Google Updates and SERP Changes - Jun 2013

[epmaniac]

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

[edited by: tedster at 3:52 am (utc) on Jun 2, 2013]

[rj87uk]

Who knows, not Google. I think it could take a while as there are many things they need to address. My guess is between a month or two but that's really just a guess.

[HuskyPup]

When should the results be somewhat stable again?

The SERPs are in the laps of the GG, Google Gods, they've created this unholy mess and I think, from what I'm seeing moving around, they're attempting to sort some of it out but the problem is, of course, as soon as they resolve one thing they create another problem elsewhere.

They really need to take things back to basics, IF they can, and rebuild their entire database, which is a darned more difficult to do than just write about it.

I'm not even sure which way I would go about it however I know I'd probably stop adding so many new sites and pages so fast and I'd certainly be looking at all the garbage hosted on blogger. They've got the money to do it, this isn't about being able to afford it, it's about clearing all the crap abusers out of their, yes THEIR SERPS.

Posters keep pointing out that it is Google's business, of course it is but for how much longer will they have one if they don't sort it out? Things could move extremely fast if more unsavoury Google revelations come forth.

[gouri]

I am seeing some movement for long-tail searches.

[taberstruths]

As I suspected, the drop I was seeing yesterday afternoon has recovered again. That is pretty typical when an update rolls out. It has a short term effect on my site but is soon corrected.

[diberry]

Google's dominance is really unfortunate, I think. I do believe it's had regrettable effects on online business - not just by hurting small/smallish businesses, but by generating a whole universe of websites that exist only because Google's there to make money off of (as a searcher, I hate these sites).

But it is what it is, and all we can do is try to work around it. I'm not in B2B, but I am seeing a shift in informational sites - people want to know who's doing that product review or claiming their tutorial is really the best method for painting widgets. It's not the cult of personality that we saw when blogs became a profitable niche of their own - it's, why should I believe you? Who are you, what do you know? Why should I trust you?

When the economy's doing well, many people can afford to be as gullible and ridiculous as they want to be. When it gets bad, (a) people can't afford to get taken for a ride and (b) there are more people trying to take them for more expensive rides. People are starting to doubt that search results can tell them who they should do business with or listen to (duh, for those of us who already understood what search does). They're also starting to doubt that "customer reviews" can be trusted.

This is a new experience for the web - after almost unlimited boom for nearly 20 years, finally people are looking at it skeptically. Unfortunately this may be too little too late for some of you (I hope not, and wish you all well), but it's a long overdue change that could have some permanent effects.

[Mac_Guy]

My 2 cents: Nothing will change, this plan from G has been orchestrated long time ago to weed out small to medium biz that brings no income to them. All those animals updates and the "200 signals" is just noise ... That's only a way for them not to get in trouble if one day they would be force to explain publicly their behaviour.
Google = publicly traded company = have to make cash for shareholders.

[ColourOfSpring]

Google share price = $902.60 as I write this - from Google's point of view, things are going swimmingly.

[dethfire]

Agree, what is good for google is not likely what is good for us.

[Mac_Guy]

Myself, I was just starting to get good traffic and conversion and bang ! My visitors and conversion are down 50% since 2, 3 months. I have an e-com in Canada. Built the website myself, took my own pictures for my products, followed Google's rules by the book.

My keywords are always showing on page 1 or 2 of a search, they must be sending me window shoppers not buyers ..

[mike2010]

To those of you experiencing slow drops in rank recently, I can assure you they are temporary. I keep a close eye on all my competition, their backlinks, what ranks they hold daily, etc...

As a side note- I notice right now this forum is very silent. I experienced a drop in rank on the 5th, and have yet to recover.

You just contradicted yourself ;)

On a positive note, the last day or 2....the 2 blog sites of mine that seemed to be sent off to oblivion on June 5th are slowly coming back.

Keyword traffic has been slowly creeping back each day, and back to about 50% now.

Seems to be enough evidence from people posting here that their slowly fixing whatever got severely messed up on 6/5.

Just goes to show we can help each other (and help our e-sufferings) when keeping other webmasters in the loops about day to day trends.

[Martin Ice Web]

We had an alltime low yesterday. It is now -68% from prepanda and today it looks like ist going down further more.

It could be weather related yesterday, cause we had the hotest day 38°, poeple may be not sitting in front of the PC but outside.

ecom, germany

[edited by: Martin_Ice_Web at 7:18 am (utc) on Jun 20, 2013]

[GreenDog18]

The last two days I have seen a nice increase in traffic as well a bump in keywords. Kind of add tho... Started seeing a bump in bing and google traffic at the same exact time.

[tigger]

We had an alltime low yesterday. It is now -68% from prepanda and today it looks like ist going down further more.

It could be weather related yesterday, cause we had the hotest day 38°, poeple may be not sitting in front of the PC but outside.

ecom, germany

I also saw a drop in traffic yesterday but looking at the serps I think mines due to lost rankings and being replaced by spam ....One site thats moved above mine is a links page ! now tell me Cutts what good does ranking a links page on a spammy site offer the surfer ...

I really can't see the current rankings lasting longer than the weekend as G can't be impressed with the rubbish they are offering people - is it no wonder more are seeing Bing traffic increasing

[Jez123]

they must be sending me window shoppers not buyers ..

I don't get this either. Google seem to be able to switch on and off the buy-ability of the traffic they send. Is it time for the tin-foil hats? I have wondered about this for a while. It goes back to the Zombie Traffic phrase. Has anyone got any theories?

My converting traffic was in the on position last week and I had a flood of orders. This week the traffic is similar, apart from a slow day Monday which seems to have picked up, no orders at all. Am I getting paranoid or are google able to pick out the buyers?

I assumed all the good, buying traffic was getting channelled to adwords but when I set up a campaign last year it just cost me a lot of money.

[Martin Ice Web]

@Jez123,

i think it has also something to do with search layout.
On my notebnook with 1600x900px i donīt see one organic result. All entries are adds. And they use a background color that your canīt see the difference on my display.
I think the majority uses 1280x1024px, so there is only one or two organics you can see. And poeple think the first one is the best one, they wonīt scroll down. Unfortunatly the first one in my niche is Amazon. Poeple Amazon is cheapest Price to buy.
That makes two errors in a line.....

[nomis5]

@MartinIceWeb
Agreed. In fact without really noticing it unless you pay nowadays your site will not appear above the fold for most.

The G SERPS are now effectively a set of entries which have been paid for. It has deteriorated to this situation over a long time but the last three months have seen an acceleration.

[Jez123]

unless you pay nowadays your site will not appear above the fold for most.

There are also a lot of ads that will be below the fold in that case. So they are devalued too? That will probably drive up the price of the ads with everyone clamouring to get to the top. I sense an implosion is imminent.

[diberry]

Am I getting paranoid or are google able to pick out the buyers?

We once had a lengthy thread about the zombie traffic and no one could come up with a way Google *could* do this. Which is not to say it's impossible, but while we generally agreed that this thing was happening, we never could figure out why or how.

Just to rule out other possibilities, I'm going to suggest one I suspect you've already examined: any chance your traffic's just not buying this week because of some external event?

[mike2010]

my traffic is dipping again.

what the heck is google doing.

[taberstruths]

As I have said before, if it wasn't Google and free traffic from serps, if instead it was traffic from a paid advertising source, the zombie traffic would be a big red flag concerning the quality and nature of the traffic being sent to the site. One would wonder if the traffic was real targeted traffic or paid ad clickers or browser bots. The only motive I can think of that would cause Google to use these types of traffic is to stave off reports of a loss of market share and overall traffic.

[serpsup]

Feels like an update is rolling through as of yesterday.

Yesterday I had close to no sales, but only a slight decline in traffic. This is the biggest case of "zombie" traffic my site has ever seen. I'm also seeing a complete change in keywords driving traffic and huge crawl spike in WMT.

US ecommerce affiliate - originally hit by Panda 1.0.

[backdraft7]

Ah yes, more Zombie sightings! I like that - it at least validates my theory. I'm still seeing dramatic day parting - it's as if they shut down converting traffic at about 8 am, then "normal" traffic returns after midnight. Most sales are coming in after hours...so what happened to all the "live" customers?

[Shaddows]

We're seeing significant Zs for the first time in about 9 months. But its the SERPs that are causing the most concern.

I'm trying not to get paranoid that ecom is being suppressed in favour of info, at almost exactly the same time G Shopping became entirely PPC.

[chalkywhite]

@serpsup , I concur. Seeing good traffic 1 hour then abysmal the next , then back to to good. Down 35% now since may 9th. Looks like another dip. Will give it a week to settle (again)

[Dymero]

For whatever it's worth, I've never seen evidence of Google shutting down the converting visits. Every time the discussion comes up I look, and things seems fine. Numerous sales throughout the day, other than a couple hours at night.

[JesterMagic]

I noticed another small dip as well yesterday.

[DigiSEO]

It's just dip after dip after dip for me. I rank well in foreign countries, but not the US. Bizarre. I hope Google does a Panda refresh soon.

[mike2010]

This is the biggest case of "zombie" traffic my site has ever seen.

my brain feels like a zombie...dealing with all these highs and lows..

[backdraft7]

We know that many of the "zombies" are mobile users. I'm seeing wild fluctuations from day to day with some days being around 20% mobile users and others upward of 40%. They also seems to be cycling data sets on an hourly basis but have been VERY slow on the uptake of new pages / posts...at least in my vertical. In other words...business as usual at G.

[mike2010]

I wonder what the hold-up is with no PageRank update for the last 5 months or so.

maybe they switched to twice a year. :-/