Google ZOMBIE Traffic Observations

[samwest]

Mods Note: Split out of the October 2015 Monthly Observation thread into a separate Zombie Traffic Thread
---------------------------------
Sunday morning, usually banging away, but nothing but slow moving Zombie traffic, one or two at a time and sitting on the same pages for several minutes. Switch is currently OFF.
Still in decline. No sign of any seasonal upswing, which is way overdue.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 7:08 pm (utc) on Oct 19, 2015]

[Totalx]

This seems that this was planned to shift the ecommerce and other niche guys to paid ads.

[reseller]

@goodoldweb

5 ecomerce websites + 1 ebay store (350 products) = 0 sales for more than 5 days and counting..... in the hottest possible shopping season. WTF!

I feel your pain.

Another business website victim of Google Zombie Traffic.

[masterjoe]

I don't have seniority here, but absolutely. Yes. It is very obvious there is a problem and something Google refuses to tell us. As stated by Gary Illyes ignorant comment, there may have been a "core ranking change" which they won't confirm. In other words, a ranking update designed to steal off webmasters and commercialize every query they can to make millions upon millions more dollars every year. How greedy can you get? They had a good engine, and they completely busted it... maybe Matt Cutts really did bail because he saw what they really were.

As much as I disliked his point of view on how to handle spam, and singling out major networks as examples, he seemed like he was on the side for webmasters to get their fair share when they worked hard.

[aakk9999]

Mods Note:

The title of this thread is "Google Zombie Traffic Observation". The aim of this thread is to help us learn and understand how and why Zombie traffic happens. If we could also figure out how to avoid it or get around it - this would be brilliant. We have some good theories but it is difficult to have anything conclusive. On this thread we should stick with observations and trying to understand.

If this thread turns into calls to action on any third party (and however softy it is worded), we will remove such posts and if this becomes unmanageable, we will be forced to lock this thread.

It is a good thread, lets not spoil it.

[Any comments regarding moderating - use sticky please.]

[Simon_H]

@reseller You've asked for feedback, so I'm going to give it. Please don't be offended by this.

I think your posts are unhelpful. Some of us are trying to determine what we have in common, what precisely is the effect of the zombie phenomenon, etc. You simply interrupt constructive discussions with calls of 'burn Google', etc. The fact is that only a small proportion of sites are seeing this, so if you actually participated constructively in the discussion, you may be able to help determine why yours is included and then work to exclude it.

[mrengine]

I came into the office Monday morning to find no love from Google over the weekend. I'm beginning to think that whatever Google did is baking in and is here to last or at least the better days are being spread farther apart by Google. This is not good news, and I'm wondering if there is anyway out of this zombie mess.

[il_ekom]

My confidence in Big G has been restored due to this weekends conversions and data. I am seeing some of the best numbers turned in for the year. Last 4 days is 81 conversions with average conversion rate of 4.78%. Average CPC is .74 USD. Data spread across 5 campaigns or 5 domains during this 4 day period. I un-paused 5 of my heavy hitters last Thursday.

High site has 8.67% conversion rate with average CPC of .93 USD and it snagged 43 of those conversions. Remember, I have been paused since end of August. This was my test re-start. Strictly search only text ads. No shopping network, no display network. I am back in the ball-game.

I did a quick glance at GA traffic last few months. Traffic was down but, I could not ID any real Zombie signatures or bot attacks during this period. My organic conversions were down but can only speculate why and can not pinpoint any one factor here in the USA markets for the data change on organic traffic. My sites are still holding their natural listings also on first page as before. Have not lost any natural listings for the keywords that are important to my niche.

Anyway, at first glance at adwords campaign data from the last 4 days, I really like the total spend columns. I got a lot of bang for my buck. That is the sign I needed. Obviously, the Google Gods heard my prayers. Or my panic site re-designs, pricing and overall site optimizations paid off. I even spent Sunday updating my sitemaps and robots.txt files.

The only Zombies here right now are the ones I seen on Walking Dead last night. I got appointment with my ADW Associate Account Strategist early in the morning tomorrow. I will find out what his newest strategies are and get his take on current ecom events. I will pursue the Zombie subject with him also. I have to go ship..... more to follow.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:34 pm (utc) on Oct 26, 2015]
[edit reason] Added paragraph spacing to make readable. [/edit]

[Shepherd]

Been testing site w/out google analytic since Friday to see if conversion rate would stabilize, was looking good Saturday and Sunday but unfortunately conversion rate fell back through the floor again today.

[samwest]

@ il ekom - hope it holds for you, if not, then you would be experiencing the same ON / OFF periods the rest of us have been observing. I'm sure you'll be keeping an eye on daily volume vs. conversion rates, and site latency. I'd be interested in hearing what the ADW associate has to recommend. Good Luck!

[masterjoe]

I take it you guys have this:

[webmasterworld.com...]

"Google Search Powered by Artificial Intelligence, RankBrain"

[mrengine]

@masterjoe

You may be right. According to that Bloomberg story:

If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries.

Could it be that people searching for our products use obscure search queries? If so, maybe there is a chance RankBrain will learn and our zombies will disappear.

RankBrain is one of the “hundreds” of signals that go into an algorithm that determines what results appear on a Google search page and where they are ranked, Corrado said. In the few months it has been deployed, RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query, he said.

“I was surprised,” Corrado said. “I would describe this as having gone better than we would have expected.”

It's no going as good as expected from where I sit! But it is a heavy hitting "signal" and the inability of AI to interpret our customers is heavily contributing to the zombies.

Well, we may have just learned that the zombie source is AI. Can it learn, adapt and start sending us some shoppers?

[masterjoe]

Not sure, but what think will happen there will be a way to manipulate it in no time. Frankly, if AI learns by adapting keyword phrases and we find a way to find what phrases our searchers are using... then someone is bound to create tools that do this on autopilot and click our results to "teach" it what is the most relevant result.

That's just a wild guess though. If it currently think it is ranking websites correctly, then I don't think we will see any sort of recovery for our losses.

Today seems to be a non zombie day, I've already clocked 6 conversions. The last few days have been absolute rubbish though.

[samwest]

"It's going to get weird" as the rep said. I'm sure the AI will not be used to help us make more, but rather to channel even more $$ into the jaws of Google. After all, it's all about the stockholders. This is why alternatives need to be found, and soon. Unfortunately my writing this statement means they could begin a program to prevent alternatives altogether. Seems like a no win no matter how to spin it. Too bad "their partners / customers" have to feel that way.

[reseller]

After 313 posts on this thread, I guess its time to draw few conclusions. Otherwise the thread would keep moving in a closed circle.

The followings are my conclusions regarding Google Zombie Traffic:

1- Google Zombie Traffic isn't generated by bots.

2- Google Zombie Traffic isn't the result of negative SEO.

3- Google Zombie Traffic isn't the product of RankBrain.

4- Google Zombie Traffic might be the product of a filter/system (Zombie-filter, Zombie-system) which is incorporated in Google Core Search Algorithm to assist in generating more revenues of current AdWords customers, and to force owners of business websites who are not already using AdWords to join AdWords advertising.

[edited by: reseller at 10:19 pm (utc) on Oct 26, 2015]

[heisje]

Google Zombie Traffic isn't the product of RankBrain

I believe this too, although G may want us to believe otherwise, timely introducing a RankBrain discussion as diversion/distraction.

.

.

[reseller]

timely introducing a RankBrain discussion as diversion/distraction.

That is a possibility, of course ;)

[isellstuff]

Ok, here are my conclusions

1) The rise of mobile search and the unintended segmentation of window shoppers has forced Google to become more aggressive in order to maintain their profit margins.

2) For e-commerce, the Shopping widget gives Google control over the keywords used. This means they have more control than ever before with how much traffic they route through PPC.

3) When someone is about to make a purchase, their intent is given away by the keywords they use. For these instances, the shopping widget is most appropriate.

4) There is only one winner on a SERPS page. All others get zombie traffic. This is how it has always been, but the Shopping widget amplifies this affect. Even if you are advertising within the shopping widget, you can be the loser. The winner can change and be very dynamic throughout the day/week.

5) How aggressive Google is in showing ads based on user intent is unknown. For now I'm going to assume it is just keyword targeted with the longer tailed terms being more specific and thus easier to intercept with shopping ads.

6) The economy is not healthy and this plays into things.

7) Mobile traffic doesn't convert well and we get more and more of it as smart phones proliferate.

8) Bots crawling the Google SERPS undoubtedly play a role in the whole zombie traffic issue, but I'm not sure how big of one.

[netmeg]

Still don't understand why I don't see it on any ecommerce site. Not even the one that recently relaunched a couple weeks ago and immediately #### the bed to the point where we had to turn off the paid traffic, the shopping, and halt the email campaigns til we got it fixed. Even THAT site is getting more conversions (with about 20% less traffic)

[heisje]

At long last, here comes a happy lad! - suitable for framing, will give the place a certain ambiance, after that much doom & gloom . . . . . :)

.

[Simon_H]

I doubt RankBrain can be responsible for what we're seeing. Firstly, it applies to only 15% of search queries. Assuming those are spread roughly evenly across the board, then this will only impact any individual site's traffic by a maximum of around 15%, and that's assuming it mis-matches every single query. So it doesn't account for these on/off zombie days.

I think @isellstuff is close to the mark on many of those points, although nothing yet properly explains what we're seeing, e.g. the on/off nature of this, the way it affects paid and organic, the sudden increase in reports of this around September.

[goodoldweb]

@netmeg

Count your blessings. It will catch up with you soon...

Whatever biased junk they've introduced into the algo is affecting sales for millions of eCommerce websites. I have a number of websites as well as manage a few client sites. I see the problem on all. Anemic traffic and Zero (or close to zero) sales!

Australia SERPs

[aakk9999]

Anemic traffic and Zero (or close to zero) sales!

Lets see if we can pin it down more.
- How do you you define "anemic traffic"? Is it long tail traffic, head term traffic?
- What kind of pages it enters - eCom product pages, product info pages, some other auxilary pages?
- Is the bounce high or not
- When you do have a conversions (when the switch is ON), how does this traffic differ to the anemic traffic?
- The level of traffic - is it the same./ similar but just behaviour varies?
- Regarding traffic, are we talking about very high daily visitor numbers to the website, medium or low-ish?
- Any other useful behaviour info you could give that others could try to identify within their own traffic patterns?

[goodoldweb]

How do you you define "anemic traffic"? Is it long tail traffic, head term traffic?

To be honest, who the hell knows. I shut down all shopping and adwords campaigns (due to very poor recent performance) and can no longer get keywords data. "Free" is the only Google traffic now. And with referrer keywords hidden by google webmasters are truly in the dark.

By anemic traffic i mean non converting junk, one page view and gone... either the wrong country or the wrong device or the wrong product they are searching for (some of them will conduct a site search for products we don't stock). I noticed this happening often recently. I guess by "anemic" i mean VERY UNTARGETED.

- What kind of pages it enters - eCom product pages, product info pages, some other auxilary pages?

Free traffic to any ecom pages with a buy button on?... God forbid! :)
The only free traffic (if any) we get is normally sent to the categories index pages or info pages (the pages that dont have buy buttons on). We have SEO urls on all carts (just like the category or info pages) yet the ecom pages (buy now pages) seem penalized for some time now.

- Is the bounce high or not

Yes bounce rate is high

- When you do have a conversions (when the switch is ON), how does this traffic differ to the anemic traffic?

We used to get some conversion with "shopping ads" on. We switched them off as things started to go down hill fast, they no longer made business sense. The RIO was very poor lately. When we do get some conversions they are highly unlikely to come from free traffic nowadays (only from Facebook or direct marketing). It is that bad.

- The level of traffic - is it the same./ similar but just behaviour varies?

Traffic levels are 60% less then what they was just 5 months ago (on almost all carts). The major downturn started around Feb/March this year and things been going down hill ever since. Seeing new lows every month now.

- Regarding traffic, are we talking about very high daily visitor numbers to the website, medium or low-ish?

Very high daily vistors is now a thing of the past due to all the recent "Google innovations". Around 30-50 visitors on average per site
(used to be around the 110 visitors per day per site) before Feb/March whatever freaking unti-ecom updates they've unleashed.

- Any other useful behavior info you could give that others could try to identify within their own traffic patterns?

Sick non converting traffic. They view one page and hit back. Lots of overseas hits (very little Aussi hits although all ecom sites are a "com.au" domains). Traffic is obviously not targeted enough. It really feels like Google are insisting on sending us the wrong audience for long while now.


P.S.
Using opencart on all if that's any help. Electronics, Jewllery and Fashion accessories.

P.P.S.
Seeing similar patterns over My ebay store.

[masterjoe]

goodoldweb, I have had enough of the zombie traffic issue as well. However, let's look at some possibilities:

- This could be a "slow rollout" of some sort, where they test what happens when the results are "on", and when they are off. This could account for the ridiculous traffic we've seen. They are producing highly untargeted results for the SERPs.

- Google can easily turn it off and on and tweak the "rank brain" algorithm... which is when we have our non zombie days.

Let's not forget though, Google is a multi billion dollar company, and they are fully aware of the impact the smallest tweak in their algorithm will produce. Perhaps they really are struggling to implement rank brain and move search to the next level.

However, at the same time - as a user of Google I have noticed extremely untargeted results and often move to Bing where I can find what I need easily. An example of this is when I search for exact model numbers of printers, scanners, etc. It used to serve me exactly what I needed (software drivers, manuals etc)... but now it shows me unrelated pages from the manufacturer, where i need to use internal search tools to get what I'm after.

Even a few years ago it was easier to find exactly what I wanted on page 1.

Who knows where this is all going, we can only adapt.

[reseller]

Hi folks

In my opinion there is another dark side of Google Zombie Traffic issue.
'
Google Zombie Traffic is killing fair business competition on Google SERPs. While business sites which are not affected by Google Zombie Traffic are enjoying the financial benefits of conversions on both AdWords and organic traffic, the business websites which have been hit by Google Zombie Traffic have lost most of conversions and corresponding financial benefits on both AdWords and organic traffic.

Its really very sad to read on this thread decent business people and their families are suffering of the financial damage inflicted on them by Google Zombie Traffic.

<snip>

[edited by: aakk9999 at 9:35 am (utc) on Oct 27, 2015]
[edit reason] ToS [/edit]

[masterjoe]

reseller I agree with what you're saying. However, I would still like to have some benefit of the doubt and say there is a possibility that rank brain is responsible for all this. It would make total sense if this is what's happening.

Simon, what percentage of online queries are commercial? Do you think that "15%" applies to more commercial queries than informational? At this point, that's what I am inclined to believe. And also as I mentioned above, it may be in some kind of testing stage to see what kinds of results it generates.

Everything right now is speculation, and until more information comes out about this technology we can only use our own limited data to come to conclusions. I'm sure there are marketers out there who track insane amounts of long tail keywords, we need to find them and ask to examine data. I wouldn't have any idea where to start with that just yet, although I will keep my eyes peeled for reputable SEO's and marketers.

[Simon_H]

@masterjoe That's a really good point. I don't know what percentage of queries are commercial. I'm basing things on the maths and what has been reported. RankBrain is allegedly supposed to help determine search query intent of very long tail/newly discovered search queries. Even if the balance is more towards affecting transactional than informational/navigational such that the number is higher than 15% in our category (and that assumes that RankBrain gets it wrong every time), it still wouldn't explain why when things are 'off', conversions drop hugely.

[glakes]

Yesterday's Google traffic was about ten total visitors above normal, yet the number of sales logged from Google users was zero.

Is the artificial intelligence having a problem matching buyers with our ecommerce websites or does this artificial intelligence have a profit goal to achieve? If the artificial intelligence is to blame for our woes, then I would say it is highly irresponsible for Google to release it into the wild. However, I'm not one to draw conclusions so quickly. There are many moving parts to Google, and just because the latest Google news is that they are using artificial intelligence to power unknown search queries does not mean it automatically applies to my problem with zombies.

The real problem with Google is transparency. We can't even tell what keywords are being used by people to visit our websites, leaving us blindly in the dark as to potential problems and unable to make any informed decisions regarding our businesses. We need a bill of rights produced and enforced with some regulatory backbone. I look at it as a fair trade - if search engines can scrape our sites and not pay royalties, then we should at least have some keyword data to show how our scraped content is being used by search engines. That's a starting point and some information is better than the nothing Google is giving us now.

[samwest]

@glakes - if they SELL us traffic, they should have to disclose where said traffic came from in every detail possible.

I just started a Facebook ad campaign and though I'm only a few clicks into it, it infuriates me that we have to BUY traffic at all. Greed gave traffic value and today we wind up paying for "thin air". At least when I spend a dollar on groceries, I have a dollars worth of food to show for it. Buying what amounts to "non qualfied ads" that don't convert to squat leaves you with just that...squat. Now don't jump on me because my site sucks and never converted, because that's just not true and I've got over a decade of data to prove it. If you're going to sell me ads, sell me the data so I can TRACK the ads and determine if it was crap or not...and make it REAL TIME...not 3 to 18 hours old.

What's really sad is that we have to hear about these fat cats making BILLIONS per quarter while we can no longer squeeze out a poverty level income using a well designed site that used to generate over $100k per year. Sure, I could buy ads to make 100k again, but they way these new "husk ads" convert, I'd have to spend 200k to do so.

This trickle traffic and non converting crap really grinds my gears, all smoke and mirrors, no answers...or is it the full moon? Sure is tempting to go all black hat.

[masterjoe]

Come to the dark side. I have, and have learned from previous mistakes. There are safe ways to do "blackhat" although that would probably raise some eyebrows from most of WW... I refuse to follow Google's guidelines (which is smoke and mirrors), all it has gotten me so far is a slap in the face from their recent games. Regardless, I have found building up web 2.0's and pointing PBN links at them very effective so far. I can target whichever keywords I want, build cheap high pr comments to them, and pass on the contextual juice to my money sites from a perfectly relevant source.

There are many other methods I have yet to investigate. If G wants to give us scraps of leftover traffic then I'm going to build a wider net. And on the contrary to popular belief, sites that use such techniques aren't always crap quality. I can research stuff for hours and write much better content than a lot of people, as I am also an experienced copywriter.Volume is the way to go in the future.