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.

[ohno]

Martin, I'm seeing what you see for ***some*** terms but only in Chrome browser. Also, our ranking is higher in Chrome than any other browser for some search terms despite being logged out for all browsers & clean cache? Can't recall that before?

[EditorialGuy]

I thought part of the bind the EU had with Google was to make ads MORE obvious! Making the background colour the same as the SERP's with a tiny "Ad" logo in the corner doesn't cover that base IMO.

The yellow "Ad" graphic is pretty obvious--unlike a pinkish background that washes out or disappears entirely on some displays (such as my laptop's screen).

I'd like to see the ads differentiated from organic results even more (e.g., with a border, indentation, or both), but the "Ad" graphic is at least a step in the right direction.

[EditorialGuy]

Re deep crawls, which were discussed earlier in this thread:

We had a deep crawl on Oct. 14 (after none since July), another on Nov. 5, and yet another in the last few days. A sign of changes to come, or just Googlebot waking up from a long nap?

[Wilburforce]

Googlebot waking up from a long nap?

From the rate at which Links to Your Site gets updated, I reckon Googlebot has taken the Rip Van Winkle Sleeping Challenge.

[taberstruths]

I am getting on average 2 gbot hits per minute currently plus hits from the google page speed tool and a google proxy viewer as well. I am wondering if I am getting real eyes on my site to evaluate quality.

[johnhh]

@taberstruths
Just noticed this afternoon, pages being viewed by someone using {well known US telecom company} IP followed by the gbot viewing the same page - which I thought was odd.

[taberstruths]

United States Mountain View, United States arrived from [google.com...] and visited xxxxxxxxx
1 minute ago IP: 66.249.82.83 [block] Hostname: google-proxy-66-249-82-83.google.com
Browser: Google Web Preview
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.4 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google Web Preview) Chrome/22.0.1229 Safari/537.4

This is the unusual view that I keep getting. Not the page speed one but the preview from mountanview. I removed the reference to my website.

[Sand]

We had a deep crawl on Oct. 14 (after none since July), another on Nov. 5, and yet another in the last few days. A sign of changes to come, or just Googlebot waking up from a long nap?

They've been deepcrawling my site for a month+ now. By that I mean, if you take the total number of pages on my site and multiply them by 4, that's the number of crawled pages GWMT is reporting on a daily basis.

[viral]

@taberstruths I got the same for one of my sites. It happened about 7 times and then all traffic disappeared. I hope you do better than me.

[Wilburforce]

I haven't any unusual crawl activity, but the reported crawl errors are interesting. Internal links I have removed months ago are showing up as errors First Detected in the last couple of weeks. These don't correspond with the cached versions of those pages I can see from here, so it looks to me as if there is some sort of weird time-lag going on.

I can't otherwise explain how an error was first detected on Monday when Google's cache of the linking page - dated over a week ago - doesn't contain the link I removed in August. There is one error "First Discovered" on 10 October where the links and the missing document were updated in March.

That isn't a good sign if you are waiting for disavowal to have any effect.

[Kelowna]

Seeing the "yellow Ad graphic" on .com using firefox this morning and sales way up. This cant be a fluke. I am hoping the little yellow flags are getting people to click lower where the real results are. Hope they keep it this way.

[scottsonline]

Seeing some new top results in some big terms on the personal side. Curious I looked up one of them and they have ten sites all interlinked to one another selling the same stuff. It creates a profile of 500k links. Old school seo. I can see no other redeeming reason for their elevation to first place on virtually every term other than the scheme.

They are still rolling something through because I'm seeing the typical burst of new sites being tested.

To me the only thing I've seen change in the last year is:

Amazon and eBay will rank first or second for everything. Even if the amazon page says "item is no longer available" with no description on page title alone it'll rank first or second.
They replaced the top manipulators with another group of manipulators.
Everyone else playing by the rules gets shoved further down the page by useless videos, domain crowding and of course ads.

[ohno]

Yep, sums it up nicely scottsonline. Whole week has been down for us, unless a miracle happens it will be the lowest grossing week in 6 years. Traffic is UP today (couldn't get lower) yet sales are non existant. SERP's look static to me.

[scottsonline]

Just did a search this morning for something you'd use on a vacation. The top three results were amazon.

Result 1: amazon page "currently unavailable" we don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
Result 2: different product on amazon also discontinued just from amazon
Result 3: manufacturers site
Result 4: first ecommerce site that actually works.

Similar pattern on so many items. Why does amazon still rank at the top for items they no longer carry that others do? Why? Is that a good user experience?

[Wilburforce]

Why does amazon still rank at the top for items they no longer carry

Amazon stock updates in real time: I bought an "only 1 item left in stock" product recently, and the page updated to "currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock" immediately.

You can bet Googlebot visits Amazon pages frequently, but not enough to pick up events in real time.

I'm not saying that necessarily accounts for the specific results you are seeing, but it might. It would be worth keeping an eye on that one to see whether - if it remains out of stock for any length of time - it stays where it is in the SERPS or gets dropped.

[scottsonline]

@wilburforce that's not the case here. These are resellers that are no longer even on amazon or were forced off by supplier rules.

Some have been doorway pages for months.

I think this update that rolled out picked up all these pages again and everyone has to wait weeks or months for then to get dropped again. The cycle repeats with every update.

[ohno]

Similar pattern on so many items. Why does amazon still rank at the top for items they no longer carry that others do? Why? Is that a good user experience?

It seems, for whatever reason, that Google adds a LOT of weight to anyone selling/reselling on Amazon and/or eBay. We manufacture a specific product, after around 5 years this was copied by someone (we even have logs of their visit to our website!). They then starting selling via Amazon & outrank us for all terms related to this one product. They have been selling it for a fraction of the time yet rank number 1 easily. Only difference between them & us is they also sell via Amazon. I've noticed even their own domain has got a big boost too.

Google, IMO, wrongly assume that if a product is available on the bigger sites then that is the best result.

As Scottsonline I also see results in the SERP's for products that are not available. I've also seen results for products that have NEVER been available via these sites yet Google seems fit to send users that way anyway!

Quality? No
Money Driven?

You decide.

[JD_Toims]

Google, IMO, wrongly assume that if a product is available on the bigger sites then that is the best result.

I don't think it has to do as much with the "bigger site" as what Google's visitors indicate through behavior they want to find at Amazon/eBay/WikiPedia -- I know a bunch of people who are Amazon regulars, but I don't know anywhere near as many who buy from the manufacturers directly.

My guess is some of the "preference" comes down to the "immediateness" of things on Amazon and people knowing they can get what they want there at a price that is either competitive or better -- What you're seeing might not be as much of a "Google flaw" as a "shopper preference" and Google serving what people usually prefer in the results first.

That doesn't mean your site is "worse" or "Google's broken" it just means a reasonably higher % of the time people want to find Amazon when they're shopping, so that's what Google shows higher in the results.

[ohno]

If that were the case why do we see periods of on/off? It seems when Google does decide to serve our site we do rather well. Our customer feedback is also excellent? I'm talking one day we do 1% in a day of what we did last year, the next day we can do a WEEKS takings! That is not a normal pattern. Do we really need the SERP's full of these sites as well as Google Shopping & Ads at the top? Google Shopping, whne it was free, ha dloads of stores & choice. Not any more. The SERP's have gone the same way. They may as well add an eBay & Amazon tab to the SERP's page & be done with it!

[JD_Toims]

If that were the case why do we see periods of on/off?

Machine learning -- Gotta "rotate through things" to "get a picture" of what works and create automated rules for what shows to whom. I'm sure some of the craziness we're seeing is an automated system "gauging" Google's visitor's reactions to results, and for that to be "sorted out" the results really have to rotate. Of course, to not lose visitors some "safe choices" [eBay, Amazon, etc.] have to be included in almost, if not, every set presented.

[ohno]

I ***could*** accept that but this has been going on pretty much since May Day (although not to this degree). Also, why do I never seem to catch the tests going on? I check the SERP's when we are dead & compare to when we are doing well & can never see any big difference? If this is machine learning then I think it's time to give up & train a monkey, it could do better.

Ironically if Google gave us some stability we'd start advertising with them again. As it stands there is no point, we can't control stock like we used to, today I may make £0, on the other hand it could be thousands. My gut tells me it will be £0! Why advertise when it's like this?

Anyway, gone OT a little, checked the SERP's & can see no changes unless I check in Chrome where I see great results for us yet we are dead!

[JD_Toims]

I check the SERP's when we are dead & compare to when we are doing well & can never see any big difference?

Could be personalization -- Clearing the cache and/or searching through a proxy is something most people don't do, so if different results are served at different times to a different user base on different devices in different areas based on "query distance" in some way, and a "requirement" for "testing results" is a "known search history" it would be *very* difficult to detect as a seo/webmaster who's searching.

If this is machine learning then I think it's time to give up & train a monkey, it could do better.

LMAO -- I can't argue too much there!

Ironically if Google gave us some stability we'd start advertising with them again. As it stands there is no point, we can't control stock like we used to, today I may make £0, on the other hand it could be thousands. My gut tells me it will be £0! Why advertise when it's like this?

I totally understand -- The thing is they're not concerned about "you" or "me" or "our future" they're concerned with "them" and "their future" -- It's just an ugly situation, imo.

[ohno]

Yes, very ugly. However, do you not think their future depends a little on our future & vice versa? I think they have lost the plot & by elevating certain sites for many search terms they are putting a lot of their eggs in one basket. Say in 3 years the SERP's are full of nothing other than these sites as people like me have gone. Why would those sites PAY to appear any more? I think the next few years are going to be very interesting, I just live from day to day at the moment!

[JD_Toims]

do you not think their future depends a little on our future & vice versa?

I'm starting to think they believe firmly in "survival of the fittest", meaning, adapt, do what you have to do to survive, or die.

Say in 3 years the SERP's are full of nothing other than these sites as people like me have gone. Why would those sites PAY to appear any more?

As good as they are at search [for the most part], they're better at sales, and as long as they have traffic, they'll have ad buyers -- What I don't see is them continuing the type of growth they've had over the last few years and if M$ [Bing] ever launches an AdSense type program, look out!

I think the next few years are going to be very interesting, I just live from day to day at the moment!

Definitely agree -- I think many who are "living comfortably" off Google will be "brought back to reality" during that time, and they'll be in the same "day-to-day, oh I hooooope" situation so many are in already.

I know you've been here for a long time and really wish you the best -- I hope you can find a way to make ends meet and even thrive without Google, because then you can tell people who found you through Google they'll have to wait until you can fill their order between the regular orders you have to fulfill since Google is completely unreliable and depending on them is bad business -- Of course, I hope you can also find a way to add "But if you order through [some other means -- and tell them how] they can fill your order right now" ;) lol

[silver4dracs]

I'm seeing massive keyword movements today. Anyone else seeing anything?

[mrengine]

if M$ [Bing] ever launches an AdSense type program, look out!

I thought Media.net was the Bing/Yahoo alternative to Adsense?

No major movements for me today

[taberstruths]

They are and they suck. Media.net that is.

[JD_Toims]

<OffTopic>

I thought Media.net was the Bing/Yahoo alternative to Adsense?

It may have changed since the last I heard, but at the time you had to have serious traffic (like 50,000+ a day or somewhere around there) to get into the program, but I haven't looked into it for a while.
</OffTopic>

[smithaa02]

On the 14th, one of the sites I monitor dropped 50 spots. Something changed. Since then, it has dropped 15 more spots.

No WMT warnings. No link building that I know of. On site, the content is a little thin, but not artificial. Panda?

For those that dropped, do you notice any pattern with the sites that were hit?

[gouri]

Does anyone feel that there might have been some type of update on November 15? That was last Friday.