Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2018

[penitentman]

System: The following 22 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4904681.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 10:35 am on Jul 3, 2018 (PDT -8)

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On a year like this with the 4th of July mid week, many Americans will take their week summer vacation that week. I expect unusual traffic patterns for the next 8-9 days.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:40 pm (utc) on Jul 3, 2018]
[edit reason] Split off to new monthly thread... [/edit]

[MayankParmar]

The weekend was unexpectedly bad. The US traffic dropped and it's getting worse.

sad :(

[EditorialGuy]

For us, holidays don't have as much impact as they did 10 or 15 years ago. Seasonal trends remain, but spikes and dips caused by special occasions or events are less noticeable. In part, that may be caused by the rise of mobile (people don't need to be near their computers to go online), but the increased globalization of the Internet may be a factor, too. Just because it's Independence Day in the U.S. or the Spring Bank Holiday in the UK doesn't mean people in Germany, Brazil, or Thailand are taking the day off.

[mosxu]

Oh yeah,

Seasonal or not I know that half of the traffic I get is not real.

The half with the problem may be all Amazon prime users, doing research after they bought already on amazon.

You cannot blame them if they are still clicking can you?

[vphoner]

It seems that with the current algorithm changes, the small to mid size site has almost no chance of showing up in the Serps. I am even getting hurt with paid advertising. My content campaigns are showing much lower clicks, since many of the clicks I was getting was coming from small to mid-size sites that had google content ads showing. So in effect Google has hurt itself, as they are taking in less revenue because of this, at least in my case. I feel bad for the sites that have a lot of employees. One man show sites (with little overhead) are the best equipped to survive this current algorithm change. Google has destroyed the internet and creativity. I hope that other engines like DuckDuckgo take a big chunk of search. Their results are more like what we saw before google took over the world, and they only have one or two ads, and don't track you. I am starting to use them more and more.

[Jez123]

What algorithm changes are you talking about vphoner?

[MayankParmar]

Can someone please tell me if the traffic from the US has dropped Monday versus last month? 30% drop. My earnings are half.

My US traffic has always been stable. That is why I'm more worried :(

[Dimitri]

Can someone please tell me if the traffic from the US has dropped Monday versus last month? 30% drop. My earnings are half.

My US traffic has always been stable. That is why I'm more worried :(

4th of July

[Kash1111]

Yeah US traffic has dropped a bit, its a combination of a warm summer, holidays and world cup. Since the switch to https our traffic is normal, rankings are exactly the same no change, adsense revenue is fluctuating, is it becuase of 4th of july?

[Cyril TechWebsites]

It seems like Adsense team decided to celebrate the 15 years in business involving an account area, balloons, and gifted publishers the lowest CPC in months... :) Pretty sure that the revenue drop is happening due to holidays and World Cup, because this year till now Adsense was just brilliant for my websites.

[RedBar]

That is why I'm more worried :(

Don't be worried, Google, as usual, is manipulating everything to their own advantage!

There are two worlds now, ok, maybe 4 worlds:

1. The realworld which Google has absolutley no control over!

2. The Google, Amazon, Ebay, manipulated worlds that many muppets buy into and do not realise they are part of it!

3. Non-Internet world, very big and profitable.

4. The dark web where ... well ... if you don't know ... less said.

5. Didn't I say 4? Ok, there are also several others however find the one that WORKS for you with a decent profit margin, turnover for the sake of it is the biggest mistake ever.

[jmorgan]

My US traffic has always been stable.

Has your site been around for less than a year? US traffic is always guaranteed to drop, coinciding with holidays. Unless you operate a travel website, in which case it will go up during the holidays. Either way, US traffic is never stable.

[MayankParmar]

@jmorgan It's a 3 years old site but the traffic growth from the US happened in last 12 months so I've no idea what happens in summer.

Last week was good. Something happened this weekend and the US traffic dropped. Probably because of the holiday due to Independence Day and long weekend.

[BushyTop]

There seems to be rumours flying around that a big update is coming... anyone buying it at all? It is the right time of year tbf...

[samwest]

You won't believe this coming from me, but after thinking last week was a goner, it kicked into "catchup mode" and ended the week the same as the week before (plus 5% actually). June ended up about 10% (in actual conversions) from May which hasn't happened once in the past 8 years...since the MayDay update struck in 2010. I can only attribute it to the MAGA effect.
(I shouldn't have said that, since Google will now see that opportunity and employ a MAGA update to steal our gains -paranoid much? yes, thanks to the evil ones) Happy Independence Day to all! even you limey blokes ;)

BTW - Today however, is dead, week starting out the same as the last. Let's see where this goes...again.

[Onlinelobstar]

I am also seeing some traffic drops between June 26 to now. Also, overall rankings improved. What is going on?

[mosxu]

@sam

Maybe AI relaxed the filters a bit because of MAGA screaming to close the loophole...

It will probably be short lived like before

[MayankParmar]

So people in the US took a 2-3 days leave for 6-7 days vacation?

[penitentman]

@Bushy I would not be surprised. Weird stuff going on. Ever since I lost 55% of my traffic on my large blog on May 22 my traffic and conversions have been all over the place. Not just the large blog but my 10 smaller ones also. I'm meticulous with analyzing analytics. The last 3 weeks I've seen drastic position changes and conversion rate loss everywhere. Major loss of traffic for one of my smaller blogs that is basically the same as the other 9. Nothing is consistent and making sense like it has in recent past. There was a slight recovery on my large blog from the May 22 massacre on June 18 but then a gradual decline since. Now I'm just bleeding traffic on all blogs. I can't identify the signals on my blogs that are triggering these patterns. I'm noticing very odd choices of websites ranking above mine in the serps. I thought I had a handle on my niche and did all the right things since Fred (Quick full recovery) and Maccabees (Full recovery) killed me too. I removed ads, puts ads below the fold, labeled ads, added more quality content religiously, removed pages without content, etc etc... If this next update decides to wack me like May 22 and not a recovery like I managed after Fred and Maccabees I'm done.
@Jhur Ya where is the July thread? Was wondering myself.

[Bumble]

I can confirm traffic is down 30%, as of yesterday 2nd July. Also, I see traffic going up from a few countries, and going down on other. Although, conversion ratio is up.

[frankleeceo]

A great number of my sites became mobile first indexing enabled today.

[MayankParmar]

Semrush shows 25% improvements in position. But traffic dropped lol

[glakes]

A great number of my sites became mobile first indexing enabled today.

Ours as well, but no real change in ranks nor are the SERP trackers reporting anything. Looks like that mobile index email Google sent is in regards to a non-event. Maybe whatever changes occurred already were being served in the SERPS in Google's last update. I will say sales from Google are terrible, but being around the 4th of July holiday sales across the board are bad.

[MayankParmar]

It's 5th July. No Independence Day. And traffic is still down. What's wrong? A update crushed my site or something else?

[Jez123]

My traffic is also very slow in the UK. No idea why, ranking the same and so on. Hopefully it will perk up!

[MayankParmar]

My traffic from the US has dropped. Seems fine everywhere else. Dunno what's wrong!

[whoa182]

We have the hottest summer in what feels like 20 years here in the UK. That's probably why...

[edited by: whoa182 at 1:35 pm (utc) on Jul 5, 2018]

[Jez123]

We have the hottest summer is what feels like 20 years here in the UK. That's probably why...

That's what I reckon too. Hope so anyway.

[Jhurwith]

So many people are not working July 3-6 in the USA.

[ubuwolf]

my My website has had a brutal drop in visits. From today July 5 from 8am in Argentina. It has no traffic from the United States. I think there is an update running. Anyone else notice this fall?