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]

God dammit. The update is now official: [twitter.com...]

:(

[RedBar]

Pretty pic Mayank:-)

[Shepherd]

systems [core algorithm] are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded....

That is a very interesting statement. (Thanks Danny!)

[Shaddows]

benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded
...
There’s no “fix” for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content.

That could have been written by martinibuster!

[MayankParmar]

This update benefits the authority sites. Authority sites with thin contents are now ranking better! Kill the small businesses!

Google do changes for own favor!

I've decided to improve the site speed, user experience, reduce ads, improve the articles quality (more words, proper use of H2), and rewrite some low-quality articles. Anything else I can do?

I'm just dropping this link here. This happens most of the time.

Google's Walled Garden: Are We Being Pushed Out of Our Own Digital Backyards?
[moz.com...]

[Shepherd]

Comparing traffic from 3/7 - 3/11 to traffic from 2/28 - 3/4

google org traffic down 6.11%
google andriod search box down 6.79%
ask down 27.16%

all other traffic sources up
bing up 5.88%
direct up 5.04%
yahoo up 12.97%
duck up 15.23

overall traffic down 1.57%

No significant pattern to landing pages affected by decline. Leaning toward transactional pages being hit slightly harder than informational pages.

[RedBar]

Google's Walled Garden: Are We Being Pushed Out of Our Own Digital Backyards?

An interesting read, someone's been plugged into my brain!

[EditorialGuy]

Comparing traffic from March 5-11 to the previous week (February 26-March 4):

- Google traffic up 4.67 percent, with a climb early in the week, a peak on March 9 (10.1% rise), and a slight leveling off in the last couple of days.

- Traffic boosts of roughly 5-15% for many of our top landing pages (the ones that have performed well for several years or more).

Nothing game-changing, though--nothing like May, 2014, which was the last Google update where I said "Wow!" or "#*$!"!

[Broaster]

This is weird every single article I posted up in the past 5 days when I publish it and search for it in google with EXACT TITLE match just copying and pasting my article title in search to see if it is indexed, I don't even see the article in the first page like before now my articles are either on the 3rd and sometimes on the 9th page or worse 15th page of google search

why do they keep doing this? its baffling its a merry go round this is our livelihood and they do this so they dont get downsized so they create some stupid algorithm that they dont need. Why dont they just punish legit spam go back to the old ways when everyone big or small had a chance to rank.

Now they just give top priority to the big billion and million dollar companies who already make money without the need of ranking on first page.

even searching for something it doesn't give me what I want to know, before searching on google I would be able to find what I needed and the info I needed from any type of blog or website, now only the top dogs rank on the first page.

[lostshootingstar]

@Broaster, your problem sounds to me like RankBrain at work. Google doesn't seem to care about exact wording and phrasing anymore. The RankBrain AI is always trying to figure out context and search intent through its machine learning mechanisms. I think this can be both good and bad depending on the use case.

[Broaster]

lostshootingstar

I never heard of Rankbrain, thanks for informing me

Are these algo penalties sitewide or just punishes the article or page

[Atomic]

now only the top dogs rank on the first page.

And that's probably how it should be. The "Big dogs" have probably spent considerable time and money to be on page one. Making a page or site isn't the only qualification for high rankings. More than that, the big dogs are often what people want and expect to see.

[sunnydeval]

I also seeing a massive update in my serps since 9th mar. Many keywords fluctuated.

What we have to do now to retain their position?

[capulkit]

Strange thing with latest Google update, I lost ranking of almost all my keyword. Keywords which ranked on 1st position are now on 3rd and 4th positions. But what amazes me is that top 3 position for all these keywords is taken over by Youtube videos.

Further for other most of 1st page results, branded and funded companies with thin content are enjoying.

[NeapTide]

I have already lost 50% traffic on my electrical/electronics blog due to YouTube videos. The traffic that is still pouring in is due to the fact that people look for Wiring diagrams and they eventually open the site for more info. So Google is favoring its own product YouTube where they got 45% share in revenue.

These days, I am seeing that for almost all English words Google shows definitions and synonyms in Answer box on top of SERPs. No information is provided from where the data was collected. Dictionary websites must be seeing decrease in organic traffic.

[Broaster]

Google loves youtube, they let their videos rank in the first page for my niche as well its strange

and youtubers make more money on adsense than regular bloggers and web owners

youtube has made a lot of people rich spamming reaction videos and click bait thumbnails.

[MayankParmar]

@NeapTide +1. Same situation here. YouTube description has only keywords, and that helped it secure featured post position.

I'm not able to figure out what's where and what I need to fix. There's no report about what kind of sites are hit and what they can do.

[Shaddows]

Done a fair bit of informal "market research" over the last 48 hours. Consensus from non-industry people is that Google is serving relative rubbish, or big (US) brands. Which is interesting, because normally people don't even notice.

Amazon have a .co.uk, but .com is appearing in SERPs. Usually a sign of an AI training period.

[Shepherd]

Monday traffic from google down 14% compared to previous Mondays. Not quite the crash of 2012 but significant.

Consensus from non-industry people is that Google is serving relative rubbish, or big (US) brands. Which is interesting, because normally people don't even notice.

The way our traffic from other sources (bing, yahoo...) is increasing almost in lockstep with google's update is interesting.

[Shepherd]

Also, they behavior metrics of the traffic google is sending is negative compared to pre-update traffic. Bounce rate 1% higher, pages per session 4% lower, average session duration 9% lower,

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Is someone noticing Google Analytics glitch today? I have a huge difference between what I see in Live analytics and Auditory tab per today. Auditory section shows that I lost 80% traffic, but through Live mode I can see that there are a lot visitors, everything seems to be fine. My Adsense revenue are normal too. What can this be and do I need to worry? Would be appreciate for suggestions.

[MayankParmar]

Analytics is down and for a moment I thought another update is live :D

[Maximum44]

Remember back in the days when we told everyone to switch to Google because they were kind hearted and not as greedy and capitalistic as the other giants at the time? Oh boy, we where wrong :D

[glakes]

Looks like this update rolled on 3/9 resulting in similar traffic quantity and quality for me. Yesterday it looks like Google made some tweaks, resulting in higher than normal conversions on yet the same quantity of traffic. Normally I see a spike in conversions for 1-2 days during these big updates then they quickly disappear. What I saw yesterday, in terms of higher conversions, I am not expecting to last. Being in ecommerce, search engines get very little traffic these days from shoppers as more people flock to Amazon and other large online stores. When coupled with the domain crowding Google gives Amazon, there are not many shoppers left in Google to compete over.

What really irks me, as a domestic manufacturer, is that about half the sellers on Amazon are based in China shipping FBA out of Amazon's warehouses. These sellers often sell knock-offs, sub-standard goods, etc. and most are incapable of supporting what they sell. It would be nice to see Google's algorithm interpret signals of authenticity, product safety, if/how the products are supported, etc. Though that may never happen in my lifetime, it's my hope that some shoppers will eventually return to search engines. One such nudge may be how Amazon is now entering tax collection agreements with states. Pennsylvania is the next state where all shoppers will be charged tax on all Amazon purchases effective 4/1. Using a search engine, these shoppers can often find the same/similar products outside of Amazon for less money and with full support to boot.

[mosxu]

Rankbrain is having a hard time to put things in order after this update

I tell you I have never seen traffic bouncing up and down like that. Rankbrain says look this site is faster than a UFO send more mobile visitors but the quota says No

Sad, very sad

[Shaddows]

Here's an actual SERP observation. A specific price comparison site is appearing page 1 on a lot of commercial SERPs.

It's a site you might use to SPY on PRICEs.

Not the most highly competitive terms, but solid "[Vendor] [Partcode]" terms: "Acme WIDGE1000"

[Cralamarre]

For the first time in at least a year, it looks like my site has actually benefitted from a Google update. Traffic has been up 10-15% since Friday.

[EditorialGuy]

Also, they behavior metrics of the traffic google is sending is negative compared to pre-update traffic. Bounce rate 1% higher, pages per session 4% lower, average session duration 9% lower,

I'm not seeing that. Behavior metrics for our site are pretty much unchanged: down a few tenths of a point for one thing, up a few tenths of a point for another. Statistically speaking, it's a wash.

[Shepherd]

EG you mentioned that you saw no significant change in traffic volume so one would expect little change in behavior metrics, I would assume.

Also, just to clarify, I used the term "negative" as it is indicated in analytics, the change could in fact be a positive one, google sending less traffic but more qualified and to more relevant pages. Too early to tell.

[EditorialGuy]

EG you mentioned that you saw no significant change in traffic volume so one would expect little change in behavior metrics, I would assume.

Well, I did say that Google traffic was up 4.67% week over week. Behavioral changes, on the other hand, were mere tenths of a point (some plus, some minus).

Based on the fact that the biggest boosts have been to some of our most popular and established pages on our major topics (as opposed to secondary topics), I'm guessing that authority/reputation/subject expertise are getting a bit more juice after the algorithm change. (Note my use of the word "guessing.")