Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2016

[NickMNS]

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System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4814310.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:01 pm on Sep 1, 2016 (PDT -8)

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I agree with you that features such keyword, location, browser type and so on (not set) may well be someone blocking the info for privacy reasons.But @ionguy my understanding is that whenever the hostname is set to anything other than your domain name then it must be a bot, this includes (not set). In so far as hostname specifically is concerned (not set) is always a bot and not a privacy issue. Filtering out the hostname (not set)s and other foreign domain from your data is essential to getting accurate stats.

This is applies to piwik and other analytics tools as much as it does to GA.

[lightnb]

Is anyone noticing an increase in "direct" traffic as reported by Analytics? This is supposedly people who type us in to the address bar by hand or load a bookmark, but this has been abnormally high lately.

[samwest]

I've notice a considerable increase in pages and Kb per day being crawled. Spikes started on 9/13 and repeat about every 4 days. Anyone else notice that pattern?

[hopepro]

@samwest

Same here, Up and Down like Waves for crawling rate. My top keyword position one day on the 4th and down to 9th, one day come up to 5th and one day to 9th. It's been on and on like this for almost 2 weeks now.

@lightnb

Even though my competing keywords have been thrown back and forward, I notice an increase in traffic of about 10%(Not sure why). Anyone can explain?

[rainborick]

Part of the increase may be due to more users coming to your site from pages served via https:// which, in many cases, will cause the browser not to include the REFERER data. Perhaps one of your better sources of traffic has switched to https:// recently.

[sench]

Today and yesterday I'm noticing things are going back to the way they were during the alleged testing period (before the reversal on 15th of September). The previous rank improvements are now happening again, hopefully this time it's not "a test". Is anyone experiencing this as well?

[BushieTop]

@Sench - lord, I hope that you are right. Not seeing anything yet.

we were so busy from the 1st - 15th!

[engine]

I'm still seeing domain crowding. Not sure why three links to one site, with not dissimilar content, is helpful to a searcher. Unless, it's Google testing with machine automation to see which link gets the most clicks.

[Ukonline1]

Not seeing anything here in the U.K. in the travel sector.

[redgorillas]

Yes i can confirm that improvments that were visible before September 15 are applied again to some keywords. I hope that this improvments will last for longer period of time. Some our our keywords are getting +10 +20 boost.

[Jez123]

I'm not seeing it either.

[robster124]

No seeing anything here - UK leisure. Still seeing ridiculous off the richter scale domain crowing though. And foreign language results in page 1 serps as well.

[BushieTop]

Are the guys that are seeing changes US based? What vertical?

[superclown2]

I've got quite a few sites here in the UK. For some search queries the results have been set in stone for months but for others the top four or five on the first page have stayed the same but the rest have bounced around like ping pong balls, although they seem to be slowly settling but still with some movement. The winners seem to be the usual brands but some newcomers with lots of (in most cases, dubious) links have been joining them. I wonder if this constant flux is to be the future pattern we can expect.

I am also detecting a far higher likelihood of Google deciding for itself just what a site is all about. Not only are they re-writing titles as usual but displaying the pages for search terms related to those new headings. Shades of early machine learning ...

[samwest]

@Bushie Top - Generally Home Improvement for me.

As always I look in other directions to find patterns. Some have reported odd email volume issues during upsets. It's unrelated, but I registered a new domain for a customer last week and I swear I've never seen a domain propagation take so ridiculously long, 96 hours so far. Submitted name servers on Monday, It's now Friday and still has only resolved to 3 locations and bounces in and out of those daily. How is this relevant? Maybe it's not all Google...maybe there are other network wide issues afoot that are causing a lot of (not all) the issue that are blamed on Google. (for example, zombies which happen on Bing and Yahoo too but only Google gets blamed for causing this phenomenon) Don't get me wrong though...Google SERPs are a mess right now.

[lightnb]

I swear I've never seen a domain propagation take so ridiculously long

Maybe Penguin is using up all the bandwidth on the Internet!

[Jhurwith]

@samwest, I am in the same vertical but have not seen large changes other than the normal casual drop due to seasonality.

[sench]

@BushieTop - CEE, SaaS

[samwest]

@Jh - apparently we are in a sub niche because traffic is usually on the upswing by now, but no joy so far. The expected seasonal sine wave pattern that had occurred for years is much "flatter" than it used to be. Same with daily, weekly and monthly patterns. Flat and always restricted by an invisible, mysterious quota.

[seohhh]

@samwest, couldn't agree more. We usually see a big surge in August/September but this year has been pretty disappointing comparatively.

[robster124]

Finally seeing movement - UK leisure sector. Foreign language results being removed, slightly less domain crowding (although still massive), and general bump up in serps we monitor. Not sure whether it sticks but these results, in line with posts above, look more like what we saw in early sept (we got a decent traffic boost along with better converting traffic around week starting 5th of sep). Also noticing that any movements in serps can be seen on mobile first before desktop (maybe different datacentres serving mobile and desktop - inline with Gary Illyes comments about the new algo not instantly propagating to every data centre at once?)

[EditorialGuy]

It's pretty much "same old, same old" for us, except for a slight rise in average desktop and tablet rankings and a slight dip in average mobile rankings (not enough to have had much impact on Google traffic either way).

We finished making virtually our entire site mobile-friendly about a month ago, so with luck our average mobile rankings will also see an uptick one of these days.

[mboydnv]

What causes the same amount of traffic, improved rankings, yet conversions are now terrible. Could someone please explain why the customer is not buying from our site even though we have moved up to #11 (2nd page under ads). We've had worse rankings, but better conversions in the past.

Also, do you find it suspicious that we keep getting tons of new rankings but it stops at #11, never a number 10 position. Do you think we are human filtered?

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4820506.htm [webmasterworld.com]
3:06 am on Oct 1, 2016 (PDT -8)