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]

[glakes]

For me it sounds not like an intentional action.

It feels intentional, and that I can assure you.

The zombies primarily effect ecommerce websites and has been going on for months. This problem has been communicated to Google and the issue is quite visible on forums and the discussion forms on popular website. And it is happening right before the busiest season for ecommerce websites. When bugs are found, Google does usually say they are working on it. With these zombies, Google is silent. I draw my conclusion from these facts.

Yesterday was bad for me too. Google sent a similar quantity of unqualified traffic, and no sales at all were logged from Google. Bing and Yahoo outperformed Google by multiples. Today traffic from Google looks light so far, which usually means it will be a better day. We shall see.

[Simon_H]

We've had some comprehensive bot analysis done on our site traffic over a period of a few weeks. In summary, 1% is suspected bots and <1% confirmed bots. 90% is confirmed human. So, in our case, it is very unlikely that this phenomenon is caused by an external party trying to manipulate Google. It's most likely these are real people that are not converting, presumably because of Google intermittently mis-matching user search intent and serps.

[samwest]

So here I am again, 4 conversions away from my "weekly quota" with Friday and Saturday to go...which will reliably produce exactly two sales today and two tomorrow. It takes three per day just to cover my office operating cost. April 1st 2015 my income dropped exactly in half, now they have me solidly clamped down to poverty wages. I have virtually no competition other than Google. So who thinks this isn't intentional?

[Jez123]

I have been on fire this week. Above a usual November week. October finished slightly down on last year but this is the down time really for me. Wouldn't have guessed it from this week. I had just over a week in mid October when it was like you say and then it's been great.

[samwest]

^ GFY .....and that means Good for You! Not the other one...lol. I haven't seen an upswing for going on two years now...and this is usually my seasonal upswing time. Hope it holds for ya Jez! Are you running Adwords or Adsense?

[WhiteHatTryHard]

Month / Traffic / Sales
APR 100 100
MAY 101 102
JUN 91 85
JUL 89 82
AUG 92 66
SEP 80 78
OCT 86 51

Now that is some solid data and exactly what I have been experiencing as well in the exact timeframe. - Though I didn't get it as intensely.

I still got no explanation that is not some kind of conspiracy theory.

Also most of my sales are now taking place a full 8 hours later than usual for some inexplicable reason with my demographics or language not changing at all.

[mrengine]

Eventhough this zombie thing has its own thread, the last two posts in the November Google updates thread is much the same. It's all about poor traffic from Google that hits and stays for days with a day or so reprieve. I've been selling online for a long time and have never seen such nonsense as what is happening now with zombies.

[masterjoe]

I've been looking through a few statistics on my website, and have noticed a huge decrease in page views since September (roughly 20-25% loss since then, 10 of that being last month). Can anyone else verify?

[samwest]

Now one sale away from weekly quota. unbelievable throttling accuracy.

[aristotle]

Now one sale away from weekly quota. unbelievable throttling accuracy.

But how can Google enforce an overall weekly quota through throttling or any other way, if there are other sources of traffic besides Google which can produce sales?

Wouldn't Google have to know about sales from these other traffic sources in order to determine how much throttling to impose and when to impose it?

[glakes]

But how can Google enforce an overall weekly quota through throttling or any other way, if there are other sources of traffic besides Google which can produce sales?

I think what samwest may be referring to are sales originating from Google. I see the same thing where Google is apparently not just throttling traffic but a sales quota that samwest also describes. Furthermore, Google may track sales from order success page hits with Chrome and embedded code like Analytics, YouTube videos, API fonts and other trackware. Thankfully Google does not drive the majority of our sales, but that is largely due to their inability to manipulate other platforms outside of their less relevant search product.

[samwest]

But how can Google enforce an overall weekly quota through throttling or any other way

I'm not saying Google is the sole cause. It may be, but I can't attribute it all to them...on the other hand, Google makes up 80 % of my traffic. I still suspect other factors at play, but the end result that I can observe is very accurately throttle traffic and conversions. It's simply amazing.

I'm not going to play the blame game, I'm just observing an internet phenomenon and reporting what I see. No need to speculate on a cause because it will likely never be verified or proven.

[Simon_H]

Come on guys. The idea that Google or anyone else is secretly monitoring sales through Chrome / GA / some other means in order to enforce a weekly sales quota is silly. What is more likely is that Google is sending your site a consistent weekly quality mix of traffic (albeit distributed in an on/off good/bad fashion across different days) and your site is converting that traffic at a relatively constant rate.

[samwest]

Simon H - but for whatever reason, natural variation that existed for over a decade is totally gone. By saying "they" are sending you a "constant weekly quality mix of traffic" (albeit distributed in an on/off good/bad fashion across different days) is tantamount to saying a "quota" of (throttled) traffic. But of course it's a totally crazy idea and it's not really happening. I topped my weekly total by +1, so there is your natural variation. lol - I'll bet my bile duct I don't get another conversion for the rest of the day.

[glakes]

The idea that Google or anyone else is secretly monitoring sales through Chrome / GA / some other means in order to enforce a weekly sales quota is silly.

It's not silly that we as ecommerce operators monitor our traffic sources, quality of that traffic, conversion rates and total sales. And we don't have billions of dollars to data mine either, so why would it be silly for the #1 data mining company in the world to collect as much data as possible and use it the same way we do - to make money? Contrary to your statement, I think it would be silly for Google to not do this, and I believe they are.

What is more likely is that Google is sending your site a consistent weekly quality mix of traffic (albeit distributed in an on/off good/bad fashion across different days) and your site is converting that traffic at a relatively constant rate.

In September the normal "mix" of quality traffic changed for me and many others. The net effect is a substantial loss in aggregate page views as masterjoe recently pointed out and sales. Don't look at daily stats but instead weekly or monthly, and the net economic loss is substantial. And this economic loss is not counting the rapid depletion of Adwords budgets before stopping the campaigns.

[goodoldweb]

Come on guys. The idea that Google or anyone else is secretly monitoring sales through Chrome / GA / some other means in order to enforce a weekly sales quota is silly.

Like you, the world thought the same about Volkswagen, or better still Enron etc. but then one sunny day those companies got busted, found lying and defrauding everyone . Google is probably next.

I've been in this business for more then 23 years to know that IT IS intentional. Just like the rest of their "updates" since they went public...

[Simon_H]

To be clear, I'm not saying this phenomenon is unintentional. I'm saying that I believe it's silly to suggest Google is monitoring *sales* and then enforcing a constant weekly number of *sales* for a website.

Given our site has excluded bots from the list of causes, I believe there are three potential explanations of this phenomenon, where more than one are potentially happening at the same time:

1. Intentional traffic shaping with both volume and quality quotas. Whereas the short tail serps stay relatively constant as Google is confident with them, the long tail and ambiguous queries is where Google is switching things in and out. If your site has a lower quality score or you get most of your traffic from the long tail rather than ranking highly for popular short tail terms, you'll see this happening. It allows Google to play with your quality of traffic without affecting volume because you'll get added into serps with higher or lower confidence based on how close you are to your quota.
2. Increased placement of Shopping and Search Ad widgets. This has a double effect. Firstly, if these are wrongly appearing in serps where the user intent is not transactional, they'll inevitably get clicks anyway, resulting in reduced paid conversion rates. Secondly, if the paid widgets are appearing where user intent is indeed transactional, they'll drive traffic away from organic results resulting in reduced traffic quality left for organic. Combine this with traffic shaping and you'll get the same volume of organic traffic, but reduced conversions.
3. Issues with determining search intent. Maybe RankBrain is still learning/broken, maybe there are technical problems with Panda 4.2, but something always seems to broken with Google or being A/B tested. Again, combine this with traffic shaping and you end up with a conflict where good and bad traffic is being switched in and out.

I don't think any single one of the above explains the zombie phenomenon but I think that a combination might just do so.

[masterjoe]

I think number 2 and 3 is the most plausible reason for this happening. I've noticed it as many others have, including people who aren't webmasters (as I've heard from my university colleagues and friends). Some of the most common complaints include not being able to find what exactly they're looking for. Not everyone minds the ads because they don't care about them, but I have heard others complain about there being too many ads recently... it makes the most sense because Google would turn a greater profit at the cost of less relevant traffic to organic as well as paid search results.

The traffic shaping/quota is still only a theory, but 2-3 are things that we can actually see happening right in front of us. Not saying it doesn't happen because it's likely, but creating more and more possibilities on top of a theory that we don't know for certain exists is a bit like a snowball rolling down a mountain.

[doc_z]

I'm not affected by this phenomenon. But on my sites I'm seeing some stranges effects caused by caching systems, transcoding systems [support.google.com] (googleweblight.com) or something similar. Therefore. I have to ask if systems like these might be responsible for that observations.

[glakes]

I'm saying that I believe it's silly to suggest Google is monitoring *sales* and then enforcing a constant weekly number of *sales* for a website.

I believe Google collects as much data as they can from the original search to the final user action just like we all do. Google's own search data can be combined with all their other data collection methods (Chrome, Analytics, YouTube, APIs) to determine what that user does when they leave Google search. And if a sale is made, Google would log that if they could. With most common ecommerce platforms being consistent in their sale success pages, I don't think it would be hard for Google to do. There's also Gmail where order confirmations may be sent to as well. Combine order confirmations with tracking numbers sent, Google could determine how responsive some sellers are when orders do arrive, much like Amazon does. Whether Google is using this data to intentionally manage traffic is questionable, and we probably will never know.

Regarding your #2 point. A good number of us were/are in Adwords. When zombies hit, I was the highest bidder with good quality scores on a number of buyer intent keywords. An increased prominence of ads being displayed surely would have raised the CPC, but total sales would not have dropped for the day because the more targeted ads would still be displayed. Getting back to the baseline, which is the average daily sales originating from Google pre-September for YEARS, I could always count on an average number of sales coming from Google. This floor on sales, which I had experienced for YEARS was shattered. Beginning in September daily sales on zombie days were few to none and on good days I was lucky to return to what I had seen for YEARS up to August despite logging many more combined visitors from organic and paid Google placement. If Google increased the number of paid shopping/ad widgets, yes my CPC would have risen as the result of absorbing mismatched clicks, but what about the appropriately matched targeted traffic and the sales they produced? #2 does not carry any weight with what I see. Increased clicks and a slight increase in traffic on zombie days resulted in a day with few or no sales from Google AT ALL.

From what is known about RankBrain, Google has said it is the third most important ranking factor for about 15% of the queries Google has not seen before. I've been in business for a while, and the buyer intent keywords/keyphrases are well known to Google. Google even suggests them in Adwords and has for a long time. If RankBrain is being used on searches Google has not seen before, as Google has said, I doubt it would apply to my site. Therefore, point #3 about RankBrain learning does not seem fitting. Is it possible that Google released RankBrain to manage more queries? Absolutely. But if this is how RankBrain handles queries, then the AI has split personalities by sending good traffic one day and crap traffic for the next 2+ days. So a broken RankBrain would apply, if it is responsible.

I sum up everything I see as Google doing it intentionally, which has led to an economic loss by me. Others are losing too. But where are the winners? I don't see many people talking about doing better and in fact these zombies are the main topic of discussion in most Google SEO threads here and elsewhere. With no winners posting, is this loss getting ready to spread throughout the rest of the digital economy?

[EditorialGuy]

But where are the winners? I don't see many people talking about doing better and in fact these zombies are the main topic of discussion in most Google SEO threads here and elsewhere. With no winners posting, is this loss getting ready to spread throughout the rest of the digital economy?

Isn't it pretty typical for support forums to attract people who want help, or who want to vent? The "winners" have no compelling reason to post, and they may be attacked for being insensitive, for being "Google fanbois," etc. if they do.

This phenomenon isn't restricted to search and e-commerce forums: If you go to a product forum for, say, Widgetco Refrigerators, you'll get the impression that every Widgetco refrigerator is a lemon, because no one goes to a product forum to say "My new Widgetco refrigerator is working!"

[samwest]

^ I guess it depends upon how observant people are and if they run a site as a casual hobby vs. their life blood. I come here looking for common denominators, not a shoulder to cry on or someone to complain to. It didn't take look to see the odd patterns start after G went public.
Not sure which support forums you go to eg, but most I see do offer positive support and good reviews. I for one welcome any real winners to post here.

Today's observation, same as last Sunday a morning ON period with exactly 3 conversions then shut down for the rest of the day. I've had exactly 3 conversions on Sunday for the past nine in a row. Coincidence?

[Yukko]

Check out your Analytics accounts. You will find Google Smart List for remarketing [support.google.com...]
This is the audience Google assumes will convert into sales in case you start to remarket to this audience. There is no criteria shown to public how they create this list. There is something about machine learning on the support page.

But actually you can name this audience as a "supposed to buy". All other people are "clickers" if you have something to click on.

How do they separate "cheap clickers" from "expensive buyers"? The answer is A/B tests. That's why you see waves. But your website is a tool for them to filter out clickers from buyers as well. If you convert a clicker into a buyer you mark this person for Google and give this person a buyer score.

Expensive buyers are served with the highest CPC possible to those, who buys the traffic from Google. You do not bid always on your maximum, that's why you see your paid traffic converts as average, but there are also A/B tests, so you can expect the waves there as well.

And the last thing. The quality of the traffic has got so bad. You should be a god in conversion optimization to get the sales in case you have traffic. But you should get the traffic first...

[goodoldweb]

^^ spot on

[Simon_H]

@Yukko Could you please explain specifically how this relates to the zombie phenomenon? Yes, you can use smart lists in GA to more intelligently track user behaviour to help optimise remarketing campaigns. A bit like automated bidding in adwords.

Do you mean that the on/off zombie traffic on paid is caused by Google A/B testing smart lists even on sites that aren't using remarketing? If so, presumably unlinking GA from Adwords or ceasing to use GA will stop the zombie traffic?

[ecommerceprofit]

** If so, presumably unlinking GA from Adwords or ceasing to use GA will stop the zombie traffic? **

Interesting...I still have not moved off GA...I need to get moving on this...

[samwest]

@ec - careful, I've tried that many times and it has no apparent effect...well, it does initially, but the once you stop using GA, it seems your traffic slowly dies off and gets even worse conversion wise. I'm going to pick up the phone this week and hope to get an English speaking Google rep. They'll train you on using their system so maybe it's time I give in and learn this mess. It's clear where the control is, now time to master it rather than become it's victim. Thanks for the heads up Yukko, what you say makes total sense...for once in this topic. Google Adwords and Analytics has become WAY too complex.

[ecommerceprofit]

Thank you samwest for that information...it's like I've attached a leach to my heart...if I keep the leach in place I slowly run out of energy and become weak but if I remove the leach I bleed slowly to death...

This is why I refuse to submit to selling in marketplaces...don't want the leach to attach to my heart. BTW, Google is testing delivery...they want to compete with Amazon I guess...just like Amazon, Uber, etc. they want me to work for them I guess...when we sold on Amazon we could not even put our own packing slips in boxes...we were seen by customers as Amazon delivery boys...small businesses are slowly being marginalized...not really complaining...the way of the World...I don't think it's smart of Google to even try (if they are...) should just be a search company...do other stuff but with a firewall between search and everything else...and don't get too greedy or it will eventually bite them with competition that will beat them.

Google is super important but it's nice to have my repeat customers and other big players "beginning" to learn how to compete with Google. I'm just starting to advertise on these sites and don't expect a huge success rate but they will learn in 2016 how to create successful shopping / advertising systems that convert well for advertisers because if they do not their businesses will parish.

[goodoldweb]

For anyone that missed it. From the Google KB article link Yukko posted above it becomes abundantly clear that Google IS well aware of buyers intent and track user behavior and conversions via numerous signals it collects via GA, Adsense, Adwords, Chrome, Android, historical other business info etc.

Here is that link again:
[support.google.com...]
(and i saved a PDF version of this page just in case)

After reading this I think that we can safely put to bed the "unintentional" line of defense. Not only it's intentional, they have no problem bragging about it... for many eCommerce websites a switch has been flipped to the OFF position around mid September. Just in time for the hot holidays shopping season...

I think we now need to start a new thread titled something like (as we now have evidence):
"Google restricting trade to millions of online businesses using unfair, fake, traffic switching methods"

[glakes]

And the last thing. The quality of the traffic has got so bad.

You can say that again.

I do like the remarketing angle. Google could extract additional revenue by filtering out buyers and sending them to remarketing campaigns. One searcher clicks twice, and Google's profit soars. Those not using remarketing are the biggest losers in Adwords, which could have applied to me. But if this is the game Google is playing, I want no part of it. I'll double down my ad budgets elsewhere before I consider it. I would not qualify now anyway, because GA is not on my site for privacy reasons (I allow no more Google trackware then necessary).

@goodoldweb
I'm glad to see I'm not alone. Unfortunately I think things are going to get much worse in the near future for us ecommerce websites. The loss in Google's revenue from browsers with built in ad blockers will no doubt accelerate this trend of Google pulling profits out of their hats (more like out of our Adwords accounts). In the long run though I think it will empower other marketplaces as our advertising budgets shift away from the poor/negative roi that Google is giving eccomerce websites now.