Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2012

[Alex997]

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

A lot of my keyword SERPs dropped a page today - totally out of the blue. They have been going up and up in SERPs steadily all this year with no panda or penguin impacts. I havent changed anything on my home page and no new spammy links, so I *guess* it's a google algorithm change?! I doubt its a penalty as the drop would have been even more severe.

Anyone else in the UK seen something similar today?

[edited by: tedster at 1:14 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2012]

[n00b1]

@MarvinH

Yes it was completely on-topic.

[MarvinH]

n00b1, I really hope that was not the reason for the penalty. I, too, participate in a technical support forum where I have a signature link to my home page, and I place various on-topic links to inner pages of my site. This generates substantial percentage of targeted traffic to my site, so I cannot see myself stopping this practice. But I would hate it if search engines would penalize me for it. They are welcome to not count those links, but why penalize? If a user asks a technical question, instead of a lot of writing, I point him in the right direction (which usually includes a few sentences and a link or two for more detailed explanation of the topic).

[n00b1]

Do you have thousands of links from that one source (forum?) The thing is I switched from the www to non-www version of my website and changed the link on the forum to point to the new site. There would have therefore been a huge and rapid influx of links from one place which probably triggered a manual review and must have looked dodgy.

[MarvinH]

Yes, thousands. The site was negatively affected by the Penguin update. I do not know what effect, if any, these or any other links might have had on the loss of 2/3 of my G-referred traffic on April 25th.

[tedster]

We've got ongoing discussion threads on a couple of topics:

Many results from one site - Host Crowding vs Brand Authority [webmasterworld.com]
Matt Cutts Explains Change to Unnatural Link Warnings [webmasterworld.com]

I'v removed a few posts on these topics. The above are ongoing issues and not something new - so let's not post about them here. This thread is for tracking new SERP Updates and changes as we notice them. Thanks all.

[Alex997]

What is going on with my Google SERPs since Friday morning? Some PRETTY hard to rank for phrases droped +50 places and some REALLY hard to rank for single word phrases jumped up +80 places! All for the same home page.

Today some of the drops made a bit of a recovery (like 10 places or so) but our main money phrase is still 3 pages lower than it usually is.

What is going on Google? (rhetorical I know)

Roll back please!

[gehrlekrona]

What started out as a day with a little bit higher hits than usual ended up with an end result that was lower than usual. It ends up within +-50 hits. I don't know how they do it, but it is being done. It looks like Bing and Yahoo picked up the slack yesterday as usual. Bing and Yahoo also send traffic to inner pages most of the time and they are almost spot on while Google sends traffic to the main page most of the time. It sems like Google can't figure out what is on those pages. I have checked to see if there is anything I can do about it, but if I do change anything, I might loose Bing and Yahoo and if you are not sure that Google like what you have done so that would be an even bigger loss.

[seoskunk]

Well this update is going OK for me so far, touch wood

I guess Google is a love hate relationship for webmasters but right now seeing a pandalised site climb back in top ten (by the skin of its teeth). Hope it lasts

[robzilla]

Not really seeing anything suggestive of an update, and no official word on a Panda refresh... but it has nearly been a month since the last one.

[seoskunk]

I seeing an update or refresh of sites caught in panda, started on friday

[Alex997]

I have had a huge spike in google crawl stats rates since Friday.

Single hard to rank keywords are doing better in SERPs each day -> I dont want those though as they dont provide specific enough users to site.

Double and triple target SERPs that I do want (eg. <single keyword> <location>) are WAY down in the rankings since Friday.

Have Google messed with keyword density algorithms or something?!

[robzilla]

Not a lot of reports so far, but it wouldn't [twitter.com] be the first time a Panda refresh began to roll out on Friday, confirmation coming in on Monday.

I'll be disappointed if it is indeed a Panda refresh. A site I assumed had been rightfully Pandalized was fully renewed and improved in June, and I was hoping Google would have noticed by the next update. Right now, that does not appear to be the case.

[petehall]

Seeing some really poor looking SERPs here in the UK, which may mean an update is crunching I suppose.

In fact, I see a number of foreign sites in SERPs which often occurs right before a Panda update.

Only time will tell I guess...

[topstar]

I took another hit. Is this a backlink update? I have removed some backlinks and it might be hurting me.

[HuskyPup]

I have had a huge spike in google crawl stats rates since Friday.

Yep, me too overnight.

[Martin Ice Web]

Till Friday we had a growing amount of users and new keys. On friday it suddenly turned around - 50%. The crude thing about this is, that it again hit our site with a lot information, where we put lots of work in but our silly affiliate site with NO information, plain selling site, only templates an some ads on it got a real boost.

This is quality.

[Alex997]

There was definitely a google change on Friday morning UK time. The change seems to be 50% less impact today though.

There was a specific phrase that dived on our site - one which we are currently concentrating a few (seemingly) strong backlinks on. So from what I can see these backlinks were Penguin'ed and devalued by Google on Friday - taking the ranking back to where it was 2 months ago before the link building started. Annoying, given all the wasted resources of the last month to get those couple of (seemingly) strong links.

[themaninthejar]

At the time of posting there are no ads showing on any searches on Google UK.

[themaninthejar]

Ads are back now. That was very strange.

[robzilla]

Seeing a bit of an uptick in traffic from Google-powered search sites, but not from Google.

[topstar]

Alex, my theory is that if a someone has made a spam report about your site for link buying then Google will automatically de-value pretty much all new links even if they are natural. I am seeing it with one of my sites. It might gain a few places but it always drops back down where it was in every refresh/update, and the circle starts again. Gaining the lost trust back is now more important but it might be impossible. It is sad but I have had to stop developing my main site.

[HuskyPup]

Google.co.uk has taken a retrograde step again for my products, lots and lots of Chinese and Indian trade directories listed and US social networking site images.

The only way I can get anything related to UK results is to add UK to keyword search terms, an absolutely diabolical situation with Bing only fairing slightly better seemingly going down the same wrong road as Google.

[robert76]

Panda 3.9 rolling out tonight [searchengineland.com ]

[islandcoli]

Todays 90 days from Penguin right?
Anybody recover(ing)?

[gehrlekrona]

On Thursday I had a little bit better hits and then it went down again to "normal" level which is really low compared to the "glory days" On Sunday it went up about 25% and then yesterday it was 7-8% higher than on Sunday.
Today seem (knock on wood!) to be another good (well, everything is relative) day if it continues for the rest of the day/evening.
Nobody has reported anything reall so I think it has to do with me redoing the web site and trying to remove anything that looks like its spammy. I haven't asked anyone to remove any links since I haven't got any email from Google.
Anyway, there seems t have been some change for the better for once. Hope it stick, but you can only hope!

[klark0]

Good god, just when are they gonna refresh Penguin. Waiting ...what 60 days now ?

[gehrlekrona]

New Panda update. I got a message in my WMC that I have had possible outages. The date? 12/31/1969 ! My site is old but Al Gore hadn't invented Internet yet :)
I don't see a lot of outcry yet from Panda 3.9 and I am not sure if what I see is from my "new" site or it is from Panda p**ping on me. Sunday-Tuesday has been a lot better that usual and so far today hasn't been a;l that bad. Still have a few hours to pick a ;ittle bit more so we'll see. 1969? WTH?

[tedster]

The new Panda Update discussion is here: [webmasterworld.com...] - You're right, it's a very quiet thread!

[Whitey]

Does anybody see a complete bias with e-commerce on branded products to reviews?

I think I'm seeing that the only thing that counts in ranking are the high volumes of reviews. The more reviews, the higher the site - more or less. Naturally, the brand is at the top.

This seems to be a recent shift - this is boring, where's the Panda algo in shifting to other UI elements and other unique supporting information. Not good for users IMO.

[HuskyPup]

You're right, it's a very quiet thread!

Maybe because many have given up on Google getting it right and even webmasters are fed-up of discussing it?

I do know that the G UK SERPs are an abomination in my business sector, they're beyond a joke, and I do know of my trade companies attempting to spend big AdWords money but they're still not getting much extra traffic.

The UK with an official double dip recession, let's face it that many areas of the UK outside of the London area never even recovered from the 2008-9 recession, it almost doesn't matter about the G UK results because, in my sector, no one is seemingly bothered about them any more.

Fact, my UK business enquiries this past couple of months, zero.
Fact, my international business enquiries and confirmed orders, way up.

You may think me daft however I am in the process of converting several of my .co.uk domains into .com and .eu sites.

How many others are seeing really bad G UK SERPs or is it just the construction sector?