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]

[samwest]

yup. all zombies, all day. funny how you can get one sale at 3am, but then nothing the entire next day. That one lone sale was likely due to 'dike finger fatigue'. Knew it wouldn't hold up. ;)

[JesterMagic]

In Google Analytics I always compare "yesterday" to the previous week's day if neither of them is on a day that doesn't cause a spike or a drop (like a holiday). I also compare "yesterday" to the same day from the previous year (the same day of the week, ie Monday vs Monday).

When I am comparing I always look at landing pages to see what pages are the most popular as it also gives you a good indication of the keywords people probably used via search engines to reach those pages.

[aristotle]

Actually my previous suggestion was to look at a monthly CHART, which shows a site's performance from month to month going back at least 2 0r 3 years.

As I said, short-term day-to-day changes are usually meaningless. A monthly chart will smooth out the short-term noise and make it easier to see the overall long-term trend.

[JesterMagic]

@aristotle I agree for the overall trend but I do like to look every day at the previous day just to see if their are any dramatic changes in the SERPS and to see if there are any new referrers that I want to keep track of.

[NYCTech]

If I compare the first 24 days of July last year to June 30th and the first 23 days of July this year (so it's the same days of the week), I see a 33% increase in traffic and a 64% increase in revenue.

We may not be the best data point, as we'd been hit by a negative SEO attack shortly before that (that's still ongoing and picking up again, unfortunately), but it does provide a decent point of reference and at least it's moving in the right direction.

[peteryu]

My sites has received around one hundred DMCA complaints in May. We send counter notices at once and most of the URLs have been reinstated now. But on June 25, my site traffic droped by over 80%. Does it have anything to do with the DMCA notices? If yes, why haven't my ranks been back after the URLs have recovered in search results.
Does anyone have the similar experiences?

[Dimitri]

My sites has received around one hundred DMCA complaints in May.

Hmm...

If yes, why haven't my ranks been back after the URLs have recovered in search results.

May be the ranking factors of these pages have been reset, so it might take a while until these factors be recalculated, may be.

[glakes]

My sites has received around one hundred DMCA complaints in May. We send counter notices at once and most of the URLs have been reinstated now. But on June 25, my site traffic droped by over 80%. Does it have anything to do with the DMCA notices?

It could. See an old post about the Pirate Update at: [seroundtable.com...]

If yes, why haven't my ranks been back after the URLs have recovered in search results.

You said most URLs have been reinstated, but not all. Google could have tweaked this part of the algo many times since its release, though I'm not aware of any public info about it. You may want to do more research and consider changes to your site that may reduce or eliminate DMCA related complaints in the future.

[samwest]

My sites has received around one hundred DMCA complaints in May.

Why? Are you scraping content or just being targeted for false attacks?

[shubha1206]

There are many updation by Google search engine but if you talked about an important latest update.
"https" is compulsory for all website

[Milchan]

There are many updation by Google search engine but if you talked about an important latest update.
"https" is compulsory for all website

to clarify - https isnt 'compulsory' but it could effect your rankings - google will give preference to sites with using https /ssl certificates over those that dont but the ones that dont are still indexed in the google

[Milchan]

after a week of recovery for me with traffic up about 20-25% and conversions "ok" (not like previous levels but at least I was surviving) yesterday it conversions fell off and today I see I have dropped down in the serps again.
I switched to using a CDN for images / css etc a few days ago, am getting 90% hits on it but I found that GSC reported blocked resources for the cdn.mydomain.com domain i had setup. Im wondering if that is effecting me or if there has been some more tweaks that have effected anyone else? (i need to work out the blocked resource thing regardless)

[samwest]

48+ hours of absolute dead traffic and zero conversions. It's UP, it's DOWN...just like a YoYo. How does that happen on stable SERPS? Dedicated server - secure protocol, mobile responsive, no speed issues. This drop off is being observed across dozens of sites on diverse hosting.

BTW - No traffic is coming from our main bread & butter search terms or to main site pages, all looks like traffic coming into obscure or poorly listed pages with thinner than normal content. The traffic that does hit those pages sits there for several minutes and never transitions to other pages. GA must dwell for quite some time if these are all immediate bounces....that or zombies.

[edited by: samwest at 2:25 pm (utc) on Jul 27, 2018]

[pritz]

48+ hours of absolute dead traffic and zero conversions. It's UP, it's DOWN...just like a YoYo. How does that happen on stable SERPS? Dedicated server - secure protocol, mobile responsive, no speed issues. This drop off is being observed across dozens of sites on diverse hosting.

We have the same issue. No Conversions. Positions are Up & Down.Jul-18 is the worst month from last 3 years.

- is it because of mobile first indexing roll-out
- is it because of page speed update
- is it because HTTPS

We don't have any issue related to responsive, page speed, light house and HTTPS. But still no conversions... what's happening in SERP?

[MayankParmar]

Traffic from the US dropped for anyone?

[Milchan]

Traffic from the US dropped for anyone?

yep , down about 50% since yesterday and today. No conversions , nothing. Hope this is a blip or im screwed

[JesterMagic]

Yeah real conversion here as well, traffic steady these last few months since our big drop in March, 2018. This is prime summer holiday weeks in North America which usually does affect conversions. At least in previous years we still had some conversions.

[MayankParmar]

So when is this summer holiday supposed to end?

Maybe the drop in traffic is due to eclipse :/

[mosxu]

Zombies do not seem to care about the eclipse they are at work

[mosxu]

@pritz

Welcome to the zombie world, your site probably hardly shows to any interested human searching...

Restructure now before it is too late,

[glakes]

So when is this summer holiday supposed to end?

Most kids start going back to school the last week of August and the first week of September. Prior to this, many families take a vacation and align their budgets to purchase school supplies, clothing for their kids, etc. It's not uncommon to see conversions drop this time of year, though that does not mean there are not other factors impacting severe drops in conversions for some.

FWIW, our sales have dropped substantially on our website and Amazon. When both drop at the same time it typically is the result of seasonal shopping patterns and not any search engine updates. Daily conversions would suggest on the weekend families are hitting the road for vacations as my sales are ok Monday through Thursday and drop substantially on the weekends whereas in mid-late August we typically rebound with strong sales on the weekends. From everything I am seeing, there is no reason to sound the alarm or hit the panic button as the drop in conversions is a seasonal norm for us.

[MayankParmar]

Shhhh... ecommerce business is unstable :)

[Milchan]

just wondering , i see a fee people reporting drop in traffic from USA - for those that have said that or see that could you post if you servers are located in the US or outside.
Im seeing a drop from US recently but my server is located outside , but I am going to move it (being planning to anyway but the recent drop is making me move this forwards to this weekend)

About 45-50% of my traffic is from US so it makes sense (the remaining % is distributed in other parts of the world but US is the largest single %)

[MayankParmar]

My server is in the US and the traffic has dropped. The site loads in around 10 seconds with ads.

[Milchan]

My server is in the US and the traffic has dropped. The site loads in around 10 seconds with ads.

How are your google page speed scores? Your TTFB ? 10

In the process of moving servers Im also installing varnish to try speed things up - my TTFB is often around 0.24 seconds and I need to get it faster

[mosxu]

Profiling buyer intent, also ads showing different by your location? [thebestvpn.com...]

It is very easy to anticipate conversions and very easy to exclude certain players from converting traffic I guess

[Dimitri]

My server is in the US and the traffic has dropped. The site loads in around 10 seconds with ads.

10 seconds is very long, even including ads. My biggest page, (dynamically generated in PHP, without caching the output), which has 3 adsense ads, is taking 3 seconds to fully complete over a standard 3G connection (and I am not even on the same continent as my server)

[MayankParmar]

It's a news blog so the theme itself is heavy. My rivals site loads in around 20+ seconds.

[mosxu]

No offence but loading over 1 second is a crime

And over 3G test my site with google over 3 seconds will hurt

[MayankParmar]

1 second is blink of eye lol