Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2013

[Panthro]

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System: The following 20 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4614058.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 1:36 am on Nov 4, 2013 (PST -8)

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I'm seeing some interesting SERPs right now. Queries seeming to be matched to the most generic term available instead of the specified query. IE - a search for "type of something" returns a list of "somethings". These are geomodified queries.

No surprise, just interesting to see.

[Kristos]

right now I am seeing wildly inaccurate results for my brand name. all but two of the sites in the front page serps are from the Philippines or don't even sell the product.I have seen folks complain about serps before but never seen ones I would call crap before right now.
anyone else seeing bizarre results?

[zeus]

Kilobytes downloaded per day are normally around 50.000 for months, today when I look its 785,500 - Pages crawled per day Today 3,972 normally 1,491 pages . Is something big coming or is it just my site, has been hurt for over 2 years.

[chalkywhite]

Quite a large drop in traffic overnight, not sure whether halloween would have this sort of impact. anyone else picking up anything? saw a large KB per day increase on Monday.

[Wilburforce]

Pages crawled per day

Nothing unusual in my (UK) logs in the last week.

[ohno]

Nothing unusual here either but today had gone dead. SERP's look the same as last night on terms I check so not sure what is going on. I've had ZERO traffic for hours now, the only thing that has changed today is ads are now usually on the right rather than at the top of organic?

[carlos the jackal]

I had a massive spike in pages crawled and kb downloaded last week on the 24th, but nothing odd since then.

Pages served are still all over the shop though.

[RedBar]

I've had two massive spikes in crawling this week and overnight hundreds of images have gone missing from three sites at least, yet using site: all the pages for those sites are still indexed BUT they've all lost their ranking positions.

Something's happening for sure, has someone switched on the Xmas mix-it-up blender?

[SnowMan68]

Tuesday I had a big spike in crawling...highest it's been since the beginning of August.

[ohno]

Those that have seen a spike how is your traffic today?

[RedBar]

how is your traffic today?

Bizarre, all over the place, some sites have hardly had any visitors whatsoever meanwhile one of my most visited sites has already surpassed its daily uniques average for this week.

[ohno]

Thanks RedBar, anyone else? One of our sites that was dead for weeks came back yesterday but today it's gone back. I could see no change in SERP positions. Our main site i would swear the server was off today!

[Wilburforce]

anyone else?

No, I'm not seeing anything different. Where is the typical search location for those seeing a difference?

[tigger]

Ohno

I noticed a few sites ranking yesterday that had been dropped, although TBH they were spammy and knocked me down - this morning they have vanished and my rankings recovered, I'm guessing that yesterday G was testing something that certainly pulled back in my competitors spam

[chalkywhite]

@ Ahno, down 20% however it is a holiday in a lot of Europe.

[RedBar]

Blimey, what is going on? I posted this yesterday:

I've had two massive spikes in crawling this week and overnight hundreds of images have gone missing from three sites at least, yet using site: all the pages for those sites are still indexed BUT they've all lost their ranking positions.

Two of those sites still have their pages indexed and 38 images each have reappeared however the biggest of the three has now lost all but 16 of its pages with 38 images having returned ... 38, what on earth has 38 got to do with it all?

Something's well and truly fubard.

[zeus]

ohno - I have not seen any change in traffic, but my site is under a filter of some kind, so you can not count on that. Its a image site.

[Ralph_Slate]

I'm seeing some weirdness. I track my traffic down to the 5-minute level on my server. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were middling days. Lower than they should be. I thought it was maybe Halloween, but it didn't pick back up. Most of Saturday was off too - until about 7pm when things jacked back up high. Much higher than I'd expect. I checked analytics and it isn't due to a single specific page on my site (which would be the case if I gained a mention on a popular twitter feed or something) - just generally higher traffic. Very weird.

I might add that the dropoff seemed to be country-specific, in my case, Canada, which is my biggest demographic.

[ohno]

Saw the usual signs of an update that started Friday IMO. Friday down. Saturday down slight recovery Sunday. SERP's all over the place still, some terms up while others are down.

[carlos the jackal]

I usually accept Google updates as generally an attempt to rid the SERPs of spam and present better results.

With the latest round of updates, Penguin 2,1 onwards, I feel that Google is becoming a caricature of its spam-fighting self. The SERPs are largely irrelevant and unjustified with no clear understanding of the search query or the intent behind it.

[Kristos]

I am Still Seeing (seriously wildly)inaccurate results for one-word "Product Name" that we have dominated for months. We are a site in the USA, authorized to sell this "Made in USA" product and instead of opportunities to purchase our Brand Name Product (very niche) - I am still seeing 3 youtube videos from the Philippines at the top - that obviously have no BUY option and do not sell the product - and the top four actual websites under the youtubes are in the Philippines and only sell it there.

Observations:
two the sites that survived on the front page of SERPs are extremely aged sites

[zeus]

The problem with the serps over the years is that Authority rules every 1-3 pages. If a Authority site has a little post or something they get on page 1-2.
Sites which topic is all about that search topic are on page 3-up. Now you can say ok then be a Authority site, well then you need to be a PR7 and have more links pointing to you and there Penguin 2.1 comes in, if you get to many links as a non authority site you can get in trouble. Try a simple search which you know is nothing a news site would wright about, you will see amazon, some news sites, yourtube videos.

I dont see any change to that in this update.

[chalkywhite]

Been smashed by whatever rolled out. a good 20-25%

[ubound]

Yes, something is going on. One site's traffic slightly down and slightly up for another.

[Bubba]

@Zeus: I definitely agree with you. We see a lot of authorities making new pages (with proper onpage SEO), they end up really high. They don't add value to my opinion and are taking advantage of it..

[zeus]

Yes, if I search for something I rather have a site about that topic instead of a single page on a news site.

[Andem]

Apart from improved traffic numbers since the beginning of the month, today has seen a 8% increase in Google referrals and a 7% drop in bounce rate, compared to the last 5 days in October.

The improvements are as a result of increasing traffic from the US, UK and Canada.

[Wilburforce]

8% increase in Google referrals and a 7% drop in bounce rate

How far outside normal day-to-day fluctuations is this for your site, and have you an idea (or at least a suspicion) what might account for it?

I'm not seeing anything here at the moment (UK niche service).

[ubound]

I am back to normal today. I just realized it is election day today in the US, so maybe preparations for elections combined with Halloween last week followed by weekend are responsible for temporal traffic drop. Today looks very normal.

[ohno]

Not here in the UK it doesn't :( Traffic well down & so are conversions. Perhaps everyone is just out celebrating November 5th, then again...........