Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2015

[Mentat]

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System: The following 3 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3003161.htm [webmasterworld.com] by aakk9999 - 4:35 pm on May 1, 2015 (gmt 0)

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Just thought I'd join this thread.

Our traffic from old man google has been consistent +-5% since panda 4 in May 2014. Our main site IS mobile friendly and wasn't hit on the 21st of April, however it suddenly lost 10% of Google traffic yesterday. Many our top 10 positions dropped 1-2 spots.

I'm almost 100% certain it wasn't panda (as other pandalized sites in my niche didn't drop positions in the queries I'm watching).
I'm about 95%% certain it wasn't penguin either as I did a massive disavow in mid Feb and not that many scrapers, weak sites have been linking to us since then


So what the hell happened on the 28th (29th Australia time)?

The rank drops occured on both desktop AND mobile.

@ColdRum

I believe it has something to do with that huge disavow file..

My disavow file is ~ 20 000 domain lines, gathered with a lot of work from a lot of sources, but my traffic follows a very strang downward path in the last 2 years, so I've said that I need to try something.
I've used as source only the info from WMT and I've selected only the worst spammers for 2 of my sites.

Guess what? I see increases in the last week!

P.S. All my sites are mobile friendly.

[EditorialGuy]

Theoretically you'd think this would decrease your bounce rate, but maybe they've already factored this in and consider a long page sit a bounce.

Or, more likely, they'd just disregard it, since they wouldn't know how much of the "sitting on the page" time was spent reading the page and how much was spent in the bathroom or walking the dog.

[Jez123]

I'm seeing a bit of a shuffle of positions and a couple of sites appearing that I have not seen or not seen for years in my UK SERPS today. Something happening or already happened?

[Robert Charlton]

For more about recent algo shift, see...

Google Confirms Algo Change: "Quality Update"
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4748029.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[supercyberbob]

For more about Google's failure to update Panda and Penguin, see...

"Google: We Are Trying To Update The Data For Panda & Penguin Faster"
[searchengineland.com...]

Fear not folks. They're trying their best to move a finger to press the button.

In the meantime, spam away. :)

[keszi]

Did you guys see any new Knowledge Graphs info appear in the SERPs? Past few days I have seen a few appearing (travel website).
For example: try to do a search on something like "holiday parks in the UK"

[RedBar]

"holiday parks in the UK"

Tried that and all I got were loads of relevant ads plus, I have to admit, some pretty good results in comparison to my widget sector.

[keszi]

@RedBar made a screenshot for you: [imgur.com...]

[vlexo]

Keszi, not getting that widget myself, but I've seen that around for other terms (can't recall which ones).

[keszi]

Currently I just try to figure out from where do they pull this info. But can't find anything about it. (I will let you guys know, if I find something valuable)

[petehall]

I've never seen such a large amount of garbage start to rise, even overtake in some circumstances. We are in desperate need of a Panda & Penguin update now IMO.

[samwest]

In the convoluted words of H.I. Mc Dunna - "Google has become a rocky place where our seed can find no purchase".

[Martin Ice Web]

petehall, yes sites never been seen before made with some very, very old html-programs ( roll-over buttons ! ). And it is easy to find a search in my niche, where amazon is #1 to #6 ( yes ! ) and then 404s, ebay with plenty entries in a row. google makes it easy for users to click on ads when you look at this results. I wonder where quality has been going to? Are ebays phb pages quality? Are 404s in serps quality?

Search for terms in germany where there is a country keyword in the search. google shows sites from this country?! This remembers me of the bigdaddy bad datapushes.

[netmeg]

(+1000 for Raising Arizona reference)

[RedBar]

@RedBar made a screenshot for you:

Wow, never seen anything like that before...did you have a clean browser cache or is there a load of interest based stuff going on?

[keszi]

@RedBar that was made in an incognito window. Getting more and more of these kind of results. It is quite funny that I can't basically find any related info to it.

[Ebuzz]

Are all these bad results related to Matt Cutts being (finally and officially) replaced at Google? Yes, I do see empty 404 pages ranking on Page One now.

[seroundtable.com...]

Ah, Matt Cutts, Penguin was a big mistake, and one day, Google and you, will admit to that.....

Panda was OK, except don't overdo it. Refine it, yes. Tweak it, yes. Penalize the page, not the whole site.

Penguin? Totally unnecessary.

[adresanet]

Hello,

how is your traffic in the last hour ? Mine is -90%

[MrSavage]

@keszi, that is a fantastic screengrab. Is that an example of perfection? Not sure, but it sure enforces what I said in a recent thread I started. Something about organic becoming (not sure future or present tense) irrelevant. We can make it a game. See what search you can do that pulls up all 3 blocks above the fold which push organic right out the door. Like a slot machine. 3-in-a-row is a winner! In this case, 3 above the fold is the winner.

[Robert Charlton]

For example: try to do a search on something like "holiday parks in the UK"

keszi at al... there was a fairly extended discussion about this type of result a couple of months ago. It appears to be a variant of the Knowledge Graph carousel results. See this thread...

Another SERPs Knowledge Layout - No Organic Above Fold
March 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4742084.htm [webmasterworld.com]

The thread is still open, and it would be the best place for further discussion of these results. At first they seem to be recreational placename type results... but a few examples, like the best music-genre search netmeg mentioned, suggest a wider scope.

[EditorialGuy]

For example: try to do a search on something like "holiday parks in the UK"

I just did an incognito search on that very phrase at both Google.com and Google.co.uk, and I got results for holiday parks in the UK. (Ads in the right column, with no ads, boxes, or other distractions above the organic results.)

As always, YMMV.

[keszi]

@Robert Charlton, thanks :) I will take a look in there.

[chrisv1963]

Are all these bad results related to Matt Cutts being (finally and officially) replaced at Google? Yes, I do see empty 404 pages ranking on Page One now.

I'm seeing similar things. Very bad search results. Also it seems like you have to be a big brand to rank on the first spots now. For one search for instance the first spots are taken by Marie Claire, Allure, Elle, Harpers Bazaar and of course the crappy scraper site Pinterest. One very good website I know of that used to be on the first spot dropped. That site is MUCH better (more in depth information, better reading, better photos, ...) than the brand websites but the "improved" Google algo decided to give it worse rankings.

Is this the new Google algo? Known brand = ranking +5 even when the content is not worth ranking?
When I do the same search on Bing I find lovely non-brand websites on the first spots. I'm sorry Google, but "Bing is better".
Bing is about what Google was before the algo got messed up with Panda, Penguin and all the out of control collateral damage.

[masterjoe]

The answers box is a ridiculous idea, there are always going to be more than one side to the equation. Especially when it comes to medical advice, religious queries, and things that are heavily debated in real life like politics, product comparisons etc. Google has utterly dropped the ball on this one and it continues to rape business owners of their hard earned content and deserved traffic. It's been over 6 months since penguin and panda and all we get are worse search results. The last few days have been stagnant and I've lost more ranks when I've done nothing but clean my site links up and get it under control. Yet there are thin PBN sites and amazon beating me, along with some thin informational article from a "brand".

[netmeg]

crappy scraper site Pinterest.

You may think it's a crappy scraper site, but users love it. I don't get it myself, but I've got lots of (non-industry) friends and family who spend hours and hours on it. Their user metrics are probably off the charts.

One very good website I know of that used to be on the first spot dropped. That site is MUCH better (more in depth information, better reading, better photos, ...) than the brand websites

As always, "very good" is in the eye of the beholder. If the brand sites have the user metrics, of course they're going to rank better. It's not just about the content.

[aristotle]

netmeg -- we don't know for sure how big of a role user metrics plays in Google's algorithm. In my opinion it should be a major factor, but whether it actually is, we don't really know.

[RedBar]

I don't get it myself, but I've got lots of (non-industry) friends and family who spend hours and hours on it.

Those of us in the "web industry" just do not understand why Joe Public feels it perfectly honest to steal our images and for Pinterest to display them totally incorrectly either, well, in my widget sector there are more mistakes on Pinterest and Houzz than any other scraper sites out there.

If these people spent as much time at their own work instead of thieving then we all may be better off.

And like you netmeg, I just don't get it, I also don't get clothes shopping either!

[toidi]

The answers box is a ridiculous idea, there are always going to be more than one side to the equation. 

I just saw my first tv ad for goog and it was pushing the new 'google app'. Get the answers to all your questions instantly with the google app. It looks like thay have packaged the knowledge graph into an app.

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4750188.htm [webmasterworld.com]
10:38 am on Jun 1, 2015 (PDT -8)