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)?

[carlos the jackal]

Not seeing any positive changes here yet, more slight drops if anything.

[ohno]

Same here Carlos, bad day, although could be holiday/weather related but somehow doubt that....

[carlos the jackal]

For our main traffic keyphrase, Google has traditionally served our homepage. Since Saturday however, it can't seem to decide what to serve.

I managed to remove over 1000 spam links, all with the same anchor and pointing to the homepage, last week. I'm hoping that has something to do with it and things will settle naturally.

Another weird thing I've noticed in the last few days is that for some searches, our site will show up halfway down page 3 (for example) and then the same page will show at the top of page 4, too. Not sure what that's about.

[ohno]

Just checked some of our terms, I'm seeing loads of eBay & Amazon listings! That may explain why we sre quiet.

[carlos the jackal]

LOL me too. In our niche, independent retailers such as us have suffered considerably over the last few weeks.

[Bewenched]

Ditto on all fronts guys, independent 16 year old ecomm site.
phones have been almost dead silent after a fairly good summer of sales. Sadly, layoffs may begin as early as next week.

[Wilburforce]

phones have been almost dead silent after a fairly good summer of sales

Same here (UK niche service). I dont' know how far the UK half-term holiday is affecting things, but I'm looking at another all-time low in Google referrals.

I'm not sure how the Links to Your Site section in WMT works: I removed all Yellow Pages links several weeks ago, and 71 new Yellow Pages links appeared a couple of days later. OK, there might be a bit of a time-lag, but I don't see how Google found the additional 14 that appeared this morning.

No wonder they say disavowal might take some time to take effect.

[topstar]

My site gained some places early this month but a few days ago everything dropped back. Is this just normal pre-xmas fluxing or tighter filters for links/content? I don't do any link building.

[carlos the jackal]

I've never seen this much flux in SERPs before. I guess it's a Penguin update/Panda soft update combo.

What compounds the problem for us now is that is seems as though Google are taking our disavow file into consideration, as well as us losing over a third of our total links last week (a site containing spam blog comments expired).

It's a case of sitting and waiting for us now, and having to rely heavily on AdWords which isn't exactly ideal.

[Wilburforce]

Google are taking our disavow file into consideration

What evidence do you have of this?

[carlos the jackal]

What evidence do you have of this?

No evidence ... just a feeling and our continual decline in the SERPs. Additionally, our homepage isn't ranking for our main search term - most of the links in the disavow file contained links to the homepage using a main phrase variation as anchors.

[Wilburforce]

Carlos

Let us know if anything strengthens or weakens that feeling.

However, a lot of links to the same page using the same anchor-text is probably a very good example of what might trigger a reaction in an anti-webspam algorithm. I have personally disavowed any such links to my site without obvious value or relevance.

[carlos the jackal]

Let us know if anything strengthens or weakens that feeling.

I will do.

I can't think of what else is causing such an issue with our homepage being served for our main phrase. Nothing has changed in terms of platform, server etc.

[Wilburforce]

I can't think of what else is causing such an issue with our homepage

How far has it dropped?

[carlos the jackal]

For our main term it's never served now. A "site:mysite.com my phrase" search shows it down on page 3.

[Wilburforce]

For our main term it's never served now.

That happened to my homepage - to all pages, including the Key Term page, for that matter - with Peguin 2 in May, and it certainly wasn't caused by disavowal. More likely, I suspect (especially as it coincided with Penguin 2) that masses of worthless links to my homepage with identical anchor-text had something to do with it, but there is no way to isolate a single cause.

Have you tried the "Repeat the search with the <very similar> results included" option? My homepage appears in the results (albeit on p. 27) if I do that. The reason obviously isn't other pages from my site - there are none - and there is no site anywhere in the results that has obviously copied any of my homepage, let alone enough to make the pages very similar. If anyone has any ideas about what could account for this, they would be welcome.

[Awarn]

Have any of you seen your Index status on WMT really fluctuate? I had this when I was originally hit in May of 2012. All the sudden the number of pages blocked by Robots skyrocketed for no apparent reason. Gradually it came down to zero (I don't think I did anything to make it go up or down). Now I see a huge jump again on 06/30/2013 and a rise around 10/13/13. Strange thing is I really thought we were recovering good up until about this 10/13 date. Now I don't use just hits and pageviews when looking at a recovery. I look at hits and sales and get a pretty accurate picture. 2011 was a record year for us and earlier this month we were beating 2011 so we were feeling good. Now it is just like the doors were closed and I am getting real sick of the stuff. I would like to be able to run my business without this Google interference. If things are positive I need more trucks, people etc and on the other hand its don't dare spend any excess money. This fluctuation has to stop. It is like working in a factory where you work overtime for 4 weeks then laid off 3 weeks, then 30 hrs for 2 weeks then mad overtime for 4 weeks again.

[ohno]

Know exactly where you are coming from, stock control is next to impossible, one week can be the best in months to be followed by the worst week since starting over 10 years ago! The SERP's are all over the place right now & have been for over a week. Beginning to think constant flux is the new norm, a continuous Google dance. That would make SEO impossible right? Only one site seems to rank no1 without fail & they aren't a huge company! Dunno how they are doing it.

[webcentric]

Beginning to think constant flux is the new norm, a continuous Google dance. That would make SEO impossible right?

Almost like applying a random number generator to the SERPS. Hmmmmm.

[System]

The following 20 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4620994.htm [webmasterworld.com]
1:36 am on Nov 4, 2013 (PST -8)