Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2018

[Martin Ice Web]

---

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)

---

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.

[BushyTop]

We've seen our average rank plummet and our traffic increase ¯\_(`_` )_/¯

We do have more terms in the index, however, looking at the positions of these terms, there's no way they are accountable for the traffic increase based on how little have materialised and the fact they rank pages 9/10.

[Jez123]

I am seeing a large drop in mobile keywords and traffic on semrush. Not just my site but all my competitors as well. Seemingly from the 10th / 12th of March.

[sk7411]

@Jez123 , SEMRush have ongoing issues,check their twitter handle .

[MayankParmar]

I feel like I'm slowly slipping into depression because of these traffic drop/Google updates :) Taking a small break... see you guys soon :)

[RedBar]

Am I the only one, but I'm starting to find Google irrelevant to any internet marketing strategy?

I've been posting this for quite some time now and it seems to be the same for most SEs seemingly trying to chase the same SERPs as G.

What is concerning with G, in my widgt sector, is the simplistic and blatant spam plus keyword stuffing that continues to rank year in, year out, or one old small, crappy image on a page by itself.

[lostshootingstar]

I believe there was another update starting around 5pm ET yesterday the 27th. We are in a service niche and dropped about 3 to 5 spots in every major US city we track since then.

Unless it's something to do with mobile first, but we have objectively the best mobile site in our industry.

Also, SEMRush sensor is nearly off the chart today.

[thedonald123]

SEMRush have ongoing issues,check their twitter handle

Agreed! Don't trust anything from SEMRush right now.

Also I'm down only 2% this week in US but international is -10%. Anyone else seeing something similar for past 2 days? Hoping this is seasonal.

[samwest]

Finally able to report a slight uptick. The past week has seen better than average traffic level and conversions even though I raised my price 20%. Of course I'm not going to hold my breath on this apparent "anomaly". Historically this should be the beginning of a very slow period each year. I'll take it though.

HOWEVER - When one thing improves, another fails. Yesterday I received a ridiculous trademark demand letter from a top 100 NY attorney claiming that one of my old blog posts contains a single, descriptive hyphenated word that he considers infringing against his clients non hyphenated and hardly related brand My crystal ball says this is a coming trend to the SERPs as greedy corporate sharks attack and use trademark overreach against long standing M&P sites to sanitize the SERPs for their own monopoly. Story developing.

[aristotle]

It's irritating when so many websites make you wait for the ads to load before they show most of the article. A few weeks ago I saw a comment here somewhere saying that google was taking action to lower the rankings of these sites. But instead, the problem keeps getting worse.

[sk7411]

I have a strong belief that this update is somehow related with Mobile First Indexing , as i can see different results for my site while switching Useragents between Mobile and Desktop in Private Window .

Googlers are saying that this won't affect ranking , but Trust me guys , this will affect Rankings for Sure even if you have got Responsive sites . As per my observation i see sites which are pruposed only for mobile device are outranking Responsive sites.

Google has messed up pretty bad , i am sure they might be adding one liner code to their algorithm every other random days :))

[NeapTide]

Mobile first index is up now. Many of my site pages rank on first page on desktop while on mobile they are ranking on second page. One reason is on mobile often only 7 results are appearing from sites on first page of Google and other 3 are now on next page. The site traffic has overall increased by 75% this month. This has slightly compensated for decrease in RPM in AdSense.

[MayankParmar]

While I was supposed to stay away from the analytics and forum... today's update could not stop me from posting. There seems to be yet another update. Our real time views dropped to 20. Lowest real time I've ever seen. It should not be less than 100.

Semrush confirms this [semrush.com...]

[samwest]

@MP - wait until it drops to under 10 or even goes to zero. I was always in the 30-50 zone, but haven't seen that in years. You must do well with even 100 live...unless you are affiliate only.

[RedBar]

Google has messed up pretty bad

That has to be the under-statement of the decade:-(

The more The Plex tries to introduce, the more The Plex tries to refine and the more The Plex tries to pretend it is being innovative, the more The Plex makes a more horrifying mess.

They really have no idea of the K.I.S.S. principle:

[en.wikipedia.org...]

All they are succeeeding in achieving is confusing or alienating many of its users, period.

Is the real problem that many of its reasonably intelligent workforce has absolutely no idea what goes on in the real world meanwhile they get paid loads of money simply to experiment and, inevitably, annoy the the heck out of its user base when so many find it so difficult to do accomplish what should be relatively very simple things?

Here's a suggestion Google, give us two search engines:

1. Keep developing the one you have.

2. Bring back the old one without all the frills, bells and whistles.

Let's see if our grey cells and the original Google were actually that much better!

[reseller]

A relevant post from Search Engine Roundtable of March 28, 2018

Google's Mobile First Indexing Is Unrelated To Weekend Algorithm Update
Yesterday during the video hangout with Google's John Mueller I asked if the mobile first indexing rollout was at all related to what folks were seeing with this past weekend's Google algorithm update. In short, John said no, they are unrelated.

[seroundtable.com...]

[samwest]

@reseller - yeah, and some people actually believed him. Truth and G just don't seem to go together. lol

Just a weird update...today (in the last few minutes actually) I am suddenly seeing large amounts of global traffic as if a gate way opened. All this traffic is to the site home page. It does not look human however as it's just one and done visits. Something is up....but as quickly as it came, it's gone.

[edited by: samwest at 5:07 pm (utc) on Mar 28, 2018]

[RedBar]

Nothing much has changed in my UK sector, still totally irrelevant and unable to supply US companies ranking extremely well meanwhile we've all been booted out of their US SERPs when we are the original supplier!

[MrSavage]

Noticed today a pretty random search and there was not a single organic above the fold. 4 ads and an partial answer box above the fold. This on a FHD PC monitor so there was enough real estate...for everything but organics. It's important to talk about search result positions. People may be dismissive on the number of searches that result in the #1 organic being a bit below the fold, but let's not forget to track these things. Always an erosion but some are in denial. I guess self interest because of selling the idea of services that can get you that #1 search result that is buried below the fold. Tough sell folks. Harder by the day.

[KaseyM]

Noticed a bit of a shift today in my sector - [semrush.com...]

[RedBar]

Tough sell folks. Harder by the day.

Agreed plus Joe Public is really beginning to notice this now judging by the amount of comments/complaints I am getting on forum boards, the pub, customers etc.

[Travis]

Noticed today a pretty random search and there was not a single organic above the fold. 4 ads and an partial answer box above the fold.

This is not much different than what most publishers are doing (putting ads first, and real content beginning bellow the fold)

[mosxu]

@samwest

Seeing similar pattern here, quality of the traffic improved except the hours eaten up by zombies

Mobile traffic is up, but do not expect the zombies loophole to get closed soon

[MrSavage]

Just a quick note what I've observed regarding image search. For the first time ever, I saw a shopping ads row, spanning across the top row of images. Thus, images were starting AFTER the shopping ads that are images themselves with prices, etc. Holy smokes. Commercialization is here. Maybe I've been living under a rock but I've never seen ads in the image search like this. Ranking #1 for an image (or being in that top row just took a hit. I'm sure this is just rolling out and will be commonplace in no time, provided there is a buck to be had.

[EditorialGuy]

For the first time ever, I saw a shopping ads row, spanning across the top row of images. Thus, images were starting AFTER the shopping ads that are images themselves with prices, etc.

It's probably an experiment. Still, it's reasonable for Google to show ads, if the ads are shown to be effective on pages of image results. (I'm skeptical, but we'll see.)

[glakes]

Now I see a change with this update, less traffic on my site that has been mobile friendly for the last three years. Maybe this update is like the "unrewarded site" update where the result is complete ass backwards from what Google tells the public?

[skynet84]

Please take a look at this screenshot: [dropbox.com...]

vs last year i have lost 65% of visitors i always added new content always clean work really HARD so so so QUALITY hard, and now i get this. Google can make you feel really depressed, i worked so many year and respected all guidelines and now this is my reward -65% of traffic.

[skynet84]

I was overtaken by big brands sites that they copied my ideas and modified most of my articles and sometimes copied them i get rewarded with -65% of traffic. This is quality update uh?

[linkbuildr]

NA Travel - Big loss on keyword positions across the board although double the traffic coming in...loss for words.

[NickMNS]

I'm seeing a bit of a recovery on my end.

[reseller]

It seems there has been another Google Algorithm Update on March 28, 2018.

To make things easy we might refer to the 3 latest updates as follows:

1- Google Algorithm Update YouTube-1 of March 9, 2018

2- Google Algorithm Update YouTube-2 of March 23, 2018

3- Google Algorithm Update YouTube-3 of March 28, 2018

As all the 3 updates have been rewarding YouTube pages :)