Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2013

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System: The following 3 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4580257.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 9:35 am on Jul 1, 2013 (utc -5)

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RIP Tedster, though I never knew you personally for 8 years now I've learned a lot from your great contributions

[EditorialGuy]

Whatever is rolling out it doesn't feel like Panda. We didn't get the typical deep crawl leading up to it.

Googlebot has devoured nearly our entire site over the last day or so. I've never before seen Google crawl so many of our pages in a 24-hour pdriod.

[getcooking]

Whatever is rolling out it doesn't feel like Panda. We didn't get the typical deep crawl leading up to it.

Googlebot has devoured nearly our entire site over the last day or so. I've never before seen Google crawl so many of our pages in a 24-hour pdriod.

My site is on day four of intense spidering. Just when I think it's slowing down it picks up again. I don't recall having this many days in a row of heavy spidering so something has to be happening. Let's just hope it's something good for a change :)

[SnowMan68]

Googlebot has devoured nearly our entire site over the last day or so. I've never before seen Google crawl so many of our pages in a 24-hour period.

Hopefully they're coming for mine too! Made a ton of changes and would like to get them in the index before the Panda comes to town.

Let's just hope it's something good for a change :)

I'd even take just a little bit of good!

[chalkywhite]

@EditorialGuy be afraid! its either very good or very bad in my experience when that happens. Expect change.

[crazyaboutmags]

google's been spidering our site (deeply) all week... never known anything like it before!

[purplekitty]

I have no idea what's going on, but the two sites that I lost ranking for all my main keyword phrases about 13 months ago? They're back. Not where they were necessarily, but ranking nonetheless. A couple of them are even at the top of the second and third pages of the serps.

I've done nothing that I haven't been doing all along. I have no idea why my sites have started ranking again for these keyword phrases. Hope it sticks and the rankings improve...

[diberry]

Glad to hear it in any case, purplekitty. Hope it holds up!

[SerpsGuy]

I see a couple domains taking up over 10 spaces in search for the last three days. I thought it was a glitch that would be fixed. I sh*t you not, 13 placements for one. Page one position 8 9 and 10, and the whole second page. all different pages of the site. Weird

[robster124]

@serpsguy - been seeing same thing in UK results last couple of days

[MikeNoLastName]

Seeing major action also today. No above average crawling, but many pages/keywords which have not ranked in the top 1000 for almost 2 years are suddenly back in the top 50. It's like our site finally got it's "authority" back that it lost at Panda 1.0. Only changes we've done recently:
1. About 4-6 weeks ago set up our top producing authors with G+ Authorship and tagged all their past articles.
2. 4 weeks ago, re-instated adwords and bing-ad buys because our organic traffic had dropped below self-sustaining rates (not making enough to pay basic hosting, staffing expenses).
3. Last week updated some major pages which we normally update weekly anyway.
4. 7/8/13 started removing ALL cj affiliate ads from the site (they were barely producing anymore anyway) keeping only adsense ads and direct sale ads which we've always redirected via on-site frames. Now down to about 1/10th the cj links we had previous.
5. Over last two weeks have been doing G searches on our niche keywords and submitting feedback about sites ranked above us which were obviously MFA with minimal content and/or relative authority sites which obviously to any observer had NO content whatsoever (other than perhaps mentioning the keyword ONCE buried deep in the text of the page) relating to the keywords I had searched for.

You be the judge on what was the game-changer.

[chrisv1963]

Seeing major action also today. No above average crawling, but many pages/keywords which have not ranked in the top 1000 for almost 2 years are suddenly back in the top 50. It's like our site finally got it's "authority" back that it lost at Panda 1.0. Only changes we've done recently:

I'm seeing the same for my main website. Many positions returned to pre Panda 1.0

[Kelowna]

(other than perhaps mentioning the keyword ONCE buried deep in the text of the page)

1 - Less is more with this algo change...
2 - Never a good idea to have cj (affiliate) links on any page, did I say never? I should have said NEVER!

[Diabolik]

Seeing major action also today. No above average crawling, but many pages/keywords which have not ranked in the top 1000 for almost 2 years are suddenly back in the top 50. It's like our site finally got it's "authority" back that it lost at Panda 1.0. Only changes we've done recently:

I'm seeing the same for our site, many keywords that were gone since Panda Nov 2012 update are back in the top 30. I don't think it's related to any changes we made. It seems like Google just flicked a switch and we're back.

[chrisv1963]

It seems like Google just flicked a switch and we're back.

A few weeks ago Matt Cutts said that they would add additional signals to the Panda algo to help websites that are in the "gray zone". Maybe this is what we are seeing today.

[EditorialGuy]

It's a bit early to draw any firm conclusions, but in the past couple of days, I've noticed that the strongest part of our site (in terms of content and authority) has been gaining traffic noticeably.

[purplekitty]

HOLY COW! I just checked my keywords again today and I am essentially back to where I was 13 months ago. Just checked Analytics and already seeing a spike upward and higher than previous daily traffic for today as compared to daily activity over the last month for organic Google source.

I am GIDDY! Please stick!

[breeks]

Amazing recovery here looks like the clock was turned back a year. Just about all number one results are back.

Some results they were knocked back from top ten to page six and further are now back to top ten.

Traffic up and climbing. Will it last who knows. One flick of the switch by Google and you're gone.

[robster124]

Seeing same thing. Results look like they were a year or so ago. Unfortunately although google says they have recently cached pages from my site (when I look at the date on the cached link) the metadata appears to be months out of date. I really hope that doesnt mean that this isnt going to stick!

[EditorialGuy]

Our Australian traffic is way, way up. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the update is being rolled out by time zone. :-)

[robster124]

@breeks - you looking at US results?

For me only seeing the big change on .co.uk results at moment, and not for my US terms - could just be my datacentre though..

[indyank]

The amazing panda of July 13, 2013?

[SnowMan68]

That's what I was just going to ask, where is everyone located that is seeing the positive results?

[breeks]

USA here west coast.

[mromero]

@MikeNoLastName

"....direct sale ads which we've always redirected via on-site frames."

Can you explain a little about this and why it is important or point to a tutorial please?

[robert76]

Panda 1.0 site - hard to tell right now but think we could also be seeing some positive movement.

[JesterMagic]

Not seeing much changes here in the serps in my niche.

Sounds like the panda grey zone update I was hoping for. Any idea if it is a rolling update? What are the niches of the sites who have experienced a positive increase in traffic today?

[edited by: phranque at 10:05 pm (utc) on Jul 13, 2013]
[edit reason] no specifics, please [/edit]

[EditorialGuy]

I recall Matt Cutts saying that Panda updates now roll out over a 10-day period. I'm not sure exactly what that means. I'm guessing that:

1) The new software code is propagated quickly, and signs of its deployment appear almost immediately (as they've been doing in the last day or so).

2) It takes a while for cached rankings/results/whatever to be refreshed. (How much ranking or scoring data is stored in caches, as opposed to being calculated in real time?)

3) The speed (or lack of speed) in seeing ranking changes for any given page also depends on when the page was last crawled.

Are these reasonable suppositions? (There must be some reason why it takes up to 10 days to roll out a Panda update.)

[ubound]

Google traffic is definitely higher today. I am not going to celebrate though, I can't afford relying on Google anymore. Anyway, recovery looks only partial, although some keywords returned to where they were.

Site info: women niche, first hit on June 29 2012, then second hit on May 9 2013.

[purplekitty]

That's what I was just going to ask, where is everyone located that is seeing the positive results?

Northeast, United States

Sounds like the panda grey zone update I was hoping for. Any idea if it is a rolling update? What are the niches of the sites who have experienced a positive increase in traffic today?

Niche: [snip]

[edited by: phranque at 10:09 pm (utc) on Jul 13, 2013]
[edit reason] no specifics, please [/edit]

[johnhh]

Not much change in the UK in our niche - however .. our sales this Saturday evening have all been from outside the UK, which is rather odd.

Nice and warm here on a Saturday night , which is traditionally our worse day in the week for sales.

UK , info site

<edit>@reseller - you around ? see anything ? </edit>