Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2018

[Martin Ice Web]

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System: The following 7 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4885490.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 1:35 pm on Mar 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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Biggest drop ever. Much bigger than every panda or penguin.
All the work does not pay off. The only winner in this game is google itself.

[MayankParmar]

Wow. I'm back in Top Stories :D

[Maximum44]

"Retailers will pay Google a cut of each purchase made in exchange for the listings and links to retailer loyalty programs. The fee is separate from what retailers already pay Google to advertise on the service."

"The listings will surface under sponsored shopping results and will not impact regular search results on Google, the company said."

[qz.com...]

[JesterMagic]

@Maximum44 That is not good news, sounds a bit like a reversed forced affiliate program for retailers if they want to get their stuff listed on the first page. Sort of like the Google Play App store for developers. There is no real competitor so everyone has to play by Google's rules

They may say they will leave the organic search alone but I bet we will see even more Google content (ads and these listings) above the organic results.

[Maximum44]

@JesterMagic My thoughts exactly

[mosxu]

@JesterMagic,

You are correct it is a very exclusive club. The reason why these high street stores were in the organic rankings paying or not for now it started to make sense.

There is never been an issue of quality for small businesses, but AI strategy to take on Amazon is a complete joke they do not understand that once a visitor becomes a customer of a big brand an email with a discount direct to that customer is a lot more effective and cheaper than what google is offering...

[glakes]

Just checked a couple of searches for "product type + reviews" - first 3 pages are almost all Amazon.co.uk results (first place was a newspaper article and 3rd page had a couple of other sites). That's a solid 25+ pages from a single domain in the top 30.

Considering Google's recent statement, Amazon has been under-rewarded and small businesses over-rewarded. We see similar excessive anti-competitive Amazon crowding in the USA too, with 33%+ of the first page organic results belonging to Amazon. As a manufacturer that sells retail, I was herded by Google a while back and led into the Amazon pasture. For all intensive purposes, Google is completely dead for sales. But realistically speaking, why would any small business expect converting traffic from Google when the top three organic results are from Amazon in addition to a paid ad? Google made it so there is no room for anyone other than Amazon.

The nonsensical statement by Google that this update was to help under-rewarded sites is a complete farce. Yet there will be those that believe their statement just because Google said it while their search results provide evidence that the exact opposite occurred.

[Shaddows]

Amazon crowding

Honestly, Google wants Amazon winning their SERPs about as much as Microsoft wants you to buy an iPhone.

Google doesn't care about your business. It cares a great deal about Amazon, and not in a friendly way.

[Martin Ice Web]

Our niche is flowded with amazon results, too.
And if this pages had been under-rewarded than for sure for good reason.

No fotos, no description, only page title and h1 tag ( title == h1 tag ), no subcontent
in top 10 -> Just because it is from amazon.

[Rlilly]

People already know what Amazon has, so the crowding of results prompts one to click on an ad.

Simple as that!

[MrSavage]

If people want to talk Amazon, consider why in the recent past their affiliate program is paying far far less and the terms have been eroding to the point where a lot of revenue generation is gone. So long as Google rankings bring Amazon the traffic, I hope people are finding or considering life without much of an Amazon affiliate program. They need "us" less and less thanks to search results and the proof is CLEARLY in the pudding. I'm enjoying the cinema of this. It's going to get very very sticky as we move along. Doing anything anti-competitive in search especially against Amazon is going to be popcorn worthy. I just wonder how sneaky things will be getting.

[EditorialGuy]

If Amazon doesn't need affiliate links as much as it once did, that's probably less because of Google than because Amazon is now a household name. According to one study, 90 million U.S. households are Prime members, and 63 percent of Amazon customers use Prime.

[geekwire.com...]

[MrSavage]

I guess we should ignore all of the observations from members here about what they see on a daily basis in the search results. Right. Nothing here to see folks. You're wrong about all the Amazon links in the organics. That's not why they need affiliates less, and less, and less. (and less). I commend you on what you do. It's a full time job and apparently you don't take days off. Bravo.

[EditorialGuy]

MrSavage, I'm sure that Amazon is happy to get Google traffic, but if 90 million U.S. households are paying good money to become members of Prime, it's pretty clear that affiliate links from John or Jane Doe's blog aren't as important as they were back in the day. Amazon is a major player in its own right, just like Facebook, YouTube, and Google Search.

Airbnb is another example of a brand that didn't need to rely on affiliates after it became a household name. Just as people think of "Google" when they think of search or "Amazon" when they think of online shopping, people now think of "Airbnb" when they think of vacation rentals. Airbnb, like Amazon, doesn't need affiliates to attractive prospective buyers or promote its brand in the same way that it did when it started out.

[MayankParmar]

The zero search results is being discontinued... it would be great if Google also stop showing those clickbait YouTube videos.

[glakes]

if 90 million U.S. households are paying good money to become members of Prime, it's pretty clear that affiliate links from John or Jane Doe's blog aren't as important as they were back in the day.

This statement is true. I've posted the stats/links to them before, but only 15% of product searches begin at a search engine. And that's 15% spread across all the major search engines. Considering this, why would Google give so much crowding to Amazon, with some top 3 listings going to category pages without even a hint of the product on it? This appears to be some sort of twisted remarketing arrangement between Google and Amazon. Think about it. If only 15% of product searches begin at a search engine, the vast majority of people searching for products in Google have already visited Amazon first and then Google bombards them with more of Amazon times however many crowded listings - leaving pretty much everything above the fold Amazon. I don't know about how others feel, but Amazon's site search makes it very easy to find a product. I go to Amazon first to find a product, and if/when I go to Google to search for the same type of product the last thing I want to see is more Amazon. It kind of defeats the purpose of a search engine when all you can find comes from one site. I know quite a few of these major tech companies have workforce diversity programs, but Google really needs to create a similar program for their SERPS...

[mosxu]

@glakes

If only 15% of product searches start at search engines than traffic volumes on ecom sites would not make sense.

[samwest]

Google should not concern themselves with competing against Amazon. Remember, it's all about having a great and satisfying user experience and when it come to that, Amazon beats Google hands down all day. Don't be evil - Let e-commerce reign unencumbered on every site.

[mosxu]

Problem is after you buy once from Amazon you do not need search engines anymore unless Amazon does not sell that product.

[Laserone]

@moxsu

There are many products and technologies that amazon does not sell. Some specific products need technical support which requires a google search. Amazon does not offer technical help.

[Shaddows]

We make a solid living beating Amazon on stuff they sell. And not on price, either.

[brabox]

Took a big hit today ... lost ~ 40% of traffic.... anyone else experiencing a traffic drop?

[EditorialGuy]

Amazon does not offer technical help.

Not directly, but I've found great often found technical advice, fixes, etc. in the user reviews. It's amazing (and gratifying) to see how many people are willing to share their knowledge and experience with others.

[Nutterum]

Did not want to jump the gun on the day the big algo change hit live, but now seeing the aftermath I am puzzled.

Let me elaborate.

I command the SEO for three niche leading websites totaling upwards of 50,000 daily visits and ranking for 3k+ keywords in the top 3. All the websites are squeaky clean, with regular disavows, mentions and purely organically made featured articles in some very high-end websites including but not limited to regional national newspapers website, American express business blog, yahoo business and the likes. All three niches are not related to each other. One is B2C one is B2B and one is precious metal investments.

OK now the algo hits and what happened from my point of view and talking with the in-house SEO folks operating on some of those major news outlets was their sections or websites that are more heavily relying on outside expertise and opinion thus link to those businesses and experts got hit.

Crazy right? Well not really. Google gobbled up these SERPS and promoted more of their curated content. More youtube videos, more AMP visibility, Google news shifts, you name it. At the same time the strength signals of those high-value links were devalued and in turn brought down the business and niche information websites, freeing even more space for "top of funnel" information or Amazon product or chart/calculator type websites to be more prominent.

The more I look at it and talk with colleagues operating in different fields and niches I hear the same story. Google split the topical notes further and made them even more sensitive to past search history and search intent. This split and balkanization of the topics led to disconnect and loss of link strength because the sites who provided the links are not as closely related to the business as they were before. Because those links were mainly leading to the domain name of the business website, the latter sunk in ranking on all fronts, blog, information, product, everything.

Some websites, with big link portfolios and links coming from top of search intent websites, did not feel the drop, because the correlation was not lost, other who acquired mentions and links from various sources or spliced topics to create content that can appeal to a certain type of audience were slammed bad, because those links are now coming from different topic nodes and as such was not seen as valuable.

Of course, this is me, trying to look at the black box and judge it by its appearance and this is just a theory, based on observation and investigation.

If you have experienced something similar and I see some of you already have, feel free to put in your thoughts about the nature of the algo change.

[reseller]

Took a big hit today ... lost ~ 40% of traffic.... anyone else experiencing a traffic drop?

Anybody else has lost traffic today March 23, 2018 ?

[Spiekerooger]

@Nutterum: Great post, thank you. For posts like these, WebmasterWorld is worth reading.

(even if your findings don't apply for my sites, it is always great to get research input).

@thread regarding amazon and youtube: both are proclaimed biggest winners in google Germany for the march 7th update by Sistrix, a german seo tool provider. amazon gaining 10%, while youtube gaining about 15%. I don't see them in my niche, as they are irrelevant there.

@thread regarding today: haven't seen further shuffles today but read about others that have.

[glakes]

If only 15% of product searches start at search engines than traffic volumes on ecom sites would not make sense.

Actually it helps to explain away at least some of the zombies. More than half of online shoppers in the USA begin their product search at Amazon. Of those, a good percentage leave Amazon to perform additional research and that's where search engines come into play. Already knowing the product is available on Amazon, often with Prime two-day shipping, many shoppers return to Amazon when they are done with their research and are ready to purchase. That's why we see plenty of traffic, but conversions from Google that get worse every year. I believe in 2015 44% of online shoppers went to Amazon first when looking for a product and in 2016 that percentage jumped to 55%. I have not seen any numbers for 2017, but I would expect to show a continued decline in search engines.

[samwest]

No doubt SE use is down dramatically when you have a site ranked above the fold for scores of reasonable volume keyphrases, have a <1 second page load time and yet only pulls in the amount of traffic per day that you would get from some sleepy backwater mom & pop brick and mortar candy store. So much for being on the "ISH". lol

[Maximum44]

If you use analytics the traffic drop is most likely due to delays in processing. Does that sometimes. Like right now. Happened the other day as well. (just corrected a few hours by itself)

[sdksjdksjd]

So, this (UN)Reward update brought me 30% traffic loss - mostly on mobile.
In the same time, according to the search console, average positions are stable as a rock on mobile and even slightly better on desktop.
Any ideas of how is this possible?

[prnt.sc ]

P.S. Thousands of keywords. Many millions of impressions.
P.S.1. During 10+ years online website was hit only twice - the very first Panda and now.

[edited by: sdksjdksjd at 4:20 pm (utc) on Mar 23, 2018]

[MayankParmar]

@sdk It may be because of Top Stories? Ads + Top Stories push the SERPs to the bottom, this would not change the rank but impressions/clicks will drop.