Google Updates and SERP Changes - Nov 2015

[Nutterum]

Continuing from [webmasterworld.com...]

It's November and so far no one placed any concerns about the first of Nov spike on the forecast tools like Mozcast and SERP metrics. Algoroo has not updated for that date and SERPs com tools shows sunnier forecast. I decided to start the November thread with these observations as it is uncommon for the weather forecast tools to be in such big disagreement. Sadly I do not have access to Kissmetrics and the rest of the enterprise tools so perhaps someone else can fill that void in the data.

In any case, what do you see on 1st of Nov? Any dramatic changes or vertical shifts in the SERPS?

[superclown2]

Seeing some shift in the SERPS for the last few days. I believe Google dialed up the domain age ranking factor. Some websites with 10+ year domains are ranking up despite their 10+ years old design and coding. November feels more like Experimenber if you ask me.

Yes I've got a few old sites I'd forgotten about bubbling up a bit, no higher than page 2 yet. Dunno why, they were brilliant sites then but they're junk by today's standards.

[EditorialGuy]

A little over a week ago, Google Search Console showed a significant spike in "average position" for our main site. Since then, our average position has slipped back to normal levels (although it's beginning to creep up again). Here's what I find interesting, though:

At the same time that our overall "average position" has slipped, our average positions for the queries that really matter to us, and for which we have the most authority and subject expertise, have been going up. I see that at a positive trend--for us, and for searchers--although I have no idea whether it will hold.

[Nutterum]

Don't worry about the spike. It happens on low traffic days (for me it's the weekend) when you mainly get traffic for your top of the SERP queries. Then you see spike in position, followed by a small dip from the average, until it normalizes in 2-3 days.

You can check a few position metrics from one of our 5k+ keywords website for reference. In green is the search console SERP average and in Yellow our internal daily average (its a brush not a line because there are many keywords that vary often from hour to hour : [imgur.com...]

Because there are many many keywords there, the spikes are not as visible as I portray them but they should give you some idea.

[Singhjee]

Since in this November google still updating in ranking factor, this thing still happen with my website some page not show by google but now it show my approx all page with generic keywords.

[Mentat]

I do not think is only the "turkey" involved, because I see signs of a rollback all over my sites.
Is a tradition for google to push big updates/changes on holidays!

[Kratos]

Is it normal for traffic to dip due to Thanksgiving Day and in the next few days (from the 27th Nov -today-. and its weekend -this weekend)?

Just getting ready for any dips in traffic. I take it most people in the US are taking a long weekend by taking today (Friday) off too as it was Thanksgiving Day yesterday (Thursday).
Can any US members say anything about this? Thanks

[EditorialGuy]

Is it normal for traffic to dip due to Thanksgiving Day and in the next few days (from the 27th Nov -today-. and its weekend -this weekend)?

It probably depends on your niche. In mine (informational), there's always a trough from about mid-November to late December, with a big upsurge in traffic after Christmas or New Year's Eve. This has been true every year since the 1990s.

[Robert Charlton]

I take it most people in the US are taking a long weekend by taking today (Friday) off too as it was Thanksgiving Day yesterday (Thursday).

"Most" is probably a 4-day weekend, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun.

Some who can manage it might also take off the three weekdays preceding Thanksgiving, giving them time for a nine-day vacation... the week and two weekends. All sorts of variants of this, depending on the nature of the business and how much discretionary time is allowed.

Also, years back, the Friday after Thanksgiving got turned into "Black Friday", a highly promoted bargain shopping day and the biggest shopping day of the year... but this year the day didn't meet expectations. Some are attributing this to the economy and others to the web and to new seasonal shopping patterns.

I've seen at least one US retail chain, REI, which sells outdoor equipment, decide to stay closed on Black Friday so its employees could enjoy the outdoors, and I'm suspecting that this kind of wisdom might have caught on elsewhere, but I've seen no analysis of that.

[jambam]

Has anyone noticed that when you search for products now (very big issue for tech products) all you get is reviews and the only place that you can find prices on google is the google shopping results at rip off prices. It is so blatant what google is doing now censoring even big brands from the search results just to get people to click on the google shopping results instead.

[EditorialGuy]

Has anyone noticed that when you search for products now (very big issue for tech products) all you get is reviews...

That hasn't been my experience. Unless I append the word "review" to the query for "widgetco wc-1 thingamabob" or whatever, most of Google's organic results are sell pages.

...and the only place that you can find prices on google is the google shopping results at rip off prices.

As a user, I don't expect to see prices in organic search results. Including prices in such results is probably a bad idea anyway, because a price could easily change between the time a page is crawled and the time the user sees the search result.

[goodoldweb]

^ Try searching from a non Google ip address...

[System]

New thread for December 2015 continues at:

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4780066.htm [webmasterworld.com]


3:18 am on Dec 1, 2015 (PDT -8)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:26 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2015]