Google Updates and SERP Changes - Dec 2015

[doc_z]

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System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4775925.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:18 am on Dec 1, 2015 (PDT -8)

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Seeing some shift in the SERPS for the last few days. I believe Google dialed up the domain age ranking factor.

I saw a lot of shifts in Germany around November 21st. For example, I saw old domains (classifieds) with changes of 10-20% (some up and some down).

However, I don't believe in the domain age theory. It doesn't fit for me. My guess is that it's either Panda related or (like the phantom update) a change in the core algorithm.

[EditorialGuy]

Funny searched for product that is being raved about currently... very popular at the moment and the only place you can buy is amazon top results or in google shopping results (but if you go to a price comparison website you will find a lot more sellers at a lot lower prices than google shopping results)

In my own commercial searches on Google, I've found all kinds of sources for things ranging from canine soft goods to electronics. So it's probably a mistake to make broad assumptions based on an isolated search.

As for Google Shopping, those results are ads. If you aren't seeing the same sellers that you do on a price-comparison site, it's probably because the sellers haven't chosen to buy Google Shopping ads.

[3zero]

What with Penguin being delayed looks like being a quiet month on Google, maybe time to reflect on marketing strategies and choose your plan of action for the coming year...

[Kelowna]

We've dug ourselves silly. We are doing nothing. It's Google that is changing data sets on the fly. That's pretty clear when out of 4 days you get 0, 2, 3 then 10 conversions respectively.

All I can say is that with many dozens of sites across the USA and Canada we have never seen this sort of thing happen to our sites. Some days a little better than others for sure, but never the off and on again sales you guys are talking about. With the amount of sites we run we should have seen something similar at least here or there.

This is why I said dig somewhere else. Or... you are looking at the wrong thing. Or.... there are no such things as zombies Or... your site is set up the same way as other people who are seeing poor results.

[glakes]

With the amount of sites we run we should have seen something similar at least here or there.

Are you running Adwords? The same on/off traffic applies across the board - to organic and Adwords. To match the tit for tat, Adwords campaigns are going on and off. Just wish there was a script to automate this. But if I have to code something to avoid junk traffic, I'm better off increasing my spends elsewhere where there is consistency.

[samwest]

All I can say is that with many dozens of sites across the USA and Canada we have never seen this sort of thing happen to our sites.

Then consider yourself lucky. The late Tedster seemed to think these sites, possibly because of their age have been selected as test sites and continue to be used as part of a test pool. We hold a considerable number of #1 spots and have very little competition for our key phrases.

Just because it's not happening to your sites does not mean it's not happening. I also run dozens of sites and only one or two older sites see this phenomenon.

[SEOcomfort]

So far this month, my sites have seen slight increases in traffic while conversions/sales are very sporadic. I have noticed every day at 3 pm EST the conversions all of a sudden turn on. This has been happening all month. It's definitely not how this site normally performs. Usually the total conversions are spread out evenly throughout the day. Now I might get 1-2 before 3pm EST, but after 3 conversions come in steadily for the rest of the day.

Any insights would be great. I have checked to see if there are any geo metrics that could indicate why this is happening and nothing stands out. I figured if we are located on the East Coast, our converting visitors are on the West Coast but there is no data leading to this theory.

[goodoldweb]

Any insights would be great

Focus on the user
[youtube.com...]

[glakes]

Focus on the user

Users convert great, but Google zombies behave like bots and no bot I've seen owns a credit card.

When Google started going flaky with sending junk traffic, I jumped into Amazon. Similar but entirely unique product copy converts 10% on Amazon, which is not bad for not being the lowest price, no buy box, etc. This conversion rate was slightly lower in Adwords and organic Google traffic was about half of that. The end of September everything changed - conversions so unstable advertising in Google was not worthwhile and resulted in lost ROI without changing anything (no bid changes, no keyword changes, etc.). Adwords reps don't acknowledge any problems and well Google does not support organics at all. What's one to believe when all of a sudden they start sending junk traffic? Is Google running hit bots to keep the quantity of our traffic at pre-zombie levels? Is Google so broken that it can no longer match users with websites in paid or organic listings? Or as some have suggested is Google running our websites through the ringer as part of some extended test? What most of us see with zombie traffic are patterns. These patterns are not normal and suggest converting traffic is being manipulated.

[goodoldweb]

@glakes

Watch the video...

[jsompinm]

Here's some observations and analysis on what we have been seeing from the beginning of December. Very disturbing and potentially catastrophic for big sites. It's a bit of a long story (8 minute read), so I'm linking directly over to Medium: [medium.com...]

[glakes]

goodoldweb, that is a nice video. Seems us webmasters are not the only ones that need to focus on the user!

[SEOcomfort]

goodoldweb, I haven't made any significant changes to our converting pages (product pages) in over a month. I have made small tweaks here and there but nothing to completely shut off conversions just in the morning time. Like I said, I am still getting conversions, but it is a lot more sporadic at a slightly lower overall amount of conversions. I think if this was related to the user experience, conversions would diminish completely and not just in the morning time.

Of course, you could argue that the morning time might have a completely different audience than the afternoon causing the differences in conversions. But I haven't seen anything differences in the visitors from the morning and the afternoon.

Overall it's strange this is how this month is going. At this point, I am not counting out any possibility

[RedBar]

What an absolute mess their SERPs are. I just did a keyword1/2/3 search for one of my own trademarked products, this product is only available from myself, the results:

1. Houzz - Not one mention of any keyword on the page
2. Houzz - Not one mention of any keyword on the page
3. Houzz - Not one mention of any keyword on the page
4. Gardenweb - A forum post from 2011 - surprise surprise, now owned by Houzz
5. YouTube - Awful quality video
6. Pinterest - One keyword1/2/3 mention on the page amongst 30 other keyword1/2/3 products
7. Correct result however very weak
8. Keyword1/2/3 spam filled page
9. Correct result however very weak - Two keyword1/2/3 and 1 image, that's all

That's the best you can do Google, give results that have zero quality information on any page?

[masterjoe]

It's been a piss poor month this December. Maybe 1-2 sales currently... Google really has sunk to an all time low. Keep stealing away G! The only solution now is to figure out how to drive more traffic and rank more keywords.We have a very interesting year ahead...

[goodoldweb]

^ +1

[glakes]

Anyone noticing any change in traffic and conversions? My traffic is down quite a bit and conversions are up. This is the first time since September since an up day in conversions has been coupled with lower traffic. Possibly a positive change for those of infected with zombies?

[masterjoe]

Seeing the same. Got a few email subscriptions and sales in the last 2-4 hours. Funny how we're all seeing the same things at around the same times.

[samwest]

@redbar - the home improvement niche is a mess. Dominated by the well financed Houzz, still.

[masterjoe]

Quick question -- has anyone tried blocking bots from backlink crawlers or random search engines? If bots are really eating into "quotas", maybe blocking bots might help a little bit.

[raseone]

This is all trivial. The situation has never come anywhere near a return to "normal" since 2011. I am practically the only person on earth who does what I do & still Google sees fit to rank pirate copies of my material on crumby sites above not only my own websites which have been in operation since the 90s but also above any other legitimate sources which include some of the most reputable & long-standing sites on the net.

Not to be a jerk but many millions of people use my artwork & software, I'm in a History book form Yale university, my offering was the first, it is still the biggest in my niche. My competition is not a problem... I am still handing them their hats. The issue is that I am competing with myself.... with pirate rip-offs of my own content.

The situation turned this way overnight on April 11th 2011 & there has never been the slightest sign of recovery no matter what I do to my sites or other online presences. I've wasted my life savings trying to stop my lifes work from being forever devalued but I've lost the battle. I'm reduced to doing grunt work while Google & the pirates profit 24hours a day, 7 days a week from the continued spread of my material. Anything new I release is just eaten by Google via youtube piracy or Google sponsored pirate sites brought to the top of Google serps...

Blaming some factor on my own sites is nonsense & fails to explain why the other legitimate sources get the same treatment. It fails to explain why the pirate site can have the same & even worse problems but still be allowed to prosper.

This is a scam. It's extortion. It's infringement. it will never change. The government does not understand what google is or how it works so they can't/ wont ever help us. Trademarks & copyrights are useless.

I make things. I create content. People want it. I put it online so they can find it. I spent my entire life building a life & business around this simple equation. Google is stealing from me. There is no other way to say it.

[SEOcomfort]

Today has been a definite uptick compared to the rest of the month. Both traffic and conversions are up. I am in the technology e-commerce industry. All rankings seem to be steady with no or very little changes, but somehow traffic and conversions are up about 15-20%

[aok88]

Anyone noticing any change in traffic and conversions? My traffic is down quite a bit and conversions are up. This is the first time since September since an up day in conversions has been coupled with lower traffic.

Seeing the same. Got a few email subscriptions and sales in the last 2-4 hours. Funny how we're all seeing the same things at around the same times.

Same here. A site that has definitely had a similar zombie pattern to some here is now having much, much better conversions, but a lot less traffic. This has been going on for more than a week now. Time on site and page views are up a lot too. But all of this can be attributed to a lot of work and improvements we've done recently too.
However, it sure does seem like some of our sites here are being treated very similarly by Google, for good and bad.

[samwest]

This week has been a dead streak on conversions. My GA live is usually sitting at 2 to 10 visits at any one time, but a few minutes ago I get a sudden hit of 50 visitors on one of my sub page articles. All from Google, but with no referral data...other than all mobile. Seems it's my turn in the test barrel again.

[Juniya]

@Aok88 and @Glakes

This is crazy, I have been experiencing pretty much what you guys and others on this thread have said.

My web sites traffic has had a slight dip the past few days but the quality of traffic and conversation(includes ad clicks) has gone way up, users are spending more time on my site and the page views have gone way up.

Been trying to figure out what exactly is going on, it's like a trade off,google gives you lower traffic but they give you more page views and high quality users(who click and buy)? Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing yet.

[aok88]

@Juniya and @Glakes

Have either of you changed/improved anything recently to account for better usage stats and conversions?

[masterjoe]

Had a random streak of conversions today. Still not enough to make up for a week of absolute garbage, but still better than nothing.

[Juniya]

@Aok88, honestly, I am sure you have heard this before too but what I focus on these days is the users experience on my web site(s), my best effort is focused on the content and ease of navigation of the user.

I have spent a lot more time on my content than anything else and it is paying off because it seems like the users are browsing my web sites much more now.

I am still monitoring the situation, the high RPM/eCPC is good for(or it is because it's holiday season?) now but I am hoping this is a permanent trend not a random/temporally affect by Google's doing.

[aok88]

@Juniya Would you say that the most recent stuff you've done to improve user engagement (tos, bounce, page views) is likely what caused your user stats and conversions to improve most recently? I am trying to determine of this is just a change in google analytics reporting or due to recent work.

In my case, it could be either, and in the past I have seen our user stats improve without us doing anything, which seemed like it was simply a change in how GA reports things.

Have others here seen user stat improvements recently without making any big changes to their sites?

[Juniya]

@Aok88, good question but I didn't really do anything that drastic to my web sites or content but the good news is the traffic seems to be back up today and the page views/CTR are still up too. I went a deep further in my stats and noticed that I have a lost a lot of traffic from Russian viewers but instead I am getting much more South African and Northern Europe traffic in the past 48 hours. Too early to say much but we will see if this continues for the next 2 weeks.

[aok88]

@Juniya and @Glakes

How were usage stats over the weekend? Mine got considerably worse Sat. and Sun. - similar to the way they were about three weeks ago. I don't think we have made any major changes to cause this either.