Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2018

[Martin Ice Web]

System: The following 9 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4899136.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 6:07 pm on Jun 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

---

Next very big hit. Yesterday 11.30pm . This hit is even more drastic than all the other hits before.
Very big winner in our niche is amazon. amazon has now 2-4 entries in a row where they were not present before.
Most of the amazon pages have spammy title, h1 tags.
Even big brands are now replaced by amazon ( ebay, conrad, mercator ... )

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:12 am (utc) on Jun 2, 2018]
[edit reason] Split off to new monthly thread... [/edit]

[samwest]

Also saw an unusual upswing last week for this time of the year, but it was short lived. AI must have taken a short summer vacation.

[NickMNS]

I'm seeing a continued rise in traffic that started, not yesterday, but the Sunday before. Roughly 10%+ per week. But I am still down by a large margin from mid March.

[mhansen]

Our issue is not in rankings or positioning within the Google results, its the lack of traffic now coming through. We've maintained or grown our visibility significantly over many years, but the number of visitors from being there, has dropped considerably over the past 3-4 weeks. The bleed off of organic traffic is a much higher flow than improved visibility or positioning ever seem to compensate for.

The SERP's are overwhelmingly loaded with Google properties or features that have scavenged organic traffic in favor of keeping them in the walled garden of Alphabet products. A number #1 organic ranking on a 6-digit high volume phrase used to deliver 10's of thousands of monthly organic visitors, now we're lucky to see a few thousand.

As everyone has said for years and as we do regularly, cultivating sources of new visitors, as well as marketing to your existing visitors is more important today than ever before.

[penitentman]

How are everyone's conversion rates since the middle of last week? I've been flooded with low quality traffic zombies since June 22. My conversion rate has been cut by more than half. I work with CPA networks. I'm not talking about adsense or amazon.

[jmorgan]

This is a little strange. Saw a noticeable improvement in my average ranking position (via Search Console) on the 23rd, yet SEMrush reported low activity for that day.

[Robert Charlton]

yet SEMrush reported low activity for that day.

From SEMrush "Traffic Analytics Help"...

Estimated, not measured traffic

Since Traffic Analytics data is not obtained from any domain’s internal analytics, the numbers you see here might differ from what you see in Google Analytics or any other analytics services you use.

[Shaddows]

I'm seeing a lot of Amazon again.

If it's not a rollback, then it is at least a reversion to historical outcomes. We've lost a lot of the traffic gains from the previous 3 months.

Needless to say, I preferred the results from last week!

[RedBar]

I have at least one site totally expunged from the SERPs in the past few days, it had already suffered a 75% reduction in traffic this year and now it has completely gone from the results, ergo no Google traffic.

When searching with the site operator it does show pages HOWEVER when clicking on cache it displays a 404.

This is the #1 site for this widget and has been for 10 years. It is a corporate brochure site, trademarked registered name and is known by everyone globally within my widget industry.

Last year I had a similar thing happen with a small site, it completely disappeard from #1 for both its name and images yet inexplicably returned a few weeks later back to its original position.

WTF have they broken now?

[MrBlack]

When searching with the site operator it does show pages HOWEVER when clicking on cache it displays a 404.

The exact same thing has happened with my favourite 13 year old price comparison website. The only traffic I am getting from Google is random zombie hits from obscure countries around the globe. This is a .com targeted at the UK.

[samwest]

What are the chances that many of these issues are related to the fabric of the web itself, rather than Google SERP's. I'm listed #1 & #2 all over the place but by traffic levels you'd think the whole connected world population was a few hundred thousand. So many outages this morning, Spectrum internet down / slow. It all adds up to poor connections and no converting traffic. Of course it's a diverse system, so YMMV...but today I'm getting 0 mpg...again.

[RedBar]

I'm listed #1 & #2 all over the place but by traffic levels you'd think the whole connected world population was a few hundred thousand.

Likewise, it does not seem to make sense any more unless there has been a mass migration to youtube results of which I am seeing, generally, three at the top of my widget trade SERPs. How is it possible to rank so well yet see so little traffic when my trade/architects/specifiers/wholesalers/importers and even Joe Public, are supposedly searching for them every day?

I deliberately say supposedly owing to the size of the industry which runs into the low trillions of Dollars and which only a few years ago would have, with my rankings, driven 100,000s+ PVs per day without even trying.

It just does not make sense whatsoever unless "The Information Superhighway" has become so blasé to Joe Public that their only interest is social networking garbage ... and judging by the volume of that I am sent, I am rapidly feeling this is the reason.

[NickMNS]

I'm listed #1 & #2 all over the place but by traffic levels you'd think the whole connected world population was a few hundred thousand.

It is important to note that Google Search Console (GSC) doesn't show you your position for every "impression" of a specific keyword. Let me explained by example, if all Google users search for "Blue Widget" 10,000 times in a day, GSC will not show you that information. What SC shows is the number of impression out of the those 10,000 for which your site appeared. So if your website appeared 1,000 times out of the 10,000 searches, GSC will report 1,000. not 10,000. To confuse or obfuscate the issue more if for a different search term say "Red Widget" there are only 1,000 searches by all users, and your site appears 1,000 times, GSC will report 1,000. There will be no distinctions between the two results.

As for position, GSC reports average position, so not every impression reported will be at position #1 further impacting the number of clicks obtained.

[Robert Charlton]

Re 404 errors in cache...

When searching with the site operator it does show pages HOWEVER when clicking on cache it displays a 404.

This might help...

Recent copy of cache error 404
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4902307.htm [webmasterworld.com]

As noted, Google Cache 404 Error Does Not Impact Your Search Rankings

[mhansen]

Likewise, it does not seem to make sense any more unless there has been a mass migration to youtube results of which I am seeing, generally, three at the top of my widget trade SERPs. How is it possible to rank so well yet see so little traffic when my trade/architects/specifiers/wholesalers/importers and even Joe Public, are supposedly searching for them every day?

Just take a look at the SERP layout on various devices. Like yourself, we not only rank in the #1 or #2 positions for many high volume queries, but also have the added benefit of many "Answer Box" and "Featured Snippet" results. While you and I know we are in the right position to normally (and previously) receive a high volume of visitors on these queries, regular G users probably don't scroll down that far anymore.

I was out of town visiting with non-tech friends over the weekend, and at various times asked each of them (4 different people, at 2 locations) to perform a query on their chosen device/phone/tablet/laptop that would normally bring our site up in the results. I also asked them to point out the result they'd normally go to, without clicking or or tapping it. I confirmed our site placement and other featured/answer snippets more than 120 miles from my location, and they would have clicked/chosen an ad each and every time, to get to a result.

I'm not ragging on Google or calling them Evil for doing this - Their job is to make sure that their visitors get to the best result for THEM, which is generally a paid result, or a pathway to another one of their properties with other income earning options that benefit them.

Google = Walled Garden of Answers, designed to keep it's users within it's own ecosystem. It just "Is what it is"...

[RedBar]

Google Search Console (GSC)

I do not know about samwest however I do not use GSC on any website whatsoever.

@Robert Charlton - Thanks

[MayankParmar]

Is it just me or traffic dropped today for you guys too? :/

[mosxu]

“It all adds up to poor connections and no converting traffic“

There is no issue of speed all it is is a loophole open for some bots to make slow requests and apparently the machine thinks they just poor human beings landed on a slow site.

No Sam, bots can make a request every other 3 seconds it is not your site that is slow.

Combined with personalisation there is probably something happening, this is why it is wise to check new devices and new IPs every time to see that results are the same.

[MayankParmar]

This video shows how Google updates are hunting the webmasters ;)

[youtube.com...]

[NickMNS]

@Mayank Sorry I don't get your analogy. We the webmaster's are the hare and Google, FB, Amazon are the wolves? Or, we are the wolves and winter is Google, so we need to work together to overcome Google?

[MayankParmar]

The Webmasters are the hare :P

[NickMNS]

@Mayank So Page Speed is the most important ranking factor?

[MayankParmar]

Oh no. My point was Google updates are the Wolves, and they're chasing us, while we are dodging just like the Hare did, but in the end, wolves kill the Hare lol.

[NickMNS]

@Mayank, I know, I'm just messing with you. The video did suggest that as a hare if you were fast enough and resilient enough you could escape the wolves.

[jmorgan]

Not sure about the whole hare/wolf analogy.

Google adapts its algorithms to return what it believes to be the best results for their users. As webmasters, we then have to adapt to these algorithms which, may, unfortunately mean what worked in the past will no longer work now.

[Shaddows]

Google adapts its algorithms to return what it believes to be the best results for their users.

I agree, but the most frequent posters in this thread do not.

Fundamentally, Google does what's best for Google. I assume we can all agree on that.

The counter-view is that making sub-optimal results is "best for Google". Personally, I cannot see why Google would risk the popularity of it's core product, and jeopardise tomorrow's growth for a slightly faster buck today. Google makes the most money over the medium term by providing the best results it can (making allowances for aggressively promoting it's own properties and allegedly hurting competitors, per EU Commission antitrust judgement).

Then there is the fact that Google is big into AI. Much of its machine learning is done in SERPs. It really needs that data, as it drives the other, rather opaque, profitable business adventures.

Google monetises data. It needs as much data it can get. Hurting SERP quality risks the data acquisition, and would therefore be an extremely stupid strategy. Google is not extremely stupid.

Caveat: "what it believes to be the best results" - "believe" doing some heavy lifting in that sentiment.

[Milchan]

"Caveat: "what it believes to be the best results" - "believe" doing some heavy lifting in that sentiment." - i was thinking about replying with similar before I got to this part.

This is something that can make it so hard as the believes part is seemingly decided by more and more AI nowadays and it is far from perfect. It might work in some cases of course but for many it doesnt.
I also think it has a looonnggg way to go with regards recognizing quality content , ironic seeing that the latest updates seem to emphasize quality content - a lot of the winners I see in the serps are with pretty bad content.

[samwest]

So if your website appeared 1,000 times out of the 10,000 searches, GSC will report 1,000. not 10,000.

Wait,so my #1 and #2 listed sites only show up 10% for a given search? and here we are told that Google never manipulates search results.
In my "real world" testing (not GSC data) and that of hundreds of other people in my community, 100% of my searches for "blue widgets" show me at #1 and #2. This is the same on any browser, any location and even incognito, so where are you getting this 10% (or any percentage for that matter ) "no show" theory?

To reiterate my original point, my site appears in the answer box, and boldly in the following two positions with a beautiful scroll bar of my most compelling site images. Even the #1 add position, which is from PINTEREST no less, includes my images above the fold on their channel.

Regardless of all this "great SERP exposure", traffic is so thin and spotty to have me wondering (once again) if the total internet population has dropped to a few hundred thousand users (I'm say that for sarcastic effect, and not literal assertion). My point from this observation, is that either Google traffic has dropped dramatically, they are manipulating the daylights out of the system and/or everyone is blocking Google tracking, which I believe is also true. Unfortunately, conversions don't back the latter assumption. Last week was my best week of the year, followed by this week, the worst of the year. No manipulation my @$$.

Google AI in action: [youtube.com...]

[lostshootingstar]

I had three really good days Monday - Wednesday this week. Today that seems to be over and I'm seeing the same crappy traffic patterns that started in March.

[NickMNS]

so where are you getting this 10% (or any percentage for that matter ) "no show" theory?

This isn't theory this is in the definition of how the impressions data is reported. From: [support.google.com...]

Impressions - How many links to your site a user sawon Google search results, even if the link was not scrolled into view. However, if a user views only page 1 and the link is on page 2, the impression is not counted. The count is aggregated by site or page. With infinitely scrolling pages, such as image search, the impression might require the item to be scrolled into view. Learn more.

When GSC shows a keyword it is reporting how many times your website appeared for that keyword, not how many times the keyword appeared in search. Now maybe my example was poorly biased, but it is possible and likely that for some or many keywords, when the keyword appears that your site appears in the results. But the report in GSC does not provide that information it only provides the impression that appeared. From GSC alone when has no way of knowing for certain.

In my particular case I see my impressions for popular keywords are often far lower than impressions for long tailed keywords (not long as in the number of characters but long tail as appearing in tail of frequency distribution, ie shown in search in frequently). The reason is that for every appearance of the long-tailed keyword my site gets an impression but since I am often outranked on the popular keywords my site may only get a small share of the impressions.

This effect also impacts the position. The effect positively biases the position, because if you frequently rank number 12 and users rarely click to page 2, you will never record a #12 ranking (or an impression). When your site finally does appear, say as #9, the impression and the ranking is counted so the GSC report is likely to show you as having a #9 position with few impressions, whereas in reality you should be averaging at #12.

The GSC reports are very misleading. I don't know if one can characterized this as manipulation.

PS: I like the whack-a-mole clip!

[mosxu]

@samwest

If AI would show your site to everybody you would be rich I guess.

Try to think how Big Brother works make a search from some Ip and device that has never been related to you, also avoid location of your mobile phone.