Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2016

[JS_Harris]

Continuing from:
Google Updates and SERP Changes - Feb 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4788898.htm [webmasterworld.com]



I think something major might be changing right now, my 'search analytics' data in Google's 'search console'(ie:GWT) has not updated for a full week. The last data showing on the page/keyword reports is from Feb 23rd.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:44 am (utc) on Mar 1, 2016]

[glakes]

Crowd search was discussed previously in other threads and was thought to be a potential reason for zombie traffic. But this was refuted by the many people who indicated their organic ranks were about the same (even using proxies) and daily traffic from Google was about the same. Crowd search, at least a couple years ago, was thought of as a method to increase organic ranks in Google. I think Moz did some testing where they claimed it worked. Those of us with zombie traffic are not seeing rank changes, but we are seeing consistent traffic from Google. There is no way a crowd search service could guess with accuracy how much traffic our sites receive; Google captures more of this information through Chrome, Analytics, Adsense, etc. As one who was running Adwords during the beginning of the Google zombie apocalypse, I will also say that zombies were draining my budget with a quickness and conversions all but disappeared. If crowd search was being used on paid as well, where did the buyers go? I was bidding #1 for a good number of buyer intent keywords and crowd search would not have stopped real searchers from clicking and buying my products.

And as masterjoe noted, it's highly unlikely that crowd search just happened to start hitting a lot of us late last year and on this scale. The data those of us shared with each other does not suggest crowd search or external click bot activity is at work. And zombie traffic/mass conversion loss extending into paid ads does not suggest anyone other than Google is controlling this. Now, we are just weeks away from the end of the 1st quarter. Most people understand that the current enhanced Google traffic quality problem probably has more to do with Google meeting end of quarter profit targets and not the already disproven crowd search theory.

[masterjoe]

I agree with you Glakes, it seems extremely likely they are manipulating it to finish off with a nice fat bank balance this quarter. IIRC, they had the most profitable year of all time last year. Something fishy is going on, considering they lost their search deal firefox, windows 10 being shoved down everyone's throat, the rise of ad blockers. This would more than likely have cut into their profits big time. This zombie traffic is pure manipulation. Last month was perfectly fine, so they are messing with something deliberately.

[samwest]

masterjoe - you're absolutely right. Further investigation is showing a huge loss of positions with the front page full of the big name adwords network buddies. 3 to 4 pinterest in a row, houzz, houzz, houzz, hardly any of it related to the query. They need to show stockholders another 20% rise. There's little chance of winning here.

[Wurger]

Still at zero conversions. Mostly mobile. Stagnant page sitters.

@samwest apologies, but for most cases I woudn't blame Google for conversion issues.

[aristotle]

but for most cases I woudn't blame Google for conversion issues.

Evidently some sites are getting a lot of mis-matched traffic from google. If the site doesn't have what they're looking for, you shouldn't be surprised if they don't convert. google sent them to the wrong website. that's the explanation.

[Wijnand schouten]

Evidently some sites are getting a lot of mis-matched traffic from google. If the site doesn't have what they're looking for, you shouldn't be surprised if they don't convert. google sent them to the wrong website. that's the explanation.

Or some Indian click farm is looking on Google.com through Malwared proxy's in your Geolocation and effectively filling your website with useless traffic. Since the website in question is the only one? "out of sync for it's traffic pattern" versus the normal sites in the same Geo / Niche, Dr. Google thinks something is wrong with the website in question, caps it, and sends the real human traffic elsewhere.... mission accomplished?

Have those who experienced zombie traffic compared the traffic of Adwords and Organic in Analytics? Do you see huge differences in demographics like age? I use CPA for Adwords and discovered that there was a non-converting age group filtered out by Adwords CPA looking in analytics.... I wondered what those non adults were doing on my website through organic search because no-one actually buy's my products at such young age.

[Wurger]

Evidently some sites are getting a lot of mis-matched traffic from google. If the site doesn't have what they're looking for, you shouldn't be surprised if they don't convert. google sent them to the wrong website. that's the explanation.

@aristotle Yes, I heard about that thing. But, with all due respect. Saying "Google sends me zombie traffic" sounds like an easy excuse.

For example - have you (and by "you" I don't mean you personally) tried all the techniques to solve your conversion issues (layout tests, calls to action improvement, support chat pop ups, discounts, "stay and get amazing offer" or newsletter subcription pop ups, etc etc) before saying you have zombie traffic?

Your site doesn't have what they're looking for? Fine - give them what they're looking for and monetize these zombies while you have this traffic. If they're real people - they will convert. In 10 years I never saw search traffic (especially from US) which cannot be converted.

Apologies and no offence.

[aristotle]

Wurger -- All of my sites are non-commercial, with no products or ads, so I was trying to explain what some other members here are reporting. And there's no doubt in my mind that most websites (of all types), including my own, get a considerable amount of mis-matched traffic.

For example, I myself have oftentimes done searches on google (or bing) and ended up on sites that didn't have what I was looking for, whethet it was information or a product I wanted to buy. It happens because of imprecise search terms, or irrelevant search results or whatever. Sometimes I even visit three or four sites and still don't find what I want.

So what I'm saying is that a lot of the non-converting traffic that members here discuss is simply mis-matched traffic, and that's why it didn't convert.

[samwest]

@samwest apologies, but for most cases I woudn't blame Google for conversion issues.

I beg to differ. The week before was the best of the year so far. Last month was fine. The site has NO problem converting when REAL HUMANS or at the very least TARGETED humans are visiting. Those of us who have been studying these patterns for 15 years know the game.
Aristotle is correct, these are poorly targeted. Bounce rates don't go from 30% to 70% overnight with no site changes.

That said, today offered at least a LITTLE relief. Bounce is down, page interaction is up and so are conversions and guess what? I didn't touch anything..

[Kratos]

So far, Google's recent change from 3 ads on the top to 4 ads on the top of organic search has negatively affected our organic traffic big time as well as our sales (decline on both ends).

Anyone else finding that Google's recent layout change for their ads on organic search has affected their traffic or sales? I'm reading too many bad stories on other forums.

[anneconq]

This is crazy day. Our site's ranking is stable the bad thing is we don't have any single converion.. too bad.. :-(

Organic site is decreasing. *sigh*

[RedBar]

Extremely low traffic across all my sites today and, interesingly, extremely low email spam as well ... not coincidental, I've seen this before.

Something's happening.

[glakes]

But, with all due respect. Saying "Google sends me zombie traffic" sounds like an easy excuse.

You obviously jumped into commenting on zombies months after it became a widespread problem. You may want to catch up on that thread at [webmasterworld.com...] to get up to speed on what was discussed. There was another thread about zombies, which unfortunately was deleted, that had a lot of useful information in it as well. A portion of this information discussed and flat out dismissed many of the ideas that people new to the zombie world are now claiming to be the reason for poor traffic - including offshore click farms.

Telling people dealing with Google zombie traffic that it is just is an "easy excuse" probably won't be received by the community in a kind way. Some of us, myself included, have been dealing with zombies for six months or longer. And a number of us, all in unrelated niches, were hit with zombies at the same time. It's not as if India woke up one morning and decided to target all of our industries, as you eluded to, and that is just plain old common sense. The more likely culprit is a move by Google to push businesses out of organics and into Adwords. But with the useless zombies clicking on paid ads, only the strongest, smartest and those with the deepest wallets will have any visibility in Google.

[Simon_H]

Agree with @samwest, @aristotle, @glakes, etc. This is not a site conversion issue. The whole point is that the site converts at a good CR for several days and then suddenly stops converting despite the same daily traffic. That can only be due to quality of traffic Google is sending. We also see this with items added to basket which we monitor; we'll have periods with a high basket add rate and then this will suddenly stop despite the same number of users on site. It's very pronounced. And it's on both organic and paid.

@Wurger, it's not an easy excuse, because it doesn't explain *why* Google is doing this. Theories range from Google testing algo updates on a test set of sites, through to Google simply being broken. You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to acknowledge that Google regularly returns poor match results, especially on long tail, where search terms don't appear anywhere in the returned pages. If it's query processing (Rankbrain-type stuff) where testing/AI learning/bugs are taking place, then that could explain what we're seeing and also why it affects paid too. But there are still many things that don't make sense. All I can do is look at our site stats and note that the click/conversion patterns are unnatural.

[Wurger]

@glakes Thanks for your explanation. It sounds reasonable. I knew people would react negatively to my post, which is why I finished it with apologies.
@Simon H - Yes, Google algo testing looks like the most possible reason (in case of short "zombie traffic" spikes which disappear after the volatility goes down). And I also agree on query processing issues which Google does have indeed.

[Wijnand schouten]

I would say that in both cases ( Google / Clickfarm ) a dozen people know more then one.

This isn't a case of right or wrong, we need as much ideas as possible to gather data and build a sound theory. Excuses are inapropiate, one should keep emotions aside and be open to everything, hence this is the reason we are posting here?

[Wurger]

we need as much ideas as possible to gather data and build a sound theory.

@Wijnand schouten Too much variables specific to each individual website to make it possible. For example - new powerful advertiser started AdWords campaign in US/CA which put organic links down and decreased targeted traffic from these countries (thus increasing the amount of non-convertible traffic from third-world countries for which there are no paid ads for this query - so this can be considered as "zombie traffic"). I think if we continue to discuss zombie traffic here it can be considered off-topic.

[Martin Ice Web]

Big drop today, with traffic -30% from google. All other sources are untouched. Pretty much unrelated. No user engament.

It smeels like a new panda has been released on friday.


ecom germany.

[Wijnand schouten]

@wurger

Well, i have a different opinion.

Lets put it this way, i have been around for quite some long time, so i have my network of people around me. I looked at the zombie traffic for months ( actually zombie traffic is bot traffic, but in this case it's proxy traffic so zombie isn't the right word ) and logged IP addresses on my website.

From those i could match a set against a service my former company offers in their log files... so i could discover those peoples name etc. Non of the IP addresses were aware that they surfed my website when i asked the people politely and friendly. So again, one word > Malware.

If it's google doing this, i am fine with that but meanwhile don't dismiss my ideas because actually i have some real data here.

And yes, i know about privacy and i know this shouldn't be done, so what i discovered is useless, but the knowledge can be used so please use it wisely.

[Simon_H]

@Wijnandschouten Woah! That's an incredibly useful finding. Are you absolutely sure that the 'zombie' IP addresses had no knowledge of surfing the site? Is that just one IP address out of the thousands of zombies, i.e. is there margin for error in that statement? Because malware combined with Google (badly) enforcing traffic quotas may explain zombie traffic, but it seems a far less likely explanation than Google simply mismatching traffic.

[Martin Ice Web]

@Wijmamd_Schouten,

do i get this right:

you have a set of IPs from your website and a set of IPs from your former companys site.
The IPs from your former company site are mateched to known users.

The IPs from you and the former website have the same time stamp?

There is only one way you could do this.
1. This are static IPs
2, our former company is an telekom provider

[Wijnand schouten]

@Simon_H: I am sure that the 'zombie' IP addresses had no knowledge surfing my site. I tested a few out of 79 records within a time span of a few days. My test was simple ... the 79 had products in their basket. The products offered on my website are niche, the people i spoke were not interested in them either as they don't fit their profile ( they are useless to them )

@Martin Ice Web : In my country most of the IP addresses are static, there is no dialup involved. The IP address did not change over the period the people were surfing my site as "zombie" .

You both should mind this proves nothing, it's just a small piece of a big puzzle i guess. However i don't think that this is mismatched traffic put on my website by google unintentionally.

[Titi12]

"It smeels like a new panda has been released on friday"

I also think it's panda
10 % up every day since friday
No seeing ups in ranking, 2 sales this week end after 17 days with no interaction from visitors

[Titi12]

I'd like to mention that my serps have changed this week end

For my main keyword, google has corrected his serps.. For 3 years now, the serp presented hotels, restaurants and campings that have the keyword in their name, while the images showed the right item of clothing, I wrote to google a few months ago to ask them why they showed this images with those results because for me it was a non sense...
Apologies for my english, I hope you'll understand...

[aristotle]

So are members saying that after all this time it still isn't clear whether these "zombies" are bots or humans? This is such a basic question it should have been resolved at the start. In fact I thought that the malware/botnet theory had been discredited a long time ago. But I haven't been following this as closely as others, so now I'm confused.

[masterjoe]

Another sign that I'm getting bogus traffic is I get contact forms being filled out with nothing being sent in them. No, the forms have never had issues before. They are somehow getting past akismet and another spam filter. Most of the time the subject line is along the lines of "Hello" and that's it. I did have some conversions yesterday, but it still doesn't make up for lost sales due to whatever this issue is.

[renatovieira]

Hello friends,

Today (14th, march) my AdSense is with a high conversion this time. Never been so.

By my calculations and history, it is 1200% above the daily average in the morning every day.

Someone else with AdSense earnings strangely above normal?

[Wurger]

Someone else with AdSense earnings strangely above normal?

Yes, I had spikes of unusual AdSense earnings ($XXXX figures per day) - I reported to AdSense support that something unusual happens with my clicks and I have nothing to do with it. Later these earnings were just deducted without any penalties from Google to my account.

[samwest]

Monday morning and things seems to have suddenly improved.

Oddly, SPAM volume is very high this morning and 5 conversions before 9 am. (and my site doesn't convert, yeah right)

This SPAM correlation always seems to occur with better conversions, I think Martin IW and others also see this pattern regularly.

I still suspect this is related more to a global network problem than to Google's alleged meddling. .

However, it could all shut down at any moment.

[mrengine]

In fact I thought that the malware/botnet theory had been discredited a long time ago.

You are correct, it was ruled out. These new people offering their opinions may be an indication that the problem is spreading.