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.

[toidi]

How far can google go and mislead users on organics?! When will users change to other sources?

Is it possible this is already happening and everything being discussed here is/are attempts to cover it up?

This forum looks at the algo from an engineering standpoint whereas the owners of the algo see it as a means to influence the almighty stock value. If users are going straight to amazon or their favorite ecomm site, then the number of ecomm searches has to be down. A drop in the number of ecomm seaches has to be kept quiet. Advertisers won't pay for clicks to cat videos and the stock market does not like anything with a negative trend.

before you kill your site, consider that we might all be caught up in the death throws of a once wonderful company and there is nothing we can do to change it. This does not mean it is the end, just the beginning of something else we have yet to find.

I made money off the internet before google and i will make money off the internet long after google is forgotten.

[mosxu]

Natural selection is called

Let's send all converting traffic to our top 3 spenders the rest of them will not escape the matrix anyway

[glakes]

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

I am seeing it as well. Google is favoring Amazon now and we are generating quite a few sales from that source. Assuming Google keeps this up, I'm sure other etailers will see no need to advertise products or bid high on product queries in Adwords. In the short term this may harm some of us smaller businesses, but in the long term it will work itself out as Google devalues their own usefulness for product queries when Amazon is always the flavor of the moment.

[reseller]

@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.

There are different opinions about recovery of affected websites using 301 redirect to move to a new domain.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is also the possibility of moving an affected website to a new domain WITHOUT using 301 redirect. I'm recalling the relevant part of my previous post:

"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.

[aristotle]

We thought it was safest to get each URL removed from the index AND the cache

Exactly what does it mean to remove the cache? Doesn't google keep a permanent copy somewhere of all the pages it's ever crawled, and which could be used for comparisons?

[mosxu]

@aristotle

You seem to know very well who you are dealing with

[reseller]

@mosxu

@reseller

a 301 ideally should sort out the problem but some have have tried and said no success, if anyone has experience with a 301 it will be great to share

The following article of Search Engine Journal might be of interest.

"Recovering from an Algorithmic Penalty Using 301 Redirects: A Personal Experience"

[searchenginejournal.com...]

The following is the conclusion of the said article:

Conclusion

Time and time again with these penalty recovery stories, we hear of some methods being effective in some cases while those same methods fail completely in others. Algorithmic penalties can cripple SMB’s because the recovery process is highly ambiguous, and there is little predictability regarding the results. By obtaining new domains and 301 redirecting the penalized domain to them, we have been able to recover algorithmically penalized sites. And at the very least, we knew we would be moving forward, rather than continuing to tread water and spend money on activities that may never result in a recovery.

[RedBar]

Whoa, what's happened this week? I am seeing massive changes especially so from Google.com and new December cache dates.

One specific site, a .uk, has lost 80% of its traffic since Wednesday,

On Google.com, keywords that I have ranked top 3 for ages now have either been relegated to pages 3/4/5 or have completely disappeared altogether.

All the results now being shown have .com extensions.

Pages with early to mid November cache dates do not seem to have been affected yet however everything with a December date has been.

My .eu and .in sites also seem to have been struck with PVs down 40-50%, my .coms appear to be as normal.

Is anyone else seeing similar?

[mosxu]

@reseller

interesting read, are you suggesting that zombie traffic is a sort of penalty and that applies to ads as well not just organic?

our sites are ranking fine just that only get clicked by zombies and after watching thousands of videos of their behaviour to me they do not behave like normal visitors, sometimes they got from one page to the another without a hyperlink which makes you wonder who is behind all this.

[reseller]

@mosxu

@reseller

interesting read, are you suggesting that zombie traffic is a sort of penalty and that applies to ads as well not just organic?

I have the following assumptions:

There are websites which have been hit by one or more of Google updates (Panda, Penguin etc..) and haven't been able to recover regardless of efforts to clean those affected websites. I suggest to move (with or without 301 redirect) the said affected websites to new domains in an attempt to bring them back in business.

I assume that the said affected websites illustrate the following "Symptoms":

1 - On/Off conversions pattern.
2 - On/Off 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.

The so called "Zombie traffic" might be considered as non-productive organic traffic (as per above mentioned point no. 4).
At present I wish to focus on Google organic traffic and keep AdWords out of the equation :)

[edited by: reseller at 4:30 pm (utc) on Dec 9, 2016]

[mosxu]

@reseller

Nice to have you on board, no4 if it is true AI breaks the law of any country of this world

[glakes]

At present I wish to focus on Google organic traffic and keep AdWords out of the equation :)

Keeping Adwords out of the discussion may be useful in many cases, but if one wants to understand why zombie traffic is so abundant Adwords is a very important part of the equation. For me, and many others with zombie traffic, there are on and off days. During the off days Adwords is just as unproductive as organics. Because Adwords is not subjected to the penalties that organic search results are, I feel this provides enough evidence that zombie traffic is not the result of any type of penalty.

[mosxu]

@glakes
The strange thing about adwards is that the more we spend the more zombies we get. It is like an infinite number of zombies available if you have money. Not sure if you guys tried to let high budgets run.

Zombie death penalty is for the business maybe and not for a website .

[glakes]

The strange thing about adwards is that the more we spend the more zombies we get. It is like an infinite number of zombies available if you have money. Not sure if you guys tried to let high budgets run.

I did all kinds of testing and tweaking within Adwords without success. If it was a zombie day it did not matter how low or high the bids were, whether enhanced CPC was being used, etc. Since Adwords follows the same pattern as organics, I ruled out any type of penalty a long time ago. Why zombies impact both free and paid search results is rather interesting to me, especially since they both appear to have conversion shifts that are tied together. Rank Brain could indeed be a reason why we see good days in organics (Rank Brain gets taken offline and fed data to learn), but it does not explain Adwords since the ranking in that platform is largely determined by landing page quality and bid. There's something more going on here beyond penalties and AI.

[reseller]

@mosxu
@glakes

I feel your pain :(

Btw. Have your websites in question been hit by one or more of Google updates (Panda, Penguin etc..)?

[mosxu]

@reseller

never been hit and the websites rank fine but mainly get clicked by zombies, no quality traffic coming through

on the other hand one of the competitors has been penalized because of buying links and their turnover increased, kept doing adwards and their business grew

[glakes]

Have your websites in question been hit by one or more of Google updates (Panda, Penguin etc..)?

No, and I don't think there is anything that would come remotely close to causing a penalty. If anything, my site should set the gold standard Google judges all sites within my industry - plenty of unique and great information/pics/videos, printable/downloadable PDF instructions, mobile friendly, full https, few but legit links to site, etc. Both product and website quality exceed the competition by leaps and bounds.

BTW, Google organic traffic shot up 25% on Thursday I believe and has remained elevated. No impact on conversions though. I won't call this increase in traffic zombies, because it largely centers around information that may lead to future purchases.

[RedBar]

Hmmm ... So no one else is seeing an atrocious algo update weighted heavily against non-USA, non.com sites.

I'm seriously having to consider moving loads of sites to .com domains owing to traffic being decimated.

Obviously quality seems to have gone out of Google's window in favour of spammy trash.

[mosxu]

@glakes

What about your prices? What if your site is allowed to compete the others will struggle and will not spend in adwards?

[goodroi]

Mods Note: Welcome to the monthly Google Update & SERPs Changes thread. Please be careful to stay on the topic of Google updates and changes to the serps. If you post off topic comments they are very likely to be removed.

If you aren't happy about Google business policy, please share your opinion in our Google Finance & Business section, if you want to talk about Adwords, please share your comments in the Adwords section and let's work together to keep this thread on topic :)!

[glakes]

What about your prices? What if your site is allowed to compete the others will struggle and will not spend in adwards?

Prices on my products are within 10% of the competition - my products are slightly more expensive but made up of better materials and are of a better design. I can count my competitors on one hand, two hands if you include Amazon and Ebay. Regarding Adwords spending, there are just a few in shopping campaigns (sometimes three of the same products listed from different sellers) as everyone has abandoned bidding on keywords. I suspect everyone in my small industry is dealing with the same traffic quality problems as I am, which is why they quit bidding on keywords because of the poor ROI.

I see no indication where price or quality (public review data) are used in Google's algorithm to rank ecommerce websites in my industry. Since I sell on Amazon in addition to my website, I can see the sales patterns where Amazon is given preference the majority of the time. On the rare days that my site converts Google traffic normally (as compared to the stable organic Bing and Yahoo conversions), Amazon sales dip slightly. Overall, sales from my website to Amazon are running at about a 2:1 ratio (2 website sales -vs- 1 Amazon sale). The only reason why my website conversions are outperforming Amazon is because of Bing, Yahoo and social marketing. Organic Google traffic is not producing much in terms of sales.

[reseller]

@mosxu
@glakes

Thanks for feedback. So In your opinions your websites haven't been hit by one or more of Google updates. Does that mean that there haven't been a decline in your organic traffic during the latest two years, for example?

I'm not asking about ranking of your main keywords because as I have mentioned in point no. 3 of my post at top of this thread:

3 - High ranking of main keywords on Google SERPs doesn't necessary mean more organic traffic.

[mosxu]

@reseller

number of visitors did not decrease or increase, the days when there are no conversions when zombies are in control actually number of visits is slightly higher

@glakes

I can only put this down to greed

[mosxu]

@redbar

not sure it is .coms but definitely high street stores have taken over the rankings, it is not necessarily big brands but just high street stores being highly favoured at the moment, sometimes we are seeing high street stores with only two products over ranking highly dedicated stores run by small businesses

[reseller]

@mosxu

Whats the percentage of non-productive (Zombie) organic traffic out of your total organic traffic per month? Thanks.

[mosxu]

@ depends on the site it goes from 50 to 70% but some new sites 80-90%. The newer in the industry the worse it gets.

see the so called non productive refuse gold if would offer it to them

[Lake]

Traffic here on a non-eCommerce large site skyrocketed in the last few days. Many weather checkers also show something's going on...

[linkbuildr]

Travel industry here, shot up in the top 3 results for two dozen great keywords and I'm sitting at 8 uniques 0:00 on site.

[glakes]

Does that mean that there haven't been a decline in your organic traffic during the latest two years, for example?

No decline, but slight increases in overall traffic since 9/2015 when I first saw zombies. Yesterday may be one of the highest traffic days I have seen from Google since the site has been online, but the traffic is not productive at all.

I can only put this down to greed

That's an active and plausible theory. I'd still like to see if/how Rank Brain may be used in paid search results. If it's not used at all, either the Rank Brain theory has no weight or Rank Brain's purpose extends beyond what is publicly known.

Traffic here on a non-eCommerce large site skyrocketed in the last few days. Many weather checkers also show something's going on...

I would agree the traffic increase I've seen is not normal and would suggest something has changed. As you noted, rank checkers confirm this as well. Unfortunately for me though the traffic increase is largely centered around information and not my products. Though viewing the information may result in future sales, it's not generating sales now.

[reseller]

@mosxu
@glakes

Which measures have you taken to resolve the issue of non-productive organic traffic (Zombie) affecting your websites?