Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2017

[Jez123]

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System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4870905.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:13 am on Nov 1, 2017 (PDT -8)

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I am seeing amazing conversion rates since Saturday night / Sunday morning. Traffic remains fairly normal but conversions are through the roof! I have never seen anything like it yesterday. Is this coincidental or has something changed? Is anyone else seeing anything like it?

UK ecomm.

[Cralamarre]

My articles consistently rank in the top 3, as confirmed in Google Search Console, and yet my traffic is now less than half of what it was at the beginning of this year. It dropped in March, it dropped in May, and now apparently it's dropped again. And yet through all of it, my articles have remained at the top.

[RedBar]

So, using G.com searching with a proxy server I got the results I was expecting from the USA, pretty horrible to be honest with a lot of domain crowding but at least US results.

Something weird is going on, checking further searches, non proxy, some are completely "normal" whereas others are 100% UK results. Why weird? Because one of the products is in the top 5 of my trade widget sales in the US, this is crazy.

[aristotle]

Google's own top ten list --

Several members of Webmaster World have commented recently on how top ten lists have been dominating the results of certain types of google searches. Now google itself is creating its own top ten lists -- I just saw an example. It's spread horizontally across the top of the screen and includes website logos. Google's algorithm must have created it from user click data.

[MayankParmar]

Lost 30-40% everyday traffic this week. Since Tuesday, my site is not appearing on Google's Android search app. Only the VERY high authority sites are now appearing, despite producing high quality and 500+ words content (while the rival site writes the same thing in just 150-200), I have been kicked out :(

[nexus868]

Hello guys..... google is filtering out all NSFW sites from their main KEYWORD. This is the last catastrophic news. I'm in italy if i'm lonking to find an nsfw site to what something and i type the famous keyword P - 0 - R - N - 0 i get back a list of newspaper and wikipedia contents....... finally they banned NSFW.... i suppose will result in million of dollar lose for many companies...

[Maximum44]

Down last two days here. Compared to last week about -7% to -9%

[SarbjitGrewal]

My traffic is up from all the time insights because i have 70% social signals rather than organic search traffic.

[RedBar]

i have 70% social signals rather than organic search traffic.

However is this driving you any business/earnings/advertising revenue or are you simply the middleman allowing lots of people to use your site for their purposes for free?

I'm not criticising you, merely interested in what you gain from the traffic, if anything?

[earm1sec]

whats going on?
after 3 years being in first page & rank 2
i dropped to Page 2! Lost 50% traffic in 1 week
:(

[Cralamarre]

Would anyone happen to know if schools in the US will be open this Friday (Black Friday)? I know they'll be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure if Friday is considered part of the holiday. Just trying to avoid any undo panicking this week. Thanks.

[Pontificus Maximux]

Would anyone happen to know if schools in the US will be open this Friday (Black Friday)? I know they'll be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure if Friday is considered part of the holiday. Just trying to avoid any undo panicking this week. Thanks.

Nope, a 4 day weekend.

[Cralamarre]

Thanks Pontificus. I asked right before checking my analytics for the same week last year. Looks like this entire week will pretty much be a bust. Oh well, a good time to get some work done then.

[EditorialGuy]

In the U.S., some schools are off for the entire week. (That isn't common, but it's more common than it used to be.)

[HereWeGo123]

@Pontificus Maximux – I second Cralamarre's comment. It will be downhill up until late Thanksgiving evening, and then on an uptick on Friday (Black Friday) and will continue throughout the weekend. Then the whole week after Thanksgiving, things should be returning to normal. But take that with a grain of salt, ultimately, depends on the niche :)

[RedBar]

and then on an uptick on Friday (Black Friday)

Black Friday started in the UK last Friday 17th and is going through until 27th for many of the big shops/online etc.

[Cralamarre]

HereWeGo123 Pontificus was just repeating my question, but thanks for the response. Based on analytics from last year, this week will be a steep downward slide into Thanksgiving. In my case, Friday won't be any better with schools closed. But next week should be back to full steam.

You know your life is different from most people's when "Four Day Weekend" is one of the worst things you can hear.

[aristotle]

But wouldn't ecommerce sites be busier than normal, since people will be looking for information about products they might want to buy? I've read that the 4 or 5 days after thanksgiving are among the busiest shopping days of the year in the U.S.

Also, doesn't google usually adjust its algorithm to accomodate the heightened interest in shopping during this period?

But I don't have an ecommerce site so am just speculating. Maybe others who do have ecommerce sites can relate their experiences.

[Cralamarre]

My site is information-based, with articles used a lot by schools, so whenever school is out, traffic is out. I'm sure ecommerce sites are enjoying this time of year more than me.

[penitentman]

I'm seeing a lot of zombie traffic on my 100% US information site today. Not a single conversion on CPA links. I am seeing normal levels of adsense revenue. Surprise surprise....

[EditorialGuy]

Then the whole week after Thanksgiving, things should be returning to normal. But take that with a grain of salt, ultimately, depends on the niche :)

Yep. We're approaching our annual low point and will see an explosion of traffic around New Year's Day or slightly before. That's the way it's been since 1997.

[MayankParmar]

Black Friday sales everywhere, this is a golden quarter for eCommerce site

Unfortunately, I'm still out of Google Android search app and my traffic is down by 40%. I run a tech news site.

[HereWeGo123]

@Cralamarre – Absolutely, there are definitely many moving variables in this case. eCommerce/Consumer informational sites in particular tend to be on the rise RIGHT after Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season.

[princesharma03]

Hello guys,
Here is also drop in traffic in Indian E commerce site in comparison to last week and previous week. please suggest
target audience: India
Niche: Furniture Shopping

[thedonald123]

I'm seeing another drop of about 10% traffic starting before the weekend and getting worse yesterday. Anyone else seeing this?
This is part of series of traffic loses I've seen starting in November.
Nov 1, 2017 - New drop in Google Traffic -20% YOY
Nov 15, 2017 - New drop in Google traffic - 25% YOY
Nov 20, 2017 - New drop in Google traffic - 30% YOY

It's been a lousy second half of 2017 from Google search. I've definitely been demoted in the Search results for most keywords I used to own, from #1 down to #2 and #3
July 2017 -5% YOY
Aug 2017 -10% YOY
Sept 2017 -15% YOY
Oct 2017 -15% YOY
Nov 2017 -27% YOY

Anybody seeing something similar? Any insights?

[HereWeGo123]

@thedonald123 – Thanks for sharing this info with us. it's really hard to say right at this point, as there are tons of moving variables that are worth taking into account. On a surface level/general note – it could be a) the KWs of the niche you're going for are just declining in trend/search volume, which would naturally result in a traffic drop (Are you adding a lot of new fresh content on a frequent basis?).

But besides stating the general obvious here – it's clear that Google is constantly making quality updates and based on what you shared, it appears taht you may have been affected by them at least once (or multiple times since last year since they're so frequent now). Based on that, it could be a number of things including, content quality, UX, architecture, technical issues, aggressive ads or backlink problems (do you have any manual actions showing up in your Google Search Console?). The way these google updates are now designed don't necessarily translate into traffic drops overnight like they used to, but overtime and across multiple updates. Without knowing your site or niche, I would guess you may have been affected by quality updates. Would need to dig deeper to point out any precise details. Sorry couldn't be of more help for now.

[thedonald123]

@HereWeGo123 Thanks for your interest.
Yes, this is a demotion as a result of the Google quality updates. There are usually many more postings of sites getting hit whenever I've been hit, but the one today seems to have gone unnoticed. The update last week on the 15th got a lot of posts here and elsewhere on the web.

As a longtime web publisher I've been hit many times in the past and know the signs. My website is apparently continuously in the gray zone when it comes to Google's quality line. The gray zone is when many Google quality updates are "always" affecting your website. Sometimes my website is deemed pure and white and we're are #1 for any keyword phrase we target and life is great and sometimes we get evaluated as dirty black and get hit by Panda and associated quality updates. Loss of ~20% traffic is the worst it's been, but I'm getting concerned now as we near -30%

Also, as the updates are more machine learning and AI, and as the quality algorithm improves, I'm wondering if we just don't have what it takes to be #1 in my niche.
It's an unusual niche, to illustrate, person A uses keyword phrase 1 and wants an "academic" type of website, while person B will use the same keyword phrase 1 and want the more "non- academic" type of site (my website) We are never going to be the academic style website and that's fine because we are built for Person B. I've never understood how Google solves this problem, as in most cases they won't have a stored preference for the user, it's not the type of area where you do these searches very often, how can they know which type of site a person wants when there is no past searches to rely on? And yet how can they disappoint Person A, when Person A's make up 50% of all searches.
Maybe they've finally figured it out.

[browndog]

My traffic has suddenly dropped 10% too.

[SarbjitGrewal]

I didn't seen any impact on Google updates whatever algorithm is updated. Thank you..!

[RedBar]

15th October 2017 I launched a new corporate site on a new domain name. For the first three weeks Google visited regularly indexing new pages and also ranking them.

For the past 10 days no new pages have been indexed and ranking has stopped.

What's happened, is their portable hard drive full?

[thedonald123]

@browndog thanks for sharing. Misery loves company :-(
Yesterday it jumped from -10% to -12% compared to previous week. In all countries so unlikely to be related to to Thanksgiving in USA.
Have you been hit by any other updates this November or over the past few months?