Google Updates and SERP Changes - Jan 2012

[londrum]

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

i tried to sprinkle different variations of one phrase onto each page

if the target phrase was "big red widgets" then the page might have a couple mentions of each of these

big widgets
big red widget things
big widget things
big red things
red widgets

plus an exact match in the <title> and <h1>

[edited by: tedster at 12:31 am (utc) on Jan 2, 2012]

[falsepositive]

I think it's seasonality kicking in. Other sites are stronger during the first period of the year, while shopping/ecommerce sites may start falling back after the holiday season. Perhaps search engines are building in this seasonality. Other than that, I see nothing different on my end.

[Universityzeus]

Not sure if it's Panda, but something slammed us this weekend. All keyword SERPS are down a page or so, with our main head term down from 45 to 114... but one of our related head terms is still #1.

We were hit with Panda in June, and between then and September, did a site refresh visually, and also reviewed, and removed large amounts of low quality content. Since about august we've been inching back up the SERPs by about a page or so a month. Until this weekend.

Something about it doesn't quite feel like Panda, esp. since our site is more panda friendly than it's ever been.

No penalties showing in WMT either.

And we've add about half a dozen legit .edu links in the last month...

If this is Panda we're seeing, then I'm at a loss.

Any thoughts?

[mhansen]

I see nothing different on my end.

Same here. Steady, predictable, almost boring...

We still see fluctuations in buying activity every 2-4 days, but that's about it.

Day 1 - OK number of buyers.
Day 2-3 - Better number of buyers.
Day 3-4 - Wow, where did all these buyers come from!?
Day 4-5 - OK number of buyers
Day 5-6 - Better number of buyers
Day 6-7 - Wow, where did.... you get the idea.

Rinse.... repeat...

Like were being fed 3 (or more) datasets of consumers.

MH

[Hooya]

There was definitely an update of sorts on the 4th.

I was hit by Panda at the start of October 2011, losing 70% of traffic. However I managed (it managed) to recover after 30 days to pre "Panda" levels give or take.

Stats since the 5th Jan 2012 show another drop and no change in the last 4 days.

Ultimately they are working on the assumption that sites that make money do not provide information and yet again I find sites with one paragraph on the keyword subject vastly above ours which is a site dedicated on that subject.

What is worse, you build relationships and sign contracts with advertising companies, where I have to now turn around to them and say it will take 3 times as long to fill your impression requirements.

I am sure it will (or I can get it to) bounce back but after two hits in less than 4 months I am naturally thinking can I be bothered when clearly I have very little control over the long term traffic of the site.

I am all for drops in ranking; it keeps you on your toes. But 70% over night is a penalty imo even if they won't call it one.

[gyppo]

Pretty sure that Google confirmed to someone at WebProNews for an article that there's been no Panda updates so far this year.

[Universityzeus]

Pretty sure that Google confirmed to someone at WebProNews for an article that there's been no Panda updates so far this year.

I read that article too. However, the article is from Friday, and most of my SERP changes happened over the weekend.

Would Google confirm no updates yet 24 hours before updating? Not sure.

[Hooya]

Just because it isn't "Panda" doesn't mean it can't #*$! you up so to speak. An update is an update and there definitely was one last week.

[tedster]

Welcome to the forums, Hooya. What you say is certainly true - any update can hurt your site (or help, too). Have you been able to analyze anything in particular about this update?

[dunivan]

Huge crawl lately in WMT, anyone else seeing this too?

Panda x coming soon maybe?

[Hooya]

No tedster. Only noticed it today to be honest. I don't look at my stats more than once a week now.

My site has a lot of lists with downloadable files but it also has 100% original handwritten content and I think the balance between the two is key. I know a lot of the static pages are very similar in content but that is how I want it as I want continuity between pages.

I think it is also something to do with amount of new content vs current static content.

When I recovered last time, I changed content on my pages to lower the 'similarity' but they will always be 70% similar (unless I choose to re-write each page individually). I also added new content to some older pages which didn't need new content but obviously according to google hadn't been updated in a couple of years.

I do feel these updates force you to do something to improve your site but I do also feel that you should be able to have pages that provide the information you wish them to provide but without having to do things just to please Google.

There is no right answer I guess. You wouldn't want old sites/content taking up the top slots for the sake of it either. After all it would hard for newer sites to compete.

I reckon site rankings (for most of us) will get more volatile with positions changing daily or even intraday.

[reseller]

Its great that Google is providing us with information about some of its algorithm changes.

However I donīt think that Google would announce all algorithm changes. As you might have noticed Google is keeping very quite about recent algorithm changes observed by several WebmasterWorld members since 4th/5th January 2012 ;-)

[dataguy]

My heavily Feb 2011 Pandalized site is seeing a surge in traffic since about 4 PM this afternoon. I've already moved on and got a job working for the man, but I'd love to know if this is unique to my site or if there has been a Panda update that benefits my site for once.

[reseller]

I think the changes which have started 4th/5th January 2012 continue.

I am not gonna call it a Panda update anymore, just to avoid Panda-not-Panda discussion.

Instead I would refer to the current algorithms changes which have started 4th/5th January 2012 as:

Google's Ozzie Update :-)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:12 am (utc) on Jan 17, 2012]

[mhansen]

We're seeing very low volume of referrals this morning from Google specifically. All our rankings seem to be in order, both personalized and verbatim search.

What we are noticing however, are quite a bit of incomplete search strings, incomplete words in the strings etc, characters in strings (commas, hyphens, etc), almost like Google Suggest is a bigger factor in todays' results.

- blu widg
- blue widge
- blu idgets
- blue, widget
- blue - widgets

etc.... Not sure how we can tie it to Google Plus Google+ Personalization, or its a result of the new personalization. (actually, shouldn't be, or we wouldn't see the terms in referral strings, right? Aren't they secure for logged in users?)

This is our busiest time of year for search traffic (2-3 months after the holidays) and I hate to see our organic traffic affected by changes at Google... back to the drawing board.

[Robert Charlton]

What we are noticing however, are quite a bit of incomplete search strings, incomplete words in the strings etc, characters in strings (commas, hyphens, etc), almost like Google Suggest is a bigger factor in todays' results.

Adding a PS to this up front, I'm noticing that if I use Google Suggest to check out the spelling of a word today, it's showing different ways of typing combinations of syllables to sound it out. I've never seen that before. It's likely that many people are accidentally clicking on the variants.

Thinking out loud, and stretching things a bit... could this possibly be related to testing reported in this thread?

Google Webmaster 404 errors due to ".."
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4404062.htm [webmasterworld.com]

The 404 testing goes back a few months, not just today, and the discussion in the thread is for nonsense in 404s, not search strings... but possibly Google is looking at ways to filter out spurious signals of all kinds, so it needs to deliver them in order to see how much they are ignored (if that logic makes sense).

[tysondbailey]

I have noticed HUGE changes in rankings across SERPS. I saw 3 domains drop for almost all keywords. Went from raking first page for A LOT of keywords to barely hanging on the first page for exact match searches.

First site dropped on December 29, 2011. Other sites dropped this last week.

[reseller]

Folks!

I wonder whether you have noticed changes in ranking of your main keywords.

Thanks!

[Universityzeus]

I definitely noticed a big drop the last 8 days or so for our main term. Now crawling back, slowly though.

[ErnestHemingway]

Seen some changes...

[Hooya]

re: my drop 7 days ago. We got pretty normal traffic yesterday. And today is looking similar. Recovery in 7 days....very odd. Google playing silly buggers?

[aamirkhan]

Today is my BLACK day.
I lost all adsense sites. I am running 14 adsense sites since 6months. I am in top 3 for all my main keywords.
Suddenly on 13th Jan 7PM (IST) Google penalty all my sites and i am no where in top 70 results.

I was making 1600$/Day until 12th Jan... Now my adsense revenue is 14.5$ :(. I think this revenue came from other search engines.

I lost everything :(

[ehgee]

huge changes for some of my keywords. What is strange is that not all have been hit, but those that have, have been hit badly and exactly down to the same levels as the Panda strike (they had gradually recovered to pre-panda levels). So, this is definitely Panda for me - only, not sitewide but individual pages this time. Something like, as if they had made a mistake bringing back most pages and have decided to push back the errant pages back again. Only that I do not know why they are errant :(

[ehgee]

The reason I called it Panda was because the rankings were exactly at the same levels of the panda hit... seems too much of a coincidence to call it anything else. but what's in a name? your prerogative :)

[reseller]

@ehgee

Thanks for feedback.

To focus on the core of changes and to avoid turning the thread into Panda-not-Panda discussion, I have chosen to refer to changes which we have been observing since 4th-5th January 2012 as Google's Ozzie Update.

As you mentioned correctly "what's in a name?" :-)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:18 am (utc) on Jan 17, 2012]

[AlyssaS]

Anyone else seeing big changes in the SERPs today (Jan 14th)?

[wariental]

Yup. It's ugly.

[Lenny2]

no real changes here...Google traffic slightly up... not enough to give credit to an update...

[azn romeo 4u]

Today is my BLACK day.
I lost all adsense sites. I am running 14 adsense sites since 6months. I am in top 3 for all my main keywords.
Suddenly on 13th Jan 7PM (IST) Google penalty all my sites and i am no where in top 70 results.

I was making 1600$/Day until 12th Jan... Now my adsense revenue is 14.5$ :(. I think this revenue came from other search engines.

I lost everything :(

WOW.

But, you only slaved away from 6 months. If you can do it in 6 months, I'm sure you can get back to that position again. Good luck.

[reseller]

Hi Folks!


I have compiled the following selection of some of the observations posted on this thread about the changes which have taken place since 4th-5th january 2012 and which I refer to as Google's Ozzie Update:


@Whitey - Jan 5, 2012

I'm noticing movements and good rankings on Pandalized sites with newly introduced content and URL's, on all pages since the last iteration on Nov 19. Is anyone else experiencing this?
.....

Newly added pages with new content and usability modifications, that were previously blocked, once released and reindexed mostly ranked straight away. Highly competitive core terms and old URL's are definitely still Pandalized, yet rank higher than before.


@Lenny2 - Jan 5, 2012

...noticing that my pandalized site which was having a hard time ranking on anything... is now starting to rank for NEWLY CREATED pages... albeit few get to the top of the first page... many seem to be at the top of the 2nd page in google serps for selected medium competitive key terms.

Not sure when this change started happening but it's recent. This site is definitely NOT OUT of Panda... but, nonetheless it's something...


@ErnestHemingway - Jan 5, 2012

Some panda update taking place right now.


@onebuyone - Jan 6, 2012
changes seen yesterday now got rolled back and still no change in traffic


@banditwmm - Jan 6, 2012

I would like to add to this topic - since this morning my site getting amount of organic traffic close to pre 25 Dec - at the end of day i expect it to be doubled versus last days .

To early to make conclusions yet i think, just for information.


@johnhh - Jan 7, 2012

Something going on, just searched for [uk place name] keyword keyword and got a snow report shown on page one for a resort in New Zealand, no mention of [uk place name] keyword keyword ! Crazy.


@crobb305 - Jan 8, 2012

this morning, 4 new member profile pages have appeared on the search I am monitoring (a single word in the financial sector). The member profile pages are all identical to each other and all seem to be associated with legitimate websites, which makes me wonder if those website owners are unknowingly victims of a hack. Google seems to love it though and has shown no interest in cleaning up the mess since it started in September.

Also new to the ranks today: a domain that redirects to a Wikipedia page, a page that prompts a Google warning about security, and several new pages with content consisting of a jumbling of words that make no sense. This is a total of at least 10 new junk pages, all in the top 70 results.


@JuneBug - Jan 9, 2012

We saw traffic and revenue drop by 10-20% since January 1st. No new changes have been done to the site since November. I think there was certainly some kind of algorithm update.


@Universityzeus - Jan 9, 2012

Not sure if it's Panda, but something slammed us this weekend. All keyword SERPS are down a page or so, with our main head term down from 45 to 114... but one of our related head terms is still #1.

We were hit with Panda in June, and between then and September, did a site refresh visually, and also reviewed, and removed large amounts of low quality content. Since about august we've been inching back up the SERPs by about a page or so a month. Until this weekend.

Something about it doesn't quite feel like Panda, esp. since our site is more panda friendly than it's ever been.

No penalties showing in WMT either.

And we've add about half a dozen legit .edu links in the last month...

If this is Panda we're seeing, then I'm at a loss.


@Hooya - Jan 9, 2012

There was definitely an update of sorts on the 4th.

I was hit by Panda at the start of October 2011, losing 70% of traffic. However I managed (it managed) to recover after 30 days to pre "Panda" levels give or take.

Stats since the 5th Jan 2012 show another drop and no change in the last 4 days.


@dataguy - Jan 11, 2012

My heavily Feb 2011 Pandalized site is seeing a surge in traffic since about 4 PM this afternoon. I've already moved on and got a job working for the man, but I'd love to know if this is unique to my site or if there has been a Panda update that benefits my site for once.


@tysondbailey - Jan 12, 2012

I have noticed HUGE changes in rankings across SERPS. I saw 3 domains drop for almost all keywords. Went from raking first page for A LOT of keywords to barely hanging on the first page for exact match searches.

First site dropped on December 29, 2011. Other sites dropped this last week.


@Universityzeus - Jan 13, 2012

I definitely noticed a big drop the last 8 days or so for our main term. Now crawling back, slowly though.


@ErnestHemingway - Jan 13, 2012

Seen some changes...


@Hooya - Jan 13, 2012

re: my drop 7 days ago. We got pretty normal traffic yesterday. And today is looking similar. Recovery in 7 days....very odd. Google playing silly buggers?


@aamirkhan - Jan 14, 2012

Today is my BLACK day.
I lost all adsense sites. I am running 14 adsense sites since 6months. I am in top 3 for all my main keywords.
Suddenly on 13th Jan 7PM (IST) Google penalty all my sites and i am no where in top 70 results.

I was making 1600$/Day until 12th Jan... Now my adsense revenue is 14.5$ :(. I think this revenue came from other search engines.

I lost everything :(


@ehgee - Jan 14, 2012

huge changes for some of my keywords. What is strange is that not all have been hit, but those that have, have been hit badly and exactly down to the same levels as the Panda strike (they had gradually recovered to pre-panda levels). So, this is definitely Panda for me - only, not sitewide but individual pages this time. Something like, as if they had made a mistake bringing back most pages and have decided to push back the errant pages back again. Only that I do not know why they are errant :(


@AlyssaS - Jan 14, 2012

Anyone else seeing big changes in the SERPs today (Jan 14th)?


@wariental - Jan 14, 2012

Yup. It's ugly.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:10 am (utc) on Jan 17, 2012]

[reseller]

Hi Folks!

I wish to ask whether you have noticed today remarkable changes in ranking of your main keywords ?

Thanks!