Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2012

[Martin Ice Web]

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

Today is very low. I donīt know if its weather or vacation related? From what I see is that most product related serps will show #1-#10 price compare sites, not one informational or ecom site.

[edited by: tedster at 6:04 pm (utc) on Aug 1, 2012]

[themistral]

Sand, I noticed a massive drop in long tail yesterday.
Our site only went live in June, and there have been no indications of Panda/Penguin.

I was wondering if it was the end of the grace period the big G seems to give, but it is only long tail that seems to have been affected.

[Alex997]

So nobody else noticed a disassociation between singular and plural search terms all of a sudden?

Eg.
London <co type> firm = position 13
London <co type> firms = position 313 (previously also about 13)

So either I have a specific penalty for all 'firms' queries or google's latest algo is dummer than previous versions.

[Alex997]

^ Ok so it must be a penguin penalty or something as the same phrases with practice/practices instead of firm/firms gives practices higher than practice by a page. Plus a Google singular/plural algo disassociation.

[Alex997]

Saying that:

Reading <co type> firm = position 2
Reading <co type> firms = position 2

So definitely a penalty with any combo of London and firms.

I hate negative SEO - especially on remote links - it's just STUPID Google. Fair enough on over optimising onsite content, which makes text unnatural to read by humans. But for backlinks, negative SEO makes no sense other than to encourage regular website owners pay for professional SEO services to get them out of penalties!

Anyone see the SEOmoz whiteboard Friday episode that some said the only people who can bring down Googles search monopoly are Google themselves? Well you are doing it Google!

[ohno]

/\ They certainly are, switched to Bing & loving it. SERP's flipped yesterday, I'm now seeing the data set from a few weeks back that has star ratings appear under the URL's again. Yesterday was the best day of the week too (not hard!).

ETA, SERP's now flipped back again! Star ratings in SERP's gone again. SERP's have changed in a big way as a search I did yesterday had the answer on page 1 result 1, now gone completely (answer was in Google Groups!).

[Wilburforce]

So nobody else noticed a disassociation between singular and plural search terms all of a sudden?

Not "all of a sudden": backdraft7 mentioned it on 26 April (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4435785-25-30.htm), and my site has been affected on one monitored search term for the whole period from around then.

[Martin Ice Web]

ohno, i can confirm that. This ainīt a search engine anymore, itīs a self promoting and useless machine. I do know the results they offer for many things, to find something new is very hard.

Long tail keywords >=3 keys are so worse. They ignore one key or replace it with another not related key.

[toddherman]

We have noticed a increase in rankings. Literally over night, we rank #1 in one province but #9 in another within the same country. Previously we ranked a solid #7 for the term through Canada. now over night it seems we rank differently in different provinces. Is this a sign of local web hosting, business directory preference for penguin?

Todd.

[ohno]

Seeing wild fluctuations today. Seem to have hit three different data sets for the same search terms over the course of the day so far.....

[Sand]

Seem to have hit three different data sets for the same search terms over the course of the day so far.....

I haven't done much searching today, but I've been watching my realtime analytics and it kind of backs up what you're seeing. I'll have a flood of visits for 5 minutes, then quiet for a little bit, then another flood of visits. Definitely not normal.

[Wilburforce]

There probably isn't a connection, but my site has just dropped from page 1 to page 8 on Bing - alsmost exactly as it did on Google in April - for the main money term.

At the same time, WMT is showing a sharp rise in impressions (it looked like there was a cap in place for the last few months, and today it looks as if the cap has been lifted or removed).

[toddherman]

Is not Penguin updates on or about the end of the month?

Also panda updates around the end of the first week, or do they vary?

T

[Wilburforce]

Home page now nowhere (not in first 30 pages) on Bing. Are they doing something similar?

[backdraft7]

Plurals and in general semantic search no longer works. It used to, but now all keyphrases have been "priced" and the new rule seems to prevent too much related search, which would be good for the user, but short change Google. In the end it's all about Google.

Yesterday Thursday 8/30 saw a huge (negative) change in position and traffic. The only changes I'm making to my site are structural, updating some old html pages to css. Seems like right after I published some new "cleaner" css pages (and their associated dwt template) the traffic valve was shut off. Might be a coincidence, but it might also be a result of that "make a change and you're labeled a spammer" patent. Google is fostering more paranoia than love these days.

Seems many others are seeing a similar downward shift again, so it's probably just another iteration of Penguin. Let us know when the tweet comes in to confirm. The 1% wants to know.


AS far as Bing, In recent days, I am also noticing their serps looking more like Google. I removed all keyword meta tags a few weeks ago, so maybe that's it for my niche. Looks like some search engines may still use them.

[johnhh]

Seems many others are seeing a similar downward shift again

We see the same, started yesterday and the same downward drop again today.

Looking back to 2011 we had the same drop on 30th August then, although that was a Tuesday.

Perhaps there is a Google end of summer mode.

[edited by: johnhh at 2:25 pm (utc) on Aug 31, 2012]

[gehrlekrona]

HUGE drop in traffic from goog today :'( it's like Google didn't exist when you get 3-4 hits an HOUR when it used to be per second.... WTH?

[SnowMan68]

Possibly something related to the holiday weekend? Gehrlekrona, are you in the USA?

[ohno]

I don't think it's that, last week & earlier this week was like that for us. Painful.

The SERP's have remained static for us today,no fluctuations like yesterday.

[gehrlekrona]

I am in the US but it doesn't seem to have anything with the weekend. The usual keywords/SERPs are there when I look but It's like nobody is clicking on then OR Google show totally different results for everybody.

[SnowMan68]

The usual keywords/SERPs are there when I look but It's like nobody is clicking on then

That's what I meant by the Holiday Weekend effect. Less people are searching/clicking. Your SERPs can remain constant, that wouldn't matter.

[SnowMan68]

We are seeing less traffic today to a site that has seen over 100% increase in G referrals over the past 8 weeks. It is US based and I am pretty confident it is the result of the holiday effect.

[Panthro]

Very quiet today for me too (U.S. professional services). I'm with SnowMan.

[ohno]

I'm UK, AM was great, PM died. Although it is the last Friday of the summer holidays. I'm not convinced though :(

[SnowMan68]

I'm UK

It is Memorial Day weekend in the USA.

[gehrlekrona]

Snowman, if he in UK, why does it matter if it is a holiday in the US of A? If he usually get his traffic from UK.

[SnowMan68]

why does it matter if it is a holiday in the US of A

It wouldn't apply to the holiday effect is what I meant. That would be separate.

[johnhh]

In UK as well...

[SnowMan68]

**Labor Day weekend :)

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

[edited by: tedster at 5:35 am (utc) on Sep 1, 2012]