Google Updates and SERP Changes - February 2013

[petehall]

< continued from [webmasterworld.com...]

Not just location screwing things up... all web browsers are now using your history to distort results, even with Web History switched off. Only way to check the real results now is Chrome Incognito.

That and the location issues are really screwing things up. If I type in weather, G gives me weather for Windmill Hill, UK... I don't even know where that is. I looked and its 200 miles away at the other end of the UK!

[edited by: tedster at 2:08 pm (utc) on Feb 1, 2013]

[Convergence]

So am I the only one to see an unusually slow day today? Slow like "no
user interaction whatsoever". Yesterday was good, today the switch was noticeably shut off again. With the snow storm on the east coast, you might think everyone would be home surfing the web, unless power is out. Anyone?

Ditto...

[helenp]

This is really sad, I wonder if this is on purpose, looks like political.....only big companies should survive, my and not only mine, most local companies homepage in spanish search fallen to page 4. And it is really incredible view all sites on first pages are big internacion or nacional sites. The small local sites are just disappeared, and they are the ones giving good service. All sites are like this country/businessabout/city or city/busineesabout,
where all all sites city-businessabout?

[edited by: helenp at 8:54 am (utc) on Feb 8, 2013]

[Martin Ice Web]

@backdraft, site views are up, interacting is very, very low, nearly no phone calls, mails.... but we have Karnevall these days, so most poeple are not working the next 4 days....

ecom, germany

[Wilburforce]

The small local sites are just disappeared

Oddly, I would say the opposite applies in my sector. The first big business - probably UK's largest - appears on page 2, but the next doesn't show until page 9. The majority are small businesses with small sites and next to no content.

There is, at least, a break in google.co.uk's preoccupation with Derby.

[helenp]

Oddly, I would say the opposite applies in my sector. The first big business - probably UK's largest - appears on page 2, but the next doesn't show until page 9. The majority are small businesses with small sites and next to no content.

The business I am in is very competive, rentals and sales,
and mine and most local are small companies, but not small sites without nearly no content.
My site is about 1000 pages, and the difference with the big companies is that we and other sites same as mine are experts in the town. But not less value, I would say more value.

[Wilburforce]

we and other sites same as mine are experts in the town. But not less value, I would say more value

That, for me, is a major issue. Expertise is of considerable value. Today's #1 site for Key Term in my sector could be described as a couple of teenagers with no previous experience in the industry.

It may have something to do with Google's recent downgrading of exact-matches in favour of synonyms: this favours sites with inexact descriptions. While this may match searchers who do not know how to describe what they are looking for with service providers who don't know how to describe it either, it doesn't work well for the rest of us.

[Panthro]

Had a slow day yesterday too. And I'll echo the observations on higher referrals from Bing/Yahoo. These are mostly on local searches.

[gracealex]

After 31st Jan,my keywords are out of rank.Infact not in 1000.Strange :o( .Overall results are visible like profiles and google places result also.Why Places results are visible on web search?

[Str82u]

Getting toward the middle of the month, Ask and Yahoo/Bing traffic trailing slightly but Uncle Googley's making up for some of it.

Why Places results are visible on web search?

Usually those are used in local search results or results when a local business might also apply but not always, they have been in regular search results for a long, long time now.

[petehall]

I see very messy SERPs. Also some missing pages on some searches. My guess is this will be resolved on the next update. I certainly hope so anyway...

[Panthro]

Seeing some significant changes today

[1EightT]

They stopped crawling on a large scale. When I see this there is almost always an update rolling out.

[rubinetto]

I'm also seeing some big SERP movements today.

[crobb305]

I'm seeing numerous redirect urls listed in the serps. I thought Google resolved this in 2005, but I guess it's acceptable now. I count 7 in the top 100 on a competitive phrase in the financial sector. I gave up on sending info to Google to help them "improve the quality" since they clearly don't read the submissions.

[Martin Ice Web]

I noticed a shift yesterday, too. In my niche stupid
condition guides took over the first page? Added value? A condition guide for a specific item you did not search for?
I´m looking forward to see how they call this HQ update.

ecom, germany

[kheadley]

I am seeing some really big movements for a few sites today, all that have had previous penguin/panda penalties.

[sam1450]

It is really weird - my main keyword has dropped from 3 to 18 and hasn't moved. Everything else is going up and down on a daily basis still.

I have re-submitted my sitemap but am getting really concerned! Why is it only 1 keyword that is being so badly hit?

[Wilburforce]

I am seeing some really big movements for a few sites today

In which direction?

[kheadley]

In a positive direction, which is nice finally.

[Wilburforce]

Something Strange is still happening with links reported in WMT. The links I disavowed - which were gone a few days ago - have now returned, in the company of a few more from the same site (I disavowed the domain).

The high-quality links (which had also disappeared) have now returned, and total backlinks have gone up 25%.

Also, Key Term (which had disappeared completely in backlink refs) is back. This probably explains the movement of my Home page in a positive direction: from page 46 to page 45. I would order some champagne, if I could still afford any.

[tedster]

Wilderforce, changes in WMT reporting - especially types of changes reported by many people - usually do not have any effect on the SERPs. The WMT reports are secondary reporting features and are not always representative of the data used in calculating the rankings. In fact, WMT is down-right buggy at many times.

[Wilburforce]

Thanks Tedster.

Just now I reckon the SERPS are down-right buggy, unless the leaflet I received yesterday makes sense of them. It says:

"You know who wants a haircut? People searching for a haircut.

Maybe that's why ads on Google work. Try a Google ad today...."

It doesn't add "...because nobody is going to find you any other way", but perhaps it should.

[ck77]

I saw our Norwegian subdomain take a bit of a hit at the beginning of the month. We dropped from positions three and five to ninety five and ninety eight for two of our main phrases. We then removed all the links from two IPs that linked to us extensively.
Checked again yesterday and they are right back to where they were before. We even improved rankings on a couple of other phrases too.
Cool huh?

[couponzguru]

What I follow is, whenever i need to check exact rankings, clear all the cache and history of the browser and check rankings on the country specific google page. It gives me accurate results.

[Panthro]

A little too quiet in here.

[nikhilman]

Hello,

I am seeing that my few of keywords are jumping out. Is Matt Cuts giving another gift of Valentine after new year's one ?

[edited by: tedster at 4:25 am (utc) on Feb 16, 2013]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[Pudders]

Since Feb 14th our SERPS in the UK have dropped a little and a lot of "Yell" & "Gumtree" ads have appeared..

I can't remember who posted on the board but I remember them saying that the pattern at the moment is we spend a few weeks working to climb back up the SERPS and then G go and roll out yet another update and push us back down again!

It also amazes me that the EMD update has made no difference to people in our industry and yet they still have spammed out sites and sub pages that appear in most key searches.

At the moment I feel that people like us that play by the rules end up doing the most work and yet crappy spammed out sites still remain up in the ranks.....go figure... ho hum....

Is it me but do you have a week where you feel you've done some great updates and got some great new strategies and you think "yea... this should get me some nice G Juice"... and then... BOOM... back down you go!

So do we wait a week or two, work on new SEO techniques or throw ourselves under a bus?!

Sorry to go on but if the majority used Bing.. we'd be fine! Our SEO techniques obviously favour to Bing... so why not G? Go figure...

[Wilburforce]

if the majority used Bing.. we'd be fine!

In the short term I have to agree (and as already reported my own logs show signs that there is some user drift in that direction, although it is slight).

However, I don't think we can assume that any search engine will forever keep pace with the massive growth in data, or that the problems Google is trying to fix will never affect Bing.

Part of the difficulty is that both Google's algorithms and consumer searching behaviour evolve interactively.

The current penalties seem to affect a lot of people that previously enjoyed favour (not just posters here: as I trawl through to my current page 46 position, I notice that at least half of the sites that used to be vying with me for the top space on page 1 are on e.g page 38 now).

To me - and probably to most searchers - the current favourites are less relevant (and arguably spammier) than the old guard, but it is fairly obvious that what was given priority in SERPS has changed. Two things I guarantee:

1. It will not change back to how it was before;
2. It will change again.

The best strategy, if Google SERPS are vital, is to try to understand and move with the current evolutionary trend.

However, I didn't give Google any thought at all in deciding what sort of business to be in: Google has just been one (major and successful) marketing tool until now. Getting obsessed with Google - I recognise I am as obsessed as most of the posters here - is in many respects taking my eye off the ball. All businesses need successful marketing to survive, but marketing isn't why we are here, or what makes a good business.

[backdraft7]

"You know who wants a haircut? People searching for a haircut.
Maybe that's why ads on Google work. Try a Google ad today...."

Then why when I search for a haircut am I finding lawn mowing services?

[Wilburforce]

Then why when I search for a haircut am I finding lawn mowing services?

Brilliant! I will be sniggering intermittently about that for days!

I didn't actually check - and anyway, I should have thought anyone wanting a haircut would search for a barber or hairdresser - but now that I look, I couldn't get a haircut from any of the top ten results.