Google Updates and SERP Changes - December 2016

[reseller]

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System: The following 11 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4824428.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 1:19 pm on Dec 2, 2016 (utc -5)

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Maybe we wish to keep focus on the important observations posted on this thread:

1 - On/Off conversions pattern.
2 - On/Of ranking of main keywords.
3 - High ranking of main keywords on Google SERPs doesn't necessary mean more organic traffic.
4 - Organic traffic could be productive or non-productive.
5 - Judging of present and past posts on this thread, It seems not all website are affected by above 4 points.

I think that Google bright engineers know exactly what they are doing with Google algorithms, and I can imagine Googlers are aware of above 5 points reported on this thread.

As such, I suggest we start looking at those sites affected by some/all the first 4 points mentioned above, and discuss for example what those websites have in common and what could be the reason behind that those sites are affected?

Thanks and God bless.

[mosxu]

@martin

I agree with spelling errors but having no content on a large number of products not sure how that looks

[Martin Ice Web]

@mosxu, sorry u got me wrong.

I meant that a lot of words doesn´t mean quality. Sometimes 10 words are enough. I am convinced that the current SEs are able to recognize an item ( either by item tags or description, title tags ). If you have 100 pages with the nearly same item and 99 have only 10 -20 words about the item, how does it look like a page showing 200 words for the same item?
Don´t get me wrong but if there is nothing to say about an item, don´t say anything about this item! Ses will not reward you for this. Users will not reward you for this!


@reseller: Point 4 High ranking of main keywords on Google SERPs doesn't necessary mean more organic traffic.

Even beeing the only one selling an item does not mean organic traffic. It is the way we search for our items. When we search we want to find ourself in serps! I will naturally use keywords i match with my items. That is not the way users search. It should be the functionality of a good SE to match the intention perfect.
But all i can see is that keywords are dropped, completly mismatched or not understood by google. ( bing does it far better).
It is now to clear to if this behaviour is intentional or just a failure.
How far can google go and mislead users on organics?! When will users change to other sources?

[reseller]

@mosxu

I have an assumption that the following 4 points which I mentioned in my post at top of this thread;

1 - On/Off conversions pattern.
2 - On/Of ranking of main keywords.
3 - High ranking of main keywords on Google SERPs doesn't necessary mean more organic traffic.
4 - Organic traffic could be productive or non-productive.

are SYMPTOMS illustrated by websites which have been hit by one or more of Google updates. Owners of those affected websites, who have lost and keep loosing revenues, my wish to look at other possibilities which could bring their affected websites back into business. I think moving to a new domain (with or without 301) is worth considerations.

If the choice is either close your online business on your affected website or move the affected website to a new domain and hence giving it a chance to prosper again, what would you choose :)

[EditorialGuy]

or move the affected website to a new domain and hence giving it a chance to prosper again...

Is it really that easy?

[reseller]

@EditorialGuy

We can keep talking about the first 4 points I have mentioned at top of this thread until the cows come home, or start doing something to resolve the issue. I think my suggestion that affected sites might be moved to a new domain is worth considerations :)

Btw, here is an interesting article:

When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site [searchengineland.com...]

[mosxu]

@reseller

ideally 301 will sort out the zombies problem but we like to hear from members who have tried it already, what if the new site we do 301 into gets even a smaller quota or no quota at all considering there is no history?

[mboydnv]

On Nov 30, I noticed a spike down on Semrush for traffic. Semrush is showing for 5 straight days, the exact number. Hope they are wrong or that is throttling.

Ads are not converting. according to GA I have same impressions but much lower click through all of a sudden. Instead of more focused USA traffic, I'm getting Peru, Vietnam.

Also had referral spam showing up in the hundreds supposedly from reddit. When I visited the link there was no link.

It's getting harder and harder to make a buck. Rankings have improved but can't get pass #11. Unique visitors are down also. No one is buying. Affiliate who usually makes sales for being #5, is making zero sales. for last few days.

I added 4 blog posts in November. Quality content. Added new content to an existing post on dec 1 and
changed the date from dec 2014 to 2016. It was spidered and showing up in google as year 2014. All other posts I did the same thing in Novemeber and they are all now 2016 in Google.

My niche is now loaded with multiple rankings to the same 3 companies that are the walmart of my niche. You see these three companies in the top paid ad spots and also in the top organic spots.

As soon as I turn off my ads $20 a day, I lose organic very quickly.

[ionguy]

@mboydnv
same here
something has changed last thu/fri and since then all is dead

edit: the only difference is traffic up for 25% ?

[masterjoe]

@myboydnv, I have seen the exact same sharp decrease in traffic on that date too, and the following days up until now almost the exact same number of organic visits. I visited my pages from Google a few times through VPNs and incognito mode, and using different browsers but it is pretty much the same pattern you described so it varies by a few (which were my visits). I have also been experiencing a huge loss in converting traffic and then short bursts of conversions... so far, they haven't made up for the lost sales.

As for adwords, I only have a few keywords that manage to drain about $50 a day out of my account, but I KNOW that they convert because they have worked for the previous 3 years (except since last year when this started happening). The last 2-3 months have had even more obvious zombie behavior than before. Absolute waste of money.

[samwest]

Refer to this image: [postimg.org ]

This is interesting...my test site is the blue line. The other three lines represent my competitor sites all within the same vertical. Notice how they all vary in lockstep while my site is unaffected for the term. Regardless of solidly holding the #3 spot for this term (and dozens of other page 1 results), I get zip in the way of traffic. The term in question does hold a decent volume of searches in GT. I find this evident that something funny is going on. My test site hold dozens of page 1 results yet it sits at zero traffic for most of the day. After 16 years online, it's hard to believe this site gets shut out in this way. With no change in rank, this site can suddenly turn ON for a few hours...and then OFF for days.

[reseller]

@masterjoe
@samwest
@mboydnv
@stgeorge
@lightnb

I have been reading your sad stories about your affected websites. Very sad reading indeed :(

Just wish to ask you kindly. In an attempt to bring your affected website back into business. Are you prepared to move your current websites to new domains either via 301 redirect or just kill your current affected websites and move your current content to new domains?

[motorhaven]

Question:

When you decide to kill a domain and move the site to a new domain on a new server without redirects, doesn't Google eventually catch on that the content used to be on a different domain? Sort of like duplicate content, though the original is gone...?

[stgeorge]

@reseller

We have in the past moved content to new domains with some success. We have never 301 redirected a site. There is an ongoing debate as to whether penalties will be transferred to the new domain if you do. Some webmasters in our niches have redirected with great success but others appear to have had less success. The webmaster community appears split on the matter. We will likely try it with one of these domains if we see no real recovery.

One of our best ranking sites is one where we moved the content to a new domain after Penguin 2.x. We basically moved from the .com to the .org.

We kept the links we though were safe and had them redirected to the new domain (where communication was possible and we felt it would not look manipulative).

Incidentally one of our recently affected sites is making a run back for its main keyword. Up from the seventies to the low 40's. No idea if this means anything. Could just be the typical roller coaster from position 21 and lower (i'e it's all on the moon anyway).

I suspect there are a bunch of "new" penalties as part of Penguin 4.0 which have not been diagnosed as such. Over-optimisation of anchor text and off topic link penalties are playing a bigger role from what I can see, especially in new-"ish" sites. I have no real body of evidence to prove this but I suspect there is an updated algo looking for these things, or it is part of the bigger Penguin "beast". I am actually very surprised that there is little to no discussion as to the real fallout of Penguin 4.0 but I guess it will come. We have found two other very active webmasters in our niche experiencing the same. I'll leave it at that as to not derail the thread.

[samwest]

@reseller, So are you implying that my current #3 ranking will benefit from being moved to a new domain and that the new domain will produce viable traffic? If so, that would only indicate that Google is truly evil or very, very,VERY messed up. To imply that our domains names have been somehow "marked" simply means they will be marked again rather quickly and admits it's all manipulated for some purpose,

[reseller]

@stgeorge

We have in the past moved content to new domains with some success. We have never 301 redirected a site. There is an ongoing debate as to whether penalties will be transferred to the new domain if you do. Some webmasters in our niches have redirected with great success but others appear to have had less success. The webmaster community appears split on the matter. We will likely try it with one of these domains if we see no real recovery.

Thanks a bunch for your great encouraging feedback. Much appreciated.

Yes it seems webmasters have different opinions of the effectiveness of 301 redirect and there are several articles of SEOs and webmasters related to the subject.

In this connection I wish to recall a short chapter of an interesting article of Search Engine Watch "Can You Safely Redirect Users From a Penguin-Hit Site to a New Domain?" [searchenginewatch.com...]

Ideally, if you are starting over with a fresh domain, it is best to write brand-new content so that Google can see this as a brand-new site. But, there may be another solution. With the site that I mentioned above, rather than rewriting all of the site’s content, we did the following:

* We added a meta noindex, nofollow tag to all pages of the old site.
* We used the URL removal tool in Webmaster Tools to ask Google to remove each and every page of the site. Note: You can use the tool to remove an entire directory from the site in one request. However, this will not remove the site from Google’s cache. We thought it was safest to get each URL removed from the index AND the cache. The only way to do this is to manually enter each URL one at a time into the removal tool.
* Every day we did a site:oldsite.com search to see whether there were still pages in the index. It took a few days for the site: search to show that all of the pages were gone.
* Once there were no pages of the old site in the index or the cache, we launched the new site.

This technique worked for this site. Google did not apply the old site’s spammy links to the new site. The new site has gone through several Penguin refreshes and has not been harmed. The site owner has earned some natural links and is now ranking this new site at number one to number three for most of his keywords.

[reseller]

@samwest

I have an assumption that the first 4 points which I mentioned in my post at top of this thread are symptoms illustrated by websites which have been hit by one or more of Google updates. Owners of those affected websites may wish to look at other possibilities which could bring their affected websites back in business. I think moving to a new domain (with or without 301) is worth considerations :)

[mosxu]

So if there is a site completely eaten up by zombies would you be prepared to do a 301 to a new domain? Just to experiment if the zombies like the new food?

@reseller
I agree with you on most of the points but you know that zombies are affecting adwards traffic as well not just organic. Whatever the update that does not apply to ads, we pay big money for ads to show to interested buyers and that has nothing to do with birds or animals like Panda, Penguin or Hummingbird.

Oh wait, I forgot rankbrain that must be a robot,

[ionguy]

its crazy dont u think so? move an old established site well known by 1000s clients to new domain because google f*** up something / google has some business goals / google changed into cia,mi6,mossad,kgb,fsb or whatsoever / google had a bad day / google did this or that \or put here what you want
wondered if guys from 'general dynamic' would be happy to change to 'general forceful' i can only try to imagine
maybe im wrong but in long term it will turn the chaos we have at the moment into even greater chaos

besides mosxu asked good question; what if z guys follow your new domain by 301; i guess most of us saw 'world war z' or at least google analytics real time; z guys always follows the fresh meat ;)

[mosxu]

@ionguy

If you still have 1000 clients do not do it, we appeal to some sites who are completely devastated by zombies if possible to try a 301...

[ionguy]

@mosxu
i meant in general ;) however my 1000s clients feel fine thank you ;) even "better" since google mixed up all serps
i know they re still alive thanks to th e newsletters (2-4/month), press, facebook, twitter and instagram
btw anyone else sending a newsletter often? have you noticed an extra traffic from google when sending?

[mosxu]

@ionguy

spot on newsletter and facebook produce genuine results

and quality of traffic from google also goes up in the day of newsletter

[motorhaven]

It appears much of the knowledge base here has moved on to greener pastures, as it is easier to pull hen's teeth than ii is to get feedback on on-topic questions.

Longguy, I send email newsletters every quarter or so, and it gives a slight bump in traffic. FB/Twitter never did us any good except when it was updated on a regular basis, but for my type of sites too much FB/Twitter activity can actually draw the traffic away from the site and towards the social network page. Its a fine line.

[mosxu]

obviously newsletter increases traffic but also the number of orders from people who are not on the list increases compared to days when there is no newsletter

I cannot put this down to referral from emails on our newsletter but an increase in quality traffic from existing customers seems to help that day traffic overall

[reseller]

While we are talking about moving affected websites (with or without 301 redirect) to new domains, I wish to recall an article on Search Engine Roundtable "Google: Can't Recover From Penguin? Start A New Site" [seroundtable.com...]

In the said article, in an interview with Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts mentioned the following tips regarding website which were hit by the Penguin update:

If you've cleaned and still don't recover, ultimately, you might need to start all over with a fresh site, Cutts said.

[mosxu]

@reseller

In our industry only amazon and high street stores are ranking, there is no small business left so we do not want rank or recover from Penguin, we would like to escape this type traffic called zombies through a redirect like a 301

We are getting full days of zombies from adwards which is really painful and Penguin has nothing to do with ads

We tested a new site, new company, ips everything and still gets no converting traffic regardless of the spend in adwards, so in other words it is was fresh start but we are not allowed to compete.

[reseller]

@mosxu

There are websites which illustrate some or all the 4 points I mentioned in my post at top of this thread. I assume that the said 4 points are symptoms illustrated by websites which have been hit by one or more of Google updates (including Penguin) and haven't been able to recover and they are not going to recover at all. I suggested for those affected websites to move to new domains (with or without 301 redirect) in an attempt to bring the affected website back in business.

As I have mentioned in my previous post, Matt Cutts suggested something similar: "If you've cleaned and still don't recover, ultimately, you might need to start all over with a fresh site.."

[MrSavage]

In search right now it's almost becoming impossible to search something that doesn't result in the answer box. In real terms, that's killing 3 or 4 spots on page 1 is it not? More prevalent than EVER before.

[expmrb]

A ton of zombie traffic from USA are coming. If not then the traffic is just low. Are you guys seeing this too?

[mosxu]

@expmrb

Zombie traffic has international traffic as well, whoever creates this traffic does not care much about the geolocation of your site that gives you an idea that it needs fine tuning to look more real.

John Muller is confusing zombie traffic with ghost traffic, ghost traffic is from fake requests sent your to analytics ID but no users land on your site. What bothers me is the zombie traffic coming from adwards and the fact that competition is not allowed in adwards. Let's forget SEO and organic for now.

[jambam]

I read somewhere from some googler that even if you do not 302 redirect your site and just reup the same content then google will detect this automatically and put your site in thesame boat it was in before. So starting again means starting from complete scratch all just to appease google and whos to say that this zombie thing doesnt happen again.

IMO It just a complete fix making you work yourself to oblivion just to get you to buy more adwords plain and simple.

Remeber though that there are other ways at getting traffic and people used to advertise and make money long before google was around.