Google Dance Is Back? Plus Google’s First Live Chat Recap & Hyperactive Yahoo Slurp

Mar 31, 2008 at 8:45am ET by Barry Schwartz

Is the Google Dance back? Well, not really, but I am noticing Google Dance-like behavior from Google based on reading some of the feedback at a WebmasterWorld thread.

The Google Dance refers to how years ago, a change to Google’s ranking algorithm often began showing up slowly across data centers as they reflected different results, a sign of coming changes. These days Google’s data centers are typically always showing small changes and differences, but the differences between this data center and this one seem to be more like the extremes of the past Google Dances.

So either Google is preparing for a massive update or just messing around with our heads. As of now, these results have not yet moved over to the main Google.com results.

In addition, Google’s first webmaster help live chat session took place this past Friday. I have posted a recap of the chat session at the Search Engine Roundtable, including links to the chat and Q&A transcripts, providing by Google. I really enjoyed the live chat session, and I think it helped a couple hundred webmasters.

In other SEO related news, over the weekend, many webmasters reported that Yahoo’s Slurp spider became a bit hyperactive. Some reported as many as 800 Yahoo Slurp spiders crawling their sites at one time. It wasn’t just one webmaster that noticed this, but a dozen or so confirmed this activity at DigitalPoint Forums. The Yahoo spider onslaught seemed to have subsided mid-day Saturday.

Postscript: I am getting word that many folks are seeing the dramatic changes at the main Google.com results. I personally don’t see the 72.14.207.104 data center hitting the Google.com results for me, but many are now.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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