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]

Nick, I updated my site on 9th March, and my traffic is down since then. I am not able to figure whether it is Google or something is broken. If something was broken, Console would have notified me of the 404s. I think we should use SEMRush, Screaming frog crawlers to find out the bugs if any.

@sdk Pure garbage site. Searched for the keyword and the site ranking on second position has more ads than content :D

[NickMNS]

I think we should use SEMRush, Screaming frog crawlers to find out the bugs if any.

I don't trust those tools. I am confident that there are no technical issues with my site. I have an idea of one possible issue that may be affecting me but if this drop is due to algorithmic changes then my hunch just may be false attribution and making changes will worsen things.

I am working on some adjustments now that need to be done regardless of anything, and these changes may impact things. So I will wait and see once I get that rolled out and in general. I am remaining stoic and trying to take all this in stride, as this is an unfortunate part of our line of business.

[thedonald123]

and in general. I am remaining stoic and trying to take all this in stride, as this is an unfortunate part of our line of business.

It's the toughest part of our line of business. (-30% since August 17)

[Rlilly]

the March 22nd update, more of the same:
Amazon
Amazon
Amazon
Staples
Staples
Staples
Staples
Walmart
Walmart
Office Depot

[glakes]

One more update to contradict glakes

@mosxu

I wish I was wrong and conversions would stick, but it's never the case. On Saturday 3/24/18 our conversions were twice that of prior days and the highest in the last 30 days. Considering we also sell B2B, it's odd to see a massive spike in conversions on the weekend because it omits many business buyers. Will it stick this time? Doubtful. But I will say the elevated positions for YouTube videos does help us as we have instructional videos on how to use our products. In the videos we highlight certain points that are also useful for those making purchasing decisions.

[samwest]

@glakes - not to report traffic or conversions, but Saturday was also the best conversion day of 2018. No rhyme or reason. It typically lasts ONE day and there are no metrics to indicate cause. Just FM I guess. Strange how several unrelated niche users can observe similar flux patterns like this. It indicates that there is an overall control in place, not just on a per site basis. I attribute it to a brief algo control outage due to an update. Seen this pattern happen for many years. It's becoming much less frequent though...I'm guessing another update was processing on Saturday and temporarily took down the AI "traffic quality controller". Sunday and we're right back to where we were two days ago....nowhere.

[glakes]

@samwest

In the past I've witnessed a reduction in Amazon domain crowding during major updates, which likely resulted in the brief period of higher conversions from Google. I can't say whether or not this happened yesterday because the event is short lived and must be monitored/witnessed in real time to verify. Since I sell on Amazon as well, I usually experience conversion shifts during updates where conversions will spike on my website and then shift to Amazon and stick with Amazon. This time around I did not see that - Amazon conversions remained normal while my website spiked. Today is rather slow thus far, but being Palm Sunday I know many of my customers are at Church and most weekend conversions don't occur until after 3PM for me anyway. But the quantity of traffic is most certainly elevated for this time of day, so we will see how all this shakes out. Hopefully today picks up for you as well. I'd sure like to see some positive changes that don't always benefit Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, etc.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Facing with another one hit since yesterday (overall: 25% since the start of March 2018 update). The most interesting thing is that when my websites were hit by Fred (7-th February 2017), I started updating all of the posts that dropped. That gave a great result – I recovered traffic and even get some great increase over the year. But now all of those updated articles dropped too and again. That doesn’t make any sense as for me – if I had issues and I fixed them (the fact that those posts started “curing” and back their traffic proves that algo saw an improvement and rewarded it), how can other drop happening right now? Right now these articles became low quality again? So how can they recovered in last year? Do webmasters need to change their content 4x times per year to keep getting traffic from algo, that changes its opinion on content every 4 months? Wtf? How can the same person think you are a badass, and after that in 2 months telling you are great, and after another 2 months saying you are badass again? It looks like some kind of two-faced person and a liar as for me…I’m sorry for my English, but I hope you will get the main idea of what I’m saying…

[Cyril TechWebsites]

And another one thing to mention - if a month ago I had a great increasing traffic on my websites (conclusion - I was making everything according to Google Webmaster Guidelines and was rewarded), and now I started to lose traffic - so do I started to make things against Guidelines? But Guidelines didn't changed since then... So how can that happening? The only thing that changed is algo. So do we really need to follow the guidelines or it's just a fiction that Googlers telling us as a lie? That's the only conclusion I have right now.

[EditorialGuy]

now I started to lose traffic - so do I started to make things against Guidelines? But Guidelines didn't changed since then... So how can that happening? The only thing that changed is algo. So do we really need to follow the guidelines or it's just a fiction that Googlers telling us as a lie? That's the only conclusion I have right now.

Following Google's guidelines isn't a guarantee of a specific ranking. It's just a way to minimize the risk of penalties.

[sdksjdksjd]

So do we really need to follow the guidelines or it's just a fiction that Googlers telling us as a lie?

Google is not the boss. We are not working for Google.
This is business. Everybody is following anything until it is profitable.
No money, no honey.
No profit share, no markup.
No profit share, no amp.
Google appeared to be not smart at all. It can't read web without our help. Google taught me, that everything online should be considered from the profit side.
Do you (google) want markup? Prove me it will be paid first.
Amp? Same.
Guidelines? Thank you, I'm fine.

[mosxu]

@glakes @samwest

During the update been blessed with lots of zombies but I must say traffic is also low and their number has reduced.

Still zero sum game with no conversions but at least the traffic looks a little bit more honest which is the most important thing

[Jhurwith]

Who is seeing big drops in SEMRush?

[Broaster]

Ive noticed the youtube videos ranking on the entire first page before, the reason google is putting youtube videos on front page is because that is who they like to pay over website owners.

youtuber is the site that google makes most money from they monetized videos and made more millionaires from any other company on earth, heck youtube is easier to earn money from adsense than on websites most people have ad block but youtube has those video ads that play that most ad blockers cannot block so people see them regardless and thats money in the bank many video ads will pay couple dollars as well

now youtubers videos are outranking regular website blogs articles in search

youtube allows spam click bait videos and pay those people, yet they make it difficult for bloggers to earn money through web search especially with ranking videos on the first page of search for keywords

another thing is screen caps from youtube videos are out ranking images in image search

[reseller]

It seems Google latest two Algorithm Updates are about rewarding Amazon and Youtube :)

May I suggest relevant names for those Updates?

1- Google Algorithm Update of March 9, 2018 : Amazon/Youtube-1

2- Google Algorithm Update of March 22-23, 2018: Amazon/Youtube-2

Long live Google Webmaster Guideliness :)

[Nutterum]

@sdk - I have experienced mobile traffic drops everytime a big google advertising campaign is being pushed by a big brand for my keywords. I am steadily in top 3 yet, having two or three ads will push the organic results down enough for me to notice a sizeable drop. I am not sure what kind of kool-aid the Google Evangelists are drinking at their HQ, but their prophesizing that people scroll to the bottom with the proliferation of mobile phones and their natural scroll design is BS to say the least.

My bet - always have one add running for your top ranking keywords for mobile. Sure it costs money, but the combined traffic from the add and organic search should cement your impressions and clicks in the long run.

[Shaddows]

Text add, Google shopping entry and natural ranking FTW.

#1 ranking is always enhanced with pay-to-play entries, aiming for above-the-fold domination.

[glakes]

@mosxu

My conversions yesterday returned to normal with Google sending very few buyers while Amazon was busy cranking out sales. It would appear the typical 1-2 day spike in conversions I see from Google during an update is holding true to this update as well. When I check Google's SERPS for my keywords, they are heavily skewed towards Amazon still with Amazon crowded listings in the top of organics coupled with their paid ads. There's absolutely no room for any competition to Amazon in Google's SERPS. It would appear in my industry that Google sees nobody as under-rewarded and spamming their users with Amazon crowded listings as being good for the user experience. I prefer a more diverse set of search results, which empowers users with choice.

The quantity of traffic from Google was elevated yesterday as were pageviews. We'll see how today goes now that B2B transactions are in play.

[MayankParmar]

It's been a while now. I doubt my traffic will ever recover, no hope :(

[penitentman]

Who is seeing big drops in SEMRush?

I'm seeing a 30% loss of traffic on my biggest site yesterday compared to the week before. SEMrush shows the same drops for my large competitors. Smaller sites not getting hit. I suspect there is a page to content ratio that google looks for. Anyone else see this over the weekend?

[Maximum44]

Did not get hit too bad on the second update and we have a few hundred thousand pages. But we lost about 25% in the early March update. Mostly to amateurish Youtube videos (holding a webcam talking without script).

[MayankParmar]

YouTube videos have slowly outranked all of my articles. This is getting ridiculous!

[Rlilly]

@mayankparmar what makes your articles and stories so special?

[Jhurwith]

@penitentman, I have seen drops for small and large sites.

[Raj38]

When till algorithm will normal?

[penitentman]

@jhurwith All month or just yesterday? I was severely hit by Fred and Maccabees but nothing since, until yesterday. I thought I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and would have a somewhat stable occupation. Wrong again.

[Raj38]

How much time after algorithm will normal?

[samwest]

Funniest, most useless Google Insight of the week. This is an actual Google Insight: "ANAMOLY DETECTED - ...For this Page, we forecast Pageviews of 17.6-56.9 for Mar 24, 2018, and your actual Pageviews of 57 is higher than this range. " Woah! 0.10 pageviews over quota! Hardly worth the electrons used to process that ridiculously insignificant fact. I get these gems every week. Love it that they are tracking site traffic with such precision. Now, tell me that this is not used in the AI feedback loop...because I need another good laugh.

[BushyTop]

Is there anyone on this forum that has actually seen a lift?

[sdksjdksjd]

what makes your articles and stories so special?

In general articles are more user request (keyword) targeted, than video simply because google doesn't have technology to get video script.
It can get article context, but can't video. So majority of videos are shown in SERP based on pure assumption, that their contexts are more relative to users requests.
Assumption is a very bad signal. That's what make articles so special - they provide much more reliable signals.