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]

[Sand]

two of my sites went down 50-70% fast during the Penguin Panda episodes, I never received a report I had any penalties.

You won't receive a notice if you were hit by Penguin or Panda. Well, your analytics will tell you, but Google won't.

[Panthro]

If you have any sites hosted on GoDaddy you're probably seeing a big drop right about now.

[textex]

@Panthro --- We don't...but why is that?

[Sand]

Even if you just use them as a registrar. I don't have any sites hosted with GoDaddy, but I did buy some domains there, and a few are down. Their DNS services are on the fritz.

[netmeg]

Ginormous service outage at GoDaddy, supposedly one of the individual Anonymous types.

[techcrunch.com...]

Reason 149,209,839 to not use GoDaddy for ANYTHING. All I have left are a handful of domains that they're holding hostage on their 60 day no-transfer rule, hence all my URL shorteners are down, but nothing else.

[timwilliams]

luckily there does not seem to be any issues with their security certs.

[Leosghost]

I've got around 200 registered with them, and on their DNS, and about the same on their bluerazor side and again using their DNS..but everything is hosted elsewhere ( I cannot stand their hosting interface..and anyway..you don't host where you reg' )..so far I've checked over 50 ( and counting ) all are resolving OK..

Their own front end isn't though..but everything of mine is set to "auto renew" ...It will stop me registering anything new that isn't a dot fr....'til they fix it ..:)

[crobb305]

BINGO!

Just a casual check yesterday produced two sites that are blatantly using my trade name and copyrighted images from my site in an attempt to "duplicate" pages off my site. Guess what? They OUTRANK ME!

I filed DMCA's against both, but will probably wind up on the "dirty" end of the stick in the end just for filing the reports. Hitting true spammers is fine, but this whole idea of being penalized for undoing what was "standard practice" a few years ago is earning G no love from this cat.

Yeah I'm being outranked for my trademarked company name also, as well as all snippets of my own content. When I look at the Google results, I get a very surreal feeling. It can't be real. I think to myself, "spammy press releases can't really be taking up 25% of the organic real estate on some competitive phrases," but reality sets in as I click through the first 10 pages. It just isn't the Google we knew a few years ago. We are all hoping that the next Penguin update brings back some legitimate websites, because we don't need anymore press releases or Youtube videos to proliferate the search results.

[Jez123]

yes crobb305. I have never seen such crap. It can't be long before users notice can it? I am struggling to believe that google want ridiculous results like this but they seem in no hurry to fix it.

[matrix_jan]

Today I saw a redesigned search result page on google.com when I was at the local university, I don't see it from home. There was no left side panel(with images/maps/news, change location, search tools, ect.), instead everything was put in dropdown lists right above the results and below the search box. Is this new, did anyone else see this before? I had an impression that it was undeveloped because I couldn't see the number of pages G found for the query.

[fabulousyarn]

I am seeing really, really odd traffic pattterns. I'll have four people browsing, then up to 28, then back down - really quite odd - sort of coincides with the weirdness in the search display I've been seeing (sweveral days without imagery) and a bunch of other stuff. My rankings are good, but it doesnt seem to matter....the traffic is unsteady and odd.

[serpsup]

I have also been seeing some wild fluxuations in search results from Google for the past week. Started with a 50-60% drop in Google image traffic, followed by a steady decline in organic search traffic - down ~ 10-25%. Also seems like the non converting traffic in the morning, followed by good performing traffic in the evening is back - as if there are two different sets of visitors.

I believe something major rolled through last week.. surprised there hasn't been any official confirmation yet.

I am a US ecommerce affiliate site, hit by Panda 1.0 originally.

[backdraft7]

Youtube seems to be the new mode of spam. Leave it to the bad apples to find another way to circumvent the algos. Too bad Google isn't very swift on identifying and catching this (and the press release) spam.

[fabulousyarn]

serpsup - I have seen the image thing too = I posted earlier - there were two days where, depending upon what machine/system and location I was using - image product displays didn't appear at all - it didn't affect regular image traffic tho, is that what you mean/? I am getting weird chunks of traffic - an hour or two good, then four hours of ZIP. Odd. I am an etailer, not an affiliate site. I've been hit by everything! :)

[backdraft7]

@fabulousyarn - I'm seeing the exact same on/off pattern. However, I just finished a 5 hour keyword ranking session and I'm again seeing a lot of red. The #1 stuff is holding steady, but a lot of 2,3 and lower positions are moving -1 to -8 lower, so that explains some of the "OFF" part.
For a change I'd love to see a "green" trend.

[chrisv1963]

Youtube seems to be the new mode of spam

A lot of Pinterest spam too. Make a Pinterest page with a good name (= keyword), add lots of images that direct back to your website and you might rank for it. No text needed, only duplicated images ...

For one of the keywords I'm following I'm now seeing 3 Pinterest pages within the first 10 results.

[chalkywhite]

@Crobb, same here, the spike is double the ammount of ay previous crawling, im scared, the last time I saw this ammount of crawling was a panda hit

[mslina2002]

Today I saw a redesigned search result page on google.com when I was at the local university, I don't see it from home. There was no left side panel(with images/maps/news, change location, search tools, ect.), instead everything was put in dropdown lists right above the results and below the search box. Is this new, did anyone else see this before? I had an impression that it was undeveloped because I couldn't see the number of pages G found for the query.

I reported that 3 days ago as well on Sept 7 on pg 3: [webmasterworld.com...]

Google page has changed its layout. Left column moved to top tab, so that all results are shifted to the left and Adwords is more towards the center, closer to the hotspot. Also number of SERPs results are gone. Unless it is also hidden and I can't find it!

Seems that not everyone is seeing it. I saw it only for that one day and it went away. They are probably AB testing to see how well it works. My take is that it will most likely not good for organic listings but good for Adwords and Advertisers conversions.

For a site search I always look at the number of G queries and for them to hide that would be a real *&^()@! I hope they don't do away with it. If they do, you will have no way of knowing how many pages are indexed, size of data pool, etc. For the site:example.com for example I know G always tells you it is an estimate and not an exact number but at least it gives you an idea e.g. 1,000,000 versus 1,000 pages in the index.

[crobb305]

I'm getting a lot of .co.uk and com.au traffic this morning. Useless for me in the U.S., but it's traffic. Previously, it has never amounted to anything, and always fades away in a day or so.

[SEoZa]

Could some of you with heavily penalized sites check to make sure you don't also have a version of the -950 penalty? I have a "for sure" October 11 Panda victim that was also hit by Penguin. I'm positive on both because the exact dates coincide.

This site is also currently suffering a -950 penalty site-wide. I didn't check the 950 angle for a long time after the penalties hit, so I can't be sure when the 950 started. I'm trying to figure out whether the 950 is somewhat common to panda/penguin sites, or if I'm dealing with a third layer of penalty at this point.

[themaninthejar]

How do you get out from under a -950? I've de-optimised and cleaned my site and I've been waiting for over three months for any sign of improvement. Do you need to get fresh links to the penalised site? Will a reconsideration request work if you specifically mention -950?

Or is it a Death Sentence...?

[gouri]

Generally, I think that after changes are made to a site, they are seen in the SERP first and then in the cache versions of the pages.

I have sometimes seen the cache versions of pages showing the changes before the SERP. Have you guys seen this?

[klark0]

After all the activity last week, i was sure there would have been a Penguin update yesterday (monday) ... :/ The wait goes on.

[Hollywood]

MSLINA "My take is that it will most likely not good for organic listings but good for Adwords and Advertisers conversions."

It's all about greed and investors now, this is the way things go for every company once they start moving in stock price. The investors needs more and push for anything to increase $/income.

I am seeing some nice positive better keyword hits coming in again but I have rewritten code for weeks... my site is up 13+ years, I wont let Google kill me.

Best!

[crobb305]

After all the activity last week, i was sure there would have been a Penguin update yesterday (monday) ... :/ The wait goes on.

And something tells me it won't be today since MC is preoccupied with making webmaster videos. I would think a significant update would need everyone's attention at Google.

[fabulousyarn]

chrisv1963: I would say that though I am not a lover of pinterest, my customers love it, and I use it everyday for this reason. I've created separate boards for sales, cool stuff, highlights, etc all tied in with facebook and twitter, and it is making a statistically documentable difference in sales. So, if you can use it, really, it is not maybe always SPAM. :)

Also, I have just been trying facebooks new promotions ads, and they have had a tremendous impact on sales.

[backdraft7]

Mozcast reporting does not line up with my observations. Must just be their niche.

[mh_and]

I'm seeing some very big changes within last week in 2 niches I'm currently monitoring, which are more or less stable and are very competitive. There was certainly a some kind of data refresh, update or whatever we can call it and more likely Penguin related.

I'm monitoring UK SERPs.

[Splugged]

Hello folks,

i'm new on this forum (after a load of messages at google webmaster central... no comment...).

I was reading about foxstart.com on this thread.
I tried to do a search about a keyphrase related to my site... i'm on spot #2 and in google mainstream the same keyphrase is on spot #428 (page 42... page 42!).

What's the difference?
I'm getting crazy about google changes... In my niche I see only spammy and no-content sites on top... aaarghhh!

[Noximus]

one of my site with traffic about 2K day from Google, lost all rankings today. All this time it ranked fine.

The only thing I can say that the problem might be godaddy DNS recent problems. but I do not have their hosting...

How do you think, can godaddy DNS problems may have made problems with Google for my website?

Any feedback welcome and much appreciated!

[edited by: tedster at 7:09 pm (utc) on Sep 12, 2012]