Google Updates and SERP Changes - April 2018

[kewlchat]

System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4889357.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 5:32 pm on Apr 1, 2018 (PDT -8)


Seems after 3 years traffics picked up some, should we dare to dream?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 1:39 am (utc) on Apr 2, 2018]
[edit reason] Moved and reformatted message to new month [/edit]

[mosxu]

Yes, and dogs are those big adwards accounts ending up with less food because of Amazon, obviously they do not bark but will lower their bids as a result.

But do not worry because apparently there is still a lot of traffic for the rest of us but it does not convert for some reason.

[Martin Ice Web]

on sunday i saw this young guy ( about 14-15 years old ) sitting in front of me. He obviously wanted to by something online.So he took his phone and opened the amazon app.
This second i realized that this guy will never ever see me google PLA, this guy will never ever go to our shop. He is caught in amazon universum. he will never ever use google for shopping. I realy thought the most poeple would open the webbrowser to navigate to amazon. But this guy bybassed google completly. No chance to reach him outside from amazon.

I then realized that this is the new generation. This generation will do product search only on amazon. While we old semester are ( were ) using google the behaviour has shifted towards amazon. And when this generation will be integrated in working processes they will still use amazon instead of google. googles relevance seem to shrink much more faster than i thought.

Search observation:

we see the biggest drop we have ever seen about 90%. Sales dropped by 95%.
Our nich is now full of big brands were you canīt by if you are not an commercial too. Very bad for private users.
They have to click on ads.
ebay is completly gone in my niche.
I canīt tell what this is all about but it seems that google tries to find the worst scenario that users will except and click on ads.
Synchron to this shift we see 500% more sales from amazon. So this enables us to cut off PLA spending.

[analis]

12 April in the search console the scanned pages have increased significantly. Visitors fell 30% in the following days.

Instruments that monitor the movements in serp do not give any important variation.

What is going on?

[BushyTop]

We've seen some SERP increases this morning

[Spiekerooger]

Here as well, so far pretty good. Even seeing big brands loosing and specialists gaining positions.

Looks like the march movements (which somehow leveled off pretty much end of march / beginning of april) refreshed and even stronger.

(disclaimer: not having to deal w/ amz or yt in our areas, haven't checked this for other niches)

[mosxu]

I would expect that in 1-2 years especially because of PRIME most of the buyers will bypass Google.

So all remaining Google converting traffic has to go to 3-4 key players willing to keep the bids high in exchange of revenue for the actual formula to hold. Sorry I am calling these players dogs but I think singularity will get these dogs to eat each other soon.

There is no competition

[spunkle]

Today I'm seeing huge SERP movements to for my sites, very positive and very large jumps in rankings, seems like an update rolling out today.

[MayankParmar]

I'm not sure what happened to my AMP pages?! The console is showing a drop of 500 AMP pages! :(

[glakes]

There's definitely an update going on. While it's nice to see a lift, these changes are historically short-lived as Google returns to the same big brand and Amazon crowded SERPS that were present before the update.

[Cralamarre]

It's still early here, but Google traffic does seem to be up. Too early to know for sure though.

[Maximum44]

Seeing a big drop in average desktop positions while mobile is going up.

[analis]

your pages scanned daily by google how are they?

[RedBar]

The only movement I see is continually downwards as Google.com removes our non-USA business sites from its SERPs.

What used to be our smallest .co.uk site with still the same metrics has now become our most visited site and outperforming all our .coms.

Meanwhile business in the RealWorld continues, my widget industry has now by-passed Google, I wonder how many other industries are doing the same?.?.? And just in case you were womdering, no, we have nothing to do with Amazon etc, this is manufacturer B2B.

[samwest]

@MIW -

This second i realized that this guy will never ever see me google PLA, this guy will never ever go to our shop. He is caught in amazon universum. he will never ever use google for shopping.

So that's pretty solid proof that they moved your cheese. I hate to say this, but "if you can't beat 'em, join em".
If I were selling a tangible product, I'd be selling it on Amazon. Problem is, mine is intangible digital goods.
I do however manage a client who is absolutely killin' it on Amazon...and Google.
It's all about what you sell and how you present it, so many differing factors between all our sites...yeah I know, I'm preaching to the choir. Traffic this week is back to hot and cold pattern. Mostly cold.

[edited by: samwest at 2:33 pm (utc) on Apr 17, 2018]

[lostshootingstar]

Seeing more big drops here today. I still have yet to see a single algo update that actually helped us since October of 2016, this is so demoralizing. Time to lay off another loyal employee.

[Cralamarre]

My Google traffic definitely seems to be on the rise today. I noticed a sudden increase in conversions (membership sales) beginning yesterday afternoon, which is continuing today, and now traffic is also on the rise. I must be dreaming because this doesn't happen. Nothing good ever happens anymore, so this won't last.

[RedBar]

@lostshootingstar

In which country are you located?

[MayankParmar]

Seeing a big drop in average desktop positions while mobile is going up.

Exactly, same!

Traffic is more or less same.

[Cralamarre]

I noticed today that one of my competitors now has the mobile version of their site replacing the desktop version in the SERPs, so when you click the link in Google to visit their site, you end up viewing the mobile version even on a desktop. And I can tell you, their mobile version looks terrible on desktop. It's the same content, but the layout is all wrong. It looks like exactly what it is, a mobile layout stretched across a desktop screen. I'm glad I went with a responsive layout, not a separate mobile version, if this is what's going to happen.

[lostshootingstar]

@RedBar USA, automotive services niche. I don't even deal with goliaths like Amazon and YouTube and I still can't win. Most of the sites that out rank me now are thin affiliate sites with pretty sketchy backlink profiles (PBNs, a milllion scholarship links, paid sponsorship links, etc) and have content that is full of inaccurate information and is clearly not even proof read.

So frustrating.

[Maximum44]

@lostshootingstar Also in USA, in the automotive services niche. Knock on wood but our traffic is going up. :D

[Travis]

I see a LOT of direct answer boxes on mobile devices.

[seoskunk]

I believe there was a google update as well as mobile first, started Friday 13th seems to be link not content focused - call it the Voorhees update.... unlucky for some

[MrSavage]

I'm not sure my stamina at this point. I'm getting pinched like a loaf right now.

[JaviP]

A disaster! Do you think the update is finished? Thanks

[Cralamarre]

My Google traffic today was up 10% (roughly 1000 more visitors) over last week. Both desktop and mobile saw an increase.

[Samsam1978]

In my niche myself and all competitors have lost at least 3/4 of mobile rankings over last few days :-( time to get my resume together.

[MayankParmar]

According to SEMrush, there was an update: [semrush.com...]

[reseller]

A relevant post from Search Engine Roundtable of Apr 17, 2018 :

Google Algorithm & Ranking Update Kicking Off?
There may be a Google search and ranking algorithm update starting off this morning. I received a couple of notifications via email and some on social media and the chatter in the ongoing WebmasterWorld forums is starting to heat up a bit. Plus some of the automated tracking tools are beginning to show signs of an algorithm update.

[seroundtable.com...]

[Samsam1978]

Every website I have looked at outside my niche, the mobile keywords have nose-dived to almost nothing. Don't know what is happening but hope it corrects itself. I also read on the google announcement that rankings would not be affected, which goes against what I have seen in reality.