Google Dance is how the SEO community refers to Google’s process of updating its index.
This process happens once a month but it takes several days to complete.
Each day of the process, Google’s search results vary as a result of Google’s latest spider results. Before the index completes the updating process, the old and new indices are used alternately, resulting to fluctuating Google search results.
This fluctuation is the “dance.”
After the process, the newly updated index appears regularly until the next Google Dance schedule.
Dancing in a nutshell
The contents of Google’s search results come from more than 10,000 + Linux-based servers.
During Google Dance, not all servers can be updated at the same time. Servers are updated one by one with Google’s latest index.
Keen Google users like the SEO community are aware that Google has 3 main www servers that are all online:
• www.google.com – This is Google’s main address that directs users around the world to Google’s homepage.
• www2.google.com and www3.google.com -No one outside Google really knows what these two are for.
Expert communities have come to assume that these two are Google’s test servers.
When Google Dance is ongoing, the 3 servers display different search results because Google is still updating its servers one at a time.
What’s in it for you?
Knowing when Google Dance begins and ends can give you a better grasp of how your website ranks against your competitors. The goal is to learn how to stay ahead of Google Dance for your site to consistently rank high.
Here are 3 reasons why Google Dance should be important to you.
1. Search results after every month’s Google Dance tells you how your market is changing with regard to their search habits.
If your site ranks a lot lower than it did last month, check out the top 3 ranking sites of your category or keyword before making drastic changes to your own site.
Look out for particular terms used repeatedly in their content. Also take a look at which sites they link to and from.
2. Search results of other categories related to yours can tell you what else is important to your market.
This is a good way to check on your overall market situation. Knowing which sites rank high for related categories after every month’s Google Dance will allow you to know your market better.
You might want to explore cross-category linking to increase site traffic.
Reading comments made on other top-ranking websites could also be a goldmine of fresh insights and new product ideas.
3. Spell particular words in all ways conceivable.
After using all related keywords to search for top sites, it is a good idea to search with the same set of keywords. This time however, tweak the spelling a bit.
This will give you an idea on what pop us when users unintentionally misspell certain keywords. If search results for some misspelled keywords include competitors and other related websites, you might want to incorporate the misspelled words into your content and spread them around your site for Google’s spiders to crawl over.