March 2007 Google SERP Changes

[rawley2]

< continued from [webmasterworld.com...] >

"I think some of us are seeing a different variation. I know my site and at least someone else on this thread ranks # 1 if you type in their domain name. Or domain.com. Back actual pages by title, those that used to be in the top 10 SERPS are now about 10 pages back, in the 100+ range. "

This is exactly what I'm seeing. I'm holding many keywords fine but all my big keywords are gone most of the time.

Our site is swinging up and down all day long. Sometimes I search for red widget and we are not on page 1 but we are in the top 4 pages then a search an hour later and we are blasted back to the bottom of the results.

Other keywords seem stuck at the bottom.

As a result our Google traffic is down more than 80%.

We have lost many keywords that we have held #1 on for years. How can we go from #1 to the bottom or not even showing over night?

I have done nothing to deserve this and cant seem to figure out why this happened.

[edited by: tedster at 7:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 2, 2007]

[CainIV]

Looking across the data centers, I am seeing two sets of data. Right now its a 50-50 split. Looks like an update is coming....

Seeing the same thing. One side, our site is listed nicely, top rankings. On the other we are nowhere to be found in the top 900. Let's see how this one goes!

[trinorthlighting]

I would venture to say, this is an algo update of some sort. Its not just one or two data centers, its about 10-15 of them.

[dickbaker]

While my site hasn't lost its positions drastically, it's fluctuating almost hourly.

As I mentioned in another thread, there's a competitor site to mine that offers plain listings for widget stores. Until a couple of days ago, the site wasn't even on the first page for the term "(insert state name here) widget stores."

Then it was #1 for that term for eight of the fifty states. Yesterday, it was ahead of my site for just seven states. Today my site is ahead for most of those seven states, but now the other site is ahead for states it wasn't ranking for previously.

In the past, when Google has been going through some weird updates, I've just left things alone and waited to see how they shook out. I guess I'll just do that again.

[kidder]

Just as an update we are starting to pop back into the results again today right at the top of some very competitive search terms. 20 million + results.... Long tails searches are also delivering us traffic again today.

[asiaseo]

Our site which has been Number 1 or 2 for a specific search term for a year or more has gone to number 5 on .com but has gone totally from the results on all others such as .com.au, uk, sg, hk etc, certainly not in the top 50.
Is this a fluctuation, this term was about the only remaining search term where we has anything like a reasonable position.

[graeme_p]

Has anyone else with falling traffic noticed an accompanying positive shift in adsense earnings?

[ed146]

Yeah, my site can be optimize for abbreviation of "Widget" and splled out "Widget". Since people are often looking for abbreviation of this keyword, I put heavy emphasis on this keyword. My site ranked very well but all of sudden it disappeared completely from the SERP. The spelled out keyword is still rank the same.

I am very perplexed at this point. I lost huge traffic due to this.

Any comments or suggestions?

Dan

[graeme_p]

Who does rank highly for the abbreviation? Sites that use the abbreviation of the spelled out word?

Google does seem able to connect words with their abbreviations. For example, I just tried the work "UK" on Google. One of the first few results was a site that only used the word UK once, and that buried in the middle of a url - it did use the word Britain a lot (title, anchor text on inlinks, in the url etc.)

[cyclic]

Yep, when I had very little Google traffic my Adsense earnings have increased significantly. Today my Google traffic has returned and my Adsense earnings are down. A little ironic really!

[ed146]

I will try to clarify what I am trying to say;

My site is ranked fairly high on both abbreviated keyword "widget" and spelled out "widget". It is like HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language.
However, my site is more optimized for the abbreviated keyword.

The spelled out keyword is still ranked and has not changed but my most competitive abbreviated keyword is gone from the serp.

sigh...

Dan

[rubenski]

OMG, my site has been hit so hard. I have lost 75% of my Google traffic and an aqual percentage of Adsense income overnight. The current SERPS show a lot of irrelevant bogus. I hope this is not forever...

[zeus]

which servers have the new results, I can not really see it.

[edited by: zeus at 8:58 pm (utc) on Mar. 7, 2007]

[rubenski]

Should I hope for things to return back to 'normal' in a few days? I have lost all of my top positions for great keywords like 'TFT', 'laptop', etc in my country. My site is nowhere to be found anymore when I search for these terms and it's a 100% hand written content site. No bogus, no duplicate content.

[lordpercy]

While my main site has survived the last few updates it got whacked last night at around 2am GMT.

Only google.co.uk seems to be giving me any traffic and G traffic overall is down 90%, a few keywords are ok it is just a general drop in majority of terms.

So time to sit tight and hope that some one from G is browsing this forum or that the filter that has been over tightened gets undone again to release honest sites.....

Lordpercy

[prijk]

I have a travel site of around 125 pages; yesterday a new page about cycling in India entered the index on #3; today it's nowhere to be found. Traffic to my site dropped 80% today (as did my Adsense revenue) because about half of the pages which used to be in the top 10 on relevant keywords are now in the ## 75 to 100 region; some pages even disappeared completely out of the index. I haven't changed anything apart from this new page. What is happening?

[decaff]

I can verify that for one datacenter...this is significant for what I am seeing (2 word phrase...been number one plural / singular for 6 years running...now flickering in and out for this one datacenter....(which happens to be the one that dishes out the final results set to my location...)..

I worked on this site for 3.5 years...I am no longer on this project (new owners...poor decisions)... the site is suffering ...and my suffering diminishes as I let go of this relationship

[rubenski]

I hope that all honest hard working webmasters here will see their traffic return. What else can a webmaster do than work hard on creating quality, original content and a nice design with clear navigation? It shows once more how incredibly dangerous Google's huge share in the search engine market can be for sites that draw most of their traffic from them. For me it's a strong sign that I should try to diversify the sources of my traffic stream. This is unfortunately pretty difficult considering Google's 80-85% market share in my country.

[zeus]

rubenski this is a HUGE problem, you can also not make a website anymore for the users, you have to think google, like linking, dublicated content which can happen ex. wordpress, and so on.

still i would like to know which servers show the new results, i got 20 DB im looking at.

[ed146]

Hope my site returns to ranking otherwise I have to throw in my towel.

I have held a strong position for 2 years with tons of unique content.

Oh well

Dan

[rubenski]

Zeus, 72.14.221.104 is showing new results for my site. Hope this helps you... If you want me to test other servers, please tell me how :D

/added:

"which happens to be the one that dishes out the final results set to my location" (Decaff)

How do you find out which servers have been updated and which one dishes out the final results anyway?

[edited by: rubenski at 9:44 pm (utc) on Mar. 7, 2007]

[synergy]

For me it's a strong sign that I should try to diversify the sources of my traffic stream.

Yes... I started doing this after the November 2003 Update Florida which affected me and many others. Not since that update have I seen the results flipped upside down like this in my sector. I've went from 1 yr at #2 to #11. Since I've been working to diversify traffic over the years, sales have not been crippled to the point I have to close shop.

[notme]

Prijk,
Same happened to me yesterday.
I have a year old computer repair related blog (over 200 pages), PR5, unique content. Yesterday afternoon I lost almost all my traffic from Google. I have not done any changes to my site.
I still have some people coming from Google pages 61-70 instead 1-10 as it used to be.
For a few last months I had over 3000 unique visitors a day, mostly from Google a now it will be about 300-400 uniques a day. I have no idea what is going on.

[zeus]

rubenski - sent you a sticky

There most be more servers with new results, the one i got from rubinski i dont like :)

[Bewenched]

I think they must be running either some filters to let the crap rise to the top so it can be skimmed off or something. And yes it's fluxing hourly ... one hour ..no phone calls at all .. and the next light the phones like a christmas tree.

[kidder]

I think we just have to ride this one out for week or so - like we have a choice? Anyway we are having our biggest ever "Google" day after being totaly out fo the serps 2 days ago. Still I look down my list of referers and I see lots of MSN and yahoo as well. I think the big thing you can bank on with the current face of Google is change -

I think google should wind back the filters a little, I would rather be still in the fight against spam rather than a victim of a "friendly fire" alog that sees my site pushed past the 100 mark on the back of some disfunctional filter.

[dickbaker]

Is it permissible to post the link to a site that has all of the datacenters? If so, I have that link.

[ed146]

Can you sticky that list to me please?

[ed146]

Can anyone explain how Google displays search results if a person types
WIDGET as suppose to "widget"? I had stated from previous posts that my site is gone from the serp on highly competitive keyword. However, when that keyword is capitalized, my site is displayed in the result page...

I am confused, can anyone clarify this?

Any comment would be appreciated.

Dan

[mattg3]

80% traffic loss on one server and 40% rise on the other .. Google is nuts. Sadly of course 80% loss on the high traffic one.

Well we ordered a new server again ... thanks Google ..

Next time we wont do that to improve user experience ..

Don't work on your site don't improve. Again and again the same message from the Plex.

[Web_speed]

Don't work on your site don't improve. Again and again the same message from the Plex.

Naaaa....from what I see, the message is:

we will randomize the SERPs until no decent webmaster is left standing.

Re-start an Adwords campaign if you want some G love... NO MORE FREE TRAFFIC FOR YOU.

[edited by: Web_speed at 1:13 pm (utc) on Mar. 8, 2007]