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.

[penitentman]

@sdksjdksjd I've read in the google webmaster guidelines that they will measure how much time, effort, expertise, and talent/skill is apparently put into a site. Of course there in no level of detail more than that... Perhaps they believe that making a video is "harder" than writing an article.

Here is the first mention of these 4 words in the pdf-
"For all types of webpages, creating high quality MC takes a significant amount of at least one of the following: time, effort,
expertise, and talent/skill. For news articles and information pages, high quality MC must be factually accurate for the
topic and must be supported by expert consensus where such consensus exists."

[SnowMan68]

and yet you are making an "assumption" why articles are more special and provide better signals....

[Rlilly]

@sdksjdksjd

Disagree, there are no assumptions with videos. They are saved, bookmarked, commented on.. embedded in many places. Cited in blog posts, news articles....Returning visitors. Views.... There is no assumption which video on a subject is more popular.

[MayankParmar]

@Rlilly I'm not sure. But all I can say is my articles are point to point, no keyword stuffing, and of course well researched, probably this is why the site is cited cited by all big publishers such as Gizmodo or The Verge. I've asked my rival sites and their traffic dropped as well. The rank is same but traffic/impression is down!

The fun fact is that YouTube video has more dislikes than likes. While in my article, the comments are really positive.

[NickMNS]

@samwest your are not 0.10 past your quota. The Google insight provided you with the normal range in which your traffic usually is. The mid point of the range is 35.25. That is the average. Your PVs are 21.75 over the average (57 - 35.25 = 21.75).

So why show the range and not the average? The range is determined by the variation over some relevant time frame (a week or a month). Variations are normal and the result of a wide variety of unpredictable factors (randomness). The range estimates what variations are random or normal and anything outside the range signals variation that is not random and thus is significant. So if tomorrow your traffic is 15.25, down by 20 this would not be notable because it is still within the range (albeit it comes close to breaking through). The fact that the value reported by Google did breakthrough the range means that it is statistically significant and worth looking into.

Note that the range can also serve to show an ongoing trend, if on a daily basis figures continue to be within the range but you see the average drift upwards or downwards this could be signaling an underlying trend despite there not being any statistically significant changes.

All this to say that the information reported by Google is relevant.

[MayankParmar]

The articles are reliable, YouTube videos have a clickbait thumbnail and emoji of shocking face + fire.

[samwest]

It can get article context, but can't video.

Er, wrong. Google AI can now look at a photo or video frame and interpret the meaning and full description.
It's the reverse of how you are SUPPOSED to use alt tags to describe what is shown in your photos.
The AI can also take a still photo and create a few seconds of what it thinks will happen next.
It can also take a simple description and using GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) feedback, create a frighteningly accurate real image. Reference: [goo.gl...]

[samwest]

@Nick - you're being a bit too serious. My point is that they watch sites so closely that it feeds the idea that control is firmly entrenched, which is no surprise. When I see the word ANOMALY, that means something deviating from a "standard" or out of the ordinary...which assumes Google has judged and set traffic expectations for all sites. In a judgemental crazy world, that just does not seem to fit well with the usual GMO. Just sayin'.

[edited by: samwest at 3:14 pm (utc) on Mar 26, 2018]

[NickMNS]

@samwest I get your point, the semantics of it make it seems like there is some reason to panic. But this is analytics, a statistical tool. You need to read the it with a statistical lens. Statistically speaking when a metric breakthrough its range it is an "anomaly". As in, not normal, where normal refers to the shape of the statistical distribution. Simply put it says, "Look here, this is worth looking into"

[rustybrick]

I am not confident the weekend ranking changes are related to this but anyway [webmasters.googleblog.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

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

Yes.

[Shaddows]

Further to Barry... Google Mobile First Live [webmasters.googleblog.com]

Key points:

Mobile-indexing is rolling out more broadly. Being indexed this way has no ranking advantage and operates independently from our mobile-friendly assessment.

Having mobile-friendly content is still helpful for those looking at ways to perform better in mobile search results.

Having fast-loading content is still helpful for those looking at ways to perform better for mobile and desktop users.

As always, ranking uses many factors. We may show content to users that’s not mobile-friendly or that is slow loading if our many other signals determine it is the most relevant content to show.

[edited by: Shaddows at 3:50 pm (utc) on Mar 26, 2018]

[MayankParmar]

Mobile first indexing is not big deal if you are on WordPress with a premium theme + AMP.

[reseller]

A relevant post from Search Engine Roundtable of March 26, 2018 :

Google Algorithm Update March 23rd : Chatter & Signals
As I mentioned in my Friday video, there seemed to be some chatter around the algorithm update starting back up again after a number of days of calm. Well, the weekend got pretty heated with chatter within the community, although not all of the automated tracking tools picked up on the changes. Some are saying the update started as early as the 21st/22nd but most are thinking the 23rd.

Some are saying this update was a tweak to the core update from earlier this month. Some think this is a new thing - of course, we do not know what it is unless Google tells us.

[seroundtable.com...]

[sdksjdksjd]

Disagree, there are no assumptions with videos. They are saved, bookmarked, commented on.. embedded in many places. Cited in blog posts, news articles....Returning visitors. Views.... There is no assumption which video on a subject is more popular.

Between videos probably there are no assumptions, but you asked question of how articles are better and I precisely explained you how.

Google AI can

No, it can't. Knowledge graph showed, that there is no such thing as Google AI.

[NickMNS]

My traffic went to zero for the past 20 minutes or so. Now it is back. It wasn't my server as all bots kept on crawling normally. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

[nomis5]

Over the past couple of days I'm seeing a higher % of mobile visitors.

I can't say overall I'm up or down because around this time of year I always see a high increase in visitors. Also the recent cold weather in the UK has had a negative temporary decrease in visitors. On the days when the weather improves I'm seeing a massive increase in visitors - pent up demand?

But the increase in mobile visitors does appear to be significant and rather sudden. More time is needed (with a relatively steady and normal weather range) before I can be certain.

[mosxu]

@nick

Traffic going to zero? After that normally zombies take over just curious what the conversions look like after going to zero

[NickMNS]

@mosxu I run an informational site so the concept of zombies is little harder to define. But user engagement has been good, lower bounce rate and high time on page. Ever since the short dip this afternoon traffic has been steady. Nowhere near my peak, but it looks like i may have reached a local minima (the bottom).

[Robert Charlton]

I've started a new discussion here of Google's announcement that it's rolling out Mobile First, linking to it from several applicable threads....

Google rolling out Mobile First index
Monday, March 26, 2018
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4893387.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Today we’re announcing that after a year and a half of careful experimentation and testing, we’ve started migrating sites that follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing.....

[jmorgan]

Some schools, mostly in the UK, started their spring break this week. Would this likely be more of a reason for the traffic/rankings flux rather than any supposed update on Google's part?

[rdbseo]

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

Yes, we saw a big lift with the first update (10%) and then a slight roll back over the weekend. I'd say our visibility is up 7% across the board, mainly up on our key terms and a few local terms.

Everyone who's saying that they're site is down, I'd be interested to know what the websites are. We got hit by the Fred update this time last year (funny how google brings big updates around the same time every year?), and we really assessed the quality of the content on our site. Its hard but sometimes you have to take a step back and look at your site from a different point of view.

[mosxu]

Massive lift here in mobile traffic,

[sk7411]

Lifts or Downs are temporary and ambiguous as of now , The new updated algorithm is still trying to achieve something . Brace yourselves . I won't comment before 3 weeks of consistency after any updates.

[jambam]

Talking about youtube videos ranking has anyone else seen those "spun" review top 10 best product videos ranking?

Iv seen some channels solely built on them with millions views ranking in the search results. These videos are built using software, scraped images and even the voice over is text to speech computer generated.

As for the other search results.. stagnant in my niche! Doesn't matter how much hard work or effort you put in you get nothing back.. really good posts that Im proud of do not even display in the top 1000 in the search results.. google would rather show .ru websites and obv spam on page 4 onwards instead.

[glakes]

Talking about youtube videos ranking has anyone else seen those "spun" review top 10 best product videos ranking?

If you're talking about those videos where the video only shows a product literally spinning slowly around and around, with a computer generated voice providing some lame description, the answer is yes. These types of videos have no place in the index at all.

[samwest]

Doesn't matter how much hard work or effort you put in you get nothing back

That's a tough order to fill when 10,000 others are doing the same to claw and scratch for the shrinking number of organic slots above the fold. It's especially tough when a handful of those are well funded big brands with tons of back links. I find most of those will scrape the content of page one articles and quickly rise to the top. I just had a well known real estate site do that to one of my articles. They slapped together a clear plagiarism, copying the title verbatim, and G promptly booted me to #4 on page 2 (from #2 on page 1) in the blink of an eye. Too bad G doesn't appear to look at origination date of content.

[seoskunk]

Am I the only one, but I'm starting to find Google irrelevant to any internet marketing strategy? I find the adwords and google shopping overpriced with poor ROI, the SERPS filled with answer boxes youtube videos, Amazon and Branded sites. And as for mobile, the conversion rates are so low I wonder if it's worth it sometimes.

The worse thing Google did was over-reward brands, they killed a fledgling market and now we have the same twats dictating to developers as always been at the top. Any meeting these days about websites is a proctologist's dream - wall to wall arseholes.

[jmorgan]

Well my traffic and search impressions has dropped but my average ranking position is pretty much the same. I can only assume the drop is probably due to seasonal factors (spring/easter break) rather than any Google update.

[MayankParmar]

Jmorgan My ranking position is better after these google updates but the traffic dropped by a big margin.