Google Updates and SERP Changes - Feb 2016

[Nutterum]

Continuing from:
Google Updates and SERP Changes - Jan 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4784754.htm [webmasterworld.com]


I just started checking my properties when I realized most of them experienced a crawl uptrend starting from 20th of Jan. No big spikes just 20% or more pages being crawled on a daily basis. Something that I am not sure how to interpret yet, as since the 20th there were ~2-3% of the pages being de-indexed, which is always sad to see.

That being said can you guys check your crawl rate and index status in the period 20-30 Jan?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:34 am (utc) on Feb 1, 2016]

[mrengine]

Despite the inflow of foreign traffic subsiding, sales are flat. It would seem Google changed something, but none of the serp trackers show any changes. This is the worst I've seen from Google in a long time.

[EditorialGuy]

The real difference is that the "early" Google sorted according to relevancy, but the "new" Google sorts according to $$$.

The "early" Google sorted according to relevancy and PageRank, and that worked pretty well in the days when the Web was relatively small. Today, But the Web has grown,and the state of the art in search has advanced, so today Google other factors such as quality, user intent, type of device, personalization, etc. are added to the mix.

And whether one likes it or not, it has to be that way for a simple reason: Just about any search for any but the most obscure topic will yield a sledload of results--whether the user is searching on something like "cityname airport," "capital of elbonia," or "widgetco wc-1 camera."

Since this thread seems to be mostly about e-commerce, let's look at the "widgetco wc-1 camera" example:

- When a thousand retailers are all promoting the same widgetco wc-1 camera on their Web sites, mostly with the same images and descriptions, "relevancy" can do no more than create a pool of candidates for the top organic search results.

- PageRank is no longer adequate to sort that pool of candidates, because (a) many pages may have PageRank that's identical for all practical purposes, and (b) PageRank is too easily manipulated by the SEO crowd. Other factors, such as site quality [think "value to the user," not just "value to the seller"), user intent ("Is this searcher looking to buy a camera?") and personalization ("Does this searcher have a history with any of the retailers on this list?") must come into play if the SERPs are to be anything more than data dumps.

[mrengine]

Editorial Guy, I'm not sure why you chime in to explain ecommerce to us when you do not operate any ecommerce websites? I am a manufacturer and do not fall into the "thousand retailers are all promoting the same widgetco wc-1 camera on their Web sites" category. Knowing this, because I am involved in it whereas you are not, samwest's statement "The real difference is that the "early" Google sorted according to relevancy, but the "new" Google sorts according to $$$" is a more believable/fitting explanation then what you included in your entire post. There are other manufacturers that post here too, which limit distribution as I do, that I know would agree with me and find your previous post regarding ecommerce completely inaccurate.

[engine]

Back on topic. Now that the ads appear to have been thinned significantly from the SERPs, but not so much from Mobile SERPs, i'm seeing quite different organic for certain search terms. Ads are different, too. [webmasterworld.com]

DSERPs (Desktop Search Engine Results Pages) seems to be stable from many weeks back.

MSERPs (Mobile Search Engine Results Pages) seem to be showing more directory-type sites.

For certain terms, the DSERPs are completely different from the MSERPs.

What are you seeing?

[xelaetaks]

Google is turning from Search Engine into the Paid ad network. On one of my keywords Amazon has 4 listings in a row and some sites that don't put out any content and have old outdated sites rank high. It certainly seems adwords is their main priority, no need to make excuses for them. Searching isn't that fun when Staples, Amazon and Office Depot take up 80% of the ecommece search results.

[EditorialGuy]

Editorial Guy, I'm not sure why you chime in to explain ecommerce to us when you do not operate any ecommerce websites?

I wasn't "explaining ecommerce," I was explaining a basic reality that applies equally to transactional and informational results. I'd also point out that "relevancy," in the current state of the art, means more than relevancy to keywords: It also means relevancy to the searcher's intent, the searcher's history, etc.

What's more, relevancy is only one piece of the puzzle (something that was true even in Google's earliest days, of course, when PageRank was Google's not-so-secret sauce).

Times change, search algorithms evolve, and just because a page had a certain Google rank for a specific query several years ago doesn't mean it shouldn't rank lower (or higher) today.

[Kelowna]

PageRank is no longer adequate to sort that pool of candidates, because (a) many pages may have PageRank that's identical for all practical purposes, and (b) PageRank is too easily manipulated by the SEO crowd.

I could not disagree more with this.

Page rank is Google's baby and is hidden now from the rest of us. We put a sh!t ton of links at our money sites and they rise up the serps. This has always been the way. Just because most professional seo's block out the spiders from ahref's and other trackers does not mean the links do not exist. The links exist, page rank exists, and it is still the driving force push ours and many other sites up in the serps. Just because it is all hidden, does not mean it does not work.

(a) many pages may have PageRank that's identical for all practical purposes

It is not identical, there is no way for you to see the backlinks now so you assume all is the same. There are now huge networks of sites set up just to use for passing pagerank to money sites, these are all blocked from tracking spiders, the general public has no idea why a site ranks so high when it "appears" to have few links, when in fact it is an 800 lb gorilla to the search engines.

The sites with the "strongest back-links" still blow weak linked stuff away, same as before, just more filters to avoid.

[EditorialGuy]

Kelowna, I'm not saying that PageRank has been deprecated. I'm merely saying that it's no longer enough by itself to determine which of many, many, many equally relevant pages should rank first, second, third,and so on.

And no, I don't assume that "all is the same," but when there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of pages about fuzzy red widgets or shiny green whatsits, it stands to reason that a fair number of them are going to have similar ("identical for all practical purposes") PageRank.

[mboydnv]

I am dumbfounded by my traffic. I have higher traffic than I did 2 years ago, yet my income is down 75%. Can't spot it in Google Analytics.

My traffic looks like I am throttled at the gate by a human editor in my niche. No matter what I do, I cannot breakout.

My traffic also looks capped. The same amount for each day of the week. Thursday looks like last Thursday. The income is also the same. Thursday's income matches last Thursday.

I have never seen anything like this. I wonder if my site is being hacked somehow...can't find what is doing this... very frustrating.

[Martin Ice Web]

@mboydnv,

i can see it on all of our sites and on the customers sites we manage.

And a made myself the fun out of it and matched my internal counts to google traffic.
-bots are not counting in overall traffic
-extra traffic from other sources is counting ( -> google analytics )
-when i´m logged in and go to my site, my own traffic is not counting, when i´m logged out it is counting

No matter what I do, I cannot breakout.

I can´t proof this as true. While i have websites i put a lot of work in, they have been rewarded with higher traffic. Nevertheless the treshold moved upwards but is still in action.

conversion rate is down
-amazon eats up a lot of conversions
-PLAs eat a lot of conversions even from price compare sites
-personalized results are PLA biased

When it comes to talk about google (in forums, street, sales partner... ) and stealing & scraping content ,manipulating serps i only hear very bad opinions about google.

[engine]

I've been spending today analysing the changes, and for some of the people i've spoken to they are in a bit of shock, especially the smaller advertisers.

For those looking at their mobile referrals, their referrals have dropped.

It's far too early to tell if there's adjustment yet to come, so i'm not panicking.

There's a piece on SEL which describes the winners and losers which has a pretty good up-tone, but probably more of an up tone than i've been hearing today.
[searchengineland.com...]

[glakes]

I'm not seeing any drop in mobile visits, but sales from Google have dried up. Are buyers abandoning Google because they can't find what they are looking for and going directly to Amazon? I think so. When this month closes out I will have my best month on Amazon to date.

It would be nice for Google to send more buyers directly to my website because the pricing and shipping are lower and present shoppers with an overall much better value. On Amazon I do jack up the prices to offset the 15% fee they impose on each sale plus to offset the Amazon $40 professional monthly membership fee. This is the way the game is designed, and the consumer will have to pick up the tab for the ever narrowing options they are presented with by the search engines.

[EditorialGuy]

It would be nice for Google to send more buyers directly to my website because the pricing and shipping are lower and present shoppers with an overall much better value.

This sort of comment comes up again and again on this forum. People need to remember that Google Search indexes and ranks Web pages--not who has the lowest prices, the cheapest shipping, the best customer service, or whatever. To put it another way, your business may be competing with companies like Amazon, but your Web site is competing with sites like Amazon dot com.

[Selen]

And let's also make it clear - Arial font looks much better on amazon dot com than on your small-business-website dot com :)

[glakes]

And let's also make it clear - Arial font looks much better on amazon dot com than on your small-business-website dot com :)

So that's why Google likes Amazon so much! Fonts are so much easier for an algorithm to interpret then simple math. Why else would Google want their users to spend more for the same product? Seems like Google's user experience leaves people a little less lighter in the wallet when it comes to online shopping. :)

[xelaetaks]

A problem I have with Google and Amazon is that in some cases I'd rather visit a specialty website than Amazon. For example if I'm buying a custom made snowboard or a serious business product I'd rather find a website that can actually give me the best recommendations about the products then go somewhere like Amazon. I think there is still a place for specialty websites in Google searches rather than having the same 5 sites show up in most the ecommerce searches.

[Simon_H]

@glakes Do you find that your increased prices on amazon to cover commission, etc drives traffic to your own site from shoppers who are price comparing? If so, presumably you see this as increased organic traffic?

[Shepherd]

Seems like Google's user experience leaves people a little less lighter in the wallet when it comes to online shopping. :)

Seems like an ecomerce website operator that has the lowest prices available is doing the customer a disservice by not getting in front of their customer before google does. If one is going to sit around while google and Amazon woo one's customers it does not really matter what one's price point is.

[EditorialGuy]

So that's why Google likes Amazon so much! Fonts are so much easier for an algorithm to interpret then simple math. Why else would Google want their users to spend more for the same product?

Google Search indexes and ranks Web pages, not prices. If you want to promote your low prices, maybe you should be buying price-comparison ads--either that, or building Web pages that have intrinsic value to users as Web pages.

[Selen]

The majority of users want low prices - this is the fact. Since 1998, Google ranking factors have been focusing on good user experience. If users want it, it has a positive value for Google web page ranking factors.

[glakes]

Seems like an ecomerce website operator that has the lowest prices available is doing the customer a disservice by not getting in front of their customer before google does.

Shepherd, I do get in front of my customers before they go online, have regular buyers that send POs by fax/email, etc. That's not my point. My point is that I'm not going to pay Google to outrank the two Amazon ads that normally appear for my main keywords. If Google wants to direct their users to the most costly option, when the manufacturer offers a lower price and telephone support (sorry, no telephone support for Amazon buyers) more power to them. I would think one of Google's highly intelligent engineers would understand that shoppers want low prices and for product queries price should be a ranking factor. As Selen noted, the arial font must look better on Amazon. Regardless, I've seen enough to know Google is more concerned about their own profits and not delivering their users value.

@ Simon
My increased prices do not fully cover Amazon's commissions. However, I do offer quantity discounts on my website. That's where shoppers can really save. In Amazon, they must pay the same increased price if they buy one, two or three of the same items. Depending on the product, it is 25% less on my website when quantities are purchased. When you factor in the money I no longer am spending in Adwords, I'm doing great and am not paying for zombie traffic anymore. Oddly enough, there are not many people landing on my website because of price shopping (either by product SKU or UPC).

@Selen
You are right, nobody wants to pay more then they have to for a product. My price and shipping fees are in text - meaning they can be crawled. Maybe my choice of fonts is not what Google likes! :)

[Shepherd]

I'm not going to pay Google

Of course not, you have to maintain "your" subsidized (free) traffic from google so you can keep your prices low.

[aristotle]

Well it looks like google has given another small rankings boost to the websites of government agencies, educational institutions, and big organizations. Wikipedia may have been affected. My sites are still holding on to their overall traffic pretty well, since they have a lot of information that none of the others have, and get considerable amount of long-tail traffic as a result.

[glakes]

Of course not, you have to maintain "your" subsidized (free) traffic from google so you can keep your prices low.

Not the case at all. My response to Simon's question noted:

I'm doing great and am not paying for zombie traffic anymore.

While I was dealing with zombie traffic click fraud in Adwords, like many others, I wasted thousands of dollars. Despite attempts to resolve the issue through my Adwords rep, and get refunded, I was repeatedly told everything was fine and I should increase my bids. LOL I was already paying to be the top on the most important keywords. Throughout this zombie experience, I never raised my prices. Finally I had enough of Google's excuses and left Adwords. In hindsight it was a great move and one I should have made sooner - my profit per sale soared.

At the present time, mostly two Amazon organic listings appear for my main keywords. One is my product page and the other page is the reviews. I'm perfectly content with that. And I'm fine if Google wants to send their users to the most expensive buying option there is, as long as it's mine. :)

[Shepherd]

Not the case at all.

Oh, I must have completely misunderstood your previous statement:

On Amazon I do jack up the prices to offset the 15% fee they impose on each sale plus to offset the Amazon $40 professional monthly membership fee

[glakes]

Oh, I must have completely misunderstood your previous statement:

I do my best to keep total advertising expenses at or under an XX percentage of total retail sales. Adwords was doing fine and within this threshold until September of 2014, when the zombie traffic arrived. Analyzing the zombie traffic, my advertising costs more than tripled in Adwords and produced fewer sales - putting me well outside my healthy advertising budget range for that platform. So Adwords went bye bye.

Amazon's fees are outside of my acceptable advertising budget, but when people order two or more items that more then compensates for the 15% commission and monthly fees along with slightly higher product and shipping costs. With some of the money I previously used in Adwords, I pursued sponsored ads in Amazon which does not seem to have helped a whole lot. But I've got more money to advertise everywhere else including social, targeted banner placements, print, etc. Honestly, ditching Adwords was like lifting 200 lbs off my back and allowed my business to grow rather quickly. My overall advertising spending is up, the percentage of advertising costs as compared to retail sales is a lot less and I'm not panicking about zombie traffic fraud draining my budget.

Like anything else, once Google pushes organics further down page 1 or completely off of page 1, I will have to adjust. But one has to be dynamic and adjust in the fast changing digital environment anyway, otherwise their doors will close.

[ecommerceprofit]

A word of warning for those looking to Amazon as their savior from Google. Amazon, in my opinion, is much worse. We left Amazon and ebay a few years ago...Amazon is worse than ebay, imo, too. From what I recall, you are NOT allowed to have lower prices on your own web site that is lower than Amazon. I think I remember receiving their dreaded notice that our prices were lower than theirs (cannot remember for sure - so long ago) and had a short time to change all of our prices...from what I remember, could be wrong, we had to butcher our web site to remain in compliance...

Also, from what I recall, you are not allowed to promote your web site in any way by putting your web site name in shipments, etc. From what I believe, Amazon gets to look at all of your data and can look at your best sellers, etc. and use on their own site. Have no proof though. Then you get to deal with customers who thank Amazon on your reviews saying "they" did a great job and when they want something for free will roast you in public - some reviews are honest too - but dealing with daily reviews is super stressful - sure your web site gets reviewed but a ton less. Also, break any of their rules, from what I recall...could be wrong...you get one appeal...lose it and you are banned...no thanks...not buying tons of inventory and getting stuck if I get banned...we never did...our review percentage was very good but super stressful...better respond to your customers within 10 min (even if on vacation) or risk getting bad review from customer who is impatient.

Sure, keep building Amazon's business - as you know from my zombie posts I do not love Google but Amazon is literally 5X as worse. Again, everything I write may be wrong...I could be remembering wrong...read their seller forums for say 10 hours - old and new posts to get a feeling of how it works from their sellers complaints and good posts. You are not a business owner selling on Amazon, in my opinion, you are like an uber driver...they OWN you. Easy to sell on Amazon and literally double my business but I refuse...would rather work for a company than work for them.

[motionz]

< moved from another location >

I am seeing fluctuation since Thursday (25/2/2016). Some of my urls which were ranking for their respective keywords in the first pages have fallen to 3rd or 4th page. And some of the keywords which are even not getting any positions have got in the first page. I am seeing no turbulence in 'Mozcast'. Did you guys have noticed something?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:39 am (utc) on Feb 29, 2016]
[edit reason] Moved post to this thread. [/edit]

[Mentat]

Unexpected turbulence since Friday (25.2.2016).

[n00b1]

Friday the 26.2.2016 you mean? Haven't noticed anything massive myself, yet.