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)

---

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]

[Leosghost]

Welcome to the real world..now that the light has dawned on some..what is your default search engine, and which search engine do you recommend to people.

[Leosghost]

The above was in reply to riccarbi, glakes and Dimitri, amongst others..
Webmasters built up Google, webmasters can build up it's competitors, and redress the balance somewhat, might take years, but what have you got to lose.

[NickMNS]

Not sure if it is the page speed update or something else, but I have seen my traffic increase by about 20% since Saturday. I have recovered much of the traffic lost in the March update, I am basically back January 1st levels. I had good growth between Jan 1 and March 15.

Late last week and over the weekend I made some changes to my server settings that removed a bottle neck and reduce server response times.

[pritz]

I've ten websites, traffic is increased about 10% but no conversion for last two days.

[Jez123]

I've ten websites, traffic is increased about 10% but no conversion for last two days.

What's going on with converting traffic? Something's happened. I've gone from averaging 4 to 5 conversions a day to 1 if I'm lucky. In fact none at all for the last 2 days and counting. Traffic is the same (slightly low but withing normal parameters) so why has everyone stopped buying?

[mosxu]

@nick

I new you would recover, you never seem to report on conversions...

@Jez

Same here plenty of traffic but no conversions.

Going back to my theory is that most of converting traffic goes to 3-4 advertisers willing to keep the bid high in exchange for revenue corelated to their committed spend.

I do not think it is possible to let everyone compete cause in the long run will bring the value of the click down.

It looks like we are living from whatever is left but I am amazed that there is no shortage of traffic after all for the rest of us.

[pritz]

@Mosxu+

Is it happen because of the "speed update"? I don't think so as my 73% of traffic are from Desktop from USA.

[mosxu]

@pritz

This is going on for a long time: on and off conversions both ads and organic.

Test my site with google says our site about twice as fast than the rest.

[Dimitri]

Just a comment. When testing a site, I found that the Lighthouse tool from the Chrome web dev panel is amazing. It gives precise details about any aspect of a page, very useful, more than anything else. Also, if you believe you rock and achieved perfection, you'll be surprised at how many things are not that good :)

[Shepherd]

Lighthouse tool

Pretty neat tool. Sad to see just how poorly some of the sites outranking ours are performing...

[pritz]

@Dimitri

All sites are very well optimized. The avg lighthouse score for accessibility and seo are 100 and 95 respectively.

[samwest]

Conversions also stopped cold here over the past three days, well, until last night when the little Google AI "Dutch boy" let his finger off the dike for 10 minutes, and two sales came in within 10 minutes of each other, after three days of zero. Then, he must have gotten tired again at 1am, because another sale came in, at a time when traffic is typically non existent. These oddball patterns of conversions are repeatable over time. This morning, traffic is right back to zero. Atta boy Hans! Must be well rested again.

[NickMNS]

@Moxsu

...you never seem to report on conversions...

I have an information site, so I don't have a specific conversion target. Adsense CTR is likely the closest thing but even then there are CPM bids. I watch other metrics like page views and time on page. But that has been mostly steady within a reasonable range.

[Dimitri]

All sites are very well optimized. The avg lighthouse score for accessibility and seo are 100 and 95 respectively.

And what about the performance score ?

[pritz]

@Dimitri.

Performance score is avg 50+. Moreover, mobile optimization score is up to 90.

[Dimitri]

This is the performance score which matters the most, nowadays. Google wants sites which load fast (at least for the above the fold part)

[penitentman]

The lighthouse tool is ridiculous. I've audited some of my wordpress pages and got a performance score of 4. SEO score 89. These are stripped down https responsive pages with a couple images, google maps api, google font, plain text and no ads. Apparently the load time is atrocious with a speed index of 23,000 but seems fast to me. Not sure if this is a server issue or wordpress issue. It also nit picks font size and says 90% of fonts are too small on my page and nothing is too small as far as I'm concerned.

[pritz]

Seems SEO is going ahead to website development.

[Dimitri]

@penitentman, Lighthouse stimulates mobile browser, cpu and network. Did you try to load your site with your smartphone, over a 3G connection ? (not wifi)

[penitentman]

@dimitri I didn't realize CPU and network performance was part of it. Those variables all relative to specific environments with many factors affecting it. Load time on mobile without wifi seems fine to me. Not the fastest in the world but nothing that would warrant a score of 4. Something seems off with the tool.

[Shepherd]

Something seems off with the tool.

Make sure not to switch tabs while the tool is collecting data, i was getting weird results when switching tabs, consistent when I stayed in the tab.

[penitentman]

Alright I'll try that..

[Milchan]

im another that is experiencing these random up and down conversion levels. Traffic has been on a steady downturn the last months with a slight upturn since last Friday but I can get a handle on the conversions thing.

[Qaeron]

My sites in REHAB recovering from an neg seo attack so its difficult to determine anything right now.

[Milchan]

@qaeron

My sites in REHAB recovering from an neg seo attack so its difficult to determine anything right now.

could you give details about the neg seo attack and how you spotted it. Im concerned im suffering from the same because my demise has coincided with the rise of my main competitor (and demise of some others)

[penitentman]

I personally think negative seo attacks are bogus and a complete farce. A few bad links someone points to your site isn’t going to tank you in the serps. Someone hell bent on screwing you over is better off reporting your url to google directly for guidelines violations.

[whoa182]

I only have Amazon affiliate sites, but conversions have dropped hugely in the last two days. There is also a problem with Amazon native ad reports. All zero since July.

[pritz]

ZERO ZERO ZERO Conversions... for last 3 days... Anybody have any idea, what is happening in Google. There are plenty of members are still struggling for leads/conversions.

[Peter Wilson]

traffic is down.. hope will increase soon.

[bwnbwn]

Ecom website conversions had been steady for months until 30 days ago. Very few since last 4 days 0. Traffic is steady same as before. Seems traffic now is worthless. I would cut off ALL PPC but the one calling the shots wants to keep any profit low so he can buy the product and website from the family.

We are in the negative right now so I guess he is happy.