Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2013

[reseller]

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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)

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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)?

[Martin Ice Web]

Guys: It is an quality update. So make compelling and excellent sites, that users like and link to.... and get dumped.
Donīt forget to promote it with google ads.

[Awarn]

Even the Google adwords don't seem to be generating the traffic and sales like they had been. All I see is severe domain crowding.

[Wilburforce]

All I see is severe domain crowding.

One of the Google referrals to my site yesterday was from a search for [myexactsite.com...]

When I tried it myself, the first 30 results were pages from my site (at #2 was [myexactsite.com...] and I am struggling to see why this would be in the results at all, let alone ar #2).

Compare this with Bing, where the #1 result (unsurprisingly) is [myexactsite.com...] and the rest of page 1 is filled with external pages referring to it.

Not only that, but several of the Bing page 1 results (some of them very highly-regarded in my niche) are not in the Google results at all. The only ones that show on Google's page 4 and beyond are the scraper directories and similar junk I disavowed weeks ago.

I suppose if they want to keep their algorithms unfathomable, making the results incomprehensible would do it.

Edit: the URLs above do not exist! How do I turn off style codes?

[Panthro]

I agree with your observations Wilburforce, especially what you wrote in your previous post. There seems to be some kind of weird inverse relevancy going on. Throwing the baby out with the bath water as so many have mentioned around here before.

[carlos the jackal]

That's exactly why I still have some hope, and think that the update is far from done yet.

Surely they (Google) wouldn't leave SERPs as they are?

[webcentric]

Surely they (Google) wouldn't leave SERPs as they are?

Sounds like a prayer. Let us pray together.

[wockawocka]

Odd update here.

My site is a couple of months old on the domain. I'm tracking 60 keywords. Literally the day after the aforementioned falls in Google I now show up in Bing for 25% of the words I track, when I didn't before (for any keywords at all).

[ohno]

Still jiggling around here, some terms are up some down. Constant flux the norm again?

ETA

Wow! Looks like something started in the night, visits are way up (foreign) but page views are right down. An interesting weekend ahead me thinks.

[wockawocka]

Something related / unrelated also is I've been a bit concerned there is absolutely no change in my inbound links reported in WMT. Usually there's a change every week, none for almost three weeks now.

Impressions data, crawl and such is reporting as normal though.

[Wilburforce]

there is absolutely no change in my inbound links reported in WMT

Yes: I did a massive disavow several weeks ago, so I have been watching it daily. Obviously not updating for some reason.

[carlos the jackal]

Sounds like a prayer. Let us pray together.

I hear that brother!

With regard to the links in wmt, they won't update in relation to any disavowed URL - wmt will still report them as long as they're live.

[EditorialGuy]

Something related / unrelated also is I've been a bit concerned there is absolutely no change in my inbound links reported in WMT. Usually there's a change every week, none for almost three weeks now.

Webmaster Tools reporting has been erratic for a while now. My "Structured Data" (under "Site Appearance") numbers are updated only sporadically and have jumped up and down wildly. (They finally got updated again yesterday, after a two-week lull and a major two-day crawl.) "Author Stats" (under "Labs") have been questionable, too.

[Wilburforce]

they won't update in relation to any disavowed URL

Yes. To clarify, I have also removed links. These have not arisen from any previous suspect activity on my part: I have disabled e.g. phone directory and yellow pages links (as well as a few other similar legitimate listings), which Google really should and probably does ignore, but they are worth next to nothing in overall traffic or PR anyway, and WMT views their dynamically-created pages as several hundred links - none nofollowed - with identical anchor-text, which fits MC's definition of spam to the letter. It seemed inconsistent to disavow the hundreds of similar links from directories I do not control while leaving these in place.

I intentionally removed these at exactly the same time I submitted the disavowal, so I will know when they start disappearing in WMT that Google has started to reindex the disavowed stuff as well.

[Wilburforce]

Inbound links have updated today (none of the links I have removed have gone, but quite a lot of new ones have appeared).

[wockawocka]

^ Same here - no disavow tool used here btw.

[EditorialGuy]

Inbound links have updated today (none of the links I have removed have gone, but quite a lot of new ones have appeared).

I looked at the "latest links" report in Webmaster Tools last night and saw a link from February, 2009 that was "first discovered" 11 days ago.

[RedBar]

Have I missed something? Is there a holiday in the USA today?

For the first time in 20 years UK traffic is higher than the US! That has always been on average 400-500% more, obvious considering the population.

WTH is going on? My AdSense reports are also showing similar, has there been another, as yet unannounced, algo update?

Meanwhile BingHoo plus many other SEs, appear more and more in my logs every day.

Google, plot, lost it!

[viral]

@Redbar : I am pretty sure it was reported here at WebmasterWorld that Google said that they did 600+ updates so far in 2013. (I can't find the thread though) So that is over 2 updates a day, so just in that one statement I can comfortably say yes there has been an update today, in fact probably two.

Add to that the rolling Panda updates that happen every month and yeah you were probably hit with something.

The frustration at Google you are feeling right now is similar sentiment being expressed by many webmasters here at WebmasterWorld and elsewhere.

So far what I have gathered is that a lot of older sites are being hit like this and I personally believe that Google is going freshness crazy. I have even seen it some of my own niches. I put up an article (that isn't particularly good) on one of my old sites with a 400-600 word article with the particular keywords my old landing pages used to rank for. Within a week that article was ranking and it ranked for about 3 weeks and then disappeared. I can now basically replicate this when ever I want but it really is starting to feel pointless and broken.

Anyway this might be part of your problem, unless of course your content is fresh. Then ignore what I said!

[webcentric]

@Redbar I can confirm that along with freshness, locality-specific results seem to be going through a major reshuffle (with a lot of irrelevant results showing up for specific locale-based searches). On the other hand, freshness or some other factor seems to be showing it's head in very non-locale-based but highly-specific niches (but not to the same extreme as far as I can tell). I'm also seeing an upswing in other SE's as well. Quite curious. Perhaps as G emphasizes certain things on my sites, the other engines are following suite. Maybe G is weeding every SE's garden right now just by weeding their own.

[viral]

@webcentric Bing fully admits that one of their sources for computing their serps is Google results. They admitted it a few years ago after Google set up that sting operation on them. Although they may have changed things since.

and as webcentric said localization seems to be on steroids at Google at the moment. I noticed this also whilst monitoring a very big and obvious keyword that I don't compete for but only monitor.

[scottsonline]

I can confirm a very formidable update pushed through. Our traffic was slashed about 40%. We don't see a reason we don't buy links. Beyond that we are seeing our Adwords budgets exceeded by record amounts which would coincide with poor SERPS and excessive ad clicking.

[ohno]

When did you see this start scottsonline?

[hulk]

My site was hit again today. I got a big hit on Aug 9th, then fully recovered on Sep 25th and now I got hit again... Lost about 70% of my Google traffic and again I have no idea why.

[Wilburforce]

I have no idea why

Have you any idea why it "fully recovered"?

[Sand]

Today, I seem to have gained back some of what lost on August 24th.

[hulk]

Have you any idea why it "fully recovered"?

Not really, I didn't change anything after I got the first hit as I was sure nothing was wrong and I also did nothing after the recovery. Google playing God.

[carlos the jackal]

@ohno - how're you rankings doing fella? Any movement over the last couple of days?

Ours are still on a bit of a slide.

[ohno]

I'm still seeing slight movements up & down in the SERP's. However the trend for impressions & visits seems to be down :( I'm sensing another big update this week, started either Monday or over the weekend (hard to guage weekends these days for us-been awful for months now for some reason). Traffic today has been dire-few & far between with lots of foreign junk thrown our way.

[carlos the jackal]

@ohno - you mean an update coming, or already happened?

[ohno]

Ax far as i can tell, started either weekend or Monday & seems on going. That is going by the signs we usually see. Either that or this is the new Google! (having said that last week was the stangest week for user behaviour I can ever remember).