Google Updates and SERP Changes - Jan 2016

[Nutterum]

Continuing from:
Google Updates and SERP Changes - Dec 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4780066.htm [webmasterworld.com]


I was off for the past two weeks, but looking back at the traffic patterns at the mid-end of Dec I can safely say something moved in the non US Google domains. Seeing positive changes in the UK, DE, FR and IT traffic. Asia is same but since we do not get much traffic from there either way I can't say for sure there was no changes in the SERPS there.

Too early to tell as for Jan. because it is the first workday of 2016, but I guess I can confirm my observations on Friday.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:56 am (utc) on Jan 4, 2016]

[vlexo]

Disagree on the UK not seeing a large update.

Ayima (https://www.ayima.com/pulse/) tracks 50k keywords and has categorised their keyword set - so a more accurate way of seeing what's happening in various markets. Every group has seen significant fluctuation.

The site I work on has seen massive fluctuation for extremely lucrative terms. We have been working on increasing the quality of our on-site content, but also lots of work on our backlink profile (weekly disavow to remove poor linking domains etc).

[jquail]

@vlexo

I'm seeing a big increase (20-25% ish) for a site of ours (completely white hat, no penalties) in the UK today. Much more of an increase than just a statistical anomaly. It definitely looks like an update to me, but penguin, I'm not so sure about.

[dipper]

Big brand update? - the only sites I'm seeing elevated in my niche are a couple of big players with more hefty links behind them (like ASX listed companies + larger authority sites).

Penguin looks at the quality of links, maybe a heft of links factor was just turned up a bit?

So .. is it the smaller companies that were ranking slightly better have been turned down, or the bigger "brand" sites turned up slightly.

[Robert Charlton]

Just on a hunch... is anyone observing both increased title rewriting by Google, and/or also more rankings for pages that don't include the terms in their titles?

Part of this mentioned in this discussion [webmasterworld.com...] ...but I'm also seeing other things in some serps that make me ask the question?

[Nutterum]

Hah Robert, you beat me to it. I am seeing Google rewriting the SERPS heavily since Saturday evening. Don't know how this affects the SERP weather programs but they sure spiked quite a bit from what I am seeing. Also I am seeing title rewriting in the dev. queries (I saw it in the JS and .net related niches).

As for the doomsayers who already started screaming Penguin - not seeing anything related to this algo update.

[aristotle]

For some types of sites, students returning to school are bringing traffic back up from depressed holiday levels. This could account for some of the shifts that people are reporting.

[tobryant]

Seeing…ecommerce modality sites that RFM model their links are doing very, very well. With a big emphasis on the R and F. Largely social platform links that have been add "Recently’ and are shared “Frequently”. There is a direct relationship between the semantic values in R and F links and Organic Rank that is unusually high right now.

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld tobryant

For some of us old-timers would you care to please re-write your post so that we can understand it?

[masterjoe]

I'm seeing some #*$!er who ripped off my content and rewrote it ranking just below me... if he comes up any higher I might just blow a gasket.

[Jez123]

I feel your pain masterjoe :-/

[SEOcomfort]

I have seen about a 30% increase in traffic over the past few days with a jump in conversions as well. My site has not been hit by penguin so I am sure Google is testing/updating the core algorithm in some way. I know I have focused on cleaning up the site and improving the content on the site as well as my backlink profile.

[EditorialGuy]

We're seeing massive increases in traffic (the most popular section of our site is running 120+ percent ahead of where it was in early to mid-December), and Google traffic is way, way up. BUT....Bing and Yahoo traffic are up, too. And historically, we always see a lull between U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas followed by a steady seven- or eight-month climb in traffic that begins on or before New Year's Day.

Our average rankings in Google Search Console are also up a bit, but that could easily be a reflection of what people are searching for at this time of year.

Bottom line: As much as I'd like to believe that a new Google update is treating us kindly, I'm inclined to think that what I'm seeing is just the normal seasonal demand for information about our topics.

[johnhh]

Redbar

I think he is refering to this [en.wikipedia.org ]

[superclown2]

Just on a hunch... is anyone observing both increased title rewriting by Google, and/or also more rankings for pages that don't include the terms in their titles?

I've been seeing this happen for ages to my own sites. I've had a decent upswing in business which is unusual for this time of year and FWIW I reckon that G is getting better and better at targeting websites to queries. I've watched a lot of my sites drop for the search terms I designed them for, but rise for other terms - and when I look at them without bias I have to admit that in most cases G are right. And yes, in most cases they have changed the titles.

[Storiale]

We are seeing rewriting extensively. Anything above 60 characters in Title gets rewritten + If you use very close or identical search query as title tag, it will get rewritten. For Example: Brand + Category often times gets rewritten. I have an effective method including "Save on [brand] [category] | Up to XX% off [Brand Category]. When a person types in the Brand and Category Name in the search query - boom, gets rewritten to [Brand] [Category] | Website Name. 30 characters instead of the 50-60 I put in. CTR suffers immensely

[timemachined]

Thanks Storiale, you backed up what I thought about CTR and adwords.

[webmasterworld.com...]

To me the title rewrite looks detestable and that's probably the entire point. G also ranks very limp related pages for searches, again, probably to please shareholders. I think in the end I am going to have to pay G just to be able to be listed as there's only so much you can bleed a product.

Now just need to figure out if longer external / internal link anchors work to combat it, funny. And yes I know meta title rewrite has been occurring for years but not so much based on the wording in on page links. I don't think this is penguin or any other animal other than mobile continuance and for shareholder pleasure.

[krsaborio]

I'm still enjoying the shuffle :) although I haven't seen major changes in the past few days.

I'm also happy with Google on how it handles the content inside my title tags.

I'm a bit disappointed with Adsense ... ( [webmasterworld.com...] )

[masterjoe]

So far, this update has been quite favorable for me, I'm seeing some good movement on my keywords. Won't be speaking to soon to say how much this sticks, but some pages that I've built links to are showing movement. Up 5 spots for one of my money keywords, and moved to #2 for another money keyword.

Blackhat + whitehat strategies are great when you know what you're doing :')

[deuces]

@masterjoe care to elaborate what you mean by "Blackhat + whitehat strategies are great when you know what you're doing"?

[krsaborio]

masterjoe probably meant excellent content + whitehat strategies are great when you know what you're doing :)

[masterjoe]

Yes I do write some pretty comprehensive content for my niche. I also don't buy that building links to your website is "blackhat". I've built a variety of links, from many different properties, while keeping anchor text ratios clean and ensuring that links get indexed only on high authority sites. It's really just about playing it smart... some people think they don't deserve to get slapped when use spun garbage and then blast it across multiple properties. I simply take those strategies and make them better, so it's not cluttering up the web. The content I write also generates natural links at the same time, which helps it grow organically.

[engine]

According to Google's Gary Ilyles, the most recent changes were part of a core algo update.

"the changes you saw are part of a core algo update."
[twitter.com...]

[Jez123]

When is Penguin going to happen? I can't stand the suspense!

[Shepherd]

the changes you saw are part of a core algo update.

Cool, feels like a move in the right direction, everything "feels" solid on our end, traffic/conversion is relevant/good.

[RedBar]

Thanks johnhh, I'm glad my industry doesn't work that way!

[RedBar]

Awesome G, let's have hotlinkers ranking for images again. I've just seen a widget 3 keyword term ranking in images for places 1,2 and 3, EVERY single image on the page, 40 in all, every one is hotlinked and not a single acknowledgment anywhere.

Way to go G, that's the way to keep unique information publishers happy!

[EditorialGuy]

RedBar, why not use hotlink protection?

[ecommerceprofit]

Zombie traffic is going through the roof for many days - tons of visitors - conversion rate way down (worse than before) - not on and off but on to the point of smothering our site into oblivion. My guess is this core algorithm change put into place this weekend by Google amplified our zombie traffic.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 6:15 pm (utc) on Jan 12, 2016]
[edit reason] Moved from another location [/edit]

[Nutterum]

Sooo, it turns out the update was actually Panda being finally stuffed in to the core Algo. Makes some sense considering the fluctuations. Haven't seen any strong Penguin signals as of yet on the properties I monitor.

[Simon_H]

@Nutterum Panda wasn't made part of the core over the weekend. It's been part of the core for a while now and G simply revealed this yesterday. Also, Panda still isn't real time, so a core update doesn't mean a Panda update. And Google Gary tweeted that the weekend update was core, but not Panda. So it's certainly not Penguin, but also probably not Panda.

Also, John M told Barry S in a hangout yesterday that G considered the update relatively minor, but must have contained something that triggered the weather monitors. I wonder how much of this is mass-hysteria, where everyone sees the weather monitors and then comes to the conclusion their traffic has changed. For example, we've seen a 20% increase in Google organic, but on further inspection, we've also seen a 20% increase in Bing organic. So this is most likely seasonal and unrelated to any core algo update.