Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2014

[chalkywhite]

---

System: The following 17 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4659095.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brotherhood_of_lan - 11:06 am on May 1, 2014 (utc -5)

---

I know its Labour Day around the world but my god is quiet today, wouldnt be surprised if an update has rolled out also.

[Dymero]

I was wondering what was going on. Last week we had some decent improvement in our primary keywords. This week many of them went down 3-4 spots or more. I expected some bouncing because of the payday loans update, but this is crazy.

If Panda is rolling out, hopefully they'll bounce back up by next Wednesday.

[RedBar]

An update as to roughly where most of my sites now stand when things first started happening to my sites last week and many said nothing was occurring!

All have now recovered with an increase in traffic varying between 30-40%. This is the third day of the roll-out and my niche SERPs are looking much better in the UK, some results are still looking extremely odd and way out of kilter but overall a vast improvement.

The Google.com SERPs are still quite messy with a lot of scrapers, with my 14 year-old coding and images, still holding a lot of good positions however there has definitely been an in-road for some good sites to rank well.

The big problem as I see it in my niche is that widget image pages with little text on them, other than keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, are still doing very well whereas in-depth, technical authority pages such as my own with far superior images, are not ranking as high as one would expect, but saying that so far so much better and possibly a search engine on its resurgence?

Let's see how long this lasts!

[Martin Ice Web]

The big problem as I see it in my niche is that widget image pages with little text on them, other than keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, are still doing very well whereas in-depth, technical authority pages such as my own with far superior images, are not ranking as high as one would expect, but saying that so far so much better and possibly a search engine on its resurgence?

I see this too. And i guess that this is due to the limited itelligence googles algo ( panda ) has. It is not able to distinguish between a good handwritten, technical correct essay or a scrappers site with 3 words on it.
The short version may match better the title, whereas the long good essay is to deep for the algo to match the title.
U know what i mean?

[Andem]

@aok88: I meant that since this surge in traffic, bounce rates have gone up (that's bad). Although today is looking better than yesterday. Rankings haven't really changed on these particular properties since yesterday when the traffic increase started.

[ScubaAddict]

Had many more pages recover from Panda today. Should be seeing a huge uptick in traffic - but there is no difference - traffic it is practically identical to anytime before this update.

[aok88]

@ScubaAddict

I am having similar issues in a way. Rankings way up, but traffic not as up as I think it ought to be given my gains, and the bounce rate is higher than usual and conversions are flat. It is strange, but like it was said above, best wait a few more days till the dust settles.

[kenroar]

Out of curiosity, what is the norm for the number of days it takes for a Panda update to propagate across the entire web? We know from Cutts that the update was released on Monday. Is two weeks the max?

[RedBar]

U know what i mean?

Yes MIW, Google has been struggling with this for the past 3-4 years whereas they used to be able differentiate the scrapers from the quality, information-filled, authority sites, maybe they've re-introduced something they gave up?

Certainly I've seen a dramatic jump for many of my fact-filled pages in the regular SERPs to where I would expect them to rank considering the accurate widget information they have.

The quantity of malinformed highly ranked widget sites has long been of great annoyance to me and hopefully Google has now somehow been able to weed these out.

[RedBar]

@kenroar

It started last Thursday regardless of what Matt Cutts says! IMHO whenever G admits to something happening it's already happened and done. Don't be surprised if a Penguin is running at the moment...I'd expect it to be all over and done with by the weekend.

YMMV:-)

[Sand]

We know from Cutts that the update was released on Monday.

Generally, when Cutts announces something is 'rolling out,' it seems that it's already finished.

[supercyberbob]

Nothing happened folks. It's all a mirage.

[seroundtable.com...]

[superclown2]

Nothing happened folks. It's all a mirage.

Thank goodness for that. It must have been that extra strong curry that caused a day of hallucinations.

[crobb305]

Now we're due for a Penguin update. Maybe we'll see something on that front soon.

[Lorel]

Can't help looking at Google through squinted eyes. Google is like a Bond villain hell bent on world supremacy.

Can anyone spell "Cloward and Piven": What we are seeing in our gov is now spreading through the Internet via Google:

"Cloward and Piven had determined that many people in the U.S. were eligible for welfare, but were not receiving it. They believed that if all these people were to apply for welfare all at once, the local welfare offices would be overwhelmed and the states would be threatened with bankruptcy. … that a fiscal crises would set 'brother against brother' . . . then implementing a welfare policy suggested by Marxists." (source rationalwiki) i.e., steal from the rich and give to the poor. Except where it concerns the Internet - steal from the little brands and give to the big ones like Google.

[Awarn]

Anybody see real large spikes in the crawl stats on the 18th?

[Wilburforce]

Nothing happened folks. It's all a mirage.

Try as I might, I can't stop imagining that WMT is stuck on 13 May.

[defenseup]

My WMT became unstuck yesterday or the day before.

[Wilburforce]

@defensup

Where are you?

[Pierce_84]

Way down here, but I've only got a few month old site that was getting about 200/day from Google. At 40 so far today.

[Pierce_84]

My WMT updated sometime yesterday for the first time since the 6th.

[c41lum]

Has anybody else noticed that site: command is broke when looking for pagination pages?

[c41lum]

Its hard to come back to WebmasterWorld after a break, it's not the same with out the calming words of MR 'T' .

[edited by: c41lum at 8:04 pm (utc) on May 21, 2014]

[defenseup]

Dallas Texas

[Wilburforce]

@defensup

Thanks. Presumambly WMT is just stuck in the UK then.

[aok88]

it's not the same with out the calming words of MR 'T'

Aye, man!

[Pjman]

Missing 'T' too.

[reseller]

For WebmasterWorld new members who might wonder who is "MR T"

[webmasterworld.com...]

[mmfh]

The update is affecting G+ somehow too, noticed that when sharing links on G+ open graphs no longer work!?

[Andem]

Open graph hasn't worked properly on G+ for months now.

[menntarra 34]

The update is still going on or it is another update cause one of my sites' visitors has doubled in the last 3 days, and now in the last 12 hours i see that i lost about 80% of visitors, so i'm like -20% compared to when the update started.
My other huge site, which was "infected" by panda several times is rising, hope it won't be hammered like my smaller site..