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.

[mrengine]

My traffic logs and sales look just as sloppy as the search results. Poor sales, traffic coming from places that I never heard of in geography class, high bounce rates, low page views. All this the last weekend before Christmas? Unbelievable.

[jquail]

I see the same flux in UK serps today. Imo, it looks like panda, but as usual, who knows!

[Jez123]

Yep, same here. I'm also in the UK.

Whatever I was seeing yesterday does not seem to be "on" today. Very slow week. Although this is fairly typical of the time of year for my niche. Are you seeing the same @ superclown2?

[Martin Ice Web]

After 2 very good month of increasing traffic, conversions and user engagement, yesterday it went all down the drain. Very, very, very bad traffic, no sales thorugh google traffic ( from organics and GSA ). High bounce, traffic from all over the world but not from germany. We saw an increase of robots since yesterday.

I see the same flux in UK serps today. Imo, it looks like panda, but as usual, who knows!

I think that it is a brand thing, Winners are big brands. I saw this dataset month ago. It seems pretty the same. Completly unrelated to the query while brands rule the serps. Very disapointing. Maybe a roll back to an prior panda version.

[samwest]

another "throttled" week. Today one conversion at 7am (again) then nothing all day, but adwords made $36 off me.Adsense sucked in only $4.76. What a racket.

[ambzla]

I'm us based, large eCom site, in last 3-4 days I have seen long tail organic dropping off a cliff. Seems that my pages are all still in the index, but they will not show unless I use the site: query operator. Super bizarre. Over 200k pages indexed and we've been bringing that number down over time. They are all product pages which are being "hidden" from the normal index, category and brand pages still live. Curious if anyone is seeing wacky things continue.

[Martin Ice Web]

After analyzing this new phantom update, it is clear that this was brands biased ( eg. ebay ,otto, reichelt, conrad, bechtle )
German serps are full of brands with low content pages, only the title and the pciture on the page. A description is not found anywhere. In most cases they don´t have the item on stock and shipping time is more than 3 days. I don´t now how this would help a user but google selling their ads.
Ecom shops with detailed description pages are moved to page 2+.


From all what google says about the panda algo and the current serps there is a big discrepancy. Non Compelling pages with low (no) content and only the keywords on the page rule.

[superclown2]

Whatever I was seeing yesterday does not seem to be "on" today. Very slow week. Although this is fairly typical of the time of year for my niche. Are you seeing the same @ superclown2?

Yes, for that one day I saw three different datasets, one of which was very different from the rest, and two which were fairly close to the previous results. It seems to have settled for the time being on one of the latter. Business seems no better and no worse than previous years.

[jsompinm]

@ambzla Are you tracking your rankings over time with some tool? We have been in trouble with hackers who managed to hijack some 3rd party sites and rank them above us with very competitive terms. Check if your high traffic pages for organic are being hit the same way.

[moreensby]

Have just seen this morning that there is an update notifcation within the Webmaster tools timeline, when checking search analytics. This is the information given: [support.google.com...]
To quote Google:
"December 14 -
Apps only: App install button data in search results added to the report. This change may increase the total number of clicks and impressions.
Websites only: An update to web search logs analysis. This change may increase the total number of clicks and impressions."

[Liane]

On December 15, for a very brief period of time, I saw HUGE changes in the serps for my site. I just happened to be searching for something within my niche as I wanted to try to analyze what others had done that I hadn't. To my total shock, my site was listed #4!

This particular search is the holy grail of searches in my industry ... globally. Prior to this, and although I used to enjoy some very impressive search results for everything that mattered (to my business) on Google, I was lucky to be in the top 80 for this particular two word search. The subject of my site is very regional and is specific to a very, very small part of the world, so I had never hoped to even break into the top 20 for this very competitive search. Over the past few years, my site dropped to 300+ for that search. Recently, I wasn't even listed in the top 380 ... and there were no more results shown. All of a sudden, my site was #4.

Well you can imagine my glee!

I quickly started checking my various important searches and discovered the search results for my site had been massively shifted upwards and were very similar to what they once were ... when I used to have a life.

I was back! ... or so I hoped.

As quickly as I discovered the much anticipated changes ... they were gone. I'm talking less than an hour. The results remained steady for the 20 minutes (or thereabouts) that it took me to complete all my searches and then they were vaporized.

There I was thinking that my living hell was finally over, but nope ... it was just a tease and my site is once again back in the abyss that is Google.

I really don't understand. I put up a new page a few days ago and it was indexed almost immediately. It is #1 in the search results. Mind you, there is little to no competition for the subject. But the point is that if my site is so totally useless, why is Google all over it and indexing everything I put out so quickly?

[moreensby]

I have just noticed in the past 30 minutes that 1 page that I edited meta data for (TT & MD), and a blog post that was published about 30 minutes ago have all been indexed in their newer formats, and both pushed out onto the index for Google UK.
Usually for our site, this would take several days, maybe Google is totally changing their time-frame for publishing indexed pages?

[Kirock]

For the past week or so I've been seeing random old posts getting sudden surges of hits, maybe around 5-10 simultaneous visits in RealTime GA. The source always shows as (direct).

One post, for example, (from 2012 and is irrelevant to the point that I should probably remove it) had 10 real-time visits earlier (it may get 10 visits in an entire month). Average time on page is nearly 9 minutes - and it's only a short 200 word article.

I have no idea what to make of it.

[aristotle]

I have no idea what to make of it.

You might be able to find an explanation in your server log.

[masterjoe]

Just had a nice string of sales after almost a week of absolute trash. Thanks Google.

[aok88]

On the 17th our site had more than double the usual visits, triple the time in site and page views and about 40% improvement of bounce rate. Interestingly, conversions were terrible.

Then by two days later it was back to before. No variables changed on our end.

The site also sees pages indexed the same day we publish them, even now.

Was a specific data set unleashed for just a couple days last week only? Is it a harbinger for what's to come? Or did someone trip over a cable at the plex and unplug something for a couple days?!

[lisajlb]

Hi, I'm a newbie so bear with me but I am at a loss as to the change on 14th December. Google says may increase clicks and impressions, mine fell off the cliff. In saying that sales are going great guns and i'm not in a seasonal industry. Anyone else?

[raseone]

I had a very strong site with a ten+ year history totally laid to waste by Google in 2011. Several months ago it sprung partially back to life. Traffic stayed stable at approximately 10% it's original, long standing daily totals but daily sales suddenly returned for about 2 months.... Then just stopped. No action on my end. It just happened.

[SEOcomfort]

I am not sure what happened but yesterday I got a small uptick in traffic (about a 8-10%) and a big boost in conversions (about a 40% increase). I normally see a small uptick for both right after Christmas but nothing like what I saw yesterday. Did anyone else see this?

[masterjoe]

Saw the same thing -- had a good string of sales come through at about the same time. Guess this is the way it's going to be from now on... I suppose the non-zombie day is somewhere around sunday-monday at the moment.

[EditorialGuy]

Our Google traffic has jumped sharply in the last few days, compared to the same days of the week earlier in December. Daily revenues are way up, too.

Of course, that happens every year around this time. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it's like déjà vu all over again, and it's been that way since before Larry Page and Sergey Brin made their first server rack from Legos.

[Atomic]

Ditto what EG said.

Xmas was nice, but it's good to see intent ramping up again for what we sell.

[timemachined]

As per usual with this season, you think Google is being nice and doing no evil but it's actually correcting its own mistakes. The big sites that try to game and usually succeed at timing their entry into the stratosphere for the run up to Christmas, finally get found out and begin to drop again. But a few million pound extra at the end of the year is an incentive...

Other than that, I can't really comment on a four day spike on a small site such as my own. Chicken and egg. SEO's going nuts to rank knowing their clients will drop again within two weeks or Google pressing the income button for Christmas.. both. Either way, until I get my palm greased I'm glad Christmas is over, back to stability for the next eight months until get shafted again for the Google shareholders.

Touch wood.. got that delayed update to come yet.

[raseone]

Im sure glad there aren't any undercover seo guys lurking in here.

[Discount Mall]

@raseone I have a site about 12 years old, i have been struggling with it for the past 2+ years, i have not giving hope and i know i will stumble on what made the site the way it is now or magically things start click for it like what happened to your site.

What do i make of this? not enough traffic and no sales and all these updates are not doing the site any good, any ideas?

[deuces]

I saw a nice increase this month especially after the update late november!

[Kelowna]

Im sure glad there aren't any undercover seo guys lurking in here.

I dont get it, what did you mean by that?

[System]

New thread for January 2016 continues at:

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4784754.htm] [webmasterworld.com]

2:34 am on Jan 4, 2016 (PDT -8)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:42 pm (utc) on Jan 22, 2016]