"ZOMBIE TRAFFIC" Separating fact from fiction & emotion

[FishingDad]

This recent discussion about "ZOMBIE TRAFFIC" is just utter nonsense. What are people saying, anything worth while or just a communal <snip> because sales are down on the norm? The talk is firmly in the tin foil hat area.

Are you talking about SERPs, if so why, if your positions are dropping then that's that. If positions not dropping are you seriously saying Google is sending you people they know will not buy from you !? REALLY?!

Are you talking about PAY PER CLICK? if so then your talking possible click fraud then, aren’t you?

Giving any constant period on the internet, people buy or they don't buy and there's many many factors why they will one day and might not the next day.

[edited by: goodroi at 5:55 pm (utc) on Nov 10, 2015]
[edit reason] Let's be careful to keep the discussion on a professional level [/edit]

[ecommerceprofit]

We tried enhanced bidding during zombie days as a test (a few months back) and the zombies still came.

[glakes]

The unknown group of sites see zombie like behavior because high variability in conversions

It's not a high variability in conversions. 9/1 was 7% and it slowly dropped to near 0 despite having elevated traffic levels since 9/1. There is a variability in conversions though and just with Google. Bing and Yahoo convert consistently. To me that proves Google is manipulating buyer traffic and it's definitely not going to the highest bidder in Adwords.

We know Google's priority is it users, not the website owners.

Google's priority is their profits and to achieve that they try to maintain a balance between pleasing users and keeping advertisers happy. Obviously Google is failing on the later part in my case.

What makes this particularly bad is that it is a winner take all scenario.

Buyers are definitely going somewhere or they are just getting so frustrated with Google that they go to Amazon. If people are buying from one of my competitors, I will probably see them as customers in 1-2 years once the product they bought fails. Though my competition is limited, the product they produce is not built to last and has some inherent flaws in their designs that make failure an almost certainty.

One last point, the winner in most cases is most likely Amazon, which would explain is domination of the serps.

And fortunately for me Amazon's domain crowding in organic search results includes my products. No need for me to pay Google to appear above Amazon and flush good money down the toilet. I just have to slightly gouge Amazon customers to offset the 15% per transaction commission they take. One thing is for certain, Google could care less if they are sending their users to the highest priced site for the same product that can be purchased directly from the manufacturer much cheaper. Price points have not made it into Google's user experience models for shoppers I guess. LOL

We tried enhanced bidding during zombie days as a test (a few months back) and the zombies still came.

Tried that too even though I was bidding high. The result was paying more for the same non-converting crap Google traffic.

It's getting about that time to write Google off completely. It's clear Google has created a rigged market where there is no escape (pushing one year already). Hopefully one day regulators will grow a spine and do something before even more small businesses succumb to the noose Google has around our necks. Until then I will invest my marketing money where I get a return and rest assured it's not Adwords.

[FishingDad]

Google probably knows, in most cases, which users almost never buy anything.

Very true and Google does acknowledge this. In Adwords you can used enhanced bidding that will automatically raise your bid for users Google has determined have a greater intent to buy.

I have just read the last 2 pages and find this "discussion" no more informative and going by the above quotes! What can anyone seriously make of that?

Is this discussion helping anyone at all, if so how and what are you doing to increase your sales?

As far as we are concerned the UK is a completely different economy than it was 3-4 years ago and again 8-9 years ago. There is nowhere near the amount of money being spent on anything like there has been in the last 9 years, in every sector. The World is in a worse state it has been for decades, there are terrorist problems, conflicts and wars the likes have never been seen. Nearly the whole first World is in austerity measures.

Yet you think Google is in control of EVERYTHING and this is the

only thing

effecting your sales, seriously?

[NickMNS]

@FishingDad
Things change and evolve over time, the economy included. But I believe people's attitude towards there surrounding doesn't change overall. So statements like "it is a completely different economy" and "there are terrorist problems" are always true over any given time period. (if it is not terrorism it will be some other external risk factor eg: ebola, nuclear war, global warming...) These statements would have been just as true in September 2001 as they are today. Go back in the archive of the various ongoing threads. You could take an old post change the date insert it here at might go completely unnoticed. Yes, some of the topics might have shifted, but the general attitude is probably the same.

Does Google control EVERYTHING? Obviously! .... not. But there are thing that they do control, such as manipulating what users see based on their predicted probability to convert. This is not opinion it is publicly stated, by Google, see Adwords enhanced bidding and Adsense Smart Pricing.

Before finding a solution you need to know what the problem is. The problem with problem, the zombie thing, is that it is ambiguous, different people at different times attribute different outcomes to Zombie's. This is my definition:

You are impacted by Zombies when:
- the conversion rate of traffic coming from Google specifically (organic and/pr paid) is erratic, that is periods low or no conversions inter spaced with peaks of conversion (normal to high), and overall an average conversion rate that is lower than it has been historically.
- the conversion rate of traffic coming from non Google sources (Bing / Yahoo /FB) is on average equal to the historic and the overall pattern is more consistent, eg: if your avg. CR is 2% your daily range would be limited to between say 1.5% and 2.5% on most days.
- before entering into the this specific pattern, your site has not undergone any significant changes.
- you website is of high-quality and fully functional.
- your products are of good quality and sell normally through other channels.
- you have not engaged in any spurious seo tactic such as link buying and so on.

So @Glakes, @MasterJoe, @Ecommerceprofit, @SamWest --> as you are the most vocal and out spoken, would you agree with this definition? Did I miss something?
@Anyone else please feel free to chime in.

And with the theory proposed by Aristotle and the 300+ posts, several people coming close to being banished we may be getting closer to understanding the problem and thus are closer to finding a solution.

So FishingDad and Ecommerceprofit, this may not be such a waste of time

[aristotle]

NickMNS -- I'll quote myself from what I've said before, and still believe:

Zombie traffic = ordinary normal traffic with the likely buyers removed

So in my view Google doesn't turn "zombies" on and off at all. Instead, it's the likely buyers that are turned on and off.

I've said several times that people should forget about "zombies', because they aren't the problem. The real problem is that Google can control where most of the likely buyers are sent, and most of the time Google is sending them to amazon and/or big Adwords players and/or other favored sites. Although occasionally for short periods Google sends them to other less-favored sites.

So it's the likely buyers that are turned on and off, not the "zombies"

Those are my conclusions anyway.

[glakes]

@FishingDad

Thanks for the news brief on world events. Did you have anything of value to add to the discussion or are you just here to rant about something you know nothing about?

@NickMNS

Your definition of zombies pretty much covers it.

@Aristotle

Agree Google is controlling the buying traffic and Adwords bids, enhanced bidding, etc. has no impact on what they are doing. Whether we call non-buyers zombies or not should not matter. It's simply a nice synonym to describe crap traffic. Of course there will always be a select group of non-buyers to any site - I see this on Bing and Yahoo. But when the vast majority are duds, the whole lot can be summed up as zombies. Not something you would expect to see from the top search engine, but for a year that's what I've seen.

[smilie]

>> @glakes: I have GA on with ecommerce tracking so I am feeding the Rank Brain all the info it should need

THIS is the reason you have zombies. Turn ecommerce tracking off ASAP, don't be a SUCKER.
They are essentially stealing your customers.
Every converted customer is put into their own "visitor that ordered X" dataset and then resold via Adwords not to you.
And with every previous customer removed from dataset of potential customers in your niche, you are getting more and more zombies.

[smilie]

@glakes : Paging all zombie victims.... Just curious how everyone is doing since the 9/1/16 update. Please let us know.

So far traffic is down 10-15%, conversions are down 50%. A pretty serious business hit, considering we've launched a completely redesigned website a month ago. And spent a year redoing it.

The massive levels of crap traffic and the resulting high CPA are purely controlled by Google.
Adwords is a waste of money and may campaigns stay off most of the times except when I see some sort of update.
The reason they get shut off afterwards is because Google is sending crap traffic and nobody in their right mind can afford a CPA that high.

I second that.

[masterjoe]

Traffic has been the lowest it has been since "zombies" first hit in September... it started off with a few days of conversions which made up for days of very few sales/conversions. It has slowly degenerated into just hours of converting traffic a week, even with adwords. 2 days ago and today were actually "okay" compared to the complete flatline I've had since the end of August up until now.

Whatever this useless update is, it has had no effect on improving the quality of my traffic.

I will not be using adwords until I see something fairly stable in the SERP's, which was still profitable since the start of this year.

[glakes]

@smilie

While I understand concerns about ecommerce tracking, GA and other ways Google collects data, I'm in a very, very small industry with very few competitors. In fact nobody is bidding on the top buyer keywords via Adwords text ads. Therefore my concerns of Google reselling my traffic as leads to competitors is rather limited.

From what others are saying, and serp volatility trackers too, Google has been in a state of flux since the update was released. I'm not seeing my keywords bounce around like others, but conversions from Google are few and far between now. My overall Google traffic is up around 8%, but this traffic is all junk and really means nothing if they don't buy. Bing and Yahoo users are buying, and I'm selling like gangbusters on Amazon. Hopefully when the dust settles your site will bounce back stronger in Google as I hope mine will too.

[smilie]

@glakes.

Think about it one more time.

Zombie traffic = traffic with converting visitors removed.

You are giving G an avenue to data mine your converted visitors AND REMOVE THEM from your future traffic.
This is how they make billions. It is automated across industries, it doesn't matter that you are small. This is how the current process works.

I almost never see people in "too tiny of a niche". Think about what's above that, a broader range. For instance, for something very narrow sold in Home Depot there's always general "hardware" or "home and garden" or "household" type of category that your visitor can be sold to. It's important that once someone orders from you they know it is a visitor "who ordered online" ==> $$$$ in G eyes, already a $0.50/click if not a $1.

[smilie]

>> @glakes: Hopefully when the dust settles your site will bounce back stronger in Google as I hope mine will too.

Thanks, and I hope your site does well too.

Today I was looking at stuff in my niche and I am puzzled and the poor quality of sties I am seeing. As I could not find the quick answer to my query... Considering I have .gov, EPA, 5-6 billion dollar corps in the niche.

For this particular search. I am seeing #1 result being .cn chinese website. Have never seen one. #3 is some forum. #5 is forum. #6 is Amazon. #7 is site I've never seen describing some miracle drug, #10 is a US military gov. #11 blogspot post. #18, 19 alibaba. Third page I see a Singapore site and .tk, New Zealand (? I am in US) What a ... strange mix.

Looks like an update gone haywire. Or maybe it's Google's AI or RankBrain losing it. So let's wait, maybe it'll settle.

[Simon_H]

Did you have anything of value to add to the discussion or are you just here to rant about something you know nothing about?

Read that back to yourself.

So far traffic is down 10-15%, conversions are down 50%. A pretty serious business hit, considering we've launched a completely redesigned website a month ago. And spent a year redoing it.

So, you launch a new website and your traffic and conversions drop. But rather than consider your site changes may be suboptimal, you conclude that the reason for the drop is actually that Google is out to get you, and is doing so by spying on you through GA.

This thread seems to have picked up the nonsense that the mods banned from the updates thread. Here are some things that the zombie phenomenon ISN'T:

1. Saying that Google adwords traffic is junk when your knowledge of running an Adwords campaign is limited to turning it off when things are bad and turning it back on when things are good.
2. Saying that Google traffic is junk but you sell well on Amazon, thus demonstrating you don't understand traffic cannibalisation.
3. Saying things like 'We had sales on Tuesday, but Wednesday was a zombie day', thus demonstrating you don't understand attribution modelling and don't track users' conversion paths.

I find this frustrating, because some of the comments on here are so ill-informed that they result in observers laughing off the zombie phenomenon, and damaging the reputation of WebmasterWorld as a whole. I'm also beginning to question whether some of the more vocal commenters are actually seeing the zombie phenomenon at all. It seems more that they're just worried and frustrated with their falling sales, don't understand how to fix it and so are using WebmasterWorld as a platform to blame Google.

[aristotle]

demonstrating you don't understand traffic cannibalisation.

I'm not a business person, but it seems to me that if total overall sales are greater, then any cannibalisation that occurs is worth it.

[NickMNS]

@aristotle I don't think that was the point. The point is that if you start selling through a new channel to the same client base eg: moving from direct sales from your site via Google organic alone to both Google and Amazon. You cannot reasonably expect the sales from Google to remain unchanged. Some shoppers that go through Google organic serps will likely find your products on Amazon before finding your site directly, thus cannibalizing sales from Google.

But I challenge Simon here on a slight nuance. If the total number of searchers remains the same, then traffic from Google should drop and the conversions rate should remain constant. What is being described is that traffic from Google is unchanged and it is the conversion rate that is dropping.

[aristotle]

NickMNS -- But if you get more new sales from amazon than you lose from your site, isn't that a net positive?

[ecommerceprofit]

Simon - I think everyone here brings something to the table...except the naysayers with an agenda I will not mention.

1) Honest naysayers without an agenda willing to listen to zombie victims

2) Daily angry posters talking about numbers (keeps data and theories flowing) as well as raw anger which is needed in my opinion. I think they know exactly what zombies are looking at past posts.

3) People like me who could care less about numbers but want to keep the discussion running until Google solves the problem. I personally don't think any more analysis is needed...communication from Google is needed or action from outsider parties to help get action. If nothing gets solved work to organize ideas by communicating with outside parties (law, government, press).

4) People like you who is a victim but instead of complaining loudly you choose to analyze in a super scientific way.

We are all in the same boat and need each other. For the numbers people...I have been lucky so far since 8-20-16 being zombie free for the most part. I will be getting zombies any day now...hopefully not, but I am bracing for impact on a massive scale. Has happened for the last 12 months...

[NickMNS]

@aristotle yes absolutely positive.

@ecommerceprofit

People like me who ... want to keep the discussion running until Google solves the problem.

With all due respect I think one needs to come to terms with what seems like an undeniable fact, Google is not going to solve or change anything. It's is kind of like keywords stuffing, this may have worked 10 or 15 years ago but the algo changed, leaving a page stuffed with keywords is useless, the tactic is dead, it will not be resurrected.

Moving forward, one needs to determine what is at play, what are the factor that influence this zombie activity. One will need to make the correct strategic changes to get the business back on track and not to waste resources, making random changes that will worsen the situation.

[ecommerceprofit]

NickMNS - sure, good point. 20 years ago I do remember being on 2 pages straight in infoseek...my site showing up for every result. Was never really into SEO but back then I tried a few times.

I appreciate scientific analysis. However, an equal point is that Google really is not on the small merchants side. I could drone on about why but really my point is that some of us think that scientific reasoning won't solve this problem. I have no choice but to change my business..you are right here. However, it does not mean we should not fight for what we believe is wrong with Goliath.

I have tried to see both sides but after 12 months with no communication from Google I am now more on the side of not believing this will ever be solved. Enter stage right David.

[Shaddows]

@Simon_H

3. Saying things like 'We had sales on Tuesday, but Wednesday was a zombie day', thus demonstrating you don't understand attribution modelling and don't track users' conversion paths.

Yeah, we have sales cycles of various lengths, but a really massive section is same-day ordering. Admittedly, a lot of this is repeat business from people who rely on us to fulfil their orders overnight. But anyway, while headline traffic data is sub-optimal from a forensic analysis POV, for any site with extremely short sales cycles, it is legitimate. Such sites include:
- Impulse purchases
- Failure remediation services (we're big here)
- Unplanned Just-In-Time ordering (we're big here too, think "I am doing an installation, I really need to buy that commodity part for tomorrow")
- Commodities
- Anything with low qualification requirements

As per previous, we don't have zombies any more but I'm following the discussion as I really think this phenomenon sheds light on a hidden mechanism in the algo- traffic remains constant while quality changes. For me, the mechanism for this is more interesting than the outcome (although I sympathise with those for whom the outcome is devastating)

[Simon_H]

I think @NickMNS is spot on. If the purpose of the endless whining is the hope that Google will read it and eventually fix this, you are way off. (Not to mention that it's very annoying to other members and breaks forum rules.) If anything, the opposite is true; you turn yourself and WebmasterWorld into a laughing stock. Especially given some of the arguments on here are embarrassingly flawed.

The *only* realistic way to deal with this is find out as much as possible about it through sharing constructive analysis, and then tweak your site/business/SEM/whatever so that you're sufficiently optimised to weather it, or you no longer are hit by it. Even if you have indisputable evidence that Google is mismatching paid traffic and you send it to them (we have multiple times), they will just ignore it.

@aristotle Agreed! Yes, if overall sales increase, it's all good, although you need to be careful with Adwords to avoid paying to compete against yourself on Amazon. That's not the point though. What I'm objecting to is the whining that this proves Google is favouring Amazon over small businesses, or that this is 'zombies' at work. All it proves is that the whiner doesn't understand cannibalisation.

@Shaddows Totally agree. Yes, different websites have different sales cycles and typical conversion paths. Those are precisely the conversations we should be having in this thread. Repeat business and consumable products are a key point - many repeat customers will find the site through a navigational organic or paid search - which may show as sales on constant days of the week or days of the month. I do know many of the websites of those on here with zombie traffic and/or details of the niche of the products sold. Some of the more vocal commenters could easily have conversion times of weeks, if not months, because they relate to home improvements.

[glakes]

I'm not a business person, but it seems to me that if total overall sales are greater, then any cannibalisation that occurs is worth it.
But if you get more new sales from amazon than you lose from your site, isn't that a net positive?

Amazon costs $40 a month for a pro seller account and Amazon takes a 15% cut per sale. If using Adwords produces sales at less than this cost, it's a win. But for the vast majority of time over the last year, Adwords has not. I've seen CPA bounce all over the negative range, many times a sale costing three times the retail cost of the product.

What I'm objecting to is the whining that this proves Google is favouring Amazon over small businesses, or that this is 'zombies' at work. All it proves is that the whiner doesn't understand cannibalisation.

It just proves you don't have an understanding of the problems others are experiencing. When the top two or three organic listings are from Amazon, there is less room for anyone else to be seen. And yes, to the common layperson it appears Google is favoring Amazon by giving them so many first page listings.

[ecommerceprofit]

Simon - your way is NOT the only realistic way. I cannot break the terms of Webmasterworld but there are closely related problems being solved in other ways. I attempted for 1 year to try and understand this problem and my conclusion is Google is not your buddy. They have proven they can be evil unrelated to zombies. John Mueller has done absolutely nothing (after he asked for info) to address the people on roundtable who came out and gave him examples. Sales reps reports from all of us have done nothing. Not the reps fault...the people above them.

I still keep hope that this is an algorithm glitch when I hear shaddows say they are zombie free. That's an excellent data point. However, too much Google love is not good and only hurts this cause. Too bad we are at a fork in the road and you are choosing to go down a different path. I wish you would have not roasted other victims into being some sort of geek at the proverbial school lunch table.

Still, I appreciate your analysis because your posts are the most important posts. Your scientific approach is the best approach. However, other zombie affected sites are providing needed data and approaches that do not let Google rest. Too much rest gives Google a reason to just ignore us.

[aristotle]

Simon_H wrote:
Saying that Google traffic is junk but you sell well on Amazon, thus demonstrating you don't understand traffic cannibalisation.

That's an illogical conclusion on your part. Success on Amazon doesn't "demonstrate" a lack of understanding of traffic cannibalisation. I'm not even a business person but I still know how traffic cannibalisation works.

Simon_H wrote:
@aristotle Agreed! Yes, if overall sales increase, it's all good, although you need to be careful with Adwords to avoid paying to compete against yourself on Amazon

I already understand that too. And by the way, didn't you say in another thread here that your site is "under both Penguin and Panda". If that's the case, it could explain why you supposedly know so much about running Adwords campaigns.

[Simon_H]

@ecommerceprofit We'll have to agree to disagree. I know your site well, it's great and yours is IMO a genuine example of unnatural switches in traffic quality. Fingers crossed it resolves.

@glakes If the world's foremost expert in SEM sat down with you, audited your site and campaigns and worked with you to optimise all elements, you'd still be back on WebmasterWorld within 15 minutes blaming Google for everything.

@NickMNS Regarding your point about how selling on Amazon should result in total number of searchers staying the same and so traffic dropping on your site... Not necessarily. Maybe even the opposite. If you add Amazon, you're going to lose some users to Amazon. But you're also going to gain new users who start on Amazon and then end up on your site who may never have found you otherwise, especially if your prices are cheaper than Amazon. Many users will visit both. Not to mention that none of this is linear, as it's impacted by geo, ad scheduling, smart bidding, etc. So what actually happens when you start selling on Amazon is that everything gets shaken up, rather than a percentage of searchers simply transfer from your site to Amazon.

@aristotle We seem to be arguing two different things. Read what @NickMNS said too. Yes, success on Amazon doesn't demonstrate anything per se. But when you continuously post that you're doing well on Amazon but Google is sending your site non-converting traffic, and claim that this is evidence that Google hates the little guy, that demonstrates you don't understand what is happening with your traffic. Regarding your point about Penguin/Panda, you're probably right. It forces you to become well-versed in areas other than organic.

The crux of what I'm saying is that when you're alleging something like the 'zombie' phenomenon and you want to be taken seriously, you need an evidence-based approach. Concluding that Google is out to get you simply because your business is seeing eratic transactions is meaningless, especially if you're simultaneously demonstrating you have minimal knowledge of Adwords, etc. This isn't to say certain sites aren't seeing this phenomenon, it's just that you need to rule out all natural and emotional explanations first. This is no different to any scientific analysis or legal argument.

[glakes]

@glakes If the world's foremost expert in SEM sat down with you, audited your site and campaigns and worked with you to optimise all elements, you'd still be back on WebmasterWorld within 15 minutes blaming Google for everything.

And of course you would follow-up with a condescending remark that paints your beliefs as the only beliefs that must be true because you know our industries and websites better then we do.

[ecommerceprofit]

I'm just happy I'm not the only one with this problem. Hoping for the best for everyone here. This too shall pass.

[superclown2]

There is one thing that bugs me about all this - just how can Google manipulate these results?

I see the same entries on the pages for the same search terms - 4 ads, ten search results, four more ads; and they've stayed pretty much the same for months. And yet I now get "zombie traffic". But how? Google can't stop people from clicking on my site and the number of clicks has increased if anything, so what, if anything, has Google done to make these people buy elsewhere? Are the ads more compelling, is remarketing to blame, is it the long tail, the weather, sunspots?

I'm not trying to dispute any theories about this, just trying to find answers but to me the statement that 'Google is manipulating visitors" isn't enough. If they are, what is the precise mechanism? I appreciate that they can filter visitors according to their buying intentions but how are they getting the buying visitors to click on a site other than mine, which is half way down the natural search results and has been for years?

[Shaddows]

what is the precise mechanism?

Exactly my interest in this phenomenon.

Key questions include:
How is constant traffic maintained? (possible answer: returned in SERPs for which site is normally absent)
By what mechanism is the converting traffic excluded? (possible answer: SERP is amended for buy-ready traffic)

Then you get secondary questions like,
How are buyers identified?
What are the selection criteria to specify sites to be removed?
What happens on the amended SERP - a new site swapped in, or everyone bumped up?

[toidi]

@superclown
is your site in the same place for joe consumer after he has spent 20 minutes searching for the best price or does your site get buried on page 5?