What is the Google Dance?

Google is so critical to most site’s search optimisation process that entire sites have been set up purely to analyse how often, and precisely how Google updates its search results each month or so.

Although the precise algorithms and page ranking determinants remain secret, common trends have come to light which may well help search engine marketing types predict how Google will treat their projects on each update. Of course, there are no guarantees that Google will update your site, or even if it will find certain new pages within your site at each update, but even so, some things seem to be more certain than others.

To put it simply: Each month, Google sets out to spider the entire web using a network of thousands of PC’s worldwide. The process starts usually every 30 days or so, with Google finding new sites and updating existing ones to present to the world at the next update.

Alongside the main Google home page at www.google.com, there are several other online versions of the Google database, at www2.google.com and www3.google.com.

Although the official use of these additional servers is not discussed on the Google site itself, Google watchers know these additional servers as test databases, or how the main index may look once the monthly index update has completed.

Once the update is underway (takes several days), each server will display different results, hence the term “The Google Dance”. You could well see how the main google site will treat your pages once the next update has completed by looking at the results on the secondary servers.

Or, you could search all additional servers (there are many more) online with the free Google Dance Tool.