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What makes Google dance?

Google Dance is nothing new for those who are concerned about their rankings on Google, rather it is a time when they anticipate their rankings with awe and optimism. It is common knowledge in the search engine optimization industry that Google updates its indexes once in a month on an average.

The updating of massive indexes by Google is not a smooth affair by any means. Notably, as a result of updating process, old indexes do not simply yield to new indexes, but there is quite an haphazard movement in transition. It takes a couple of days for Google to complete its update. Especially during this period, both old and new indexes get their place on www.google.com, albeit alternatively or even in unpredictable ways before new indexes stabilize there for all to see.

The fluctuations witnessed on Google between transition from old indexes to new indexes seem as if Google were dancing. Hence, in SEO parlance comes the word Google Dance.

The Google Dance through technical prism

Google employs more than 10,000 simple Linux servers for updating and ranking pages. The fact of the matter is that it becomes extremely difficult to keep all these servers abreast of latest update simultaneously. The situation calls for updating all the servers on new indexes one after another -- as is technically feasible. Since Google’s index happens to be inverse, it adds some more difficulties in the process. There is no direct control on the instances wherein the way server compatible with new indexes or server containing the old indexes acts with regard to the search queries.

This is to note that all 10,000 or more servers are placed in seven data centers majorly in the U.S. and select few in Europe. While directing traffic to all such data centers, though Google can record all queries, it does serve the purpose in the fullest. As is obvious, every data center will have its own IP address, and further accessibility of each data center is governed by what is known as Domain Name System (DNS). The reason for the phenomenon Google Dance can be attributed to this Domain Name System.

Domain Name System, Data Centers, and the Google Dance

Since data transfers occur amongst IP addresses on the net, name server of the DNS provides answer as to which domain is responding to which IP address. A locally configured name server determines the IP address the moment any user types in a domain into his browser. It becomes possible because the local name server gets into touch with the name sever of DNS responsible for that particular domain. Subsequently, the IP address is cached and it eliminates the need to contact the name server of DNS every time the same domain is typed.

Here something called as Time to Live, TTL, comes into picture, which is somehow related to Google Dance. How long a local server can remember the IP address of a particular domain being entered into browser without consulting DNS is Time to Live of that domain. This is here noteworthy that TTL in case of Google.com is only five minutes meaning that the name server might need to contact responsible name server of the DNS every five minutes to cache it.

Basically, every time when Google’s name server is consulted, it sends out the IP address of only one data center. The important thing over here is that Google queries are channelize to different data centers at different time.

Google Dance and the existing correlations

Now, we can draw a conclusion how data centers, DNS and Google Dance can be correlated. As has been discussed so far that new indexes are not send off to all the data centers at the same time. How they go out to them is only on one-after-another basis. Let’s understand Google Dance. When a user puts a query on the Google, s/he gets mixed and varying results -- surprisingly only in a span of a few minutes. The results s/he gets consequent upon the search query depends on which data center his query has been send to, and whether that data center has got new indexes or it is yet to get them within a couple of minutes. That’s likely the reason why the indexes fluctuate between the old and the new in unpredictable ways.

The phenomenon of dance: IP addresses and domains of data centers

Quite many aspects of Google dance are shrouded in mystery. Many a time people mistakenly believe that Google Dance has come to an end, while it was still progressing. Say for instance, when people see the new indexes at www.google.com, or they no longer encounter old indexes at www.google.com, they cherish the moment.

However, fact remains distinctively against their reason of celebrations. Google Dance only reaches its finality when all the domains listed below display the new indexes unceasingly. You can witness the Google Dance provided you know Google’s domains, which respond to their respective data center’s IP addresses. Google’s domains and IP addresses of these domains are individually listed in front of each of them.

This is crucial for the understanding of Google Dance that at a particular data center, once it begins to display new indexes, it does not fluctuate back to show old indexes. The most likely reason is that at the time when any data center is updated, only half of the server is catered to. The remaining half is left untouched which responds to search queries in the mean time.

When the half part of server is updated, it becomes functional to serve the queries whilst the other part is updated in the process. Thus, soon after updation is finished in totality, the data center is functionally compatible to offer new indexes.

On conclusive note, it can be added that though accessibility to any data center is controlled by DNS, there are certain times queries are redirected. Here in this case, Google deliberately blocks the access to some data center due to reasons, which are hard to spell out. Nonetheless, it is simple to get an idea on the inaccessibility of any data center. In cases where links to Google’s caches do not coincide with the IP address mentioned above specifically, it points out to query being redirected.

Here to how to climb the learning curve: Some conclusions drawn

Stay abreast: www2.google.com, www3.google.com and the Google Dance

www2.google.com and www3.google.com have been primarily instrumental in providing some answer to webmasters who are a little speculative with their future rankings. New indexes are deliberated upon by the webmasters under the scrutiny of Google people at Google forums. Up till this point, common folks do not get an opportunity to have a look at new indexes simply because www.google.com does not reveal the IP address of data center which gets updated at the beginning.

When Google is pretty assured that there are not any severe malfunctions in the new indexes which can tarnish the image of Google, it makes www.google.com respond to the data center which got updated first. On the contrary, if any severe malfunctions in terms of new indexes come to the fore, it does not enable www.google.com to resolve it to the data center, which contains skewed indexes. This is how such discrepancies do not come into public view and are duly rectified before it is subject to public access. Thus, this testing procedure takes care of any lapses that can otherwise take a heavy toll of Google’s sanctity.

Fluctuating indexes and PageRank value

To sum up all, indexes at www2.google.com and www3.google.com can later be seen at www.google.com provided a consistent index update has taken place. Since Google Dance, as the name suggests, is a dance toward a definite point in terms of final or new indexes but before reaching that point it traverses a lot more unpredictable terrains. Like for example before Google Dance ends with finalized new indexes, the results at one data center never absolutely match with those of other even against the same query.

But still these varying indexes have a say in the final rankings just when PageRank calculation sets in action. So, the fluctuating indexes of your site should not be a cause of concern when Google is dancing. Wait for Google to come to a halt and you will see all the things stabilize.