Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2014

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System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4667620.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 1:49 am on Jun 2, 2014 (PST -8)

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Had a few days of double the traffic and great user interaction and on the 1st, albeit a Sunday, I have more than half less the traffic and a on site of of less then 20 seconds. Strange day for me in B2B.

[Mentat]

@Martin Ice Web - you are right...

[i.imgur.com...]

I finally had a "+ week", until the google switch!

[Martin Ice Web]

Mentant, we see a further drop about -80% today. Serps are back to pre Panda 4.0 and there is no traffic from Google.
We lost about 6 places for many keys.
All the site before us are completely brands and complete unrelated. ( search for apples and the brands have Mangos ).
Amazon is first for every query in my niche again.

For me it seemes like a big roll back from Panda 4.0 in my niche. And it is worse than before.

[Mentat]

Google is telling us to concentrate on content, but is pretty hard when you have a new punishment each week!

[Martin Ice Web]

Mentant,

Google is telling us to concentrate on Content

ha, good joke. The brand sites that outrank us have nothing but a silly list with items on it.
No description. No technical data. They have one thing we have not, they are a big brand.

And ebay is back, i guess they talked together or whatever....

[Mentat]

eBay ads are back on my site and now are images, not text!

[Jez123]

I see a change this morning. Amazon have taken even more top spots. Yawn. No idea why I might have thought something else might happen.

[Martin Ice Web]

My guess is, that they reverted back panda 4 because there have been back to many bad guys with the ltest change.
My niche is now dominated by big brands. Put a keyword on a page and be a big brand, you will rank above a solid niche site. Oh google what have you been for a good SE now you are an ad and brand enigne. Shame.

[Wilburforce]

My guess is, that they reverted back panda 4

I'm not seeing that in my sector (UK niche service).

My own site has been holding its new position (from 19 May) in Google SERPs. Google traffic has more than doubled (day-on-day/week-on-week) compared with the period before 19 May.

I don't know what happened in last weekend's MozCast spike (29-30 May), but for my site a different page is now showing (in the same position) for main key term: previously for Blue Widget it was blue-widget-costs.html; now it is blue-widget.html. From my point of view (and presumably from a visitor's point of view too) that is an improvement.

[Awarn]

For two years it has been like this. They shuffle and slowly go back to way things were. Makes no sense at all. Not a thing is being achieved. I see the same spam, the same host crowding. Lately I even see where I retrieve a site and Google says it doesn't exist and you try again and magically it comes up. There are some serious issues at Google. Maybe it is time they focus on their core product for once instead of the driverless car and all the other things. Their product just isn't what it used to be.

[SnowMan68]

For two years it has been like this. They shuffle and slowly go back to way things were.

This isn't true. Maybe in a vertical you monitor, but not across the board. The latest Panda brought back a lot of sites that have been stuck for a long time. Some didn't deserve to come back IMO, and I have watched them slowly roll back onto the second pages (this however is still MUCH better than page 9 or 10).

We own a content site that doesn't deserve to rank like it did back in 2011. It didn't even budge in the least bit with the latest Panda. Another site I watch (three of them actually) moved up quite a bit. The site is UGLY and has horrible user experience. I was surprised to see it move up at all, but it has been trending back down.

Our main Ecommerce site that we gutted and revamped completely has continued to increase in Google referrals every week since the Saturday before the official P4.0. Each week it seems to be gaining 10% additional referrals. We are still down about 40% from January 2013, but slowly crawling back up. We had been down about 80% prior to the P4.0 roll out.

One thing I'll say about trying to fix Panda issues. It's a real pain to do on your own. You are attached to certain parts of the site and definitely overlook certain aspects. We had a consultant audit the site over two months and then took three months to implement all the changes. I mean ALL the changes, some of them hurt (maybe my ego most?), either way they were all for the better. You can't go half way or do some things now and wait to see. You have to do EVERYTHING and get out of the grey zone. We had been trying to do what "we" thought was right and it really takes fresh eyes. Eyes that see Panda at scale, where they are looking at 100's or 1000's of cases.

[edited by: SnowMan68 at 1:57 pm (utc) on Jun 5, 2014]

[EditorialGuy]

My guess is, that they reverted back panda 4

Nope.

[superclown2]

Nope.

Since this was stated as a fact rather than an opinion can we see your evidence please? Or do you have a reliable source of information?

[EditorialGuy]

My source of information is Google Analytics.

Massive jump when Panda 4.0 rolled out.

Smaller but still significant jump the following week.

I've heard similar reports from other site owners.

As always, YMMV.

[johnmoose]

I have to concur with EditorialGuy as I see the same jumps in traffic on my site. And followed with a smaller third increase in traffic after that.

[Atomic]

My traffic has continued to increase. The last two days have seen a new jump in traffic exceeding 400% YoY.

[Martin Ice Web]

@john and Atom, informational or ecom?

[johnmoose]

Martin, my site is an informational website.

[SnowMan68]

I just looked at our analytics for weekly G traffic. We were pretty consistent for about 4 weeks leading up to P4.0.

The week of P.40 we jumped 267%, the following week we gained another 17% and this week we are on pace to gain about 11%.

Not back to Pre panda levels, but we are working on getting closer. We had some high ranking articles on our site that had horrible metrics that we had to remove and let go 404. That traffic we'll never get back, but it didn't convert into sales and wasn't good for the top of the funnel anyways. I'm sure it was inviting to the Panda though.

Ecom, USA.

[menntarra 34]

Something big is happening... I was about to open a bottle of champagne, as traffic was constantly rising since panda 4.0, but tonight the brakes are activated, and as you can see, traffic has gone back to pre-panda levels... :(

Google is drunk...

First pic (about traffic rising since panda 4.0) : [i.imgur.com...]
Second pic (about traffic going back to prepanda levels today at about 2.am GMT) : [i.imgur.com...]

[menntarra 34]

I looked further into the matter and checked several impotant keywords which rose in the last 2-3 weeks. They are still in the "new", better position, so i have to look into the matter with a bigger magnifying glass cause at the moment i don't see any reason for the traffic drop...
One thing is for sure: it is google realated, all google traffic halved since 2 am.

[getcooking]

i don't see any reason for the traffic drop...

I'm seeing the same thing. Last Friday we dipped a little in traffic post Panda 4, but today we're even lower despite no noticeable change in keyword positions. It looked like things were picking up for a while this morning after the initial drop, but now we're lower than we were at this hour last week so it's not looking encouraging. We only gained about 7% of our traffic back with Panda 4, but it was better than nothing.

US, info site

[heisje]

Mixed basket here - over a large number of ecomm sites (either going up, or down) : overall result : healthily positive.

Quality-wise all sites more or less of similar value, so direction they go more or less random, roll of the dice (no discernible logic).

.

[GreyBeard123]

^^^^
I'm seeing the same thing with both info and ecomm sites...

[Atomic]

@Martin Informational

[Atomic]

I'm looking at possibly another big jump in traffic. The last few hours are 29x over the same hour of the day last year and at about 10am we are 2x last years traffic with lots of the day left.

[menntarra 34]

I'm just praying that our traffic will be AT LEAST the same as PRE PANDA 4.0
This is all crazy. The right thing happened by raising our site with panda 4.0, cause we corrected every and all problem that might have cause our previous panda drops. I won't list the changes cause it is a HUGE HUGE list made in last 2 years. I was happy that finally after panda 4.0 we were rising. BUT i wasn't astonished, cause that has to happen according to our work we put into our website. But now today we're back in the sh*thole i just hope we'll have at least end up today with the same volume like pre panda 4.0 :/

[Martin Ice Web]

menntarra, do you see brand and price compare engines rise again ? Some of them had been vanished with panda 3 and now are back without any changes to their site. You plane copy and past manufacture description and lot of links. I guess it is because they have enough backlinks as those site listed on them link back to the PCE.

atomic, thanx i tought you are info and not ecom. Didnīt see an eīcom gained any traffic/real conversions with panda 4.

[heisje]

The right thing happened by raising our site with panda 4.0, cause we corrected every and all problem that might have cause our previous panda drops.

It ain't necessarily so.

The multiple parameters in the algorithm create a "roll of the dice" effect. Multiple parameters interacting in different ways among themselves. In a different "roll of the dice" for your site, you might as likely be complaining today about why you were trashed while you "corrected every and all problem that might have cause our previous panda drops.".

Good luck with imagining things.

.

[Atomic]

@Martin Just checked one of my ecommerce sites and since 5/18 traffic is up 32% but conversions are up 51%.

[Mentat]

Another -5%, from what I see, in my case Panda 4.0 is eating Thursday, not week-end!