Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2018

[Shaddows]

System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4894234.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 11:34 am on May 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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We've seen a huge shift in traffic patterns today. Traffic and conversions are relatively stable, but destination pages are very different.

In terms of products sold, it is very similar to the pre-March profile (which is different to the various iterations over the last 6 weeks)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:51 pm (utc) on May 1, 2018]
[edit reason] Split to new thread. [/edit]

[Samsam1978]

@Martin Ice Web - Yes its the worse update I have ever seen. Traffic yesterday lower than christmas day for my site and I have quality content with years at the top. Results seem diluted with short content long content mom and pop sites then big brands at the top. There is no consistency. There is nothing consistent with this update, certainly little quality from my personal searches since the end of April.

[JesterMagic]

Traffic continues to decline this week as we continue to drop positions for our keywords. Big brands continue to dominate and a few sites that have not been touched in years and are not mobile friendly have floated to page 1 of the serps.

Our niche is a mess.

[Samsam1978]

@JesterMagic - I know...what have Google done? It's like pre-March update that was rolled back, but worse.

[Martin Ice Web]

if have never seen it before but amazon is now in GSA for not amazon brands. I mean i saw amazon GSA for amazons own items but this one is new.
And they are not using text ads anymore.
I ever thought that there is now way that amazon shares shopping data with google.

[samwest]

More from the bizarro world of Google: Interesting insight reported today. Google says in April that my site load time was over 12 seconds. In March it was under 3 seconds (a quick GTMetrix test shows it's currently under 3 seconds on first visit, under 1 on second) . Now, if you've been paying attention to this thread, there were some obvious problems with Google Analytics in April, some days down completely and other days very slow to load or sporadic real time stats,,,so, whose performance are they measuring and grading, theirs or ours?

[Martin Ice Web]

@samwest, we have obscure 410 and 404 errors for pages that don´t exist and have never exist.
google shows the error with found dates in the last 2 weeks but doesn´t tell where it is linked from.

[Shaddows]

As server log buffs will tell you (hi Lucy), Google requests random pages just to see how you handle them.

You should not be returning 410s for pages that never existed, but it's not going to hurt you. Probably.

[seoskunk]

All the domains are very big brands. All the domains have Low site speed, nearly no html optimization, no mobile page and do everything against googles rules.
This updates had nothing to do with quality but with brands.

Maybe being a brand name isn't a automated top 10 listing anymore and they will have to actually work hard at their results like the rest of us do. I'm sorry for anyone who looses their ranking but in the case described it sounds like a bunch of arrogant idiots who thought the brand name gravy train was going to last for ever. From the users point of view they have been voting with their feet and seeking out independent traders on Amazon because Google was so heavily weighted towards brands. As far as I am concerned a brand should have to compete on a level playing field and if thier site offers a poor user experience as you describe and their breaking rules why should they not get the position they deserve.

Look on the bright side Martin Ice Web, I'm sure you have advised them countless times to improve speed , optimisation and responsive design only to hit a brick wall, maybe now they will listen to you. Yes this update is all about quality but also maybe being a brand won't get you a automatic whitelisting anymore. Their are plenty of good brand name sites that do the job right but plenty of small companies that deserve the chance to compete.

[seoskunk]

[youtube.com...]

Thats it folks I'm outta here.......

[mosxu]

@samwest

The 12 seconds average loadtime may not be an analytics bug. We implemented an internal tool to measure every page speed and coincides with analytics.

There are bots out there hacking devices generally with fast connectivity and start making slow requests to your website. You should be able to identify these in analytics.

Now I don’t know if Chrome is that stupid to think that your site is slow because bots make slow requests and Chrome is measuring in general the speed of that connection and how most of the sites are loading.

You never know,

[Maximum44]

We gained everything back that we lost in February - April + then some. Clicks in search console is increasing but average keyword positions stay about the same.

[BushyTop]

@martin Ice Web - We've actually seen some growth, but weirdly our bounce rates have shot up... traffic?

[Cralamarre]

After a slow start to the week, yesterday's traffic returned to its post-April update levels, with traffic 10% higher than it was at the start of April and 22% higher than the beginning of March.

[MayankParmar]

The latest Console data is from 30th April, or is it just me? Seems like stats are delayed.

[EditorialGuy]

The latest Console data is from 30th April, or is it just me? Seems like stats are delayed.

I'm seeing that, too.

[Samsam1978]

My console has not updated either

[Shepherd]

4/30 last data here also. Interesting also, in the new search console, on the performance graph, Monday Apr 30th is labeled as Sunday Apr 29th on the mouseover, all days are mislabeled on the mouseover.

[glakes]

The latest Console data is from 30th April, or is it just me?

I have not logged into WSC in months. There was always something broke, delayed, etc. making the information provided highly unreliable. But for giggles I logged in and the last recorded date for data is the same as you (April 30). I see nothing has changed much in terms of reliability since I logged in last...

[Samsam1978]

Hello, I am seeing that Google is throwing out a 404 for my cache pages e.g.

This is my homepage:
The requested URL /search?q=cache:XtZF5SW2_bEJ:https://www.mysite.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk was not found on this server. That’s all we know.

Does anyone know what this could mean?

[Travis]

May be someone is linking to your site with wrong URLs

[Samsam1978]

Thanks Travis, it is in the search cache of google for every page of my site any ideas?

[Halaspike]

Lost over 60% of my organic traffic last week after submitting a disavow file & activating AMP.

I don't know if the drop is due to the disavow file or AMP. I'm really freaking out right now.

Never done any blackhat seo.

[MayankParmar]

@Halaspike I doubt it's disavow file. It is a really slow process. How many links you've disavowed?

Check if Google Analytics is working on AMP, and also check for AMP pages error.

[Halaspike]

@MayankParmar i disavowed about 130 domains.

There were AMP errors, yesterday i fixed them & the validation process has started.

[JesterMagic]

Doubt it is the disavow file as well. I am assuming you are just disavowing obvious spam domains.

Keep us informed on how your traffic changes over time after introducing AMP. I am curious to see how much more traffic you eventually get.

[Halaspike]

@JesterMagic i disavowed only obvious spam domains.

Hope I'll get more traffic after the validation process is completed. Will keep ya'll informed.

[MayankParmar]

How do you guys disavow the links?

I am using Semrush's toxic link detector.

[Samsam1978]

I have not done it in case I miss some and they then think that I say ok to the other spammy links. I found you have to use a few sources to catch them all. Such as ahrefs.

[Steven29]

Did anybody else notice over a year ago when facebook made posts linked with certain advertisers perform extrodinarly well? You can share something so awesome to a small brand and it will barely get noticed. If you share a stupid post to a big brand it will perform so awesome with the organic reach. There is no doubt about it. Is google following suite?

[aristotle]

Did anybody else notice over a year ago when facebook made posts linked with certain advertisers perform extrodinarly well?

Facebook's "popularity" system has weaknesses that are notoriously easy to exploit from the outside. Google's results are much harder to manipulate from the outside.