Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2013

[getcooking]

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

Sunday traffic sucked, Monday was the best Monday in months, now today traffic sucks again. I'm talking a difference of 25K pageviews a day.

What I don't get is that our keyword rankings have been quite stable. How can that be? I mean, ok, so maybe every keyword that I don't track suddenly tanked... but that doesn't seem likely. Are those DDOS attacks on Wordpress sites still going on? (my site isn't Wordpress nor have I noticed any access issues but I know webhosts and ISPs were experiencing bog downs). I just can't figure these fluctuations out. I'm seeing very unstable traffic patterns lately.

[edited by: tedster at 12:41 pm (utc) on May 1, 2013]

[guggi2000]

@scottsonline I don't think it is about user behavior in this case, because the increase of 12% at Amazon happened within 2-3 days, around March 25. It is too sharp and it correlates to the Panda update in March. I know it is annoying to see auto-generated content at the top, but let's not forget: it is still Amazon.

However, we have to focus on what seems to have started on 4/1 or 4/15.

Again, I have to say that looking at the "Alexa-Reach" drop of Google and Facebook and comparing it to the drop I have experienced (drop in direct and referring traffic similar to SE traffic (!) ) I think that it is not only SERP related...

Let's think outside the box: What will happen to user behavior once the new Facebook Mobile App / FB Phone is out? People won't use their browsers as much and that will impact surf behavior.

I am not saying this is the reason, or the Boston marathon (4/15) is or the fluctuation of long tail SERPs is... but one thing is clear: Something has/is changing

[diberry]

I now concur with those that thing the recent shakeups are Panda related. It wasn't that noticeable before, but I can now see in my stats graphs that my Penguin site had another drop in traffic that coincided with a Panda date. It looks like that's the recovery I'm seeing.

[diberry]

guggi2000, I'm going to quote some of your remarks in the internal search thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:05 pm (utc) on May 11, 2013]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[guggi2000]

One more thing:
Our rather thin content (very old, well linked, reference pages, a little bit shallow) were hit by 10% - 15% (A few thousand pages)

Our "great" content (new, long, informative, well written articles) were hit by 60% (50 pages)

Isn't that opposite to Panda?

[guggi2000]

@diberry not following, what do you mean by "internal search thread"? The link points to THIS thread.
.

Mod's note: I fixed the link in earlier post, but I'm leaving this exchange in to preserve subsequent comments.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:11 pm (utc) on May 11, 2013]

[diberry]

Sorry, it's this one: [webmasterworld.com...]

I don't think internal search would explain all of it, but Alexa is about as good a dataset as we have to explore that theory.

[Martin Ice Web]

So, while Amazon's, Ebay's and Wikipedia's changes are probably a result of an update (changes are too sharp), I still wonder why Google's and Facebook's own traffic went slowly down beyond seasonal?

I do not wonder that googles traffic went down. After the last updates 9 out of 10 results are fromn amazon. Poeple are not silly. Once or twice directed to amazon they will stay there. Less searches on google! Facebook. As i know there has been a new app for facebook in march. Maybe its so good that poeple want use the browsers version anymore.

@guggi

One more thing:
Our rather thin content (very old, well linked, reference pages, a little bit shallow) were hit by 10% - 15% (A few thousand pages)

Our "great" content (new, long, informative, well written articles) were hit by 60% (50 pages)

Isn't that opposite to Panda?

I was telling it a few post before. I think its googles way to find information. Panda looks for short information/explanation. Panad is not able to identify good written content from spammy short content.

[chrisv1963]

After the last updates 9 out of 10 results are fromn amazon. Poeple are not silly. Once or twice directed to amazon they will stay there.

Same thing with Pinterest in my niche. Sometimes up to 5 Pinterest results on the first page of the Google serps. That is 50% !

[Str82u]

@guggi2000 - where was Bing in all that? We didn't notice the "Bing it On" campaign getting aggressive on television commercials until the last couple of months I guess (that's just a guess).

[tedster]

Folks, Bing and Pinterest are pretty far off topic for the Updates and SERP Changes thread. Let's keep a focusm please.

[HuskyPup]

Google may be denying that any kind of updates have been going on however in the last few days one of my major sites has lost 70% of its traffic, my second biggest site 30% and my largest site 50% (all image related).

Nah, nothing's happening whatsoever!

[chrisv1963]

Google may be denying that any kind of updates have been going on however in the last few days one of my major sites has lost 70% of its traffic, my second biggest site 30% and my largest site 50%

How were these sites doing before Penguin? I'm asking because my main site benefitted a lot from Penguin (a lot more traffic) and the last few days it dropped back to pre-penguin levels. It's almost like Google switched things back to pre-penguin and is re-calculating something before releasing a Penguin update.

[HuskyPup]

These sites are all corporate, white hat, brochure sites, none of them have any type of trading platform on them and are a global, widget trade brand name and one of the largest global manufacturers and suppliers for the widgets with many being totally exclusive to the brand.

Just want to get this clear, I should know, I own them and I have taken full responsibility for the sites since 1994.

How were these sites doing before Penguin?

Until 5/6th May 2011 things were relatively fine with the occasional knock-back for whatever they thought they were looking for. Two years ago the sites lost 60% of their image traffic overnight with Panda 2.01.

Since then I have seen various iterations of Pandas and Penguins and nearly everytime we have taken some kind of knock and usually in the image area. The end of January new image search hit us hard and image search had been declining since then. It's interesting to note that Google does like my images since they've promoted so many Blogger and WordPress sites and removed me completely.

Once again this week, around about 6th May, I've been hit again and once again it's my images.

Honestly, I don't know what some of us have to do to placate these bozos since they are clearly targetting many of the wrong sites and promoting so much garbage.

Google doesn't owe me a living and I sure as hell don't need Google to live however if the only way Google is going to let people find my sites is by typing in my company name, well damn well tell me so and then I'll lock all the information down, which many architects and specifiers worlwide require, and make it available only to registered users.

I am totally sick and fed-up of their pathetic game of pretending to rule the world when, in fact, they know so very little.

[GeraniumV]

Regarding Penguin - it seemed to fix most of the negative effects of Panda on one of my two sites but it was only good for about 3 to 4 months. Then the site got pushed back again on later iterations of Penguin and Panda.

[Pandacide]

We got hit by Panda in 2011. Reduced our thin-content pages to 1/10th of the pre-panda size and increased our original-content pages by 5x times. Got hit again 5 days before. Traffic down by 25%. However, in all the previous Panda releases, we were rewarded with more traffic

I'd like to find if this is a pattern so that we can remove the 1/10th thin-content pages as well. I don't know if I can conduct a poll here, but would certainly like to know from those who lost traffic if you had left a vestige of the original body of your thin-content pages.

[guggi2000]

@Pandacide I cannot imagine 10% thin content will affect the overall performance. Some thin content can perform very well.

[guggi2000]

Does anyone think that the recent changes have something to do with author rank?

(I have added the author tag to some old pages... and then they dropped... )

[Pandacide]

@guggi2000 This is getting interesting.

We did add authors to our old pages and we got hit.

We did receive a lot of traffic on the 10% thin content pages. I just don't know if G has gone purist and want all out.

Any more people with author links and traffic drops?

[taberstruths]

When I first added the rel=author tag I lost rankings. However over time coupled with the fact that I am now syndicated on other PR5 and over sites as well and have more G+ followers (from less than 100 to almost 400) it has started to affect me in a positive way.

You have to "be somebody" to have authorship help you. If you add it but you are an unknown, then you are just Joe Blow and it will harm your rankings. As my "Klout" score increased, so did my rankings. I am now at 65 from 30 a year ago.

[backdraft7]

@guggi2000 - you're probably not doing it right...you have to add the author tag then participate in over 500 G+ circles to make it stick. From the annoying authorship photos I've seen, all participate in a ridiculous number of circles. That's the ticket for being an "Authority" on Google.

Really, who participates in 600+ circles unless they are out to boost their rank? It's just another form of spam that Google ranks, because it's their product. Listen, I can hear the pom poms winding up.

Posting authorship without first getting cozy with hundreds of circles is like throwing out a 1 ton boat anchor in 1000 feet of water with a 50 foot rope. (Literally,-950)

aaaand GO!


UPDATE: I see TT beat me to the punch on this one...but I will reiterate that this appears to be just another spam method that makes you feel important. It's not based on real knowledge, a degree or anything other than the desire to to use G+ as a tool to improve your rank. (and against what MC usually recommends, DON'T TRY to improve your rank, that's over SEO! lol) It seems to be the "tool de jour" of every eHow author. It's their playground though, so anything goes - now go join 600+ circles and YOU TOO can be an expert on any topic,,,,in Google's myopic eye

[edited by: backdraft7 at 2:03 pm (utc) on May 12, 2013]

[taberstruths]

I participate in 0 circles. That may be the spammy way of gaining authority but I am gaining it the legitimate way.

[guggi2000]

@taberstruths @backdraft7 I am sure that AR helps you only if you "are somebody" (many followers who interact with you).

But why hurt the rankings? I never thought it could have a negative impact, actually I have never read about such a thing.

[taberstruths]

I have never read about it guggi2000 I just am sharing what happened with me. It makes sense though.

[Pandacide]

@taberstruths Was it only those pages where you added authors that got hit initially?

Our hit was secular.

[taberstruths]

@Pandacide I am not sure since I added it to all the pages and I don't track many keywords since I have over 1000 pages all targeted towards keywords in my niche. However it seemed to affect all the top pages I had for high traffic terms.

[Pandacide]

Well. we also don't have our authors participating in any circles. But they do write the content in our site. So, should we just remove the links? I too, am a bit surprised that the linking can work the -vely.

[taberstruths]

If they are do not have a very high "klout" score or they are not syndicated on other trusted sites, I would not keep the rel=author tag. It just gives G info that won't help.

[HuskyPup]

Some thin content can perform very well.

In my widget sector it is 90% thin that IS ranking. Apart from my own sites nearly all the good authority sites have disappeared which leads me to believe that Google cannot cope with the volume of good information out there and has now resorted to the basics of:

keyword in titlebar
keyword image
keyword on page

and that's it!

[guggi2000]

Thin is King

Regarding AR, I have just checked and not found any correlation so far. Please open a new thread about Author Rank's negative impact, unless you think it is related to April/May algo changes...

[Bantamanic]

> Thin is king
>
> keyword in titlebar
> keyword image
> keyword on page

I see lots of evidence for this. Google update April 2012 left me 12th for primary keyword and competitor's main website in 6th with competitor's keyword domain website in 3rd! That website has no relevant backlinks and only 1 page of keyword rich content one link to their main website and you can't even buy the product. It's like going back 7+ years.

What am I supposed to do, re-read Google's guidelines, improve my social SEO, build more links, write more content? Give me a break what do you think I've been doing for the last year Google.