Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2016

[engine]

Continuing from:
Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2016
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4802991.htm [webmasterworld.com]



Monday was a public holiday in the U.S. and also Europe, and I know that many kids in Europe are off school this week, probably on vacation with the parents.

Depending upon your sector, you may be busy, or quiet.

Have you seen the branding tests in Google SERPs?

Put in a search and add the brand name. The brand name appears at the end of the entry, slightly clipping the title.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:03 pm (utc) on Jun 2, 2016]

[ecommerceprofit]

Simon - your site A, B, C example was excellent. Thank you so much for sharing with us. You are right Nick...this is super complicated. As samwest says...Google is like trying to look at an engine with the hood welded shut.

You also said, "We should probably shift our focus to something more proactive like trying to find ways of converting the web-surfing dead"

samwest also brought up the route 66 example...or for the younger generation...the movie my kids loved "cars" where no one can sell anything in town. Even if we gave away free merchandise...most zombies would not buy.

[Simon_H]

@NickMNS You're absolutely right. That was a very simplified example with simplified search terms to try to explain the concept that a combination of ad scheduling, minimum bid auctions (rather than min ad rank auctions) and mis-matched traffic can result in zombies. In reality, it's far more complex. For example, our attribution modelling takes into account every touchpoint so we know that conversions will actually have multiple clicks from paid, direct, organic, etc, not to mention all the clicks along the conversion path to other sites that you don't see. Every one of these clicks is impacted by my previous explanation. And, as you say, you have multiple competitors and search terms all working at the same time.

To make things even more complex (!), I agree with Tedster about traffic shaping/quotas. For example, we have a major competitor that has a really poor Shopping campaign. They massively over-bid on products and use ad scheduling to turn things on and off at various times, plus they're regularly exceeding daily budget because their ads keep switching in and out. They're burning money. Because all of their ads appear above ours in broad term results, you would expect to see switches in our traffic when they switch in and out. But we don't. I can only conclude from this that Google is shaping paid traffic by pushing our impressions up and down to smooth things out. We regularly check the adwords search terms report vs product clicks report and know for a fact that around 20% (if not more) of searches are mis-matched by Google. Plus, the search terms report is regularly missing data because they don't show you clicks from one-off queries over the past 30 days, which has the effect of conveniently hiding even more mis-matched searches.

This is why I need to still research this further. But, like you say, even if we can find out the cause of what is happening doesn't mean we can fix it.

[glakes]

@glakes The overall Amazon store will most likely have a superb QS at the account level. That means that even if an individual ad has a dreadful landing page, the overall QS may still be high enough that they can achieve a good position with a low bid.

While I agree that the account level quality score has an impact on where paid ads are placed, I think there are many other reasons why Google does it - such as to make everyone else underneath bid higher, and higher, and higher. Regardless of the reasons why, this issue is just one of the many problems smaller ecommerce websites have competing in Google. Oddly enough, I've never had these problems in Bing or Yahoo. Either Bing and Yahoo employ smarter engineers who have created a better algorithm or Google's algorithm is driven by greed.

[NickMNS]

or Bing and Yahoo don't have the scale that Google has

[johnhh]

@glakes +

separate thread may be this is "Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2016"

[glakes]

or Bing and Yahoo don't have the scale that Google has

How does scale have to do with getting the answer to a query correct? Bing and Yahoo outperformed Adwords in conversions for months before I decided to cut Google off. And to this day Bing and Yahoo organic traffic sends more conversions then Google even though Google sends ten times the free "traffic." I use the term traffic loosely with Google because most of it is crap and my conversions from Google shows it.

[Martin Ice Web]

-today: 100% Zombies
-Amazon rules again - listings with 7 entries in a row are normal in my niche
-google ignors keywords: e.g. search for widget 80cm -> 2x amazon widget 40cm ?! No i want 80cm and i donīt want amazon


ecom, germany

someone to switch back to good results, please! Donīt try to guess! This sucks a lot!

[mrengine]

I came in to the office Monday to far less orders then I would expect. To give everyone an idea just how bad our sales were, ecommerce in the USA, orders tagged as coming from Google are down almost 80% -vs- the same time last year in spite of traffic being up almost 3%. No noticeable changes in search positions either. This is ugly, real ugly.

[NickMNS]

@glakes fewer queries, fewer searchers, fewer advertisers to serve. Don't under estimate the impact of scale, as numbers grow so do the number of exceptions, to the point were what for some appear as exceptions, to those working at scale the exceptions become part of the normal flow. Managing this is no small task.

If Bing and Yahoo had created better algo's then they both wouldn't be on the edge of extinction today.

Also I have trouble with statements like this:

Google's algorithm is driven by greed

when it is followed up with:

...even though Google sends ten times the free "traffic."

If you are getting a ten multiple more traffic from Google, for free, and you are unable to make any of this traffic convert, then there is an issue on your end of the equation.

[Wijnand schouten]

[If you are getting a ten multiple more traffic from Google, for free, and you are unable to make any of this traffic convert, then there is an issue on your end of the equation.]

Unless these people don't have the intention to convert and are looking for something completely different.

[mrengine]

[If you are getting a ten multiple more traffic from Google, for free, and you are unable to make any of this traffic convert, then there is an issue on your end of the equation.]

Unless these people don't have the intention to convert and are looking for something completely different.

My thoughts exactly on people looking for something different. It's the type of people Google is sending to our site that do not convert. Time on page, pageviews and conversions across the other search engines and marketing channels are in a statistical normal range whereas users from Google come and leave rather quickly.

[NickMNS]

Sure, you can make the argument that the lion share of this traffic will not convert but I have trouble believing that none can. I'm sorry but at a certain point when most of your traffic is not converting the issue can no longer be blamed on external factors. If this is the case that would suggest that Google probably isn't interpreting your sites offerings properly and some changes on your part are needed. I fail to see how this Google's fault.

The claims are being made here that Zombie traffic has been around since 2010, well this is no longer an anomaly, it is time to adapt.

If you have storefront on a busy street and shoppers keep streaming in day after day but aren't buying anything, what are you going to do? Are you going to complain to the local chamber of commerce or the city and say your are not sending me the right traffic? No, your are going to adapt to the traffic your are getting. Why is this any different.

[Simon_H]

@NickMNS I've already strayed from the topic of this thread too much, but just to clarify the zombie thing... It's where the conversion rate is flip-flopping, so it's great for a few days/hours, then poor, then great again, etc yet with no significant change in traffic volume and no obvious reason behind the change in CR. That's quite different from a site that simply can't convert traffic.

Regarding the 'adapt' suggestion, yes, that's kinda obvious, but the point is that sites need to understand more detail about what is happening in order to know how to adapt. I've looked at several sites that are suffering from this and they're not obviously broken or different in any way to sites that don't see this phenomenon.

[mrengine]

I'm sorry but at a certain point when most of your traffic is not converting the issue can no longer be blamed on external factors.

Of course it can. When you can compare conversions to other search engines and results from advertising on industry related websites it's clear the problem is not with our website but the type of people Google is sending us.

If you have storefront on a busy street and shoppers keep streaming in day after day but aren't buying anything, what are you going to do? Are you going to complain to the local chamber of commerce or the city and say your are not sending me the right traffic? No, your are going to adapt to the traffic your are getting.

You are not understanding the issue here. Converting traffic from everywhere else other then Google is just fine. There is no adapting to the type of people Google is sending because either they have no interest in buying anything or they are looking for something else altogether as others have suggested. But using your example of a storefront, we would have to create a second storefront just for Google and sell general merchandise to appeal to the vast numbers of people Google is sending our way. It's just not feasible, and we should not have to build an entirely new website for one search engine.

[aristotle]

It looks like some members are finally agreeing with me that google is sending a lot of mis-matched traffic.

[ecommerceprofit]

Nick - think about this...if I am selling aircraft parts and Google is sending me teenage music lovers...will any of these visitors convert? How about I offer 70% off? Will they convert? How about a free airplane GPS with every order? Will this convert?

A second point made by the others where Bing / Yahoo / Facebook traffic still convert daily...no on/off...also defeats your point.

Lastly, what Simon just pointed out and we have been saying since 2010 is that conversions are on/off to the extreme. Flip flopping...before Sept 2015 we would receive orders hourly...but then on a zombie day after Sept 2015 our conversions are off to the extreme.

[NickMNS]

@Simon_H in principle I agree:

sites need to understand more detail about what is happening

As for the flip-flopping, when this continues on ongoing basis, it is no longer a special case.
I think we can agree that conversion rates are variable, and they vary on an ongoing basis. When you begin to see signs of high conversion rates followed by no conversions, and this continues on ongoing basis, this is not the result of some switch being turned on or off, it is the result of increased variability in your conversion rate (increased to the point were the negative difference from the mean reaches zero).

The key to solving this is in trying to segment your users to find out what factors are positively impacting them and which are negatively impacting them. These factors will most likely not be obvious.

Again, if a drop in conversions suddenly occurs (once), then yes it can be Google algo issue, but when the cycling persists over 6+ years it is beginning to be hard to make the argument that this is some how the result of Google serp changes.

@mrengine
The point is not to say that there is something wrong with yours or anybody else's website, my point is that Glakes stated he was getting 10x the traffic from Google, for free, and that that traffic was not converting. Meanwhile he is paying the other sources to get 1/10th of the traffic. So fine you can sit back and do nothing and simply watch the users flow through your store without buying anything. Or you can make some changes, and pickup some of this "free" business.

[NickMNS]

ecommerceprofit, think about this, Google serves billions of webpages everyday, it is a robot, it doesn't know your site, it does care about your site, it is simply a machine. If over the past six plus years you have had an aircraft parts site and Google has been sending you music lovers. The problem lies with your site, I'm sorry but you need to update your site so that Google has a better means of understanding your content.

Sure Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, convert daily, great, good job. Now you still have 90% of your traffic that doesn't convert, it hasn't converted for years. How long are you going to wait?

[ecommerceprofit]

Thanks Nick. My traffic converted until I contracted the zombie disease in Sept 2015. I was swept up in the latest wave with many others at the same time. Before Sept 2015 I did not care about zombies because I did not know they even existed. The topic came up on webmasterworld but I ignored the discussion because it had nothing to do with me.

If I was not already a member of webmasterworld I would not have met the other victims and thought I was alone. I wonder what webmasters are going through around the web who do not know what is happening to them.

Google is not a machine that is self aware. However, Google is a machine that was programmed to behave in a certain way by human beings. Anyway, my site converts perfectly (can always improve) on non-zombie days. So there is nothing to update... My non-zombie days are a higher percentage than my zombie days. However, before Sept 2015 my zombie days were zero.

I think we may be going around in circles...maybe we should agree to disagree.

[samwest]

The new trend is GO BIG or GO HOME. My Route 66 analogy sums it up. How many of the affected sites have over 10 or 20 employees? I'm guessing none. This is primarily affecting Mom & Pop sites and it's more a natural progression of capitalism. It also has a very similar parallel to the Gold Rush, a few people found gold, big mine finders were claim jumped and taken over by "corporate" miners. The remaining little guys kept trying to find gold but the only ones making money were the people selling shovels...just like all the SEO consultants today.

I'd stop looking for the fly in the ointment here because Google isn't revealing their secret sauce. You can't track or analyze much because we've been blinded by their removing search terms, IP's etc. The most logical solution is to find the sites were everyone has migrated to and try to dig some gold out of those channels. Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.

We all dominated back when Amazon, Pinterest and major niche brands did not exist. The real problem here is that Google is trying to maximize ad revenue by placing the giants at the top. As I've said before. If I want to buy something on Amazon, I'll go there directly, use their internal search and skip Google altogether, same with Pinterest, Facebook, eBay, etc....so Google is slowly becoming obsolete to the major sites. Question is, why does Google still put them at the top? To churn ads, that's why. I predict that unless they come up with something groundbreaking, the worm is about to turn for them.

[mrengine]

The point is not to say that there is something wrong with yours or anybody else's website

If there is nothing wrong with our websites, which convert users from all other non-Google sources, the problem is with Google.

[NickMNS]

@mrengine, so if I understand your strategy is to focus on the 10% of your traffic, and simply forget the 90% from Google.

[mrengine]

NickMNS, let's not forget that while there are few major search engines there are also other traffic sources. Combining the other productive and converting traffic sources leaves Google in the minority. And to be frank, I'm not willing to chase Google ghosts and damage the converting traffic I get from other sources because it's well known that a number of other ecommerce websites are in the same situation.

[glakes]

my point is that Glakes stated he was getting 10x the traffic from Google, for free, and that that traffic was not converting. Meanwhile he is paying the other sources to get 1/10th of the traffic.

@NickMNS

Once again you are incorrect. I stated:

And to this day Bing and Yahoo organic traffic sends more conversions then Google even though Google sends ten times the free "traffic." I use the term traffic loosely with Google because most of it is crap and my conversions from Google shows it.

Organic traffic is free.

[NickMNS]

@Glakes, I sincerely apologize, I misread, sorry I thought you were using bing ads. This doesn't change the point, 90% of your traffic doesn't convert and hasn't for years, simply complaining about zombie attacks is not going to change that.

[samwest]

good grief

[glakes]

I sincerely apologize, I misread, sorry I thought you were using bing ads. This doesn't change the point, 90% of your traffic doesn't convert and hasn't for years, simply complaining about zombie attacks is not going to change that.

@NickMNS

You may want to go to page 6 and read some of my comments, one I said:

traffic quality from Google was just fine for a number of YEARS prior to late September 2015. If I had to briefly describe Google's traffic quality today it would be botlike.

You see, a site does not just quit converting traffic from only one traffic source at the same time other ecommerce site owners are reporting the same without it being related to a change in the way Google displays search results to their users. Just like others here, traffic from all other sources converts beautifully. I logged my complaints with my Adwords rep and Adwords account manager only to be told to bid higher when I was already the highest bidder for many keywords. Having lost thousands of dollars prior to getting this poor advice, and a lack of any other support channel, I dumped Google and replaced them with Amazon. Yes, Amazon's fees are pricey but still much less then paying for Google's Adwords zombies. And who knows, maybe Google is sending all of the real organic traffic to my Amazon product pages. I don't know or even care anymore as long as I keep filling orders - which I'm doing much more of since I quit wasting my time with Google. Yes, I'd like to see the zombies disappear, but already moved on.

To sum things up, I can't convert rubbish into diamonds. And that's what Google's traffic has become since 9/2015. I'm not alone in this and by not being alone I know this is a Google issue and not just me. From what I've read on the topic of zombies, most of us run ecommerce sites and have good conversions apart from Google.

[Slinkywizard]

I come to this site, to this thread, to get a feel for what other webmasters are experiencing in terms of SERP flux, movement, trends etc. Recently, all I ever read is bickering about Zombie Traffic. This thread is called 'Google Updates and SERP Changes'. And it wastes my time with this zombie stuff every time I visit now. Just saying.

[Rasputin]

I'm seeing quite erratic results on UK sites, about 10% down on and off over last few days - google SERPS changes or just because people are tied up arguing about referendum and football?

[Martin Ice Web]

@glakes, donīt forget that about 50% of consumers go direct to amazon. The rest may go to google and google sends this 50% back to amazon!

On the one hand i thank google for send only zombies. It made me think of other sources away from google. It made my look at my PLA - ROI and i figured that i spent thousands of $ and got only back a few hundreds.
It makes sense for poeple to loot at amazon. More selection on sellers and products, while google only offers the same big players.
amazon wants to sell stuff, google wants to sell ads, they are not interested in showing fast good results for transactional queries. And with every silly update this gets more obvious.