Let’s all do the Google dance

By Caroline, February 05, 2009 | Comments (1)

Ever heard the term ‘the Google dance’ and wondered what on earth people are talking about?

The Google dance is the name often given to the update of Google’s index of web sites. It’s a regular occurrence, and during this time the Google spider will revisit every website, look for IBLs (inbound links) and work out the value of these links.

During the time that the ‘dance’ is going on, the old and new index alternate causing a fluctuation in rankings. This fluctuation is known as the ‘Google Dance’.

Once the indexing is complete the search engine results pages will show the latest site rankings.

Many website owners who are unaware of the dance get concerned when they see their site drop several places in SERPs (search engine results pages). This is often followed by panic stricken phone calls to their SEO provider to find out what’s happened.

If you are planning maintenance of your site or are moving hosts it is a good idea to avoid letting your site go down during the update period. If your site is unavailable when Google tries to spider it then you could temporarily lose the rankings you have worked so hard to achieve.

Caroline Bell
SEO Programmer

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One Response to “Let’s all do the Google dance”

  1. How do you know when the update period occurs?

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