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)

---

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]

[seoskunk]

Google have made it abundantly clear they see Amazon as a competitor, tell me why is a President only attacking Google's main competitor?

The shares dropped because of the Presidents attack on Amazon, Oh please the shares dropped because Google sold their stake in them prior to obeying their orders. Still see Amazon in top spots..... nah didn't think so, I think that they have become so arrogant that they think we are just plain stupid!

[EditorialGuy]

Google have made it abundantly clear they see Amazon as a competitor, tell me why is a President only attacking Google's main competitor?

Because Amazon is a surrogate for Jeff Bezos, and the founders of Google don't own The Washington Post.

[meagain121]

Could it be that Google are an Amazon affiliate like duckduckgo? Do they have a special agreement with Amazon to put results in search pages instead of making Amazon compete with others on the shopping page?

[aristotle]

tell me why is a President only attacking Google's main competitor?

Reportedly Trump and several of his friends have investments in some shopping centers, and most shopping centers in the U.S. have lost value because of competition from Amazon.

[Halaspike]

I had the index of media pages problem but have noindexed & redirected the media pages to their respective posts.

I hope it was the cause of the 50% drop in my traffic.

If it was the cause then i should be fine in a couple of days or weeks.

Yoast really messed up.

[MayankParmar]

@Halaspike It will take a while. I still have those thin content (media) indexed despite the fact that the page is 404.

Also, you'll find that the sub pages are also indexed. example.com/page/1/ ........

[mosxu]

Somebody on this forum said Bezos is an early investor in Google.

What competition are you talking about?

[MrSavage]

Google in 2018 is about SERPS safety first. What's safer than leading people to Amazon, Twitter, their own pages... The trust factor can always be tweaked in an algo so why is anyone surprised that the sites you already know about and visit on a regular basis are dominating the SERPS? Fake news and bad PR is what's driving the algo and anyone is welcome to debate that fact. I don't see discovery in the top SERPS and traffic to my own sites says as much.

[RedBar]

For me G is totally fubard or Joe Public is, quite simply not engaging, yesterday and today have been my 2nd and 3rd lowest-ever PVs across many widget-specific sites.

My sites seem to be ranking fine, even in US G.com again, what is happening? Is it FB or something else?

I have to reiterate, my businesses are doing extremely well YET The Net is now not DRIVING any new positive business enquiries. The Net is is a dead driver ... this has been happening for several years in my widget sector .. is anyone else seeing similar?

[Halaspike]

@MayankParmar yeah, sub pages were also indexed and it really pissed me off. I added a little code to the header.php file of my themes to noindex sub pages.

[MayankParmar]

@Halaspike I had asked John about Yoast indexing sub pages and he was confident that the folks at Yoast won't do anything wrong.

[samwest]

For me G is totally fubard or Joe Public is, quite simply not engaging

@Redbar - Not to go too far OT, but I am noticing the same, here's what I'm finding: Recently Windows 10 Pro updated to build 17134, Firefox updated to 60.0.1 and WordPress updated to ver. 4.9.6 - during that time and continuing today, my WordPress sites are slower, Windows is hogging resources like crazy and Firefox is locking up constantly. It's like a trifecta of buggy updates, or so it seems. In the end, this can make users appear non interactive as their browsers crash and systems respond like a tortoise.

I have three systems on my desk and all are exhibiting the same performance issues.
The windows issue seem to be that MS is again activating the 'Customer Experience Improvement Program' process without notice, which I turned off and my PC's are again running normally. Since Firefox had a major release level at 60, I expect to see a patch soon. As far as WordPress, it's the worst update I've seen in a long time and ironically a bug fix. It is also considered a major update, so avoid it if you have not already upgraded, Sounds like 5.0 is going to be a total mess.

During this time, my browsing and shopping experience has been cut short on almost every attempt. It's definitely Zombie Sauce. I think that many times when we see odd interaction patterns, it has more to do with outside influences than G itself, but then again...Return to topic....

[meagain121]

@Redbar - Get Windows 10 LTSB & Iridium browser. On topic - I updated all my meta 7 days ago (it couldn't get much worse, so i thought, why not?) and traffic has steadily increased - yesterday saw my best google traffic for ages....

[samwest]

@meagan - great idea - I have two older PC's that will get Ubuntu or Mint and Iridium so I can compare notes on the REAL serps.

[MayankParmar]

@Samwest That WordPress update is necessary for GDPR. Can't avoid it :(

On topic - May is by far the most stable month.

[samwest]

@MP - being USA based business and USA customers and no data collected, GDPR does not apply.
Traffic slow as expected this time of year for my test site niche, so as usual, all observations here are from diverse niches and highly varied...commonality is more likely a coincidence.

[disspy]

Let's stick to the topic.

I also see a 30% drop in SERPs of a 15yrs old site with authority and UGC. We rolled an update at the same time, so I just wonder is it our fault or a new big google SERPs move.

It started May 17-18. Some of our top SERPs disappeared from their top positions. Probably has something to do with GDPR release this week?

Any new observations?

[Jhurwith]

@disspy, we are seeing a similar trend. Concerning and I am not sure why. I checked log files and we have not been moved over to mobile first.

[disspy]

Thanks @Jhurwith for your observations!

According to Google, Mobile-first indexing doesn't have anything to do with ranking factors, and even more they're going to inform Webmasters about it. This is something different. I just want to check if anyone else noticed any significant shift during these dates, or is it just us and coincidence that matches with our recent deploy and changes we made.

[EditorialGuy]

We got the "mobile-first indexing enabled" message from Google a few days ago. Since then, our mobile traffic has been up more than our desktop or tablet traffic, compared to the same days a couple of weeks ago, but the difference isn't huge.

[MayankParmar]

Maybe Google bots traffic.

[LuckyLiz]

@Redbar

The Net is is a dead driver ... this has been happening for several years in my widget sector

Perhaps the problem is the industry your in instead of the Internet? Have you looked at trends in general for your industry? How healthy is the industry? Are consumer (or business) needs and preferences changing?

[Halaspike]

It's now localized results on the serps, you gotta have a ton of backlinks to beat them.

I see wack websites ranking higher all because they are localized.

[samwest]

The last few days traffic has been up, but mostly referral spam....again.

[glakes]

Somebody on this forum said Bezos is an early investor in Google.

Bezos invested $250K in Google back in 1998. When Google went public, Bezos' investment was returned to him with 3.3 million shares of Google stock. If currently held, those shares would be worth $3.5 billion today which is a small percentage of Bezos' estimated net worth of $130 billion. Since that time many ex-Amazon senior level employees have served on Google's Board of Directors. This may be part of the reason why an Amazon bias is hard coded into Google's algorithm.

Regarding the President slamming Amazon, there are many theories out there. But a President touting job creation and unfair trade with China may be one of his many reasons to call out Amazon. It's estimated that over half the sellers on Amazon reside in China. Because so many sellers live in China, they must use Amazon's warehouses to ship their goods. This makes Amazon a lot of money, and of course hurts domestic sellers, while ensuring American dollars spent by consumers flow to China. Amazon also relies heavily on offshore representatives for supporting both buyers and sellers which also hurts domestic employment. Regardless, those that see China as an adversary are not too thrilled with Amazon's business model and its impact on the USA.

Regarding the Mobile Alert - Still Waiting

I still have not received the mobile confirmation. This must be a very slow process as it is taking a long time to reach webmasters. I'm surprised at this lag since Google has been reporting pages that are mobile ready for quite some time. I don't know about other ecommerce industries, but my sector produces very few conversions from mobile users so I'm not expecting much.

[Shaddows]

Since that time many ex-Amazon senior level employees have served on Google's Board of Directors. This may be part of the reason why an Amazon bias is hard coded into Google's algorithm.

Google and Amazon are enemies; Google does not have a pro-Amazon bias*.

In general, companies poaching employees from competitors is seen as a hostile act. For example, many companies have clauses in employment contracts saying you cannot work for a competitor for some defined period, typically a year. For clarity, this is not because the current employer envisages that the competitor will be more friendly once the employee is poached.

*Obviously, Amazon appears a lot. But, like the sun orbiting the earth, just because something appears obvious, it doesn't mean it is true

[glakes]

Google and Amazon are enemies; Google does not have a pro-Amazon bias

What either you or I state makes no difference as anyone with a reasonable and objective view can clearly see the bias in the SERPS. Whether this bias is hard coded into the algo is certainly debatable, but the bias can be visually confirmed and as such is a factual reality that impacts many businesses selling tangible goods.

[Shaddows]

Well, you said it was hard coded, and I strongly disagree. Many companies regularly beat amazon.

What is undeniable is that Amazon wins a lot. We sell tangible goods, almost all of which appear on Amazon, and most of which are cheaper on Amazon. We have found it productive to assess why Amazon win so often, and so regularly beat them.

Unfortunately, my niche is very competitive, and some of our competitors also regularly beat Amazon.

Amazon have many, many advantages, but thankfully inherent bias is not one of them.

And again, the sun orbiting the earth can be "visually confirmed" and is a "factual reality" on those grounds. It is also wrong. This can be confirmed by careful observation of related phenomena. Or, you can just burn the heretics and believe the "obvious" observations

[glakes]

Amazon have many, many advantages, but thankfully inherent bias is not one of them.

In the USA, I can't see any evidence that backs your claim. But if you have evidence that I am wrong, please present it. Simply stating I am wrong proves nothing. Comparing the sun to Google's SERPS is also misguided as you are comparing nature to a man made algorithm. Natural occurrences are not motivated by the same biases as a publicly traded company. If it were, then the sun would only shine on certain farmer's fields leaving the other farmer's crops to die. Oddly enough, this comparison is eerily similar to what Google has done to small businesses.

Thankfully the evidence of bias is in the SERPS. Those selling products don't have to take your word for it or my word for it. It's a factual reality that many ecommerce sites are buried by Google under not one but often 3+ organic Amazon listings. If others here believe there is no Amazon bias in Google's SERPS, they can most certainly chime in.

[glitterball]

Regarding an Amazon bias - do you not think that the bias is just towards big websites in general?