Will’s Web

I’ve just stumbled across this page on the Google website that I think a lot of people should read!

If I had a penny each time someone claims that advertising using AdWords helps get them into the Google search database…

Fiction: Advertising on Google affects my rankings in the search results.
Fact: Advertising with Google neither helps (nor hurts!) a site’s rankings on Google.

It’s appears as though Google is currently underway with a large scale update to its search database. Search engine fanatics all over the web are calling this update, Bourbon, or at least that’s what the people at WebMasterWorld are calling it (sometimes I think certain posters of that forum are living in their own world…).

So how can you tell there’s something going on with Google?

In order to enqure that any of the Google search websites are able to cope with the demand from around half of all search engine queries, queries are shared out to a number of different datacentres that house Google’s search database. Having a number of mirrors of the Google database means that the search load from millions of web users is balanced out ensuring that no one mirror beomes swamped.

Under more ‘normal’ circumstances, each copy of the Google database across each of the mirrors is consistent with any of the others. If they were to step out of line with each other then potentially, you could see different search results for the same query depending on which datacentre feeds your query. Due to the sheer size of the Google database (over 8 billion web pages), carrying out a large scale update or change in algorithm takes a large amount of processing power and time. This means that during a period of a large update, results from different datacentres may well produce very different results and it’s this clue that tells us that something’s going on behind the scenes. This shuffling of the Google database is also known as the ‘Google Dance’ because search results can move around so much.

So how do you find out for yourself when there’s a Google update going on?

By using a tool that carries out the same search across multiple datacentres simultaneously you can see the fluctations for yourself. However, don’t pin your hopes on any one set of datacentre results because Google Dances have shown themselves to be like the spin on a roulette table. Until the wheel stops turning, there’s just no certainty of what is the final result.

Many modern day businesses will place a value on their website, but exactly how should one value a website. Is it simply a case of adding up the cost to construct and the cost to maintain? Does that help to establish worth or just cost? Here’s my take on how you can valuate your website.