how important information they offer. As Daniel Brandt from Google Watch remarked: "The cure for cancer might already be on the web somewhere, but if it's on a new site, you won't find it".

[the3coopers]

Unfortunately, the strength of Google (that made it #1 seach engine) is the way that it ranks pages. Keyword sp-am-mi-ng is far less relevant than inward links. But links in only happens with established sites, or by using "incentives" to gain links (like you've done).

Have you checked Inward links : google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html#link

I just checked and there are only THIRTEEN - but that method seems very unreliable.

What is also wierd - when you search google for gixen.com, it reports Results 1 - 10 of about 1,490. But there are only 4 pages and 30 unique results. You find more of them by clicking "repeat the search with the omitted results included" at the bottom. Then at the top right it says there are 1500 or so, but only finds 400 when you page through them.

That is very strange, but I have never really looked at this previously. I read somewhere that this is NOT the best way to find your inward links.

Have you discovered this page, which gives you exactly what you need to know :

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/02/discover-your-links.html

And signed up for Webmaster tools :

google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html

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BTW - Interesting Sniper Reviews here :

auctionsoftwarereview.com/categories/buying-sniping.asp

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PS : Add H T T P : / / W W W to the begining of all U R Ls above

[mario]

I know about all the tricks, and I can see the every link in the (webmaster's) console, but that's not the issue here. The issue is the validity of the ranking algorithm.

And Google ranking algorithm was good for as long as we didn't know what it was, or didn't care. The moment it became known what it was, abuse began. The moment abuse began - patching of algorithm began. And this race has being going on ever since.

In game theory this is known as a game which (if every agent follows his/her dominant strategy) ends in an undesirable equilibrium. So Google ranking algorithm is fundamentally flawed.

And patching of their rank algorithm with various UNKNOWN penalties is a pathetic attempt to change this undesirable property by making game rules partially unknown. In the long run, it's not going to work.

[the3coopers]

I know a fair bit about this subject, but from a completely different perspective. I wrote a Page Rank leeching script many years ago, before the PR algorithm was "discovered". It was a very very complex process (thousands of lines of code) that used a combination of server-side (perl) and client side (javascript) processes to grab PR info from the google toolbar and IE cookies files.

The tool was fed a list of (recently expired) domains - each was checked for PR and all the domains with decent ranking were saved to another file. We ran about 1500 domains per day through the tool, checking various usual main addresses (w-w-w, index.htm, index.html, default.asp, etc) for their Page Rank.

My client then purchased the very best domains and resold them as "Instant Google Rankings" domains to companies looking for immediate google rankings. This was an easy method - don't try and build rankings, but rather just move in to a domain that already had a PR of 2, 3 or 4. Since there was so many expiring domains available, it was not particularly expensive to buy a well-ranked domain - a couple of hundred dollars at that time.

Once the PR algorithm was discovered and various Perl and PHP scripts written, there was no particular need for my script. But the selling of "high ranked domains" still occurs, they just use a different method to work out what the PR are (note PR is only a limited subset of the true google ranking, but close enough for what we were doing with it).

I realise that this doesn't help Gixen to get good Google Rankings, but hope it's interesting anyway

[Gixen]

[cross3_16]

Gixen is now down to #4 in Google for both "free ebay sniper" and "ebay sniper"

Do you think it's a coincidence that Gixen seems to be one of the few sniping sites that has a user forum? Don't the other sites want people talking about how their site could be improved?

Isn't this like the situation where citizens in communist countries were told that their living conditions were better than those in Western countries and were forbidden from finding out anything to the contrary? I suppose their reasoning is valid though, if selfish. If there was an open forum on any of those sites, I'm sure we'd have Gixen users drawing their users away by letting them know how good Gixen is!

[mario]

Forum requires significant time and effort (responding to all the questions), so I believe that's the main reason other sites don't have it.

The only other site (I know about) with a forum is auctionsniper.com, however they routinely purge their forum of all undesirable messages. Just try to mention any competition there, and your forum account will immediately be disabled. This is because they know their service is inferior, quality & price - wise.

I'm not afraid of comparison, so I do not ever censor/delete users' messages or comments, positive or negative. The only messages deleted on this forum are off-topic (e.g. someone asks for advice on vacuum cleaners).

[cross3_16]

[threemilechild]

Well, for what it's worth, I just found y'all through Google. I'd like to say, "And you'll keep me from waking up too early tomorrow," but unfortunately I'm afraid I'm going to be awake, excited, to see if it really works.