Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2014

[linkbuildr]

---

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)

---

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.

[Rasputin]

Generally if all traffic is down it's due to weather, world cup, public holidays etc but if only google changes it's an algorithm change. In google analytics you can separate the the two.

We are seeing a slight drop here (after a significant panda 4 recovery) over the last three days but it is not just google, it's all sources so I'm going with weather and world cup...

[Wilburforce]

We are seeing a slight drop here (after a significant panda 4 recovery) over the last three days but it is not just google, it's all sources so I'm going with weather and world cup...

+1

[JesterMagic]

@Rasputin - I am seeing the same as you. A 30% increase since Panda 4 (still need another 50% to reach 2012 levels of traffic) and a slight decrease since Thursday but it is across all sources. The keywords I do monitor have seen no real change this week.

[EditorialGuy]

We've had a very, very slight drop in overall traffic over the past three days or so, but Google "organic traffic" is holding up better than other sources are. Just as important, we've had a nice increase in revenue (which, on our site, comes mostly from affiliate links).

In the past, I've seen a similar pattern during the Super Bowl in the U.S.: Sports fans may watch the game, but people who aren't interested in sports turn to the Web while hubby/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend is glued to the TV.

[edited by: EditorialGuy at 10:07 pm (utc) on Jun 14, 2014]

[Wilburforce]

The keywords I do monitor have seen no real change this week.

Also +1.

[hipotecamix]

Something has changed in the google algorithm on Friday 13.

  I think greatly affects web sites or databases is also possible with images in web Match to any such cases?

[Wilburforce]

Something has changed in the google algorithm on Friday 13.

On what evidence do you base this?

I don't see any sign of it here (UK), and MozCast reported a quiet day.

[Itanium]

That something might just be the PayDayLoan Update: [searchengineland.com...]

[rustybrick]

Those hit recently, are you in "spammy" categories?

[n00b1]

I'm not in a spammy category (consumer electronics) and my site was pushed down for no apparent reason with this update. Seems Google messed something up.

[Saffron]

I'm not in a spammy category. I've been decimated :( We can't pay our bills now.

Meanwhile the site that never gets updated, that rips off other content got a nice boost. Way to go.

Just fantastic.

[Wilburforce]

I'm not in a spammy category. I've been decimated :( We can't pay our bills now.

@Saffron

I'm very sorry to hear this, but surely you can't be saying it has arisen from a change that began rolling out less than 48 hours ago.

When was your site affected?

[Itanium]

We don't know what Google classifies as "spammy". But I'd say consumer electronics queries might indeed fall into that category. Take a look how many (legit and automated) sites are out there.

I had a nice boost on June 12th. Consumer electronics too, with high quality indepth (often 6000+ words) articles.

[n00b1]

'Consumer electronics' is obviously quite a broad category. In my specific sector there is nothing spammy about it. And either way absolutely nothing whatsoever spammy about my own website, which like yours has high quality articles of similar length and depth.

I have noticed a slight climb back up since this happened though so I don't think things have settled. Then again when do things ever settle with Google? ;)

[RedBar]

Those hit recently, are you in "spammy" categories?

Nope B2B niche corporate brochure sites.

I'm seeing some quite bizarre SERPs for my products, not spammy or scrapers, simply totally incorrect.

[Broadway]

I've noticed a slight drop in traffic since Thursday.

I've compared my (low level) bing and yahoo traffic to google and as best I can tell it seems just related to google.

I benefited from the recent Panda 4.0. A couple of other people posting here have have mentioned slight drops in traffic and a positive Panda 4 effect.

I'd bet that Google has tweaked the Panda 4 algo.

In regard to the PayDay algo, I don't think that would much apply to my content.

[cj2600]

I'm not in spammy categories either. It's a pure information site about troubleshooting and fixing consumer electronics.
All repair instructions have unique content and photos created by me.
The traffic still down.

[Saffron]

Wilberforce, the site started dropping around 20th May, slowly but surely. The past week alone I've dropped 10%.

It is so frustrating, one site in particular always gets TWO links top of the Google page (organic). So you search for "green apples" you get...

Green apples ad
Green apples ad

Links to youtube clips about green apples, or google images

Site a article about green apples
Site a article about green apples
The rest of us.

Seems a bit unfair that site a gets double billing like that.

[RedBar]

Something changed late Sunday evening for me, traffic suddenly increased, so far today I have had more traffic than on any of the previous four days with another 8+ hours to go.

[EditorialGuy]

No change here. A graph of today's hour-by-hour traffic (or yesterday's, for that matter) is almost identical to the same day's graph from last week. Google "organic traffic" has been up slightly for the past few days, compared to overall traffic, but not by much.

[Rasputin]

Ditto. Exactly the same as a week ago and Panda 4 recovery seems to be holding OK so far. The only exception, which is nothing to do with Panda but which is interesting...

The French version of our site, which gets more or less all its visitors from within France, was up about 30% yesterday evening during the exact period that France were playing in the World Cup. I would have guessed the opposite would happen, and had braced myself for a quiet evening. Our site has nothing to do with sport.

[EditorialGuy]

I would have guessed the opposite would happen, and had braced myself for a quiet evening. Our site has nothing to do with sport.

Maybe the people who aren't interested in the World Cup (or in any kind of sport) are turning to the Web to escape the craziness? I've seen a similar phenomenon during the Super Bowl in the U.S. over the years: Instead of going down, traffic has often stayed level or increased on Super Bowl Sunday. (If I shared a house or apartment with rabid sports fans, I'd probably flee to my own computer when the game was on TV!)

[arthur22]

My site was almost destroyed by the very first panda roll-out and panda 4.0 was the first time it had shown any improvement at all (about a 30% traffic increase). And now it seems to have disappeared again from about 13 June. It was the first glimmer of hope I'd had in three years and now it's gone again. Oh well. I've run the site since 2003 and put my heart and soul into it but I guess it's toast and I just have to accept it.

[Mentat]

It's very frustrating that Panda 4.0 "dropped" all links for pre 2013 articles.
I'm auditing my site each day and I saw that pages (articles) pre 2013 does not get any hits, nothing.

New pages have visitors for 2-3 days, after that... nothing.

I'm going down each day and the only method to escape Panda seems to go "nuclear" and drop a lot of old, questionable thin content.

This is crazy!

[Wilburforce]

the only method to escape Panda seems to go "nuclear" and drop a lot of old, questionable thin content

Why would you not want to drop a lot of old, questionable thin content?

I see a lot of things wrong with what Google has been doing in the last couple of years, but favouring sites that clear out old, questionable thin content isn't top of my list.

[RedBar]

Traffic back to normal for me Monday and so far looking normal today. During the USA match US traffic was definitely up for me.

[Wilburforce]

Traffic back to normal for me Monday and so far looking normal today.

I'm not "back to normal" in the pre-2012 sense, but levels from 19 May are back (after a slight but noticeable slackening last week: I put this down to external - not Google - factors).

[RedBar]

but levels from 19 May are back

Yep, me too, definitely nowhere near 2010-2012 levels!

[umerjutt00]

June 18 - A huge decrease in traffic for one of my sites. Again all unique content with no link building done at all from my part. It has fully natural link profile. Don;t know what is going on.

It is not even a spammy niche.

[Shepherd]

medium crawl spike on 6/16