Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2013

[reseller]

---

System: The following 5 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4606861.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 10:47 am on Oct 1, 2013 (PST -8)

---

Folks!

I think there is an update on Hummingbird today :-)
Have you noticed today remarkable changes in the volume of organic traffic to your site(s)? Also maybe some changes in the pattern of countries/stats referring organic traffic to your site(s)?

[reseller]

May be what you see is the monthly data refresh of Hummingbird, the so called "Hummingbird Dance" :-)

[Awarn]

I am seeing the best rankings I have seen in a year and a half. Finally.

[tolien]

I am seeing movement here in the UK but my main site kw has dropped from page 3 to page 10 and the URL has been replaced with some other longtail url which doesnt exist. ie page.aspx/images/subdirectory/images/subdirectory! whats thats about :s

[patc]

Penguin 2.1 Confirmed:

@mattcutts: Penguin 2.1 launching today. Affects ~1% of searches to a noticeable degree...

Ref: [twitter.com ]

[aakk9999]

@awarn

I am seeing the best rankings I have seen in a year and a half. Finally.

Could you give us a bit more details without being too specific? E.g.

- which google,
- which niche (on a very high level, please, not too specific)
- informational or transactional query,
- is it because your sites rank well now or good SERPs in general?

[Awarn]

Google, US Ecommerce, Retail. Site finally back to page 1 (low but progress). Starting to see a touch less domain crowding. If Ebay would drop to just one listing the results might be reasonable. Had been number 1 overall for years. Have remained on page 1 on Bing and Yahoo through this whole Panda, Penguin mess.

[Shepherd]

May be what you see is the monthly data refresh of Hummingbird, the so called "Hummingbird Dance" :-)

or... may be it's the confirmed penguin update, guess penguin is still alive and kicking.

[carlos the jackal]

<moved from another location>

Hi all, we've noticed a massive sitewide drop in rankings today from midday onwards. We're a UK Ecomm site with an EMD.

Anyone else noticed similar?

[edited by: aakk9999 at 9:50 pm (utc) on Oct 4, 2013]

[kellyman]

Yup sitewide drop for me too UK site, not a EMD

Hope its temporary

[netmeg]

If it's today, it very well could be Penguin.

[needingadvice]

Big drop here for me with EMD in UK.

Insurance keyword gone from no 8 to not in top 100.

Other keywords dropped by a few pages.

[diberry]

Huh. My top site had a Google spike yesterday. I assumed it's because my entertainment niche might be of interest to furloughed government employees. That site has never been hit by Penguin, but maybe some of my competitors were? Unfortunately without keyword data it's hard to know.

[Panthro]

What a joke. Buying links, with a high concentration of keyword-match anchor text still works beautifullly.

[kellyman]

What a joke. Buying links, with a high concentration of keyword-match anchor text still works beautifullly.

Until you get caught. then its a nightmare, seem some get caught some do not . .

[Shepherd]

What a joke. Buying links, with a high concentration of keyword-match anchor text still works beautifullly.

I can't say whether or not that is true (probably is) but I can tell you that not doing it gets you nowhere!

[Panthro]

Until you get caught. then its a nightmare, seem some get caught some do not . .

The risk/reward ratio is just too stacked in people's favor still. It's just unbelievable.

I can't say whether or not that is true (probably is) but I can tell you that not doing it gets you nowhere!

lol

[glennjamieson]

"What a joke. Buying links, with a high concentration of keyword-match anchor text still works beautifullly. "

Hi, so are you saying you have seen no movement in your domain/s? I have been doing this and seeing nice progress literally until yesterday. Now my pages are no where to be found for the search terms I was on page 1 for 2 days ago.

[vitorius]

My seasonal website is no longer at top 100 and is lost for Google search, cant find it anywhere.. I did change some stuff on my website and notified Google about it so this might be an issue (at least I hope it is).
My other site lost position from page 2 to page 5 since the update of Penguin on 4th October. I remember the days when it was on page 1 at 3rd position a year ago.
Am making a living of this other site which is targeted locally <snip>

[edited by: aakk9999 at 12:20 am (utc) on Oct 7, 2013]
[edit reason] TOS [/edit]

[SerpsGuy]

My site gained back nearly all its rank after that russian link network was banned. So I guess that was the network that attacked me with 400k neg seo spam links. So that was nice getting ranked again! Then the hummingbird update took my site down 5-7 pages (still better than before) and thats where I sit now.

Its odd because penguin penalizes sites that buy links or do things against the TOS. I was surprised I took any hit at all, I expected to go higher than ever I guess because I assumed white hat sites would skyrocket after an update geared towards punishing the black hats.

Remember though guys Google said all their updates take about 10 days to roll out now, so there is still going to be some shifting over the next few days (if the 10 day rollout is still the process for updates). So dont worry yet. Overall I am very happy with the results. There are some sites that rank above me that are trash, and should not rank - fake reviews telling people to buy crap thats useless for the high commission etc... but google cant really tell who is honest and who is a scumbag, so overall def happy they took care of that link network!

Also I think that people whos sites recovered, who were attacked by NEG seo should take specific notice of how effective neg seo can be. I think the link disavow tool was used to identify these networks.

[reseller]

I'm a big fan of Matt Cutts since he was Googleguy. Just for that reason I'm gonna accept standing corrected regarding Penguin isn't dead yet as per Matt Cutts tweet mentioned in a previous post on this thread.

On the other hand I think that my theory is 100% correct and true regarding Matt Cutts doesn't like to talk or mention anything related to Hummingbird for unspecified reasons ;-)

These days are very unstable days as to the volume and quality of organic traffic. Things keep changing and changing and changing. Maybe the folks at Googleplex aren't satisfied and unhappy of the behavior of Hummingbird. Maybe they should find a new Search Algorithm, this time under name "Baby Monkey" :-)

[Martin Ice Web]

Is there a Panda hidding behind this penguin update? It would be on scedule. In my niche yesterday we see more brands biased serps again. Is see this normaly when the angry panda is on the way.

Funny, just got this search:
Keyword+Keyword+-ebay+-forum+-org+-amazon+site:de

ecom, germany

Think poeple are thick of this ebay, Amazon, brands biased serps.

[CaptainSalad2]

I’m starting to wonder if google places was a foreboding for this cooperate and brand bias we now see because Google must have known that "without" Google Places there would be zero plumbers/painters/cleaners independent sites on page one for local search. Now that we have the same national directories with landing pages for each area completely dominating all the SERPS I watch.

I have managed to convince several clients to buy BING adds which are much cheaper than google adds and are working nicely for them. I came up with a Acronym when talking to them “Google - Get Out Of Google (or) Lose Everything”

Diversify of die

On the other hand, my own project is doing nicely because I have the time to put in but cheap SEO for clients is just no longer possible and hasn't been for a while!

[Martin Ice Web]

CaptainSalad2, don´t you have Google places in serps anymore? And, are there realy big brands for plumbers/painters? I ever thought that would ever be indendent small business?

[Gandhalf]

I see a slight but significant boost in traffic.
And this is not good news: it usually means this site will be hit in a few days / weeks

[backdraft7]

@Gandalf - you see it the same as we do...every time we see a slight bump up in traffic as with the seasonal upswing we should be seeing now, it is quickly followed by an "unnatural" dip in traffic...the old "throttling" thing continues.

Yesterday traffic was free flowing and converting on the hour and even multiples with the hour, then suddenly at 3pm it shut right off...until 10pm with two consecutive sales with a few minutes of each other.

I've been digging into my old records and pre 2010, you'd never see such unnatural looking patterns.

Regardless, we'll take what we can get in order to stay alive. I'm feeling less like a businessman and more like a bum with a tin cup.
Thanks for the handout G.

[heisje]

such unnatural looking patterns

Did you mean "such madness"?

.

[CaptainSalad2]

Anyone else seeing this is webmaster tools today?

[img7.imageshack.us ] all my thumbnail photos have been replaced with thumbnails of a website iv never seen b4

[CaptainSalad2]

@Martin no the Google places are still there but nothing else. My thought is if it wasn't for Google places no local site would be on page one thanks to recent updates because they simply cant compete with directories that have landing pages for each UK town.

I suspect Google knew this would happen YEARS ago as they planed to turn up brand power and that's why "places" was inserted into the main SERPS because without it you would simply have no local sites listed!

[edited by: CaptainSalad2 at 12:33 pm (utc) on Oct 10, 2013]

[Jez123]

Anyone else seeing this is webmaster tools today?

[img7.imageshack.us ] all my thumbnail photos have been replaced with thumbnails of a website iv never seen b4

Yes, I saw that too! I refreshed the page and it was gone. My stomach lurched when I saw them - I thought I'd been hacked or something.

[carlos the jackal]

I've just had exactly the same thing - wrong thumbnail tacked on to our website.

Probably means nothing but interesting to see however.