Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2017

[martinibuster]

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System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4860963.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:25 am on Sep 2, 2017 (PDT -8)

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How do you compare your pages with those in the top 10?

User intent.

[ionguy]

@renatovieira
same here! conversions 0 from sunday. all traffic im getting is full of zombies
something definitly happend on sun/mon night
web design/marketing agency europe

[renatovieira]

@ionguy

We can only wait. :-(

[samwest]

Nothing Sunday & Monday, but Tuesday it opened up and got three conversions within one hour. Nothing since. Traffic has all but evaporated. Any remains are all zombies. Funny how so many now see these ON/OFF effects almost in lockstep.

[Lane1106]

Sept 20th,my 2 sites' traffic drop 11%, seems google update its algorithm

[keyplyr]

Hello Lane1106 and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

[Cyril TechWebsites]

My website got an ice shower. On 20-22 August after update I got all my traffic back (since 7-th February first "fred" update, even more traffic - these were the best weeks in site`s history). And now on 20 September I lost about 11-15% of Google organic again, such things already happened this year and extremely often. So I can`t get - am I doing something wrong or right? Google algorithm changes his thoughts about my website like it is riding a roller coaster - it changes its traffic almost all the time: up and down, up and down and so on! I can`t get - do I have a good quality website or not? :) When do we see something stable (at least at some part of it)?

[keyplyr]

@Cyril TechWebsites - it's likely most of your traffic is bots anyway. Most traffic is. If a couple bots change their behavior abruptly, it can appear that you've lost traffic.

Read here: Most of Your Traffic Is Not Human [webmasterworld.com]

[jony88]

@Cyril TechWebsites, oh. I have the same problem as you. (since 8th March Google fred update).

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@keyplyr +

Thanks for sharing the link. I would lovely think about bots, but I also lost a pretty big part of my revenue due to this traffic lost. As it seems for me, bots can`t generate the revenue (at least for Adsense & Amazon publishers).

[30K_a_month]

Hiya gang,

Things got far worse yesterday. I have less traffic yesterday than i have ever. I dont understand, I have put another 6 months of time and money into this site since the FEB update slammed me. And now after 6 months I have just been battered again. this is #*$! annoying and depressing. Fraud is going on with google on a massive scale

[npthanh1910]

I found that the keyword position of the website has declined since the beginning of this week. Does anyone tell me what's going on?

[chardanna]

We were massively hit on 3 sites on the 19th August update, we are starting to see increases again following whatever has happened early this week, positions that had dropped 10-15 places almost back to where they were prior to August, no real changes made as I had a feeling it would roll back.

ecom UK

[jony88]

I'm sorry , I don't speak english very well. I have seen my keyword dancing on today (21/10/2017 - GMT +7). My site has been affected by Google Fred since on 8 March. I was released 2 times but then continued to be fined. On 15 August, my keywords increased (view picture).

[i.imgur.com ]

Especially this morning (02:00 AM) All my keywords in bulk returned to the best position but 10 hours later (12:00 AM) the keywords returned to current position. Actually I was happy but now is confused and anxious!

[ionguy]

@renatovieira
its *2 years* since all this mess started; for my sites its started in the mid of sep 2015; later i found WebmasterWorld to share my findings;
other friends here has been reporting zombies and other unnatural movements even longer.........
honestly im sure nothng will change when it didnt changed for 2 yrs --- things seems to be worse and worse

today its 4th day full of zombies and lack of conversions

[glakes]

Funny how so many now see these ON/OFF effects almost in lockstep.

There's no doubt in my mind that Google is rotating converting traffic, with most of it going to Amazon and some spread out to Amazon affiliate marketers in my industry. That's why the good Google traffic days are so few and far between. If all paths lead to Amazon, that's where those of us in ecommerce need to be. Especially with the dwindling share of shoppers that visit Google first to look for products (maybe in the 11-13% range), Google just does not have enough quality traffic to spread around which is why we see dead periods that can last hours and/or multiple days. Google brought this on themselves by failing to offer diversified search results and doubled down on this with excessive domain crowding. Google really lost their place in ecommerce, and the traffic quality rotation we see now appears to be a desperate act to appear relevant - even if they are only relevant to us one or two days a week.

[NickMNS]

@Jony88, Welcome to WW. What are those keywords based on? Whether your website ranks first for a specific keyword can depend on a wide variety of constantly changing factors. What I mean is that user in New-York who types "Blue Widget" may see "BlueWidgets.com" in first place, whereas a user in LA might see "WidgetStore.com" rank first. There are many factors that influence rankings and it seems unlikely that any keyword tool could account for this. So the "dance" is most likely a result of this or some other short comming of the keyword tool and less likely to actually have anything to do with Google.

Here is a thread discussing this topic:https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4865116.htm

[Cralamarre]

My Google traffic was down 5% yesterday. First time all month that I saw a drop. If it was from an update, at least it wasn't devastating. But who knows, it could have been anything. Revenue didn't seem to be affected at all. In fact, oddly enough, while Analytics reported a 5% drop in traffic, AdSense reported a 10% increase in page views.

[Cralamarre]

Just to follow up on my last post, no sign yet today of any major traffic changes, so I'm still not sure if I was hit by an update yesterday or if it was just a normal fluctuation in traffic. Overall traffic is still up significantly from last month.

[Martin Ice Web]

Today i was searching some SQL Params for my Database. I was astonished how bad the results from bing are. I couldnīt find anything only pure garbage. Nothing to do withmy query. Then i realized that i was searching with chrome browser using google.
Switched to bing and the first two results : bingo

It was once a SE with big potential but has now become a ad engine. I hope that bing does not copy googles bad layout and results.

[goodroi]

Mods Note These aren't the droids you are looking for. You can go about your business of posting only on-topic comments and moving along off-topic comments to their own Google SEO or Google Business thread :)

[Cralamarre]

I think information sites are very different from ecoms. As someone who runs an information site, I don't know of too many competitors of mine who've had millions of dollars poured into them. And I can't think of any reason why Google would want my site to go away. If anything, G needs sites like mine so they can steal all my content and copy it directly to the SERPs.

Edit: This comment was in reply to a previous comment that appears to have been taken down right before I submitted it.

[Jhurwith]

My WoW numbers are down too and all started on Wednesday. Anyone know what the update or rollback focused on?

[martinibuster]

I think information sites are very different from ecoms.

Right. It's query dependent.
Info sites have ranking advantages over ecomm for certain kinds of queries, little seo related things you can do to push it up. But ecomms are favorable for money phrases and they too have ranking factors to work with that aren't available to info sites for those kinds of search queries.

[samwest]

I was captured by the dark side, and rightly so...thanks for the cleanup on isle 9.

[glakes]

@mosxu

As one who thought Google really could not get worse, they've proven me wrong time and time again. Given a few years, I could only imagine how bad Google's serps will be. My only hope is that we can all weather the storm and adapt to what comes next.

[seoskunk]

I have to say I have been following this update and I think its great, some good quality content has been removed but I can see what there trying to achieve. Its a much more positive approach to ignore and deindex spam than to reward negative seo, of course Bing have been doing this for a while and thats maybe why there results are cleaner. I'm no Google fan but hey guys I think this is a positive update, yes your seeing some sites rise to the top that shouldn't be there but I believe thats temporary and most of them will get filtered when they change to https.

[seoskunk]

Oh and by the way delete your disavow file, it was always a waste of time

[Wox9999]

Almost 50% Traffic drop on 21 Sep 2017. Any Sign of Update?
See Screen Shot: [cl.ly...]

[Dantes100]

Same here... 30 % drop since the 19th. The must definitely have been some kind of update.

[Martin Ice Web]

I have to say I have been following this update and I think its great, some good quality content has been removed

did you have an Punchinello for breakfast?

This are by far the worst results they have ever presented. And we all know that this has little to do with compelling content or with quality. I bet this quarter will be much more successfull as all quarters before.