Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2017

[reseller]

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System: The following 5 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4842918.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 4:18 am on May 2, 2017 (PDT -8)

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Last month April 2017 hasn't been a nice month to webmasters as far as Google Algorithm Updates and SERPs fluctuations are concerned. There are several WebmasterWorld friends who have lost big portions of their organic traffic. If you just take a look at RankRanger's Google SERP Fluctuations chart you would notice dates of medium to high levels of fluctuations on April 17th, April 20th, April 25th, April 29th and April 30th. Those are just indications of the "volatile SERPs environment" of April 2017.

I'm just wondering what would the current month brings us of Google Algorithm Updates surprises :)

Personally I wish to see on this thread happy posts reporting recoveries and the return of at least parts of what have been lost of Google organic traffic during the latest few months. Let's hope so :)

[Cralamarre]

Is there any sign that this update targets site that have not yet moved to https? I use https on pages that absolutely need it (login page, purchase page, member-exclusive pages) but my main articles have not yet been moved to https. Could they be a target for this update?

Unfortunately, the most likely explanation for my recent traffic drop still seems to be a loss in long tail keywords. I can't see any obvious reason for why my site would be targeted by Panda or Penguin, and my rankings for my main keywords seem unaffected, which again implies that I have not been targeted. The only explanation that still seems to hold up is long tail keywords. And why would Google target those?

[Cralamarre]

To be honest, I would much rather be working on new content for my website right now than spending all my time on here obsessed over my traffic loss. There's a big part of me that thinks "Why bother with new content when you should be trying to fix the problem with the hundreds of articles you already have!" But since I don't know what the problem is, how can I fix it?

If I was smart, I would be focusing my energy on something I CAN do something about, like updating my site with new content, instead of wasting my time obsessing over a problem that, for the moment at least, I can't do anything about. I guess I'm just not that smart, because somehow worry and panic seem productive.

[Shaddows]

Long tail, almost by definition, will have a lot of pages from lots of sites tangentially related to the query. It would only take a small algo tweak to change the longtail landscape, moving you off page 1 and into oblivion.

The only way to counter that would be to write long tail content with the focus you would give to competitive queries, which would be logistically impossible.

[Shaddows]

I guess I'm just not that smart, because somehow worry and panic seem productive.

Just human! Analysis is productive. Sieving/curating/distilling crowdsourced opinion can be productive.

Writing content is definitely productive. I would go do that while the SERPs settle, then see where you are and if there is any consensus about what, if anything, can be done (or at the least, patterns of the afflicted, so you can avoid doing that)

[Cralamarre]

Thanks Shaddows, and to everyone here for being so incredibly helpful. It's great to have a place like this to turn to.

[masterjoe]

After a fairly decent start to the week, I have been getting hammered by zombies the last for the last 36 hours. Not a single email sign up or sale when things were close to "normal" for what my sales should have been for the amount of traffic I generate across a few websites.

[reseller]

@masterjoe

Maybe you find the recent posts of @samwest and @mosxu on the following thread of interest:
Websites Affected By Zombie Traffic - Observations & Analysis [webmasterworld.com...]

[samwest]

Is there any sign that this update targets site that have not yet moved to https?

All sites I manage use https:// site wide and it is affecting every single one of them.

Welcome to the webmaster business 2017 - the new poverty level career, not unlike starving artists.

[Cralamarre]

@samwest Thanks for the info on https. At least it's one thing to cross off the list of possible issues.

I think ad density can also be crossed off the list since many affected sites don't use ads at all, and I still see plenty sites with ads all over them ranking very high.

[glakes]

So in your opinion, it would be pointless to start digging for possible bad links. You either have them or you don't, and even if you have them, trying to do something about them might just make things worse.

It's not a matter of when to start digging for bad links to disavow but rather would it ever do any good if you did. Unless you bought links, have a manual action penalty or were link spammed by some negative seo effort, I'm of the opinion you should not worry about the links you have. Penguin already devalues links and not the pages they point to. There's a good chance that what you think may not be a good link is actually given some credit by Google. If you start disavowing too many of those links, you may see your ranks fall which is counter-productive. Not to mention the signal it sends to Google that you are trying to micromanage your link profile when disavowing links. I believe what you should focus on now is patience and exercise restraint from doing anything that may hurt your website. While this update is still rolling out, focus on creating new content, diversifying your traffic sources, visitor retention, etc. Maybe by the time you tackle some of those issues, which I recall you speaking about before (new content), the dust will have settled and more information will be available to make educated and graduated adjustments, if any are needed. For all any of us know, this update may return our sites to where they were ranking before the rollout started or even higher.

[reseller]

I expect the current Algorithm Update (started May 17 - May 18) to proceed. I think there isn't much fun for many webmasters these days :)
God bless the good old days where the kind Matt Cutts use to keep us informed about most of Algorithm Updates which were underway at those days.

[samwest]

^+1 - the real kicker is trying to explain all this to clients who paid us for building and promoting their sites then suddenly it's as if somebody just pulled the plug on their traffic. Puts us in a very sticky situation that unless you've described this possibility in a project contract, could lead to litigation. I've been fielding calls all week. Thanks Google.

It's like selling a car to someone then having all the wheels fall off in the first 100 miles.

Worked great for a little while....

[Cralamarre]

Anyone else noticing a huge traffic drop today? It seems to be across all traffic sources, not just Google, so I'm going to chalk it up as just an early start to the US long weekend.

[samwest]

In the past and for over a decade, this holiday weekend used to rock...so scratch that theory.

[mosxu]

traffic is very low, summer time algorithm is here to stay I hope reseller does not mind me calling the birds summer time

[Cralamarre]

But compared to this past week, today is suddenly even lower for you?

[samwest]

Every day lately is "suddenly even lower"

[mosxu]

All week very low, not allowed to feed from the 15-20% trash anymore, see where complaining gets us to?

[Shepherd]

FWIW: our google traffic this week is up 10% over same period last week. Bounce rate down 2%, pages per session up 4%, average session duration up 10%.

[Cralamarre]

My traffic has been pretty much even all week (down 20% from the week before but it wasn't getting any worse). But now today I'm seeing a big drop, primarily in US traffic, which is why I'm inclined to think it's just the beginning of the US holiday weekend, which would be a normal drop for me since my traffic always drops around holidays.

However, there were rumors that the BIG update was rolling out today. I was expecting this board to be flooded with people saying they lost all their traffic today, but it seems pretty quiet. It's also quiet on the SEO Roundtable site, which again leads me to believe that nothing extra (nothing "BIG") has happened today.

[Shaddows]

Random comments posters on SEO sites are not sages. They have no special insight.

During any given update, claiming the "biggie" will happen on a specific day causes no reputation damage for being wrong, but a lot of Kudos for guessing right.

[reseller]

However, there were rumors that the BIG update was rolling out today.

I guess the two funny Googlers "Tom and Gerry" have tweeted those rumors, yes? :)

As I posted previously, I think the current Algorithm Update which has started on May 17 - May 18 is still in progress.

[Cralamarre]

Well, it was someone claiming (I know, I know) they work at Google going by the name Bill Lambert (there are now several people going by that name), and apparently he's been right about things in the past from what people were saying. He said that the update from May 17 and 18 was a Penguin refresh (which does seem to be a real possibility) and that the "big" update was rolling out today.

However, since I made my original post an hour or so ago, my Google traffic seems to be back to what I'm now calling "normal". So, I had an idea in my head about something that might be happening today, I saw what looked like evidence to back it up, and I reacted. I'm not proud.

[reseller]

@Cralamarre

No worries :)

[mosxu]

In the news:

Google just killed the biggest android ad fraud ever!

Evil apps forcing android users to click on ads?

[JonathanEdmonton]

It's a tough job eh? It's hard to keep up when minor or major changes come from the big G. Still I can be positive, I have found that the hardest thing to do is keep calm on clients.

[Cyclops888]

It's SEO Armageddon, my competitors who do not have high quality links are starting to outrank me. My SERP keeps dropping for a lot of my target keywords. I have no idea why, but I'm getting a feeling it has something to do with the recent google blog update. The blog post stated do not write articles to build links. A lot of my high quality links are from articles like entrepreneur.com, businessdaily, etc.., but a lot of people are re-posting the exact article on their low quality sites with do-follow links. Perhaps that may be the reason I keep dropping in the SERP? Do-Follow links and duplicate content? I thought Panda only devalued the links, not punish them?

[mosxu]

Let's make the connection why are the high street stores taking over google rankings [usnews.com...]

Since when does any update have to do with birds?

[Jori]

What I'm seeing as nothing to do with our websites, but in a change of Google politics.

They now prefer to show big brands or small websites with little content but with a very clear call to action for customer.
In my niche (financial advise), this is very clear, and I saw a very big brand making better than me, in a long tail keyword, with simply their homepage, where you don't find nowhere the complete keyword.

Let's say : my keyword it's Word1+Word2 . Let's say the big brand it's very huge for only Word1. It will outrank me.
My website is essentially a long tail positionned website, and I was doing very fine until half of february, where all of this started. Since then, it's only getting worse.

[samwest]

In reply to mosxu's link and not to swerve too far OT...
geezus! how much personal spying will these %*@&s get away with before someone puts their foot down? Google crossed the creepy line long ago.
I think most of us would be very, VERY shocked to know what really goes on within the algo.