Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2010

[tedster]

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

There are many different kinds of ranking disruptions being reported right now - dropped domain roots, unexplainable traffic spikes and dips. These things often come right before some kind of algo shift. What do you think - is something brewing?

[edited by: tedster at 12:38 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2010]

[mhansen]

Wow... what an interesting series of posts to read!

I need a beer... or 12. My head hurts.

[roodle]

Two of my sites which typically dip in traffic towards the weekend are definitely up today. A few significant changes in ranking for one of them too. Something's going on....

[ohno]

We have had a terrible week, then at 1pm the flood gates opened, traffic which converted one after the other. It went as quick as it came. Still, I had a baby boy born today so really do not care :)

[tristanperry]

@ohno, Amazing news, many congratulations on the new delivery :-)

[ohno]

Many thanks, I've now had chance to look a bit further & our traffic is up 300% on last Friday! I'm too tired to delf into a bit more right now but will do ASAP. I just really can't believe the tweeks that Google seem to making daily have such huge impacts. It's never been like this before in my experience. I didn't even know the frequency of changes until May Day hit and started reading up on it.

[brinked]

ohno, congrats! My wife gave birth to our baby boy 10 days ago! Our first, it has been crazy, I do the diaper and onesie changes and my wife does the feeding. Its a great feeling.

It seems that google is shuffling around the top 20 results, moving sites that rank on the 2nd page up to the first page to see if they would perform better than the sites that are currently there.

I sure hope that google does this as it would make sites that people are interested in rank better than crap sites that just rank because of a bunch of paid links.

[martinacastro]

@ohno

you improve the rankings last friday 22?

regards

[Stas]

Has anybody got anything against the theory that Google's indexers failed not only for new content but also for existing pages being reindexed, which led Google to 'believe' the pages being reindexed no longer existed so they were pulled from the Google search results?
As detailed here [ampheon.co.uk...]

From reading here and on google forums it does seem that it's all from google's technical failure as this is a big change affecting many sites, 90% traffic loss yet they are not saying there has been algoritmic change. And it doesn't make much sense if it is algorithmic change, results are very random - some pages do rank, some -30, -50, some gone completely (on my website). It seems that pages that update frequently have gone.
From reading google employee's responces I also got a feeling they dont want to admit something. I almost don't believe their statement that different algorithms can apply to different sites at different times. Sites affected don't seem to fall into a certain quality category?

[backdraft7]

@onho - congrats on the new delivery! now I know why you use "onho" as your nickname - lol (just kidding) traffic has been up here too, and like you , conversions seem to be going in spurts. (but another sale coming in as I'm writing this...) however early today was dead. I have seen two sales come in within the same minute, then nothing for 12 hours, then two more sales with a minute or two of each other. Odd patterns. :^D

[tedster]

I almost don't believe their statement that different algorithms can apply to different sites at different times

I think the situation becomes clearer if you combine the ideas in these two threads:

Different Google Algos - for Different Sites and at Different Times [webmasterworld.com]
Google & Traffic Shaping - a hidden method to the quality madness? [webmasterworld.com]

Most SEO ideas have their foundation in an antiquated model of how Google works. They've moved far beyond the old "strip out the HTML and put the content through this set of ranking rules".

[SEOPTI]

Well, I was able to pin down google search, I wanted to search for

where is god

but the machine suggested where is chuck norris

you decide :)

[micklearn]

Are microformats being observed as playing any part in the rankings?

[SEOPTI]

There are different microformats, some of them will play a role, some of them will not play a role. You can start with the open graph protocol and the Goog microformats and test it.

[Jez123]

@ohno

Still, I had a baby boy born today

Congrats! Exciting times ahead for you! Make the most of every moment of it (even the sleepless nights) it's all gone too fast. :-)

I don't know how I have struggled through this week. It's been the worst yet. I am definitely seeing that on one day I get whatever "filter" removed and I get proper convertable traffic. The rest of the week I get repeat customers and the odd oddball request that may or may not convert.

To recap, one day a week I get a "usual" days traffic and orders and the rest of the week pretty much scraps. It seems like it's a bit too predictable to be anything accidental or broken. If anything it seems to be becoming more prominent, more defined that this is my allotment of the good traffic per week.

I think that google is sharing all the traffic with all of my competitors. I think that we alternate days when we get to make a living.

[maximillianos]

Did anyone see a drop off in traffic yesterday, Friday the 29th? One of our sites saw a drop.

Wasn't sure if it was holiday weekend related.

[roodle]

Bounce rate from google referals has been double the usual so far today - 70%! Not good!

[scottsonline]

@max big drop Friday but inline with previous years traffic on the Friday before the holiday. You had a major news story and an election to deal with as well. Traffic today is up.

Bing traffic continues to accelerate at a staggering rate. It has more than doubled last year and is increasing by about 10% each week. This is above the recent story indicating bing is up 108% over last year.

Max I'm not sure the update is done. There are reasons traffic should have dropped yesterday, but I won't be convinced another tweak was done until I see Monday.

[martinacastro]

Hi!

Someone recovery SERPs since Friday 22 October drop results?

The index issue was fixed?

Thanks for the comments

Martin

[JoeSinkwitz]

@martinacastro, JohnWU indicated that the indexing fix had rolled out, but what he neglected to say is that a site by site "fix" is entirely dependent upon a site's crawl and indexation schedule. So, if you are showing an Oct 22 cache and get cached every 2 weeks, you might need to wait a little while.

Were you using the rel=canonical tag on the page(s) dropped?

[martinacastro]

@JoeSinkwitz

My cache is Oct 29...

About your comment if I was using the "rel=canonical tag" can you explain me better?

I discover an canonical URL issue with my home page. Google index me www.site.com and www.site.com/index.php as different pages. I follow tedster recommendation of using 301 redirect ([webmasterworld.com ]). I made this last tuesday.


@JoeSinkwitz I will appreciate your comments

Thanks

[micklearn]

@SEOPTI

There are different microformats, some of them will play a role, some of them will not play a role. You can start with the open graph protocol and the Goog microformats and test it.

I guess I was just wondering if some of the traffic flucuations people are writing about here were due in part to G testing the usage of microformats. I haven't come across many sites that are using them, though. Also, do you mean that G has it's own separate set of microformats?

[epmaniac]

i just noticed something very strange in GWT search queries

impression shot to almost double 50,000

pre friday stats used to be

impression: 27000 clicks: 2000

post friday stats:

impressions: 12000 clicks: 1300

OCt 28:

impressions: 50000 clicks; 1600



does it mean that my site is appearing more than ever before in SERPs but people are not clicking on it? or is it just a bug in GWT?

[siri_om]

@martinacastro

my site recovered, but i still dont feel confident as i see the serps
fluctuating with different (sometimes greatly) results on different computers...

[JoeSinkwitz]

@martinacastro, I was referring to a specific header tag a lot of webmasters having trouble were using on the missing pages. It sounds like you used a 301 instead (which sounds appropriate). In your case google may need a bit of time to sort out the redirect; I've been seeing old pages that were 301ed in the past reappearing, so you may need to be patient while they sort it out.

[walkman]

Mine is still down from last week. I know Halloween etc but I have a feeling it's more than normal. I see a 20% decline, which is serious enough to matter

[scottsonline]

Friday was a big hit and google has stayed down about 20%. Impressions are down in adwords though too so they either broke both or it's a cycle.

What concerns me is this weekend I'm seeing the worst search results I've ever seen in google. Keyword stuffed domains rank high even if they are just cash landing pages. Totally unrelated pages from trusted domains rank higher than related sites think of a search for tree frogs taking you to a page of the tree frog society of a major college. That type of stuff, branding gone way overboard.

Some of the results are just plain funny. Terrible but funny.

I hope this is all part of a master plan and that we are in a test phase. Otherwise I have no idea what they're doing. These results are about as good as webcralwer was.

[tigger]

@scottsonline

more are moving to Bing - results make G look like a wannabe SE right now, its a complete joke

Just seen one site number one for a competitive term with zero content and pulling from a frameset ! - this has to be some type of joke from G

[scottsonline]

@tigger one thing I'm seeing...dmoz listings in a category that gets listed in the subdirectories is tipping the balance.

I just looked up an NFL rule while watching the jets. The results are insane! Bing hits it right the first time, google doesn't have one result right.

Wth is going on? Is this mostly the result of the misguided idea that they should deindex millions of pages and in turn reduce exact phrase matching? I really think it is. They reduced the index to increase speed so they could give us features we don't want like instant. Their own tests showed most people never web noticed instant but they will notice bad results.

There are times today when I'm searching and can find nothing. There is no way it is just me.

[martinacastro]

@JoeSinkwitz

You know or think that the sites that drop last 22 oct have some type of cannonical issue?

Regards

[tigger]

@scottsonline

seeing just the same - I can only assume this is some misguided tweak that has gone wrong - the problem is we look at the serps all the time so see these errors - joe public doesn't. but with the test searches I'm seeing they can't leave this alone.