Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2016

[aristotle]

If you see a big upheaval taking place, especially on multiple sites, then you should report it. Also anything unusual. But minor hourly fluctuations don't have much significance.

[edited by: bakedjake at 2:39 am (utc) on Jul 3, 2016]
[edit reason] Create new July update thread [/edit]

[niku_piku]

We are seeing some weird errors as well.
we use the following configuration for our mobile + desktop setup.
domain.com/page1 has a canoncial that points to m.domain.com/page1 using rel='alternate'
which then points back to domain.com/page1
m.domain.com/page1 has its own internal links this:

/details/x1
/details/x2

which resolve to m.domain.com/details/x1 and m.domain.com/details/x2

We are now seeing google smartphone errors for the site domain.com. The errors are 404s and they point to:
domain.com/details/x1
domain.com/details/x2

Furthermore, domain.com/details/x1 and m.domain.com/details/x1 are both blocked by robots.txt on the respective sites (domain.com and m.domain.com)
We never had this problem until early July.

[mosxu]

same here old 404s coming back in webmaster tools after being deleted a few times

[Martin Ice Web]

@ecom, i ask myself if g as a problem with http and https sites? It seems that the Old http pages are still beeing crawled. I hope they will not count as duplicates. We don't see the problem with the none www And the www redirect.

Mosx, meanwhile we started to 410 the 404 pages but they still come back. Even links from not existing pages to deleted 410s are shown in the crawl errors list.

[Martin Ice Web]

After investigating a little bit, i figured out that all our pages with long detailed descriptions haven demoted or vanished. The positions have been replacd with very od pages with very low content. In most case only one sentence and/or the thousand times copied manufacturer description.
There are many pages that don't load in the serps right now. Lot of new been seen (bad) domains made it up to serps page 1.
Something big is going through and it feels like a new panda round has been started.

[Shepherd]

There was a penguin update today at the Bronx Zoo...

[usmagazine.com...]

[mosxu]

Some of the 404s are still linked by sites that generally cloak but google shows that these 404s are linked internally as well like it was years ago, however no longer the case cause they are no longer linked internally. It makes no sense.

[Paperchaser]

@BushieTop Same, my organic also climbing back slowly though. You?

[Paperchaser]

@mosxu
I just notice that all the pages/tags i have deleted in the past just came back all at once in my 404 as well almost like they reset their crawler to previous settings. I'm talking about tags/pages that have been deleted for over a year period.

[mosxu]

@Paperchaser same here I keep deleting them in the webmaster tools but still come back, some of them are still linked externally by some low quality sites that generally cloak when I am trying to visit them but definitely not linked internally as they were years ago. Google is reporting now still as linked internally which is making no sense

[toidi]

I stopped using gwt so i can ignore all the bad meesages but my signup/registrations doubled this week.

us local service

[BushieTop]

@paperchaser We see growth and then it quickly reverts back to where it was. Bot activity seems to be dying down a bit now, but there's still movement every 10 mins.

[BushieTop]

More fun! 1 domain has just raced from 13th to 3rd for a big money term. Front page is missing images, content is extremely thin. Just getting ridiculous now.

[glakes]

Does anyone know if this latest update is still rolling? Conversions have hit an all time low since this update was pushed. I'm beginning to think the only people using Google aren't creditworthy and don't have credit cards to buy anything.

[masterjoe]

Looks like it is, Glakes. Haven't seen a really "good" day like I did at the start of last week and the few weeks before it happened. Sales far below average on most days, except for one where the faucet was turned on again.

[glakes]

@masterjoe

This update has resulted in a substantial loss of sales. Conversions from Google are at an all time low for the week, and I've seen others comment on how it also killed conversions in Adwords. I also felt this update on Amazon sales, which took a fast drop and seem to have mostly returned just today. On further inspection I noticed Amazon is introducing a new layout that rotates between the old and new (one layout lists products inline and the other products are side by side). I have not seen this in the categories I sell in. With Amazon dominating Google's SERPS, in many cases with domain crowding, there is bound to be some upheaval in Google's search results until they analyze the new layout. Serp tools that analyze power player rankings also coincide with the date Amazon appeared to have changed the layout in the categories I sell in.

[BushieTop]

Update - More substantial losses on generic high volume search terms. I keep having legacy indexation issues flag in WMT, so when i investigate they are usually already resolved. For the first time in my 9 year career I'm at a complete loss. Seems completely random.

[System]

The following 11 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4814310.htm [webmasterworld.com]
9:11 am on Aug 2, 2016 (PDT -8)