Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2012

[ethought]

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

Hi All - First time poster long time lurker.

The sites I run have been decimated by this last change (or changes). All affiliate sites, many with good articles, great product browsing, responsive design etc. Traffic is down 90% overnight - conversions on whats left are terrible! Never ever seen it this bad. If Google are trying to eliminate affiliate sites they did a pretty good job on mine.

I have lots of EMDs which were hit hard, but also many non EMD sites that were also hit hard.

Almost seems like Google is trying to confuse us by giving us a Panda update 10 or so days ago, closely followed by EMD destruction and Image update... Now its really getting tricky to figure out what actually caused the drop in traffic, let alone recover.

I'm still sorting through the debris trying to figure out why some sites survived and the majority didn't.

[edited by: tedster at 4:37 am (utc) on Oct 1, 2012]

[moxie]

That will be a very hard habit to break

Not as long as G keeps on firing crappy results at them.

Go G!

[ohno]

I'm not so sure. I think G can serve up any old crap & Joe Public still keeps on using them.

[xcoder]

While I love this sentiment it is going to take a LONG time for people to start using Bing in a big way I think

You'd be surprised....

With bing built into the op system in Win7 and now Win8 the tides are quickly shifting.... add to that the great word of mouth so many happy webmasters keep on pumping to their friends and families about goog and their agenda and there you have it. Google is on the way out... It is not an "if" just a "when"...

My bet is on 12-24 months top! trends can shift really really fast in the online world...

P.S.
Seeing increased Facebook bot activity across many websites too lately. Almost daily visits from Facebook now...something is definitely cooking in that department too...

[petehall]

Still no Panda update, are they now just updating every 2 month to see if that would get even more webmaster out of business :)

@zeus if you look at the pattern this year, we had Panda updates in Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr then skipped May. After this we've had updates in Jun/Jul/Aug/Sep - so perhaps October is being skipped?

Also there were two updates in September and two in April around the same dates.

If you follow this logic, the next Panda run will be around the 7th-9th of November.

I'm probably wrong but it's an interesting observation.

[zeus]

petehall - you are probably right, also with the Panda system change and update right after in sep., still I would like to see a refresh every month.

[petehall]

still I would like to see a refresh every month

My thoughts exactly... hopefully they will run the update soon.

[moxie]

If you follow this logic, the next Panda run will be around the 7th-9th of November.

I'm probably wrong but it's an interesting observation.

Interesting indeed; will be keeping my eye on this. Thanks for that info petehall!

[Bewenched]

Regarding my table heavy site.

Still working on the redesign, taking the chance to methodically go though our code and fix any potential problems that could arise in the future.

I know css and divs were good, but honestly there are times when you have to rely on tables because of design stability and css and divs don't always save on page weight.

One thing i have noticed recently in the serps in our industry is that the top sites have VERY minimalistic pages. No bells, no whistles.

Some of the pages I cant even figure out how Google ever found them on their site.

Example. A product page with one 400x400 image.
about two sentences of information if that. The price and an add to cart button.

Where as our site has very detailed and well laid out product information so that you can find info at a glance. 1-9 images each, information on what the product fits or works for. And a related items tab so they can easily find more parts like it.. aka cross selling.

As a customer if I were to go to a site, drill down all the way through to a product and have no way to go back to the search results other than by clicking the back button or the home link, I would be very frustrated.

Maybe I really shouldn't be building for our customers. :(
Our site is down 20% this month and it's horrible. The majority of our sales are coming from Google product listings and only maybe 1-50+ actually convert.

Bings conversion rates are much better for us and their product listings are free for now and their results we rank fairly well. Just a matter of time before the general public goes "Bing" and done.

[SnowMan68]

All this talk about people moving to Bing and that bing serves better results is silly to me. I see the same brand bias, product listings and other junk scattered through the Bing serps too. Bing really doesn't do it better. The grass is not greener on the other side. Google is search and search is Google. People don't search on the internet, they "Google It". It might suck, but it is what it is.

[onebuyone]

SnowMan: majority of webmaster didn't ever have anything to do with Microsoft as proffesional developers. Microsoft is not better than Google and You don't want MS in search.

[xcoder]

Google is search and search is Google.

Nonsense. The news about google becoming a dang hole are spreading and spreading fast.

Statistically, i see more and more bing referrals every day which to me prove that their numbers are definitely improving...

Google is on the way out.

[klark0]

@xcoder

Seriously, how can you believe a company making a 100 million a day is on the way out. Talk about nonsense.

The real statistics show Bing is pretty much taking some of the share from Yahoo as it continues on a year long decline. Google's share of the market has held rock steady, and that's not even counting mobile ..where it dominates 90%.

[zeus]

Well I also dont believe that google is on the right track, not that bing is better, but more try it be cause google is getting worse. A simple thing as domain crowding, no normal user wants to see that

[xcoder]

Seriously, how can you believe a company making a 100 million a day is on the way out.

One word "trends"...

Check: "Blackberry", "Nokia", "Lycos", "Alta Vista" etc.

[moxie]

Statistically, i see more and more bing referrals every day

I can confirm that we're seeing the same thing.

[xcoder]

A simple thing as domain crowding, no normal user wants to see that

No normal user wants to see SERPs that look and light up like a Christmas tree either, full of ads, maps, image ads, mouse over effects and lots of great websites that used to be there but now hide under a pile of hidden agenda on page 500...

Google sound and look like a jeapsy market nowadays... people do see that.

[edited by: xcoder at 10:03 pm (utc) on Oct 30, 2012]

[seoskunk]

Bing has to reach a tipping point to outrank Google. THis may include targeting a segment of the market as Pepsi did against Coke. The slogan "choice of a new generation" was no accident. It targeted the young and Pepsi branded Coke as something your parents drink. We have already had bings version of the "Pepsi Challenge".......

[xcoder]

Bing has to reach a tipping point to outrank Google.

Bing needs our support that's all. Just keep mentioning it to your friends and family... that's all it takes...

[seoskunk]

Bing needs our support that's all. Just keep mentioning it to your friends and family... that's all it takes...

Yeah but I use Google

[klark0]

One word "trends"...

You can't use your website referrals as a measure to forecast how Google is doing. You have to look at the whole picture, or at least a sizeable chunk of it.

The original comment is true. Google is search, and search will be Google for a very long time.

Bing has to reach a tipping point to outrank Google. THis may include targeting a segment of the market as Pepsi did against Coke. The slogan "choice of a new generation" was no accident. It targeted the young and Pepsi branded Coke as something your parents drink. We have already had bings version of the "Pepsi Challenge".......

Well clearly that didn't work out so well for them. Coke won. In fact, Pepsi is now #3 behind Diet Coke. :D

[seoskunk]

Well clearly that didn't work out so well for them. Coke won. In fact, Pepsi is now #3 behind Diet Coke..

Well Coke kinda won by default, see Steve Jobs poached the man behind Pepsi's success (they did outsell Coke for a year) and employed him with the famous pitch "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life?".

John Scully then went on to sack Steve Jobs from Apple.....

[xcoder]

You can't use your website referrals as a measure to forecast how Google is doing.

Ofcourse i can.

More then ten websites on a number of different topics and markets. Mostly ecom.

I've been in this industry for more then 14 years now. I know shifting sand when i see one...

More bing referrals, deeper pages crawled , increased bing crawling frequency and fast growing index size.

It is happening...

[xcoder]

Yeah but I use Google

It's ok not everyone is perfect... :-)

For some great inspiration, think about someone like MC filtering and card fixing your results the next time you use them...

[Wilburforce]

Bing referrals have increased on my site, but are still a long way from what you might call a tipping point (about 1/6 of total google.com + google.co.uk).

Also, I now use Bing by default, but on some searches Google is still better. Not for finding engine oil for my van this morning, however: all the Google results were for oil filter (did you see the word filter in my search? I don't think so!), so they are still doing their bit to help the tipping point along.

[Martin Ice Web]

Google's share of the market has held rock steady, and that's not even counting mobile ..where it dominates 90%.

Since penguin poeple do have to search more with google because they donīt find the things they search for. This is a self made big blown up search bubble by google. I think 30% of searches are because googles results are very worse and a company making 100 Million Dollar a day should do better.

" Never trust a statistic that you did not fake on your own"

[petehall]

I'm seeing updated results this morning, looks very much like a Panda update started overnight here in the UK. Anyone else?

[Martin Ice Web]

@petehall, i see it too. -50%. Germany, ecom

[gehrlekrona]

Same here.... no reason to even keep the site(s) anymore if it wasn't for Bing and Yahoo. In my "Search Engine Wars" stats GOOG has 9%, Rediculous. I thought maybe because of the storm we had/have that visitors would go down but it looks like GOOG is going down instead.

[SnowMan68]

I would suspect the US sites, especially ecom sites in the USA would be experiencing down traffic with the hurricane that just went through the Northeastern part of the USA. That area is heavily populated and represents a good portion of our ecom business. With over 8,000,000 customers without power it could definitely mean traffic numbers would be down for sites that rely primarily on US referrals.

[Martin Ice Web]

@Snowman, that makes sense. But we are located in good old europe ( like petehall ). Also we see lot of foreign traffic ( danemark, swiss, austria... ).

I think someone did play again with the nobs. It is frightening to see how googles quality guidelines change from on second to another. Site just ok, next second the site violates against googles guidelines?!