Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2015

[Johan007]

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System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4750188.htm [webmasterworld.com] by aakk9999 - 12:18 pm on Jul 1, 2015 (gmt 0)

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My panda effected (feb 2011) UK site with a 8 month complete overall is showing no uptick in Google traffic or crawl. All is calm. Fridays are generally good days for updates and this Friday being the first of the month.

No twitter chatter regarding Panda yet by @seroundtable @sejournal @rustybrick (Barry Schwartz) and @glenngabe (Glenn Gabe - Glen I think is the biggest Panda authority name who is most likely to post first though Barry also has a number of Panda sites and a heavy user of social media). I will be posting recovery story first at @futuremovies (Future Movies) though mine is a UK site and may lag behind the US sites.

[samwest]

After big crawl, biggest since April, traffic has now dropped to zero. SERPS still indicate nearly all of my (100) checked key phrases above the fold on page one, yet no traffic. Server is running litespeed rather than apache and ranks A/B on gtmetrix. In the past, this would mean great traffic and great conversions...nowadays it means "pay us our adwords tribute". Forget it.Trust is lost. Google has lost all my "love".

[MichaelP]

Traffic from Google has increased in the past week, even 2 to 3 times ,from Google but it does not translate into additional sales at all. Even adsense clicks haven't increased so whatever new traffic Google is sending us, it is worthless and c*ap.

[glakes]

whatever new traffic Google is sending us, it is worthless and c*ap.

Looking at my logs I see a lot of Google traffic originating from Google's .in, .ie, etc. domains. I don't ship to those countries at all and specifically state what few countries I ship to on our shipping page. Even with this, Google apparently can't figure out the only continent I ship to.

[Paperchaser]

Hey guys, perhaps someone can help. For couple weeks now my website keywords ranking keep bouncing up and down, it would be rank #1 for the keyword for couple hours and then would go down to page 4-5 for the same keyword and couple hours later it would come back to #1 at first i though it was due to some algo changes from Google but it been almost a month now and i dont know what to think of it. Thanks

[samwest]

@Paperchaser - it's a rash called "you'll never win on Google".

[Paperchaser]

@samwest - At least if they had the decency to let u know what is wrong it would be great.

[Nutterum]

@Paperchaser - I have over 100 words doing the same thing since the latest "Phantom" update. Either the algo is bugged beyond reason or something else is in play. Whatever the case, yes there are keywords that jump from first to last page every few hours.

[Nutterum]

@Leosghost - I believe I have a possible explanation. These keywords are still "readable" by the crawlers. They are not accounting directly to the search engine, however they do account for the keyword relevancy on the Webmaster Tools Console. Google Index > Content Keywords - if you manage to spam specific keyword phrases via your meta description you can actually trick Google, in to seeing high relevance from a specific keyword without seeing any spam content creating it.

I am afraid to do this for my main revenue website, but I have a few old blogs that I will experiment on with this idea. If you can check this assumption yourselves and report your findings, that will be great.

[Paperchaser]

@Nutterum - Yes that is exactly when it started for me as well, let's hope everything will be fixed on Panda hehe

[pauluskramer]

Looking at my logs I see a lot of Google traffic originating from Google's .in, .ie, etc. domains. I don't ship to those countries at all and specifically state what few countries I ship to on our shipping page. Even with this, Google apparently can't figure out the only continent I ship to.

Hi Glakes and others :)

I do have the same problem, lost rankings in my own country and gain rankings in many other countries (so useless visitors in my case). It doesn't make any sense for me. Don't know the problem yet but it all started on May 3 with the Phantom/Quality update.

[Mentat]

Something is moving.
I've lost my Structured Data on the beginning of May. I had 0 errors in WMT, but all my Snippets were gone one day!
Now, are coming back, but the strange thing is that I can only see them on the site: command, not on the normal SERP!

[Nutterum]

Actually its pretty calm on my end. While the niche I am monitoring is pretty calm during the summer months, it was never like this.

[Errioxa]

From Tuesday July 14 I sense changes in organic traffic in DE and UK, also I have some variations in the rankings serps to these countries.
Are any sees this since Tuesday for DE and UK?

[Mentat]

I see -8% in traffic since Tuesday night, so something is crawling from the dark.

There is no natural reason for this in the middle of the week.

[Errioxa]

"There is no natural reason for this in the middle of the week."

Totally agree, seasonal changes in organic traffic are usually on a Monday

[FattyB]

Since last week I've been getting spikes in traffic to specific keywords that are fairly high volume but only from specific countries. This one was Australia and it spikes about 3 times every day. Now another part of the site is spiking on UK traffic. It is not time of day spikes. Just last few weeks. Like the search terms are going to number one in those countries for an hour then back to 2 or 3.

[mrengine]

Today I am seeing an unexpected drop (30%) in traffic.

[chalkywhite]

I'm all seeing a significant drop in traffic today.

[RedBar]

Across several sites yesterday I saw some with a 30% drop in traffic and others were normal, very unusual.

[Shepherd]

For yesterday (Thursday), our google traffic was normal if not slightly higher, Bing traffic on the other hand was down about 38% compared to last Thursday.

[chalkywhite]

Seems to be holding this, no major holidays or observances today. 23% across the board. Nobody else?

For a bit of background the site in question escaped panda last may after being hit with panda 1.1.. hopefully just a strange day but we know an update is imminent.

[RedBar]

Fridays are just plain weird for me these days, all or nothing, I'll know better in a few hours however it's not looking promising at the moment.

[RedBar]

Looks like it's going to be a nothing day for me, still very low traffic.

[samwest]

Fridays have been "ketchup" days for me...suddenly the sales pop back to put me exactly where I was the week before...EXACTLY! last 6 weeks, the total number of sales was +/- 1. Last three weeks identical. They are getting better every week...then every few months they cut that again by 10 to 20% then hold...then another cut...ad infinitum. It all started at +5k week and is now down to $350/week. No wonder I can't afford to buy Adwords anymore. Hardly covers my new found need for a bar tab.

[RedBar]

Are both the US and UK on holiday? I've never seen such low PVs.

[Baby_Moos]

"Are both the US and UK on holiday? I've never seen such low PVs"

- No holiday in UK @Redbar

I dropped back in SERPS around a week ago, domains above me now have duplicate content,duplicate titles, boiler plate & thin ecom descriptions, riddled with errors, slow loading times & low backlinks & certainly aren't the best for the key phrases, Does Google even know what it wants these days?!

[Robert Charlton]

Lots of folks I know are taking a three-day weekend this week. It's that time of year.

[n00b1]

Actually most schools just broke up for summer in the UK. So I imagine many parents are out and about with their kids rather than spending so much time browsing the internet. Just a thought.

[samwest]

they must have been on a three day weekend since April 1st

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Ramadan ended yesterday, so if your website(s) attracts a large number of Muslim visitors, as mine does, your stats could be affected. Eid is a big celebration. Families go out to amusement parks, they go shopping, and they are not as likely to sit in front of a computer clicking ads.