Google Updates and SERP Changes - Mar 2012

[Hissingsid]

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

Something very odd just happened. I searched for my top keyword term. We have been at #3 since Panda, previously #1. My listing had disappeared completely, nowhere down to page 10 (in 10s). I did the same search on a different browser with no history on it, same result. Other terms were where I expected them.

Then 2 minutes later I'm back at #3.

What's going on?

Sid (In UK)

[edited by: tedster at 3:28 am (utc) on Mar 2, 2012]

[petehall]

Wow @ Google Hong Kong ! Looks fantastic

[HuskyPup]

Why are there no ads on Google Hong Kong?

As an example I searched for an iPad and Lenovo there was absolutely nothing!

What's even more interesting for me is that I searched for my company domain name without the .com, which Google.com places at #500, and I came up #6

Something's really screwed-up somewhere.

[bobsc]

Wow @ Google Hong Kong ! Looks fantastic

It sure does.

Big Brands actually rank where they deserve.

[wingslevel]

Yes. The hong kong SERPS look great to me on the major keywords. No dupes and prevalence of big brands.

Not sure about the longtails, though.

[Hissingsid]

In my niche Google UK looks better than Google HK which is more like the SERPS here from the last few weeks.

[toonarmy]

not sure if this is has been mentioned but i have just made a seach on google and there was an extra option on the top with the word "play" in red text but after making my search and going back to have a look it was gone

[bobsc]

not sure if this is has been mentioned but i have just made a seach on google and there was an extra option on the top with the word "play" in red text but after making my search and going back to have a look it was gone

http://play.google.com/about/

[edited by: tedster at 12:49 am (utc) on Mar 27, 2012]
[edit reason] make link clickable [/edit]

[backdraft7]

Err, because you're a generally suspicious person these days?

..you mean I'm the only one? LOL!

The recent UK changes mentioned above are particularly interesting, because something seems to be going on there that google.com isn't demonstrating. Maybe Google's own blog post about March Search changes will shed some light on it, but I'll bet out members can share more than Google will.

I am in almost daily communication with one UK based WebmasterWorld member who can relay changes to me almost like clockwork...what happens over there seems to move here about 6 hours later. Keep the observations coming.

[garyr_h]

Wow. I about choked when I saw Google HK. Absolutely lovely.

Since so many of us like the HK results, I wonder what it is that our websites have in common. It has to be some sort of optimization, right?

Perhaps that's a bad over-optimization sign.

Sorry, I just think something has to be up with these results. My traffic, for the first time since February actually gone up for the first time since pre-panda.

I mean, my traffic isn't even near pre-panda levels, but for the past year plus the traffic has only gone down. This is the first time it has actually gone back up, but the traffic level is only about the same as late February.

[backdraft7]

Something appears to be up again...even in light of the recent crazy results, & non converting traffic, today I've been observing one scraper, duplicate site operator who is doing great traffic and sales. This is a site that if lucky gets 1 or two sales per day...selling scraped content on a keyword swamped site with content that reads like backs wards stereo instructions... yet he's still cranking away with almost 10 sales today. He probably thinks he won the lottery. If this is like any of the past multitude of updates....it won't stick. My hallucination is that this is another bubble sort about halfway complete.

[mslina2002]

This is a site that if lucky gets 1 or two sales per day...selling scraped content on a keyword swamped site with content that reads like backs wards stereo instructions... yet he's still cranking away with almost 10 sales today.

Now out of curiosity, how would you know how much someone sells unless you have a way of getting insider info?

[scottsonline]

@garyh I like the hk results because google isn't helping the spammers and cheats on that domain. I see the biggest most blatant offender of the wmgl's in the 8th+ spots and the site that must spend 30k a month on links buried too. I also see a fortune 100 that entered our vertical recently but that doesn't "sell" the product online yet, they just list the XML feed and you have to call for quotes, doesn't appear when I type in "buy profit xyz online" etc.
In short the HK results are what they are and I expect we all like them because there's no rubbish. Companies running 10 domains on different product keywords are buried, brands are turned down maybe 15%, and the biggest link buyers are down too.

How can it be over optimization? Well formed URLs, precise product names and limited keyword use (natural language) were supposed to be quality in googles eyes.

[johnhh]

Google Hong Kong looks great from here ( in UK ) just had a quick chat to a friend actually in Hong Kong.

Comparing a three word phrase I track - we are on page 1 when I look on Google HK from the UK , when he looks in Hong Kong we are down in Page 3.

Sorry didn't ask him about the ads.

[Play_Bach]

20% drop in traffic here. :-(

[garyr_h]

@johnhh interesting observation. It made me wonder if .com was going to have the same results. I went ahead and checked out Canada IPs, US IPs, and compared it to mine (Philippine IP).

The Canada and US results are basically the same while the Philippine one is different. However, the results that the US and Canada are showing are the exact same results I was seeing earlier here in the Philippines except one slight difference in a keyword phrase (showing 8th here earlier today while second in the US and Canada).

That holds true to the different data sets Google has been using over the past few months.

As for .hk, the US, HK, and Philippines IPs are all showing the exact same results to me. However, the results are different from earlier today, silly synonym crap going on there now and showing more of a love for blogs than earlier today.

.hk results aren't as good as before.

So there's still some changes going on. I think we are only about half-way through. The nobs are still being turned.

[ohno]

@ mslina2002, backdraft did explain to me how he knows ;) It's not my place to say so if he wants to disclose to others I'm sure he will message you. SERP's have changed yet again in the UK, Product Search results now top for some phrases, Wikipedia second followed by organic! I changed some text on one sites homepage & it's been re-indexed already. Going back to my theory about them testing the Product Search results, last night I was searching for a new vaccume cleaner, one paid result had the best price yet when I clicked on the ad the price was £50 more expensive. No other media in the UK would allow an advert that lies! The ASA would have the ad pulled. If Google DO make Product Search a paid service then they need to police it more than adwords, the ASA will be flooded with complaints if retailers can simply lie about the price to get the clicks!

Back to the SERP's, our one site that relies more on long tail is back to the top of page 1 for the most popular search term.

However this morning the logs are FULL of foreign traffic yet again, India in particular so something is going through yet again.

I think Joe Public will start to notice this before long, you really have to bookmark any site you find these days as trying to find it a day later is next to impossible.

[Hissingsid]

Just trying to understand what I'm seeing in this UK backwater. One big site (number of pages and brand) has dropped 9 places for the trophy 2 word term. When it came up thanks to Panda I hypothesised that Panda was putting the wrong emphasis on one of the words and that meant that this huge general site was getting an advantage by being very strong on the general market area. Now the weight all seems to have shifted onto the second more specific word of the term. In fact if anything the balance has gone slightly too far that way with sites that are very strong on the second word but weak in the first getting a boost.

I'm just posting this in case it helps anyone else in developing their own theory.

Cheers

Sid

[garyr_h]

I think Joe Public will start to notice this before long, you really have to bookmark any site you find these days as trying to find it a day later is next to impossible.

That's been my thought for a while and is a bit of a pain. The different database sets make it sometimes impossible to do a search, go back and do the same search and find the site again. There's many reasons why someone would do this, and I have done it many times, especially when wanting to share a site with someone else. But now? It doesn't work that well.

[irr1449]

Google HK looks like pre-panda results for my site. I also see some other sites in my niche that got hit (garbage sites) that are ranking well on hk. I'm not holding my breath.

[petehall]

My results have improved a fair bit since Friday - even some of the long tails seem to be better.

Only really one brand now that's been affected on some of the searches. And I think that's been simply pushed out by small but highly focused websites.

Might be time to jump on the micro site for this particular brand band wagon... !

[AG4Life]

Google HK looks like pre-panda results for my site. I also see some other sites in my niche that got hit (garbage sites) that are ranking well on hk. I'm not holding my breath.

I suspect that may be the case as well, as the same observation has been made for google.gr (Greek) as well before (and it's still very pre-panda looking over there).

[garyr_h]

The results are definitely not pre-panda for me. Perhaps a less-harsh panda penalty, but it isn't pre-panda.

[backdraft7]

@msline2002 - when someone steals your entire membership site architecture and in the process leaves behind the same access backdoor as my original site, then it's very easy to do. Sorry if that was off topic, but just answering a question.

[reseller]

So most of us agree that the SERPs of Google .hk have better quality than the SERPs of Google.com .

Question is: why Google Search Quality Team doesn't allow the SERPs of Google .hk to be on Google.com too?

[tedster]

Because the .hk SERPs are targeted to different users?

Geographic tailoring of SERPs is a big deal for Google. And .com is the place where they first seem to roll out most of their their "innovations" - for good or bad.

[javahava]

i'll also vouch that the google HK SERPS are a lot better in my niche - do the google HK serps usually propagate to the .com version? here's to hoping!

[mslina2002]

@backdraft, I see. If I were you I'd put some dynamite on my way out the door. An eye for an eye.

[ohno]

I'm not normally monitoring this late but a PC issue means I'm working late. Our .co.uk domain is VERY busy for an evening, we've had a few conversions too. The SERP's have changed since this morning yet again as well?!

[garyr_h]

Yep, definitely another SERPs change. It's positive again for me. So that's very weird, it's not something I have gotten use to lately. Now traffic levels seem to be back around late-January.

Of course, the keywords I'm ranking for are completely different than what I was ranking for (I am targeting them, it's just that i haven't ranked for them since December). Now if only they give me the rankings for this and the rankings for the past two months, there will be a pretty big improvement for me.

Right now it's around at 16% improvement since late-February. Traffic has fallen for two main keyword phrases but risen for others and seeing more long-tail. I seem to be ranking 1st for only 1 of my keyword phrases and it isn't a big one. But the improvement in long-tail and other phrases which were found on later pages now on the 1st and 2nd page have helped a lot. If the other keyword phrases got back at 1st I'll be back around October/November numbers. But I don't see that happening since a competitor created the exact domain name as the phrase I'm targeting and G is loving that.

[wingslevel]

we are seeing lots of instability. US ecom. sunday and monday were unusually consistent as far as the quality of google referrals. today, though, at about 2pm eastern time, the longtail results went to zombies - we hadn't seen much zombie traffic for a few days - our main 2 word keywords were still ranking fine of course - this turned out to be about a 3.5 hour drought - same symptoms as i have reported before - normal traffic volume but conversion rates (on google organic referrals only) at about 25% of normal. then 2 normal hours. then an hour of zombies.

don't know if this is data related as the many changes and new panda data get folded in, or maybe they are finished with that and decided to crank up the live machine learning thing again. i am tired of being a guinea pig, was kind of hoping, after a couple of stable days, that the big swings might be over...