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]

[Tej0955]

I've seen +100% growth in Top 1 keyword ranking for my website yesterday. It has never happened before. I guess this is because of the update that we have yesterday.

Also, I guess people with a featured snippet in every URL are getting benefit from this algo update because I've 3 projects in my hand and in 2 projects keywords ranking increased exponentially but the 3rd project in which featured snippet is yet to apply has not ranked that much high but yeah 20% increase noticed in that too (But this is normal growth in 15 days).

I hope this will be useful information in this confusion.

[analis]

when I had the 50% drop in December I checked and the page cache was mobile.

[jmorgan]

You can drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with all these Google changes. Best to just focus on improving your website.

[mosxu]

@samwest

“they consistently pull 20%+ profit increases every quarter, their ad slingin' AI must be doing something right, for them....but not most of us. Of course YMMV.”

But how? Number of commmercial searches may be growing but it is direct in Amazon’s search box.

[keyplyr]

You can drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with all these Google changes

That's assuming you aren't crazy already.

[Martin Ice Web]

The big question is, what is google goin to do, to stop loosing relevance?
I think that the current serps are not very helpfull at all. Time has shown that showing big brands and amazon in serps are more destroying thant be helpfull. Amazons relevance in shopping grows with every day. Amazon offers real service while google still tries to foul poeple with bad serps pushing them to click on ads.

Why is no one at the plex seeing that the current strategie is wrong ?

You can drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with all these Google changes. Best to just focus on improving your website.

You can improve your website as much as you can but i will make no difference. You have to go where the audience is.

[MayankParmar]

It seems stable now, how is everyone's traffic today?
[semrush.com...]

[Maximum44]

Still going up!

[Cralamarre]

Still doing good so far.

[Cralamarre]

As happy as I am that my traffic has improved over the past couple of days, I find myself still staring at my real-time analytics looking for a sign that it's about to drop again, and that this time it will be worse than ever. I can't win. Even when things are looking up, Google has me convinced that the next update is going to wipe me out, and it's going to happen at any moment.

[jmorgan]

@Cralamarre I know the feeling. That's why I said we should all stop worrying too much about it and just focus on building the best website you possibly can (which is not necessarily mutually exclusive from "going where the audience is").

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I'm seeing a further drop on both of my websites. The interesting thing is that the author who works for me has his own website, with the similar content. He was facing with a drastic drops since Fred update (2017), he asked me to make an audit for his website. I did it, he implemented all the things I told him (I implemented all these things on my websites, they were keep increasing their traffic all 2017 and the first months of 2018 until these "relevant" updates). But right now his website's traffic is drastically increasing from update to update and my websites are falling down... How can this happen? The same author, the same content, the same CMS, the same technical SEO, even links are from the same websites... That's pretty strange thing as for me... Maybe someone have some ideas - how is this possible?

[penitentman]

@Cralamarre, this is not a time where you will see dramatic drops up or down. This is a transitional period after a large update. Traffic will be steady while google gathers data from the recent shifts and makes adjustments next week. My traffic is either steady the last few days or gradually decreasing. Depending on which website I look at. I feel your pain regarding sitting on pins and needles with the feeling of hopelessness waiting for the next update. We are a slave to Google. I've come to accept this as the cost of doing business. This is the profession we have chosen.

[EditorialGuy]

Our average search positions haven't changed much since April 9 (They're up somewhat compared to the previous 28-day period, more for desktop than for mobile or tablet.) Traffic is down a bit, but for our topic, that's probably just the normal post-Easter, pre-summer lull.

If there's a new update going on, it hasn't yet hurt or benefited us, as far as I can tell.

[Cralamarre]

@penitentman I don't think I've ever experienced a "transitional period" after a large update, with traffic gradually returning to pre-update levels. Usually, whatever effect the update had on my traffic remains steady until / unless it's affected by a future update. I lost 25% of my traffic in the March 2017 update. It remained steady until I lost another 25% in the May 2017 update. And then it remained steady all the way to March 2018 when I suddenly saw a 10% increase. And now this week, I'm seen another 10% increase. I'm not expecting things to change until another update comes along. I don't tend to get hit very often by updates, but when I do, it usually sticks for quite a while.

[Cralamarre]

@Cyril TechWebsites "How can this happen? The same author, the same content"

I think you may have answered your own question.

[penitentman]

@cralamarre, Do you see the period after an update to be full of zombie traffic.. aka poor converting Affiliate traffic? (adsense traffic is fine and steady) This "transitional period" after an update is ALWAYS full of poor converting traffic and weird traffic levels (for me). It eventually gets better. Then I'm wacked by the next update that looks for Fred and Maccabees signals. All the while I'm improving my websites.. So the traffic drops aren't as dramatic as they were for the previous update.

[Robert Charlton]

Cyril_TechWebsites asked...
How can this happen? The same author, the same content...

Cralamarre's reply...
I think you may have answered your own question.

Very observant, Cralamarre.

To take this even further, note that Cyril_TechWebsites went on to post about more similarities... and I'm adding some emphasis...

...the same CMS, the same technical SEO, even links are from the same websites.

These similarities are in fact problems that you need to avoid if you have multiple sites in the same niche.

Google likes uniqueness, and doesn't like spam. For similar content, Google uses "links from the same websites" as a sign that these pages might be "coordinated"... and for Google, obvious coordination is a primary spam signal.

It takes a lot of discipline, care, and extra time to construct multiple sites in the same niche without too many overlaps... ie, without generating these spam signals. There are lots of reasons why Google advises webmasters to stick to one site on a topic rather than trying to run several.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Robert Charlton

Thanks for your answer, that's a pretty interesting info to think about. But how can I control links from websites like Microsoft, ABB, Vmware etc. (I mean that techsupport guys from different companies using links to my websites to give solutions to others, there are tons of such links)? I.m not performing link building - they are all natural...

@Cralamarre

That's a good advice for the schoolboy, but I understand perfectly what's the difference between the same content and similar content. On our sites articles are on different keywords, they never intersect - we agreed on this when we began to cooperate. Copied content can not be the cause, because the articles are not the same, but on a similar topic (computers and technologies). I've been working on websites for many years and it was pretty incorrect to assume that I still do not know what copy-paste can lead to.

[koan]

Robert Charlton, what would you say is the same niche? What if you have 3 different sport sites, like hockey, basketball and baseball? or 3 different computer platforms, like Android, Windows and Linux? What about 3 different gaming platforms, with the occasional similar title shared across? Should they be organized into one web site with different subdomain / directory or should they keep their unique domain name, even though they all share similar structure and technology?

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Robert Charlton

So how do you think: similar content with the same word using pattern + the same niche + similar links can cause Google's under-rewarding? P.S. I have different IPs, truly useful content, live community with a pretty amount of commenting on each of the websites, topics never intersected by different keyword targeting.

From one side - I agree with that, but that's pretty illogical from Google's side. I do have a similar, but pretty different topics like Android, laptops, Games from one side and Windows, Linux, PowerShell from other side.

koan + asked the same your opinion as I want too: so do I need to merge all my websites in a single one (I think it's not so easy - the auditory is pretty different).

On other side, I know that about 3-4 months ago I connected all websites by linking websites to each other with RELEVANT, ON-TOPIC links to other websites. That makes me feel a little doubt on that - if it's the cause of the Google's correction.

[EditorialGuy]

We have two different sites on the same topic. They cover many identical subtopics, but--and this is important--they cater to different audiences.

- One site (the older main site) is for people who are comfortable reading in English and want in-depth information.

- The newer spinoff site has shorter, simplified content site for people who are in a hurry or aren't native readers of English.

Both sites do fine in Google Search.

[Martin Ice Web]

After a week with continiously grown traffic, yesterday evening we saw a big hit again. And its much bigger than the hit on last friday.

[MayankParmar]

Traffic dropped yesterday late evening :(

[jmorgan]

Got hit yesterday too, but looks like it might have recovered a bit today (though this is still not fully confirmed).

Did anyone actually get a surge of traffic yesterday? I'm guessing that traffic must have gone somewhere.

[Cralamarre]

No hit yesterday here. Google traffic was up 11% from the previous week, and 25% from what it was at the beginning of March.

[Cralamarre]

@Cyril TechWebsites "That's a good advice for the schoolboy, but I understand perfectly what's the difference between the same content and similar content."

I was only going by the information you provided. You said "How can this happen? The same author, the same content". You said "same", not "similar".

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Cralamarre +

Hm... :) Actually before this I wrote in my post:
"The interesting thing is that the author who works for me has his own website, with the similar content."

Sorry for misunderstanding if it's needed, so - "No", the content is not the same. It's similar niche related, and written by the same author.

Unfortunately, all this doesn't make me closer to solve the problems with Google's negative correction for my websites.

[BushyTop]

It seems to be going well for us at the moment....

Probably one of the most significant updates in the past 2 years for us...

[lostshootingstar]

People who saw a drop yesterday evening, around what time was it? I noticed a drop around 8pm or so, Eastern time, USA. These late evening hours can be somewhat unpredictable because of the lower number of data points, but usually when I see 4 or more straight hours down around the same amount someone reports something the next day.

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