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]

[Kevmark]

is there a planned run through of panada again, am i missing something? is it an update or do they regularly run panda through to check for changes?

[petehall]

@Kevmark there is a Panda refresh at least once a month, sometimes more often. Normally these hit around the 20th and we often see significant changes in results towards the end of the week (UK).

So the signs are there but as with everything G related, as soon as you think you might be understanding it the rules change!

Probably won't be a Panda update for the next 6 months now I've tried to second guess it ;)

[Dymero]

@kevmark

They issue a refresh about once a month to check for changes.

I believe this was the first update to the algorithm, rather than just a refresh of the existing one, since last November. However, I may be wrong on this.

[Kevmark]

Thanks so much for that info, i have done all i can to fix the problem and didnt know when to expect to see changes, least that gives me hope of something, although i expect nothing will happen :(

[andy_boyd]

It would appear there is a fairly significant shuffle going on. I'm looking at results in google.com.au in a competitive niche. Results are shuffling around by the minute, but one thing is consistent: there are at least 2 or 3 UK and US domains in the top 10 that weren't there before. As an example, one result has as many as 5 domains (all brands) from the UK and USA in the top 10. I've also noticed at least one domain heavily demoted.

At this stage, whatever is going on seems to be fairly noticeable... way more than the usual 0.2%.

[ethought]

@andy_boyd

I am seeing some fluctuations here in .au today as well.

On one search for a particular type of shoe I see large affiliate comparison sites dominating. Only 3 unique domains in top 10 results, all large price comparison sites. The actual retailer is on page 5!

[Kevmark]

wow your right, i was going to send a message saying i cant see any movement on my UK or USA website but something is defo happening in AUS, my Aus sites main keyword jumped 42 places to page one today

[Dymero]

Saw something really weird not 20 minutes ago while checking rankings. In place of where my site usually shows up for the keyword was a site related to keyword, but the UK version of the site. Checked page two, and my site was nowhere to be found.

Went back to page one a minute or two later, and my site was finally showing up. Now the UK site was nowhere to be found. Only seen this behavior for that specific keyword so far, and it seems to be happening on and off.

[petehall]

I'm seeing Aus sites in UK SERPs too. Two in the top 10 on one search...

[Sand]

i have done all i can to fix the problem and didnt know when to expect to see changes, least that gives me hope of something, although i expect nothing will happen :(

Best advice I have for you is to keep focusing on the cleanup and do your best to brush off the discouragement (which is really hard to do sometimes). I spent 10 hours a day for 2 months cleaning up my Pandalized site, and about 2 months after I finished making my changes, I finally recovered.

So don't expect it to be an instant thing, and don't lose hope. Keep building and promoting your site while you wait.

[brianp]

I'd say an update is definitely in process--

1) I've noticed a site in our industry that was heavily punished by penguin has started a new site, with a link from the old site (not a 301, a traditional link with anchor text being exact match for keyword phrase) that is now ranked #3 where the punished site was. The only links to this site are from the penguin punished site and a link exchange site.

2) Massive spike in Googlebot crawling activity on our main US ECommerce site. It was like this through all of September, and slacked off in October until yesterday, see image:

[i46.tinypic.com ]

Every time this sort of thing pops up, its not long afterwards that Google is announcing (or not announcing but actually doing) an update.

[SevenCubed]

Seeing lots of changes here today too for stuff I track. My own site just went from #450 to #130 and I have not changed a single word or element on it in 2 years.

[andy_boyd]

@ethought and @Kevmark - Some of the AU results are shocking. I've seen as many as 8 US/UK sites in the top 10. Often these are not even quality sites. Being beaten by a comparison website is one thing, being beaten by a site from another country that's low quality and can't fullfil the needs of AU visitors is another. Hopefully this is a temporary shuffle.

[SevenCubed]

Hopefully this is a temporary shuffle.

It might very well be because that rise to #130 that I indicated above -- it dropped back to #450 again.

I noticed something though. The other day when I saw my site in 450 it was the homepage. When I checked the 450 spot this morning it had been replaced with a sub page. I then went looking for the homepage and found it at 130. Now homepage is back at 450. It looks like the subpage was used as an anchor to hold my spot in line while the iteration was shuffling the deck. I think a clue here is it may be related to multiple levels -100 positions based on various factors. Maybe if I got rid of some minor stuff keeping it down I might float up to 130 without much effort.

Dunno but just some interesting observations.

[Kevmark]

@sand thanks for the encouragment, u have helped, will keep at it with another long day in the office tomorrow, wish i never built so many websites now

[Panthro]

Saw something really weird not 20 minutes ago while checking rankings. In place of where my site usually shows up for the keyword was a site related to keyword, but the UK version of the site. Checked page two, and my site was nowhere to be found.

Went back to page one a minute or two later, and my site was finally showing up. Now the UK site was nowhere to be found. Only seen this behavior for that specific keyword so far, and it seems to be happening on and off.

Interesting. You should contact the owner of that site and compare logs.

[Dymero]

@Panthro

If only that were possible. Said site is a competitor, and THE brand name in the space.

[Panthro]

Too bad. I wonder if this is a clue to the weird traffic patters people are reporting.

[tedster]

I wonder if this is a clue to the weird traffic patters people are reporting.

That was my thought too, Panthro. At the very least it shows something like the wide position fluctuations that Webmaster Tools reports so often - even though the big oscillations in ranking are not easy to see "in the wild."

[Dymero]

@Panthro and tedster

I thought about posting in the zombie topic, but I didn't because I wasn't seeing another result move up, but something completely new replace my site.

Edit: Also, this isn't having an impact on visits or other metrics. They've actually been going up.

[edited by: Dymero at 9:29 pm (utc) on Oct 18, 2012]

[Splugged]

@Tedster, Panthro and Dymero

I'm seeing something similar in my niche.
A competitor site (high relevant, one of the best) replaced by some irrelevant websites. As for now, this site is not in top 100.

[backdraft7]

No weird traffic patterns right now, just really, REALLY poor results in the serps. Whatever happened, my longer tail results have sunk 8 to 10 positions en mass. What is above me is ridiculously poor quality keyword loaded pages. Oh and of course ehow is domain crowding with their trademark "thinness".

[petehall]

I'm seeing significant changes in long tail search here in the UK... along with some quite amusing SERPs!

[petehall]

Edit: Ignore me, I'm being a complete idiot. Please remove this post.

[Kevmark]

Seems like my serps have settled down, since the drop they have been moving up and down.

One day my main keyword im on page 1, next day nowwhere to be seen.

Now they have just settled down on no where to be seen :)

Time to move on i think,

[zeus]

often I get better english results here www.google.co.id

[Donna]

I swear to god local searches are really messed up, for the last 2 weeks I cant find stuff as simple as "glass store cityname" or "hardware location" or similar in local and international google. It's really frustrating , all I get is yelp and 411 and some utter crap , most of the time maps don't even load up.

[viral]

@Donna try searching for European map and a few other map searches. Shows pizza shops in your local area. It has been this way since I went to Europe in May. Was doing research on the places I wanted go and was getting pizza shops in New Jersey LOL! It is still doing this 6 months later I bet it isn't fixed in 12 months!

[moxie]

For months our main site was on page 1 for its main keyword in its niche, but once they started showing only 7 results on the first page, we've been stuck on page 2 at #8. It would be oh so nice if they went back to 10 results there so we could be back on page 1. Meanwhile, while I'm hoping for that, I'll just work harder to get us back there. :)

[Wilburforce]

A competitor who was infringing my trade mark has just dropped from #2 to page 14 for that term, presumably as a result of whatever just rolled through.

No change in my own penalised terms, however.