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.)

[Halaspike]

@NickMNS you must be a baby in the blogging world to be surprised that a blog can have 20k pages lol.

@Peter_S what i think is, if google doesn't trust a site or the site is below a certain age, they will put a quota on it no matter how good the site is.

[EditorialGuy]

Those who don't believe that Google has "quotas" what's your explanation for a blog with over 20 thousand quality pages but only receives about 3 thousand unique visitors daily for 1 year straight?

Twenty thousand "quality" pages? OK, I admit it: I'm skeptical. In any case, you've got a lot of competition: Just on WordPress.com and blogs that use its Jetpack plug-in, there are about 87.6 million new posts every month, with a total of more than 24.6 billion pages. (Source: WordPress.com.)

[NickMNS]

@halaspike I don't doubt that you can create 20k pages with content on it. What I question is how you are able to write high quality, well researched, authoritative articles at about 10 to 25 per day. If you can do this, then quit blogging and get job with AP or Reuters, I'm sure that they would be willing to pay you a lot of money.

[renatovieira]

@Halaspike

Same here. Or even worse. 80% drop in organic traffic.

Today is unbelievable bizarre.

[Halaspike]

@NickMNS I have people working for me, all i do is monitor my traffic.

[EditorialGuy]

I have people working for me

"Quality content" doesn't come cheap. (Certainly not cheaply enough for a startup blog unless it's being financed by someone with deep pockets and a willingness to empty them.)

[Halaspike]

@EditorialGuy building a quality blog is not the same as building a skyscraper lol. There's really no need to empty pockets to get or create quality content. Once a startup blog has the brains, they will be earning not emptying their pockets. Depends on the type of blog tho.

[mosxu]

@halaspike

Guess how many of the blogs are written in India? But AI is so smart these days that you need to be the author of "Harry Potter" to get credit

I can't wait to buy the next "Dracula" book if you know what I mean

[Peter_S]

@NickMNS I have people working for me, all i do is monitor my traffic.

Don't forget to monitor the quality of their work too. We never know. By the way, the thing is, chances are that hundred or thousands of other people are doing exactly like you, resulting in splitting the traffic. Still I think that 3.000 visitors / days is good, but to fully appreciate it, this should be put in relation with the volume of searches, and the number of other sites in concurrence with your.

[browndog]

3,000 visits per day for a 20,000 articles?

I just can't hire people, a) I couldn't afford it and b) my site is my baby, and I want the articles to have 100% poured into them. I can't verify where their information is coming from (my ex boss was paying people to write content and a quick search found they were ripping it off from other sites). I'd rather stay smaller but guarantee my content is unique.

My 700 article site gets around 10,000 unique visitors per day, but that is no longer enough to support me, let alone pay anybody else. Used to be a lot more than that in the good old days.

[Halaspike]

@browndog that's really good. Note that a blog's revenue doesn't depend on traffic alone, the niche of the blog is also very important. What you might be making with 10k unique visitors per day another blog with only 500 unique visitors per day might be making the same thing.

A health blog with 1k unique visitors daily might make more money than an entertainment blog with 15k unique visitors daily. Sometimes it's all about the niche.

Please how old is your site?

[browndog]

The site was started around 2002. I've had periods of great activity (like now), and periods of not doing much (when my children were little). I agree it does depend on the niche. I could probably make more if I sold products but honestly, I feel stretched thin enough. I enjoy writing, I think I am quite good about it (because this topic is my passion) so don't monetise it as well as I could.

Sometimes I wish I could have a partner to do out and promote the site, do the social media side, bring in advertisers etc.

[Halaspike]

@browndog wow, your 15 year old site is really an inspiration. Mine is just 1 year 9 months old. With time i should be getting more organic traffic from google.

[reseller]

A relevant post of Search Engine Roundtable of Apr 26, 2017 :

Was There A Google Algorithm Update On Monday & Tuesday? Unsure.

Most of the automated tracking tools, with the exception of Algoroo, really showed massive spikes and volatility on either Monday or Tuesday, April 24th or 25th, of this week. The issue is, the chatter in the SEO community is not correlating to those tools. I mean, the SEO community is NOT up in arms, freaking out, about huge client penalties or recoveries or increases in the past couple of days.

[seroundtable.com...]

[mosxu]

@halaspike

On your health blog do you have a write for us invitation for guest posts as we still do not get the maths?

I see that in health only high authoritive sources show because when I search Google for a health issue it tells me that I have cancer anyway. There is so much content pollution that one will seriously get very worried.

That is why I am asking is it not better to go to the doctor or go to school if we need to learn?

Wait there is now predictive medicine coming from AI so let's see who is allowed to live forever and who is not.

[andynicky89]

@reseller there was an update for sure. My traffic has lost more than 65% again on the same sites that was hit after 10 March.

[WhoKnows111]

I have 8 years old website - user generated content, but I curate it strongly... It was for years stuck at XXX traffic a day... couple of months ago it started going up and capping at increase of 80%

9 days ago it dropped by 70% and I'm at half of what before for years. The site was NEVER even slightly hit by any update.

Ridiculous but I'm not surprised ... now Quora is ranking for important kw with an empty page - just 4 words question in the title - word, kw, kw, word

[Peter_S]

About Quora, what is odd is that their traffic graph at Alexa [ [alexa.com...] ( I assume it's okay to put this link, alexa is famous enought ) ] has EXACTLY the same profile as my own site. ( of course I am not in the top 200, ah, ah ) but I wonder if the profile of this graph can match the evolution of Google's updates.

May be someone of you have the exact opposite graph ?

[NickMNS]

@Peter_S Alexa is useless, their estimates do not reflect reality, to put it nicely.

[keyplyr]

Agree w/NickMNS about Alexa

[Peter_S]

Okay!

[Halaspike]

@mosxu my site is not a health blog, i was just giving an example.

[Halaspike]

@Peter_S Alexa is totally useless. Semrush is more better but still far from accurate.

[shanrocks666]

Hey guys is there any update happened today. It looks , i have lost 90% AMP traffic. Not sure what is happening.

[Mentat]

Looking back the last 3 years, I've seen that Adsense for content is unbelievable low each month and I believe that Google knew this will happen, that's why he took steps to kill sites created only for Adsense and affiliation.

First, it was Panda + Penguin, then Phantom and Fred.
Phantom and Fred seems to target quality content vs ads + user engagement.

In my niche, 80% of sites died in the last 2-3 years and more will follow (including me) in the next year.
The problem seems to be that if you try to monetize the content via Ads or Affiliate links, you will get under the scrutiny of the google algo.

If a number of pages do not meet the Google "good/nice" criteria, the whole domain will suffer until you correct the problem, noindex the pages and remove the ads from those pages.

So, now noindex AND remove all or some ads from low quality pages.

[JesterMagic]

In my niche, 80% of sites died in the last 2-3 years and more will follow (including me) in the next year.
The problem seems to be that if you try to monetize the content via Ads or Affiliate links, you will get under the scrutiny of the google algo.

@Mentat - This obviously depends on the niche but I agree a lot of sites have disappeared in the last few years. What has not helped our niche is mobile apps and Google's/Apple's cut they take on payments. It leaves no room for affiliate commissions. The other thing is the rise of websites that cover one thing like technology or Men's Issues (ie physical magazine websites) that are branching out and covering topics not particularly related to their core audience. These thin info pages rank higher because of the websites overall ranking in their own broad niche which now allows them to rank in niches they don't particularly have a lot of knowledge in (thanks to Google algo updates).

[reseller]

Hi Folks

Just wish to mention that our moderator @goodroi has been kind to start a whole new thread for those of you who wish to discuss the effects of Google Updates and SERPs Changes on your business:

Effect of Google Updates and SERP Changes on Your Business [webmasterworld.com...]

[reseller]

Hey guys is there any update happened today. It looks , i have lost 90% AMP traffic. Not sure what is happening.

Its possible that a Google Algorithm Update (a Panda?) has been rolled out on April 24th or April 25th 2017 .

[reseller]

@reseller there was an update for sure. My traffic has lost more than 65% again on the same sites that was hit after 10 March.

As I mentioned in above post, its possible that a Google Algorithm Update (maybe a Panda) has been rolled out and is in progress.

[mosxu]

Only If an update would have to do with birds but it is not the case when it comes to money terms and the real update this week is that high street stores competely have taken over my industry.

Amazingly sales have not been affected and actually they are up a bit. No point looking at the analytics data I guess!