Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2012

[backdraft7]

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

Historically we never saw drastic drops due to holidays...except this year, when the now daily everflux drops just happen to coincide with a holiday.

[edited by: tedster at 5:33 am (utc) on Sep 1, 2012]

[backdraft7]

September 2012 will definitely go down as the worst update month in history for my site. Hacking away with all these little quality updates appears to have have finally broke the camel's back and while my traffic remains pretty much the same, since last Friday my conversion rate is in the dumpster. My income this month alone dropped 50%. I know I'm not alone, so retooling my site won't help.

Google is like a brain surgeon operating with a meat clever. They take a swing at the problem, but usually take out more useful grey matter than the tumor they are going after. Some are laughing their way to the bank with useless content, while other useful sites are dying. The crap is being rewarded, while the gold is thrown out. Their slash & burn approach may not have removed our site from the listings, but like the brain, whatever they chopped out appears to have broken all the good connections to our site.

And no, we never bought or developed any back links to our site, whatever was there was 100% natural.

[gregorysmith]

Our impressions and traffic has recently dropped about 80%. I've never experienced anything like this before, I really don't even know what to say at this point. It hurts.

[SnowMan68]

@gregory

Was is thurs or fri?

[gouri]

I saw changes that I made on a website in the SERP and now I am seeing the older versions of the pages. I have seen the older versions for a couple of days.

Has anyone experienced something like this?

Also, can you tell what this could mean?

[Wilburforce]

I don't know what - if any - significance this has, but I have started finding google.de cookies every time I go to clear them.

This has been happening for about a week (I haven't been searching for any terms or in any locations that would cause this). My server is in the UK.

I have tried replicating the condition (clearing cookies then trying various searches) without success. Is some geographical function being invoked we don't know about?

[ohno]

Although the recent domain jamming was good news for the domains who are being packed into the SERPs, it really has hurt the businesses whose domains were displaced.

The "funny" thing there was we were one who had the whole of page 1 for some search terms. However at that point in time conversions were at an all time low! It was like the SERP's did not matter at all. All I can think is Google were sending people to that packed SERP for the wrong terms so people "automatically" ignored our domian even if the "correct" result/page was in there some where. If anything it was more frustrating seeing us dominate the SERP's as we got nothing in return for it, a complete paradox on past times............

[themistral]

3 weeks on and we are still seeing Australian (and unusual American) results in the UK SERPS for one of our 4 word keyphrases. How can I report this to Google?

[ohno]

Perform search, bottom of page "Give us feedback".

[backdraft7]

"Give us feedback" - so we can promptly ignore it.

[Jez123]

"Give us feedback" - so we can promptly ignore it.

I don't think I have ever seen so much negative feeling for google as I see on forums nowadays. I think they have well and truly lost the respect and trust of a considerable amount of webmasters.

[ohno]

I think you are right there. A few years ago they could do no wrong in my eyes, great products that were enhancing my business. Then May Day hit, ever since it's been a slippery slope. SERP's have remained the same over the weekend for us, I'm still seeing lots of foreign traffic, can't help but feel this is far from over. Then again I think that is how it will be from now on, constant changes each DAY!

[crobb305]

I don't think I have ever seen so much negative feeling for google as I see on forums nowadays. I think they have well and truly lost the respect and trust of a considerable amount of webmasters

Jez123, I agree. I also think Bing's rising search numbers say something as well. I have to wonder what the morale is like among the engineers who are watching the search quality deteriorate in favor of ads, or for older, more experienced engineers having to watch the newbies come in and start reinventing the wheel with algorithmic tweaks (It really feels to me that the algorithm changes are the result of new/young engineers who lack experience, because the results were much, much better a few years ago; each tweak seems like a college capstone project with little oversight).

[Elsmarc]

This thread sorta died, I see, but I figured I'd add this. I get an email every time someone joins the forum:

***************************
There is a new user, XXXXXX

To view their profile, go here:

XXXXXXXXX.com/Forums/member.php?u=XXXXXXX

Email Address : XXXXXXXXXXXX
IP Address: XXXXXXXXXXXX

Human Test to Prevent "BOT" Registrations : I am a human.
How did you find the XXXXXXXXX Web Site? : Google - albeit second page (I don't trust their first page any more !)
What information are you Searching for? : Typical NCR form

[Sand]

Wondering if there was another Panda refresh late last night, because my site that seemed to recover on 8/20 is now down in the dumps again.

[ohno]

/\ Same here. The signs were good but today has seen a huge slump again.

[Splugged]

@ohno

Same here.
No traffic today.

[gehrlekrona]

My site actually did better for two days but as usual you dont know if it will last or not. Today it is SLOW again.... As usual nowadays, nothing lasts...

[Sand]

It's frustrating, to say the least. I'd seen steady growth every week since 8/20, and yesterday was even a record. To see it dip today like it has makes me feel ill.

[SnowMan68]

@ sand
What country are you in?

[Sand]

US

[SnowMan68]

Our traffic seems to have started off a bit slow this AM as well. Still too early to tell for us if it is truly down. Most of the traffic we receive from 2am to 7am is from overseas. Our real traffic has started to come in now.

[Sand]

For the record, my position for most keywords seems to have dropped anywhere from 1-5 spots. It might not sound dramatic, but it hurts when you're talking about hundreds of keywords.

The position hit is also in line with what I saw when I was first hit by Panda. We'll see how it shakes out over the next couple days. It could just be a fluke of a morning. The good news is I'm still well above pre-8/20 levels.

[ohno]

We actually started off OK, AM was so so for traffic but we had conversions. It's been dead since though(UK). SERP's look unchanged to me which is the puzzling part.

[Spiekerooger]

Same here over in Europe. Dropped about 1 to 5 positions.

@Sand & everyone affected: do you have several strong unique backlinks from one host/source that are not footer links? I'm guessing right now if it could be related to the small horde crowding update.

[SnowMan68]

I didn't see a drop in our keywords.

I 100% agree with a drop of 1-5 spots making a difference. Especially if it is out of the #1 spot, down to 3-5. We had that happen to one of our sites in March and lost about 50-60% of our traffic. What percentage of your keywords dropped 8/20 vs today?

[Sand]

@Spiekrooger,
I don't have a ton of backlinks, but the ones I do have are mostly from human curated pages on .gov and .edu sites. In only a few cases do I have more than 1 link per domain.

@SnowMan,
I don't have all the data yet, but it's looking like roughly 75% of keywords dropped a few spots since yesterday.

[chalkywhite]

Panda update confirmed people

[twitter.com...]

[Jez123]

Panda update confirmed people

When, oh when for Penguin?

[ohno]

Do they think we are stupid or something?

"Panda refresh is rolling out—expect some flux over the next few days. Fewer than 0.7% of queries noticeably affected"

0.7% this time yet people I speak to across a broad spectrum of sites all affected?! Yeah right........

Why does it link to a blog post in 2011?!

[Splugged]

Old