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]

[ohno]

Morocco
Romania
Argentina
Colombia
Malaysia
Greece
etc. etc.

xcoder, looks like you've joined our club! I've checked our foreign visits & some are from their own country & others are from google.com. Nevermind, it's Google's 14th birthday and we have a silly bloody cake on the homescreen. Joy, it was our 10th birthday in business this year, I doubt we'll see 11 at this rate. I'm not one to say "Google is broken" but when you see some of the junk traffic/results that are out there it's hard to ignore. Even Product Search is full of spam now with listings to products taking users to a price finder website which isn't even live yet(just a holding page!) rather than ANY product page! (which kinda smarts when we had our feeds disabled like many others for over a week with no explanation from Google).

One thing I have noticed is one stats program we use lists the referer URL if it isn't blocked by Google, for some searches this program claims the SERP result was #66, when I check the same search term with various tools it claims we are page 1 # 4.

[themistral]

Another quick update - it seems all our foreign traffic is showing up as direct!
I've read a few things about this, and it could be that is actually PPC traffic - something about the ads not being set up correctly...

That would certainly make sense - foreign direct traffic absolutely doesn't!

If Google IS sending traffic from PPC non UK sites, that is taking the mickey something chronic.

However, our normal PPC traffic is segmented correctly, so not really sure what to do about it...

[Martin Ice Web]

Typical thursday. Traffic -50% and untargeted. I am thinking of move the weekend from saturday to thursday.

[petehall]

I am seeing some really strange results here in the UK.

Seems that location is playing a part on more searches than ever.

I thought one of my sites had disappeared until I changed my location... please don't tell me the latest idea is to serve results within X miles radius.

I know this has been in play for years for certain terms, but this seems to be far more widespread.

[gehrlekrona]

@petehall, I am afraid that that os the case. I have said for a long tome that goog wants a big piece of local ads and since mobile devices having mote and more of the market and have Google GPS enabled, you can actually use streetview and get all offers on your search while driving their driverless cars. Isn't that a bright new future?

[petehall]

But I don't want local results... I want the Internet, the World Wide Web. The whole of the UK @ least.

This is what made the Internet so great, after all.

[fabulousyarn]

We noticed this too - so we changed the radius we wanted our ads to be showed at - I think it helped.

[Splugged]

No traffic today.
G, you're my idol!

[ohno]

This kinda touches on the default search setting which in my case (everyone?) seems to be search the web? Why not default to the country for which search engine was used, ie, I'm searching on google.co.uk why not display results for the UK as default & allow me to switch to www? I wonder if this is why we see so many forign visitors? Searchers who are assuming because they are using google.com (for eg) are seeing results from the USA only?

[SnowMan68]

Feels like a possible update rolled through yesterday. Maybe Penguin related.

We have a heavily penquined site that jumped about 25% yesterday. Has been steady in the dumps.

Our biggest ecom producer also jumped up about 10% and today is up about 15%. Something big is going on.

[Jez123]

where are you SnowMan68? I am not seeing anything on my major keywords

[Jez123]

Well, (adding to the above) I might be but it's all from other than UK google! Useless in other words

[Wilburforce]

Almost anything I search for gives me half a dozen "places" results based on my ISP server's location (over 100 miles from me) at the top of the page.

Presumably this places even my own page 1 results below the fold for many searchers and searches.

If there is some way of turning this off they have now buried it, and the "help" menus are a hindrance. For example: "You can see what your results look like without personal content by clicking the globe button on the top right-hand side of your search results page." It would help if there was a globe button anywhere on the page.

They may think they know what I want better than I do, but I know they don't.

[petehall]

Feels like a possible update rolled through yesterday. Maybe Penguin related.

We have a heavily penquined site that jumped about 25% yesterday. Has been steady in the dumps.

Our biggest ecom producer also jumped up about 10% and today is up about 15%. Something big is going on.

I'm with you SnowMan... something big is going down.

I'm seeing changes in UK SERPS across many verticals. Perhaps the Penguin is here!

[ohno]

Two domains seeing 30% traffic increase today. Never lasts though does it?

[SnowMan68]

I am in the US. I am not seeing a ton of movement on our sites for short tail. It is all in the long tail.

[GodLikeLotus]

Our google traffic is like a yo-yo. It's as if someone is flicking a switch on and off.

[ohno]

Our google traffic is like a yo-yo. It's as if someone is flicking a switch on and off.

They probably are while they party on down........

[Jez123]

I have been seeing an increase in long tail stuff but none from where I want it to be! All over the world but none where it might do some good

[chalkywhite]

Good traffic yesterday, best in 6 months, same today HOWEVER, I get an hours amazing traffic, 15-20 people on site at a time, then on the hour mark drops to 2-5, then again on the hour boom back to 15+

[klark0]

20% increase in traffic on a Penguin hit site yesterday. Increase is also holding today.

[gehrlekrona]

Crappy so far today but there seem to be a lot of internet/isp/DNS errors yesterday and today.

[MelissaLB]

We are seeing a drop in traffic today. about 30% of google traffic gone compared to yesterday and the day before. Compared to Last Year we are down 50% and 2 years we are down 70% in google. This is crazy! we are a retailer, we are losing rank because of syndicate partners ranking above us with our own content!

[Splugged]

It 's true. Traffic seems to be a roller coaster.
Probably they are eating birthday cake (14th) with their fanboys (uuhh... a lot...) and is taking care that someone has rested his elbow on the "reset" button...

[backdraft7]

I think what every is seeing from day to day is just the "new and improved" Google Everflux. Well, it's new alright, but it sure hasn't improved for many of us. No buyers in daylight hours now, just after 5pm. It's as if Google is hording daytime traffic somehow to pipe it through their Adsense labyrinth.

[johnhh]

My September rambling, looking for trends – been a bit of a ride this month.

Day to Day: major +/- % changes in traffic compared with same day previous week, especially Thursdays

URL crowding: still going on, even if URL is different TLD or other URL owned by same major brand

Sites with a free ticket to the SERPS: I know these sites get a helping hand if generate revenue for Google, getting a bit obvious now.

+/- 3 places in SERPS: almost daily, I discount these changes

Checking the SERPS for your keyword: given up due to personalisation and localisation, not worth the time, so look at total traffic instead.

Throttling: 14:00, oh what a good day traffic wise, 24:00 = normal Panda day. Unless everyone in the UK only uses Google in the day time and not in the evening… think not

Useless pages: pages that say ‘sorry we have no info on these widgets’ dominate

Wrong result returned for query: Google says nope we think you mean this…

Dumb down articles, create multiple pages: this seems to have an effect

Adverts above the fold/back link buying: Unless you have done this aggressively you should be OK, all things in moderation.

Adding loads of new content or user tools: seems to dilute Panda a bit if it can be crawled

Scrapers ranking higher: seems to be a by-product of Panda

Increase Social media efforts: nope no effect

Googlebot: major crawls, not just for one day but for several

27.09.12 – major, major, changes going on

Note: UK site, decade + online, hit by Panda
Net result – today has probably been the worse day since we started

[matrix_jan]

Definitively something happened starting from around midnight PST.

I saw the new interface once again yesterday, the one with drop-down menus, this time query count was present. I'm not sure, but the results seemed different from the current layouts.

[Hollywood]

Agree with matrix_jan. "Definitively something happened starting from around midnight PST."

[xcoder]

^ something happens every 12 hours... ever(super)flux...

[Splugged]

Yo-Yo

+/- around 100/300 positions for main keywords...