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]

[Martin Ice Web]

I think there has been a roll back in the night from the anti host crowding update. Mayby the googineers had to turn it off because of the panda thing.
I notice a fast growing number in image searchs. Mayby due to the fact that poeple donīt find what they are searching for? and image querys seem no to be affected? So they search for images and look to find the closest image?

[gehrlekrona]

Not sure how far back they turned the knob but it seems to be pre-Google since it is totally dead today.
Just a thought and maybe a new thread: can someone be "stealing/intercepting traffic"?

[ohno]

Yep very quiet here too, seen some different SERP's throughout the day too.

[xcoder]

I notice a fast growing number in image searchs

Noticed that too. A major increase in image search referrals lately (across many channels)...

Must have something to do with the increase in knowledge graph space fill... for example check out a search for "kate middleton photos". The image knowledge graph now occupy the entire top fold... the same probably goes to many other image related searches... this may explain the recent increase in image referrals...

Junk low (to none) converting traffic though...

[netmeg]

To come clean, I'm behind the curve on responsive website design. I always thought I'd get on with it when I saw a lot of mobile users. The problem seems to be, these two down sites won't get many of those mobile users from Google if I don't make website that ranks well and that probably means upgrading them for mobile.

It's really a lot easier than you'd think. I'm not 100% sold on responsive design (although all my sites are responsive now) because the advertising industry hasn't caught up, but if you're not worried about that, I'd say go for it.

Probably belongs in another post, but my mobile traffic on my event sites is now over 50% of my total traffic (tens of millions of pageviews there) and it's all phones. That makes sense, because people look up events on their phones.

However, on the B2B client sites, we didn't figure we'd need to deal with mobile for a year or two yet, but we're seeing a big increase in tablets - because it makes perfect sense that people are walking around their warehouses checking on stock levels with tablets in their hands.

I don't think anyone should write off or postpone mobile at this point. I'm finding it picking up significantly in the least expected spaces.

[Panthro]

In line with what some of what has been said here - I've also been seeing more mobile, more image search, and more visits from google.non-us

On an unrelated note - can't remember seeing this format of microdata in the SERPs (G+ author pic is only 24px) - [i50.tinypic.com...]

[diberry]

I'm also seeing a huge shift toward mobile on my sites, mainly the iPad which is big enough to do some real reading yet highly portable.. I'm also noticing that when I'm out and about with my phone, I'll check a website I trust for a product review before I buy, or I'll look up a restaurant menu to see where I want to eat, or I'll check to see where the nearest Macy's is. For some unfathomable reason, loads of big chain stores don't offer a store locator from their mobile site! What would a mobile user be more likely to want?

I think it's very important to do user testing in this area - even if it's just observing how you and your friends interact with various sites on smartphones and tablets. And then, whether you have a responsive theme or a mobile site or just a theme that works well enough when shrunken down, you're not going to leave a lot of money on the table.

[nomis5]

I don't think anyone should write off or postpone mobile at this point. I'm finding it picking up significantly in the least expected spaces.

Absolutely agree. But I'm also finding the mobile ads are performing nearly as well as normal ads. I never expected that and it doesn't tie in with what others are saying unless those who are doing OK are just keeping quiet about mobile ads.

It also seems very strange to me that the mobile SERPS are, give or take a tweak or two, exactly the same as the regular SERPS. Surely this is going to change over the next year and those who are mobile enabled now will be even better positioned to benefit from the changes.

[netmeg]

I'm not sure that's true in every niche, at least I've heard not, but I haven't seen it for myself.

[backdraft7]

Agree about the mobile bit...I was shocked to find how many 0s (zero second) mobile visits I have. Gonna need to retool my menu buttons for better mobile accessibility.

[Robert Charlton]

a huge shift toward mobile

Clearly, there's a significant trend.

I'm with netmeg in believing that it may not be true in all niches, but I believe that some of the medium sized portable devices are going to speed this development up everywhere.

It might help to note, without getting too specific, what niches are being affected by a shift to mobile.

[xcoder]

It might help to note, without getting too specific, what niches are being affected by a shift to mobile.

Trade and health services, institution and BM shops (opening times and addresses pages in particular), TV/Cinema/Events guides... etc. etc.

I think it would be safe to assume that most if not all websites must be mobile friendly nowadays.

[backdraft7]

@RC - sites that sell technical documents or detailed drawings normally read on a larger monitor might be negatively affected by mobile influx.

[ohno]

Host crowding seems to have reduced again this morning? Yesterday turned out to be a typical Thursday, slow with low conversions.

[Martin Ice Web]

xcoder - we do not have knowledge graph installed in goo*.de, there must be another reason for the growing image searches.

[ohno]

Also seeing increased image search hits. Return of foreign traffic too over night/this morning. Can anyone else confirm they see reduced host crowding today?

[Jez123]

Some searches seem less and some are still ridiculous. I have one here that the top four results are so spammy it's incredible. How they get away with it I don't get

[ohno]

I'm not sure it about gettinmg away with it, for some sreach terms we are the victim of host crowding. I say victim because if anyhting we see reduced traffic & conversions when we fill page 1! Today has been awful, the worst Friday in some time. Traffic well down & conversions non existtant. I can't see any big shake up in the SERP's so I guess everyone is busy buying & playing with IPhone 5's..........

Or Google rolled out yet another mess, sorry, quality update :)

[gehrlekrona]

Yep.... Another sh***y day. Just can't figure out what is wrong with the site. For everything that we fix that is wrong according to WMC we hey slammed it seems. I see a huge rise in pages blocked by robots.txt but nothing has changed and there are a lot of Google hits to non existing.g pages... Am I broke or Google?

[ohno]

I doubt anything is wrong with you. We have done nothing. Zilch. Yet the weeks can be good or bad. We were doing quite well midweek but that got slammed Thursday, today has been dire. The week has ended average now. It very frustrating as on a good day we are rocking....

[diberry]

It might help to note, without getting too specific, what niches are being affected by a shift to mobile.

This'll be obvious, but sites to do with shopping, retail, entertainment and restaurants/food - anything people might look up while they're out shopping, looking for a place to eat, trying to find a movie/concert/event to go to.

I don't mean ecommerce sites, btw. I mean product review, price comparison, that kind of thing. I only shop on my smartphone from apps, because it's hard to use it to shop on websites, and even with apps I don't really trust them yet. I'm sure some of the younger visitors do, though, and that's where things are heading.

So it's not just that your site needs to be mobile friendly - some sites are going to need smartphone apps to stay competitive.

Apologies if this is off-topic - Robert_Charlton, should we maybe start a thread about this elsewhere?

[HuskyPup]

This'll be obvious, but sites to do with shopping, retail, entertainment and restaurants/food - anything people might look up while they're out shopping, looking for a place to eat, trying to find a movie/concert/event to go to.

I have never, ever used my smart phone when out and about to do any of the above...am I simply organised and do not need to do this or is there an entire breed of idiot lemmings out there?

[ohno]

lol, did you not see the queues this morning for the iPhone 5? That should tell you all you need to know.........

[1script]

is there an entire breed of idiot lemmings out there?

Idiot lemmings they aren't but my kids are routinely going out to eat, start driving and THEN start figuring out where they are going and how to get there. I chalk it up to the enormous amount of choice they have in this densely populated metropolitan area. Almost makes no difference where you are going, you'll eventually get SOMEWHERE decent enough. And yes, smartphones would be used for both checking out reviews as well as navigating there. What scares sh*t out of me is that it's all done while driving.

Anyway, I'm seeing plenty of mobile traffic too, but I have not seen a single mobile user conversion to a buyer yet. I assume this is what they are - window shoppers.

[Jez123]

OT slightly but maybe this is why google are changing to a more mobile biased SERP? [youtube.com ]

[netmeg]

My main niche is events, more than half my traffic is mobile now.

But my clients are almost all B2B and they're getting a lot of mobile too - mobile ecommerce on tablets, not phones. I think more companies and institutions are outfitting their employees with tablets now, instead of or in addition to computers. We track mobile revenue in analytics, and for the big site it jumped from three figures in 2011 to five figures in 2012. That's people completing our checkout process on tablets.

[gehrlekrona]

I don't want to jinx myself but today was the best day since July. Funny how it coincides with a response to a reconsideration request that says that there were no manual spam action taken. HMMmmm.
I have 39.3% Safari and mobile browsers visiting so it's a lot. I visit my site daily on my phone (Andriod) so I think it is OK. The only thing I had to fix was scrollbars where the site wouldn't scroll. I buildt an app that people can download wich is a "mini site" which might help in visitors.
Anyway, the rise in traffic could just be that it was Saturday but hopefully it will last for a while since I have been trying hard to fix things that I as a user didn't like.

[Whitey]

what niches are being affected by a shift to mobile

Everything that has a location component in it that can be mapped. That's a large chunk of the SERP's.

Most of that is susceptable to being applied to Google assetts [ or Google real estate ] at the expense of regular SERP's. Every profit upgrade, smacks of expansion at the expense of these markets.

If you can't pay for your presence, I don't think Google really cares about you and visitors won't notice your gone, unless your a brand, and then what do you need the SERP's for.

[ohno]

I don't want to jinx myself but today was the best day since July. Funny how it coincides with a response to a reconsideration request that says that there were no manual spam action taken. HMMmmm.

Now that IS funny because I've experienced the same on more than one occasion! Almost like they have a boost button in response to these requests, it doesn't last though. (& I've seen this happen over two domains!).

[nomis5]

OT slightly but maybe this is why google are changing to a more mobile biased SERP?

Brilliantly funny youtube post! When he sticks the 3 foot long iphone in his pocket and walks off - pure genius! And the accents and music are spot on.