Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2014

[samwest]

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System: The following 8 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4699490.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 10:31 am on Oct 3, 2014 (PST -8)

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Traffic still lethargic here...funny how the traffic looks human, but acts like bots. I've never seen a human sit on a privacy page for 30 minutes, and yet have bounce rates of almost 70%.
The mobile vs. desktop pie chart shows 25% desktop, 14% mobile and 51% unknown.

[Kelowna]

Something is definitely going on. Our site was hit and literally disappeared from search results.

"IF" this is indeed penguin then you need to relax for a while. It will take a couple weeks I am sure for the dust to settle on this "new and improved" animal.

[kellyman]

If not penguin then i think it has something to do with 301 redirects, I have a legit site that we changed names when rebranding and that has been hit hard, no seo or many links to talk about so the only thing i can see is the 301..

Lets sit it out and await a release from Google (if they admit this one)

[Wilburforce]

no seo or many links to talk about

If there are not many backlinks then whatever has hit your site probably isn't backlink-based (so probably not Penguin), unless there is something really obviously awry in the links you do have.

It is always possible that Penguin is running and that your site has been hit by something else, but it is more probable, I think, that something else is happening,

[freshpaul]

Looks like penguin to me. Affected keyword that's been on page 8+ since 2.1 ran is now on page 4.

[petehall]

Something is definitely going on. Our site was hit and literally disappeared from search results. This only applies to Google, not Bing. What a great day!

Was it your home / default page that used to rank by any chance?

I'm seeing a few sites that had penalties rising up in serps, pushing my sites down a few places and along side that 'missing' home page rankings all over the place. Long tail / inner pages are pretty much unaffected across all sites.

[freshpaul]

Seeing the same pattern with other keywords. No doubt in my mind at all. I just hope what I'm seeing sticks. I could almost cry.

[Kelowna]

one completely banned site for years is now back again. we did nothing to the site but let it sit for a couple years and this morning it appears fully indexed

[getcooking]

Long tail / inner pages are pretty much unaffected across all sites.

I'm seeing something that might be related to this... First, my site wasn't hit by Penguin (Panda, yes, Penguin nope). Starting the evening of Oct 13 my traffic started dropping and keywords I track were all over the place - dropping and rising 10+ positions at a time. This has gone on most of the week.

This morning I was just scanning the incoming Google referral keywords and noticed that it was ONLY long tail searches. None of our usual 1,2 or even 3 typical keyword phrases were being logged. All the phrases were 4+ words. Even our one-word brand name wasn't in there even though it's indexed and comes up like normal in a search. In fact, most of 1-2 keyword phrases haven't budged in the rankings in the past 24 hours. The keyword data stayed this way all morning but just now in the past hour some shorter keyword phrases are showing up.

Also, there is a highly competitive keyword (single word) that generically would lead someone to my type of site. It's been about 5 years since we ranked for it at any position. I believe that losing that was an early warning sign before Google created Panda (we used to bounce around the first three pages for it). That one keyword has started showing up on reports again this week. We're bouncing around between pages 13-19 (yes, pages, not position), but as I said, it's been 5 years since we've even done that.

[JesterMagic]

I hope this isn't penguin. Our 10 year old site dropped 3 - 7 positions on a lot of our major keywords today.

We first lost 40% of traffic in April 2012 (Penguin) and then a slow, ever slow decline. We had a big recovery on Panda 4.0 (60% recovery) which we lost about a quarter with Panda 4.1 recently.

Big info sites and spammy sites that use bot nets seem to rule our niche. Most of my old competitors that were decent are gone.

I am hoping that Penguin was going to fix a few things but I am not holding my breath. Kathiru in the Penguin 3 topic stated on Oct 12

Penguin 3 is a few weeks away - John Mueller.

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English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
Streamed live on Oct 10, 2014
[youtube.com...] [youtube.com]

So this would mean what we are seeing now is not Penguin since this video was shot a week ago. (and not a few weeks ago)

[Wilburforce]

@JesterMagic

Although I think this probably isn't Penguin 3.0, what John Mueller said last week does not categorically rule it out. He does emphasise the importance of getting it right (and implies that it won't be rolled out until it is ready, which he thinks will be a few weeks from then), but all he says definitively is "not now", which is not the same as "not next week".

[freshpaul]

I know I don't have any credibility in here, so take it as you may, but this is definitely Penguin.

[IamnotMattCutts]

Apart from my psychic powers, 6 client penguin hit websites all showed major movement today, page movement, as in 6 - 8 pages and have held position all day. We shall see.

[mirrornl]

@freshpaul
Why definitely penguin?

[freshpaul]

Because I'm seeing major movement on all penguinized keywords, which are our main products. Some have moved 4+ pages and are on 1st, 2nd and 4th page.

Haven't ranked like this for these keywords since Penguin 2.1.

I just hope this sticks. ;/

[mirrornl]

so...at least part of what's happening seems to be Penguin. Thx freshpaul

[freshpaul]

No problem. I'm noticing that some companies in our industry with horrid backlink profiles still ranking. Well, one that I know of for sure.

[rish3]

Christoph Cemper (maker of Link Detox) seems to think it's Penguin.

Via an email:

Today it really looks like the Google Penguin 3.0 Update has landed. We have received Tweets, PMs, Mails, Pings and so forth about Penguin 3.0 recoveries
from Australia, UK, France, Turkey and the USA.

[Wilburforce]

major movement on all penguinized keywords

What is a "penguinized keyword"?

I remember summarising the visible effects a couple of years ago, which included page-specific and term-specific elements, but these also applied to Panda: the key difference was that Panda targeted on-site and on-page terms, while Penguin targeted backlinks (off-site, off-page) terms (anchor-text). The key element is backlink profile, rather than the term itself. And

I'm noticing that some companies in our industry with horrid backlink profiles still ranking.

My site, which was hit by P1 and P2, hasn't moved at all for any monitored short-terms in the last 48 hours and, more to the point, neither have any of the sites in my sector with "horrid backlink profiles". I don't see any similar efects (or reversal of similar effects) to earlier Penguin incarnations.

There is clearly something going on, however: one symptom I see - the opposite of what a couple of people are reporting - is that mysite.com is again showing in place of mysite.com/key-term.html.

While "rolling out" obviously means that whatever is happening will not reach all DCs at the same time, and DC discrepancies mean that some of us are seeing thing others are not, nothing I have seen so far points unequivocally to Penguin. It might be, but that certainly isn't definite, whatever hindsight may tell us in a few days.

[Shepherd]

Wilbur, seeing the same as you here, nothing moving in our niche or our sites that were hit by p1. We saw a little recovery during p2. Nothing now, either this is not p3, or it hasn't "rolled" into our niche, or we have no more recovering to do.

[kellyman]

The 2 sites I have am monitoring both lost ground, both were hit with a unnatural links warning and both were cleaned back end of 2013 , I then moved these sites to new URL's and they have been fine since no backlinking done on one of them (it only has 15 refering root domains)

So i personally think it has something to do with the redirects and not penguin

would be nice to hear from others if they have any 301s sites pointing to them

[rish3]

would be nice to hear from others if they have any 301s sites pointing to them

It may just be temporary. Penguin updates in the past seem to separate the update of the algorithm and the data refresh.

I can see why that might cause odd effects, during the period between the two updates, for domains where most of the links are via 301's.

[liamkk]

For one of our Australian sites which usually had 97% Australian traffic from Google, we are seeing a lot of US traffic since yesterday and US traffic accounts for almost all the upside since last 1-2 days.

This makes me think that this might not be Penguin but rather an update affecting geographic signals.

[petehall]

It's normally Panda that affects language but I'm keeping an open mind. I have never been affected by Penguin and I highly doubt the sites that have overtaken have been either.

You forget that with every Pengiin update a huge Panda run was processed just to confuse.

This update is either incomplete or flawed, and under either scenario there will be change.

[edited by: petehall at 8:27 am (utc) on Oct 19, 2014]

[GreyBeard123]

For one of our Australian sites which usually had 97% Australian traffic from Google, we are seeing a lot of US traffic since yesterday and US traffic accounts for almost all the upside since last 1-2 days.

This makes me think that this might not be Penguin but rather an update affecting geographic signals.

Seeing something similar and we’re on another continent…

Best of all, at least one of our ecommerce sites (100% local) must be ranking for the US as we’re receiving orders from the US, for products that we import from the US...

[chalkywhite]

Whatever it is its been 24 hours now. Initial results are strange, my UK and Europe traffic has dropped however US traffic remains the same. Maybes it has not fully rolled out.

[petehall]

I think when Penguin is launched there will also be a Panda run and a 'mobile' update. We can't have webmasters pinning issues down to one specific update, after all.

They will want the chatter to be 'was it this', 'was it that', not 'it is definitely Penguin'.

IMO this is interim limbo... I could be wrong though. :)

[Wilburforce]

IMO this is interim limbo

My opinion too.

I'm simply not seeing enough churn locally or globally (e.g. Mozcast doesn't show anything exceptional for the last couple of days), and in my UK niche sector nothing that I would expect Penguin to affect has moved at all.

From John Mueller's comments last week I would expect something fairly soon, however, and advise keeping an eye on backlinks and disavowal.

[BlueDanube]

Any further updates on whether this is P3 or not. Hearing a lot of opinion that it is...

[JD_Toims]

Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that isn't MC's acct -- Hopefully we can stop a silly rumor before it starts.

Update: Looks like it's been taken care of. Thanks!

Edited to remove name of the twitter acct. so there's no promotion for an imposter.

[Wilburforce]

@BlueDanube

So far it looks like a lot of smoke and not much fire. Look for hard data: a lot of opinions don't make it a fact.