Google Updates and SERP Changes - January 2018

[samwest]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4879278.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 2:37 pm on Jan 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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In the past few days I am seeing more search focus on my home page and less on landing pages. Also, the binary or drip traffic pattern seems to have improved to a more natural looking "multi visit" pattern...encouraging, but not converting to help the bottom line. I'll say this, if the bottom line numbers would improve, I'd kick the adwords campaign back in. Google raked a cool 100k + from me in ad fees back when natural, unfettered traffic patterns were the norm. With their odd traffic patterns and poor ROI the past few years, they haven't received scratch from this camp...or many others for that matter.

[analis]

From 12 December -30% and from 17 January a further drop of 20%.

I do not know what to do I'm desperate.

[jmorgan]

Traffic seems a bit down today. Is there something going on in the world that's preventing people from using the internet? Seems a little strange to have a sudden crash back to earth after I had a very good day yesterday.

[sunxvogy]

Yes, very strange, it suddenly like I don't have any visitors or buyers..

[sivaprasade]

SEMRush Sensor showing 9. But I didn't find any fluctuation in my traffic.

[samwest]

In my niche(s), extreme traffic and conversion fluctuations rarely if ever correspond to any noticeable changes in the SERP's. One day It's hot, the next it's ice cold. As an administrator of many sites, I often see this happen across the board in lockstep. It's as if the entire internet is being controlled by some other force, either a technical glitch or an intentional injection to slow things down to zombie levels. Now the question is how and why?

[mosxu]

@sam

Great question! I personally only see dollar signs!

Think about how easy it is to create these zombies...

[KaseyM]

Mozcast again pointing to high fluctuations. My niche in particular is hit hard. Sigh.

[browndog]

Seeing a nice upswing over here, would be nice to see it stick, but it usually drops back down again.

[NeapTide]

@Samwest I am sure the zombie traffic that you are referring to is due to recent algorithm updates that have seriously f**ked up search results. For example people search for something and they are shown something else. So once they enter your site and do not find what they are looking for they will go back. You will get the traffic but you won't generate any sale or see any conversation.

[glitterball]

@Samwest I am sure the zombie traffic that you are referring to is due to recent algorithm updates that have seriously f**ked up search results. For example people search for something and they are shown something else. So once they enter your site and do not find what they are looking for they will go back. You will get the traffic but you won't generate any sale or see any conversation.

I'd never actually thought about that before - do users even notice when Google strikes-through the most important word in their search phrase?

[reseller]

A relevant post from Search Engine Roundtable of Jan 29, 2018

More Google Search Algorithm Updates Going On Now?
Over the past several days, people have been moaning about ranking and organic search changes in the SEO communities. The most public one is WebmasterWorld, but the overall "chatter," as I like to call it, has been somewhat slow and limited. I am sure some webmasters and SEOs have seen significant changes in their rankings over the past week - as you all tell me, Google is updating several times a day. But I do not personally believe these are massive or largish algorithmic updates with Google as a whole.

[seroundtable.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

Dunno about updates, but since January 20, our Google traffic has been running anywhere from about 9.5 percent to 19.25 percent ahead of the same days last year after a pattern of fairly modest single-digit increases earlier in the month.

This could reflect more search interest for our topic(s) than in anything Google is doing, of course.

[Maximum44]

We are going down again. It is like we are totally opposites to some of you here. When you go down, we go up. When you go up, we go down.

[BushyTop]

Experiencing high bounce rates and weird non local traffic today.....

[KaseyM]

Pretty slow yesterday and a few of our new items are taking longer than normal to even index.

[Maximum44]

Yeah, the processing last few weeks over at Google seems to have been slowed down. Analytics, Adsense etc... are not updating very quickly either.

[Black_Sin]

Been silent reader for quite a while here
So my site (+80% organic) been dropping since October and my traffic is half of what it used to be. Most my ranking are same but some high traffic one drop hard really low now
Testing here and there and I can conclude that one of the thing that cause it was Native Ads from a giant platform
Remove it and then my traffic been climbing back up steadly

Anyone know why is it? Does Google do not like Native Ads?

[HereWeGo123]

@Black Sin – How quick after you removed those Native Ads did your traffic climb back up?

[glakes]

Anyone know why is it? Does Google do not like Native Ads?

If you are referring to Yahoo Gemini's native ads, they do create a ton of backlinks on a wide variety of unrelated websites. Some backlinks are nofollowed while others are not. I personally would not want those backlinks nor the traffic from them as almost all the traffic is completely irrelevant to the type of products we sell. Irrelevant traffic produces high bounce rates which of course Google does not like. I'm sure Google does not like all of the unrelated backlinks either, particularly those that don't use nofollow. Ultimately Yahoo needs to do a better job of targeting to increase conversions/reduce bounce rates and extend the use of nofollow to all links in their native advertising program so that participants don't get in trouble with Google.

[MayankParmar]

Native ads from Taboola has a impact on performance, so if performance is pathetic then the SEO will also take a hit.

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4885490.htm [webmasterworld.com]
2:13 pm on Feb 3, 2018 (PDT -8)