Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2013

[JS_Harris]

---

System: The following 16 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4589243.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 4:03 pm on Aug 1, 2013 (utc +1)

---

There is certainly a disconnect/time lag between Google spidering site changes and those changes taking effect, and with the "rolling Panda" and Penguin (in which remote changes may impact your site) it really is getting impossible to get a clear idea of what is going on.

The results are fluid but not as much as we would believe.

When updates are rolled out they change the value of pages/links. The change in values makes the current rollout instantly obsolete which will impact the next rollout, and the next. While the changes are current they impact page rank which sends ripples out that won't be accounted for until a future update.

The trick is to not add more flux to the ripples hitting your own site by making too many dramatic changes. Reduce spam pointing at your site, create great content and acquire solid backlinks where possible... but don't turn the puzzle upside down too often with dramatic changes or you keep starting over.

[spreporter]

I totally agree with your last paragraph, try to sell something that the big brands don't have in stock.

[spreporter]

The above applies in many niches and the internet is still a small child.

[chalkywhite]

Noticing a deep crawl starting over the last 3 days, we due a Panda? has 30 days passed?

[featurex]

Hi there,

Just noticed a 80% drop in SEO traffic. It is a fairly new site with no offpage SEO activities done. We gained lots of momentum in July going from 40 visits a day to about 1000 from google. 75% of these where mobile visitors.

Now for no apparent reason most of our rankings are gone and I was wondering if anybody else experienced something similar.

Drop was drastic, on August 9th at around 7pm.

Thanks,
Oliver

[backdraft7]

Just the opposite here...traffic back to "normal" levels with a more natural pattern and steady conversions. I would guess that we're in between updates, another will roll through soon and upset the apple cart again.

[hulk]

Oliver, same here. I just went from 4068 google visits on wednesday to 905 on friday, a 78% loss and for no apparent reason as I gained a lot of seo traffic last month.

[EditorialGuy]

No obvious changes here. No crawlers going wild, either.

[featurex]

@hulk

any change on your end? Our site is still buried in nomansland

[tabish]

Yes..we have lost almost 90% of our traffic. Dont know whats going on..

[robster124]

our canadian website dropped 50% of its traffic yesterday. all the more worrying given we had been in the process of adding a lot of new content to that site in recent weeks.

[backdraft7]

the developing trend in my vertical is that G or some other hereto unknown factor is clamping weekly traffic and eliminating even seasonal recoveries. All of 2013 it's been basically flat line with a very slow ongoing decrease in traffic, even as WMT recently reported a "big increase" in traffic...sever logs don't lie. Go figure.

[backdraft7]

...also, Sundays have gone to the best converting days of the week to the worst, like we get day parted out of decent traffic, strangely enough, Sunday are also the highest traffic of the week, but worst quality. Suddenly lots of foreign visitors and a steady stream of one page and gone visitors.

[robster124]

ive given up making month on month, year on year comparisons. we've added a huge amount of content over the last year and it all ranks well and our traffic should be way up but its basically plateaued, and so i can sympathise with your comment about the "hereto unknown factor clamping traffic" and for us that is google ramping up the ad/local search dial.

for a local information service like ours we just keep getting indirectly relegated. it no longer means much to say top 5 in google at least for our terms and i no longer celebrate seeing new pages up there. much of my hope revolves around thinking that the dial is now turned to the max or new the max with the introduction of the "carousel" and their purchase of zagat etc. it has pushed us to innovate as well on the positive side of things. we currently have 2 new innovative types of content (at least in my own opinion) that we didnt have a year ago and that no one else has and hopefully that google cant scrape from us anytime soon.

[bsand715]

Today I was searching for campgrounds on a local lake. The google return page at the top runs a lateral box list with 9 pictures plus the more arrow. Left side top has title of Camp Near lake "name" and on right side top, a drop down menu labled "Ratings". Below each picture is a review link and clickable name of place and address. Box has black ground.

Talk about a change!

IMO totally makes any serp return under almost useless.

May be old hat but my first time to ever see this.

Anyone know what this is about?

[bsand715]

Also appearing lower right of same page is a Google Map labeled - Map for places to camp on lake "Name" - with location markers that open with name, address and reviews when you mouse on picture at top of page.
On left side of page are regular Serp returns. Approximate area shown is a hundred mile radius.

When you click on a picture google brings up another page with different serp on left and business map of picture URL on right.

[bsand715]

Ah - the carousel has come to my neighborhood.

[hulk]

@featurex,

Nope, still the same. Just take a look:

[i.imgur.com...]

Was ~50%, now google is ~15% of total visits.

[tabish]

@hulk

Same here dude.. we are all in the same boat. Lots of shuffling going on.. as i monitor.

[Dymero]

The previous big boost we had is nearly reversed now. We're still up from June, but not nearly as much as the period beginning in the last week of July.

[tabish]

@hulk

link [i.imgur.com]

See one of my site.. badly hit by this algo change :)

[featurex]

Could it be that those affected are in a niche that might have been targeted by the "Google Search Algorithm Update To Target Spammy Queries"

[Martin Ice Web]

big shake up since 9.08, lots of ebay on first page. I now see google product ads and google image search in a row. -> Not one organic result over the fold.
Many new sites with not matching content and low shallow site structure. I canīt find deep pages for what i search, only summary pages where i have to find the link to the deeper page myself.
Many foreign sites (au, uk, at ) in german results again.

I have to guess but from the first view this must be a quality update.

ecom, germany

[SerpsGuy]

Is it okay to buy links again? I never recovered from June 5th and I am still dropping farther and farther in the search results. It makes me fuc*ing sick to see my content, well researched, sitting on page 12 with total spam trash. I checked out the backlink profiles of the sites that recovered and they all have obviously paid links. Should I start buying links again? Google says provide good content and you will rank but thats obviously a load of crap. What are the new quality guidelines I should be sticking to?

[robster124]

Our Canadian website back to normal traffic levels having dropped 50% over the weekend. Now seeing shifting on UK serps. Time to hunker down and hope (again).

[ibeau]

Had a noticeable drop in impressions over the weekend here in Australia.. I'm thinking it's to do with the "spammy search terms" update as mine is an adult store.

[turbocharged]

Google says provide good content and you will rank but thats obviously a load of crap.

Not entirely true. If you post content on Blogspot, it is immune from the rules - even if its content copied from someone else. Very frustrating it is.

[CaptainSalad2]

>>>Is it okay to buy links again?<<<

Go to Google, type in "buy backlinks" and look at all the lovely Google PPC adds *allowed* to sell backlinks, what does that tell any of you about Googles stance on buying/selling backlinks?

[edited by: CaptainSalad2 at 8:36 am (utc) on Aug 13, 2013]

[Novus]

One of my sites has just been buried in the serps, what im most concerned about is the vast majority of sites above us are torrent sites! or non uk sites. (we are the offical UK distributors for a tv show on DVD) prior to August each series was ranking for product title, bouncing between pages 1 and 2 now the only page that ranks well is the front page.

[chalkywhite]

I posted a deep crawl on the 9th, further up this page. Traffic increase today around 25%. A change in crawl certainly seems to mean a change is imminent.

[EditorialGuy]

No deep crawl here. Googlebot visits to our site have been completely normal since a record spike on July 11 (a few days before the last Panda update started).

Still, if it now takes 10 days or so for Panda updates to roll out, it's reasonable to assume that deep crawls may also be spread out over a period of time.

It's been just about a month since the last update started, so maybe it's time for another. (Then again, look how long we had to wait for the July update. Wasn't it something like nine or ten weeks?)