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Average loss in Google referals; = 10%
Normally with every update I get about 5-10% extra Google referals because of extra pages etc.
The question is:
1. Was I 15-20% "over-optimised" according to Google? ;)
2. Should I blame Google for a 15-20% in update inaccuracy :)
Anyway, someone was made happy with the visitors I missed out on, was that you?
Or can others share my loss of popularity..
New site is doing Fab with 300+ visits a day which 'aint bad for it's first month with PR ;)
Nick
What I did see on a few sites is that phrases that have no business being #1 are, while phrases that I feel should be ranked higher remained the same or slipped slightly. Links from off-topic sites seem to carry the Pagerank over without the emphasis on the anchor text, resulting in a dip in the rank for those phrases in anchors but an overall boost in position for other phrases on the site.
The overall result for me? Additional clients. This last update pushed many people to the point of frustration with Google and they either want someone else to worry about it or their boss told them to find someone else to worry about it.
Traffic is up slightly (4%) for clients that listened to the advice about targeting many phrases rather than focusing on a few and sites that are content rich are still sitting well. A few of the sites with targeted anchor text on other sites have the advantage of those links being highly trafficked so the dip in ranking for those targeted phrases hasn't resulted in a dip in traffic and conversions are slightly up. (almost a full percentage point)
Site 2........PR2....Been a dog since day 1
Site 3........PR4....Went from #10 to page 1,000+
Site 4........New site, No PR yet, but went to #3 in Y!
Note: Site 3 went from OK rankings to terrible rankings AFTER I linked it to my PR7 site! Hmm....
My only site hit number one for 4 keywords for two days, then reverted to nowt yesterday, but today is number one for 6 keywords! :)
So im happy. At least right now i am. Thank god these posts can be edited at anytime.
No PR change - havent done much in the way of seeking links.
Next month - i probably wont survive the update - ill have 4 sites (hopefully) getting thrown around. Its been nice knowing everyone.... ;)
joat
The sad thing is the 40 % losed is the one for some 2-3 highly converting kw's. :(
I have a lot more pages indexed than before.
* this single keyword accounts for 40% of all searches for our chosen area (i.e. 40% of people interested in our subject only type in the one keyword)
* google gives us 30% of all of our referrals.
AFTER THE UPDATE
we have not noticed any drop in traffic from being #2 as opposed to #1 for this single keyword.
(this comes back to the "what is the difference in referrals from being #1 compared to #2 - about which there is a lovely post here - unfort. can't find it again)
So in actual traffic terms we have not suffered...
BUT
We sell advertising based in part on our search engine positioning, and #2 is not as easy to sell as #1!
That's always a good reason to pay attention to referer logs and conversions instead of rankings.. Lots of sites may see their rankings move up or down for specific queries, but sometimes it's better to take a step back and look at overall traffic. Reading through this thread makes it a little more clear that several good sites are also doing well in the new update.
Betcha I get it back next disaster.
On the other hand, one big client/partner has gone “only” from #3 to #2, but has increased a surprising 300% the customer conversion rate, just because a very, very, popular Microsoft Network site, usually #1, has vanished ( no, it is not Hell.com :) ). We are having to upgrade a 5 machine cluster so he can cope with the new customer turn around, but I suspect he will be back to #3 next month, he will have to compete again with Microsoft Network, and may not be so happy with our new, increased bill by the time it arrives.
On Monday Google referrals were around 10% down on average Mondays; however we seem to have improved gradually through to today where we got 10% more Google referrals than average Fridays. Hopes this continues
We have noticed inside pages getting more hits, and a much broader range of terms getting queried in Google, all nicely relevant to the topic of the page. So while we may have dropped on some obvious terms we follow, this is being made up with other relevant terms we have never seen before for inside pages. We have mainly info sites with columns, news, and original analysis. There is a lot of content, and Google seems to be picking up pages and delivering referrals from previously not picked up pages.
I can only say thanks Google for a good update, I now have 125.000 unique visits a month and the response about the page from visitors are great.
zeus
>Reading through this thread makes it a little more clear that
>several good sites are also doing well in the new update.
I’m afraid that may sound slightly delusional, GG. We understand that as a Corporate Official, with or without a taste for lava lamps, you will not produce any mea culpa, admit any errors, faults, mistakes, dissonance, or even a slight unbalance.
That’s fine. Nobody is expecting that. But you can't loss contact with reality, either. Google has been so far the best Search engine ever, and most of us are confident your company will we able to solve those minor problems some of us are reporting. Don’t let us down.
Over our 6 sites traffic is up a lot, with some major shifting in the serps. I guess you can't be #1 for every term. Like many people have said before here. Build a great site with lots of good content and google will stick you at the top for some kw's you'd never think of searching for....
Lots of sites may see their rankings move up or down for specific queries, but sometimes it's better to take a step back and look at overall traffic. Reading through this thread makes it a little more clear that several good sites are also doing well in the new update.
I fell from #2 to the mid-30s for one of my single keywords (which is a major subtopic of my site), but overall traffic is up. So there's some truth in what you say.
I do think the quality of Google search results may have slipped a little this month, though. I say that as a user, not as the owner-editor of a Web site.
I agree... GG is not delusional (on this subject, anyway... ;)).
Of course, it's easy to imagine that some authentically good sites have suffered during the shuffling, so one's perception will no doubt vary depending on whether one is on a chute or ladder.
We try to stay pretty grounded, Marcos. :) I've called glitches before. An easy example was when we showed adwords prices in millidollars instead of dollars for a few hours. No harm done, but a few webmasters and I had a good laugh. :)
As I understand it, you think that dmoz is being given different weighting somehow now, and so everyone should join to be an ODP editor? I think being an editor for the ODP is noble, but our scoring improvements aren't things like weighting the ODP more.
I'm still hearing a pretty mixed bag more than huge changes, but I'll be happy to check things out if someone wants to file a spam report.
>As I understand it, you think that dmoz is being given different
>weighting somehow now,
Not quite. That is just a collateral effect we observed in some categories. I called that one back, and apologise, actually.
>and so everyone should join to be an ODP
>editor?
Actually I said in another tread that such a thing will be overkill. I was hoping you fix it, so such a thing will not be necesary. In my case, such a change will sholve a lot of problems, but I don't think that is the root problem, affecting many other sites.
>I'm still hearing a pretty mixed bag more than huge changes, but
>I'll be happy to check things out if someone wants to file a spam
>report.
So the point is, right now you thing the Index is probably fine. Sure, you will improve it, like you always did, but no u-turn in the changes you made. Is it?
So the point is, right now you thing the Index is probably fine. Sure, you will improve it, like you always did, but no u-turn in the changes you made. Is it?
He didn't say that, and I doubt that he would since that would be commenting on the algo.
I think he was saying 2 things.
1. he read all the comments and gave each person one vote, instead of each post one vote. With possible extra points for trying searches as a searcher instead of SEO. Lots of us are happy with the results.
2. If you want a fix, file some reports. He isn't seeing them come in yet. If you find a real problem with the results of a search, report them. There is not enough information allowed on this board to search out the problem sites.
And for those of you adverse to "snitching", this time you can just give examples of searches that are gone bad.
I'm glad you like the index as is, enjoy it. Did you try Altavista? Try it, you may like it also ;)
