Google Updates and SERP Changes - April 2017

[EditorialGuy]

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System: The following 5 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4838449.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 12:55 pm on Apr 2, 2017 (PDT -8)

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We had a noticeable improvement in average Google rankings on the 29th (the most recent date in Google Search Console). Google organic traffic has also been up 6.0 to 9.7 percent for each of the last five days, compared to the same days last week. Another mini-update, maybe? (The changes definitely fall outside our normal week-to-week variations.)

[Vuffy]

I usually wake up to updates, but for the first time, I'm seeing it in real time.

[browndog]

My site is up and down like a yoyo today.

[NickMNS]

@browndog

I am seeing similar. I just (7pm to 8pm EST) broke a record for hourly sessions, by close to 50%. Now, back to normal. Strange, but I hope it sticks.

[pavsid]

We saw half of our tracked keywords plummet between 80-100 places on Tuesday 18th, some were previously on page 1 in solid positions now on page 10+.

The strange is, the pages that are now being returned in these new positions aren't relevant at all to the keyword. The only link is that the new page being ranked contains some anchor text for the keyword, which points to the correct page!

A "site:example.com keyword" search returns the correct page on position #1 as expected. The new page is on page 2 - which suggests nothing wrong with the content, no penalty etc right?

Anybody have any idea what's going on here?

Pleased to report that yesterday the rankings that we lost last week have all recovered and the correct pages are being indexed again. We didn't really do anything to cause this reversal other than force a site-wide crawl through Search Console, so looks like it was a glitch in the Google algo possibly?

[Peter_S]

Since the beginning of the month , my traffic is constantly up. However, everyday, during one hour, the traffic is anomaly down (like 50% down) before and after all is fine. This happens at random hours. I thought of network issue with my host , but it's not the case. Also, it affects only my traffic from Google search.

[mosxu]

@Peter_S

If you are looking at google analytics there is a lot of ghost traffic, if you do not filter it out you may see huge drops and increases

[rustybrick]

AMP traffic was an analytics bug, should be fixed going forward.

[Halaspike]

Google's search engine right now is really weak. I did an experiment by creating a new page on my blog and named it "Just testing if Google's search engine is good" I put some content in it and published the page. It was indexed but when i searched for the term "Just testing if Google's search engine is good" nothing came up but unrelated articles from big blogs that had nothing to do with the term i searched for.

For the page i created to show up i had to add my domain name at the end of the search term like so "Just testing if Google's search engine is good mywebsite.com"

This just proves that their algorithm is not as good as they claim or think it is. This just proves that their algorithm is out to favor only big blogs.

[edited by: Halaspike at 3:42 pm (utc) on Apr 29, 2017]

[mosxu]

@halaspike

Is there a strong brand behind your blog? Just a site will have zero brand signals and content will have to take the test of time if at all.

[Halaspike]

@mosxu yes there's a strong brand behind my blog. The experiment i did just proves that their search engine is not that good. What's your explanation for their serps showing unrelated articles from big blogs that had nothing to do with the search term? And why did i have to put my domain name at the end of the term for my site to appear in their serps?

[mosxu]

@halaspike

It helps to be rich and famous you are right, but coming back to your blog how unique are the subjects you write on? To be adding the domain name to come up is harsh but cannot think of other causes other than too many blogs treating the same subject.

[EditorialGuy]

@mosxu yes there's a strong brand behind my blog. The experiment i did just proves that their search engine is not that good

Or maybe it just proves that your blog isn't that good, at least in Google's eyes. For what it's worth, most people don't search for keyphrases such as "Just testing if Google's search engine is good," and Google has made it clear for a while now that it's interested in returning search results for "things, not strings."

[mosxu]

@halaspike

"How good Google search engine is" is a very debated subject only high authoritive SEO and marketing blogs are expected to rank.

Not even editorialguy can rank for these terms and you know why? Because the content being created from other content, so called well researched but written with different words.

What is the new idea you are bringing to the table and how much searches are there for? Does it solve the problem or the user goes to many more blogs?

[Halaspike]

@EditorialGuy lol i have backlinks from very respected sites bro.

You mean to tell me if a person searches for "Pictures of Eminem's ass" & google displays "Pictures of Jay Z's Lips" that's a good thing to you?

What you don’t know is that a blog might be the only blog on the Internet with an article about a certain term but google might not show that blog, they might show some other big blog that has nothing to do with that term bro.

A small blog might have an article for a search term like "how to make it to heaven" but google might rather show an unrelated article from Forbes about "How to make Hell fire" & my experiment above just proved that.

[reseller]

RankRanger is showing a high level of Google SERP Fluctuations for today April 29th.

[ichthyous]

@Halaspike "Semrush is more better but still far from accurate."

My SEMrush account shows a huge improvement in ranking across 500 terms on April 25th, from 10.5% to 13.5% in one day. Many more terms in top three now and have stayed there since then. My traffic did spike up a bit, but not a huge amount. These days placement doesn't seem to correlate with traffic in Google.

[heisje]

Are we witnessing a gradual rollback of some kind?

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[System]

The following 5 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4847200.htm [webmasterworld.com]
4:18 am on May 2, 2017 (PDT -8)