Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2018

[yollo03]

System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4909313.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:47 am on Aug 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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HERE WE GO! Get your sit belts on:

Google Search Algorithm August 1st Update Rolling Out Now; Might Be A Big One
Aug 1, 2018
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-update-26141.html [seroundtable.com]




[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:57 am (utc) on Aug 1, 2018]

[StarkReality]

Great AI: Spotted a competitor ranking with the expired domain of a small hospital. Pretty short (like 500 words on the mainpage, 300 on subpages) and superficial content, 27 articles in total, the site is mainly used to link his real sites (not ranking), resembles a PBN site with a few ads. Links from a few general and local directories listing doctors and hospitals only, not strong (ahrefs DR slightly below 4), but very relevant. Ranks page 1 for some XXXX volume/month terms and even one XXXXX volume/month term.

Pretty crazy, from the quality of the content an article certainly wasn't more than $3 a piece, there is no author, bio, sources, terms, disclaimer or contact form. Just the fact that Google obviously thinks it's still a hospital website makes this crap rank.

[RedBar]

Fluctuation on Sunday and Monday, anyone?

Yep, my registered trademark and EMD has been bouncing in and out of the top 5 on .co.uk and co.in for a couple of days now, for the moment it seems to have settled in both of them however it does not seem to have made any impression on .com, .ca and .com.au so far, US sites are still doing extremely well in .com.au for this solely-produced Indian product!

[bwnbwn]

I have ONE question that can be answered with a YES or a NO.

How many here that have been hit with this update use a CMS IE wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc and those that are in ecommerce a hosted shopping cart software package; that is mass produced and basically a no brainer to build a website?

Just wondering if there is one common factor.

[yollo03]

There isnt, I know that some of the top sites in my niche use wordpress and they are ranked in the top 5 for major keywords, there is no correlation in my opinion.

[mosxu]

And Google responds to Trump as I anticipated it is all about high quality content [mobile.reuters.com...]

[bwnbwn]

I know u were hit yollo03 what do you use for your websites? I am ecommerce best month we have had in years.

[jmorgan]

My theory is, Google probably uses several websites as its "seed" for authority links, and I'm guessing/betting CNN is one of them.

CNN being anti-DT therefore means most sites getting links from CNN, the authority "seed", will be given a higher ranking which will mean most of their SERPs will generally be anti-DT.

Just a theory of course.

[heisje]

Trump : "Illegal?" "will be addressed!"

Hope this may provoke a broader discussion beyond the confines of the webmaster community. Long time overdue?
.

[Robert Charlton]

My theory is, Google probably uses several websites as its "seed" for authority links, and I'm guessing/betting CNN is one of them.

IMHO, it's not nearly this simple.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

My theory is, Google probably uses several websites as its "seed" for authority links, and I'm guessing/betting CNN is one of them.

I'm sure that CNN could be among the "seed" websites, but I doubt they are several. I think that websites are marked almost manually as a "seed" (some kind of "authority, trust, E-A-T" markers) for every specific niche -> micro-niche -> ... level websites etc., and pretty sure that the links from the same specific "seed" website can send a pretty different link juice depending on a niche and a specific website which has such inbound link.

Examples:
1. CNN covers new Chevrolet presentation. Chevrolet dealer gains links from marked authority in overall, news niche website CNN.
2. Autoweek covers new Chevrolet presentation. Chevrolet dealer gets links from marked authority website in the specific automotive niche (auditory).

I'm pretty sure that the link from 2 solution could be a much higher value. Yeah, CNN is a cool link, but to have a link from the marked high authority micro-niche website is much better IMHO (of course, some tasks including building both of these links).

[browndog]

How many here that have been hit with this update use a CMS IE wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc and those that are in ecommerce a hosted shopping cart software package; that is mass produced and basically a no brainer to build a website?

I use Wordpress and have seen an improvement since early August. I had a slight dip, but it's improving again. Interestingly, I removed ads from content because I'm earning so little now (1/4 of what I used to earn), Adsense no longer influences me.

But...I'm seeing some absolutely awful results, one post today listed glaucoma as an eye infection (I was so horrified by that) and another site, which is now in the knowlege box doesn't even know its vs it's. But Google have put them in position zero.

[dollarsound]

One of my sites experienced a 25% boost in traffic from 1st August until August 22. Since last week it's been decreasing in traffic until today that suddenly traffic levels are the same as before the Medic Update. Big drop today. Anyone else?

[Milchan]

I would have thought trump used Yandex!

I do think there have been some tweaks over the weekend though as there seems to be quite a few people reporting movement again.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I'm facing with another correction of traffic on one of my websites, seeing some boost again:

[i.imgur.com...]

[StarkReality]

The idea of a seed set of sites for EAT is certainly an educated guess. Remember pagerank? It required a set of seed sites as well, pretty much like the big bang to get the whole thing started. An AI (as we define it today) learns a lot faster than a human being, but it needs human input as a starting point, a human made ruleset. So, is the algorithm unbiased? Depends on if the humans feeding the AI with data (e.g. the quality raters, users clicking results, etc.) are 100% unbiased. I doubt it is, because humans are always biased in one way or another, that's what actually makes us human, we base opinions and decisions on more than just data.

Additionally, Google doesn't want to present the best results, they want to present the results most people prefer. If most searchers are happy, they use Google and click ads. That's why an article on Cosmopolitan or Men's Health easily outranks the National Library of Medicine for "lose weight". People want an article that's easy to read and comprehensible, they don't want to read an extensive study for hours, written in a style only few fully comprehend. Making people happy automatically means you have to be biased to some extend, again, because people are biased.

[londrum]

One thing I’ve noticed in my part of the travel serps is the extra weight given to national newspapers. Im regularly seeing five big newspapers in the top 15. These arent travel newspapers, just their one-page guides to a particular city - outranking big travel sites like tripadvisor and expedia.
Presumably they’ve upped the power of backlinks

[EditorialGuy]

Additionally, Google doesn't want to present the best results, they want to present the results most people prefer.

They want to present the best results for the individual searcher and the intent behind the query. That's why personalization was invented. And it makes sense, because what's "best" for one person may not be "best" for another. Also, let's face it: In many cases, there is no "best," there are a bunch of "bests." If I search Google for the definition of a common English word, a brownie recipe, the capital of North Dakota, or online sellers of Wi-Fi routers, any of a hundred (or a thousand) results may suit my needs just fine.

[koan]

How many here that have been hit with this update use a CMS IE wordpress, Joomla, Drupal

I have sites that have been (negatively) affected in March/ April and then this August. No CMS, no PHP frameworks, all custom built in vanilla PHP. No CSS frameworks like Bootstrap either, or commercial themes, all custom designed and coded in vanilla CSS/JS (with some Jquery).

[jmorgan]

I'm not a Google-hater. Google's been good to me (in general, over the years). But I've just tried out DuckDuckGo and the results are actually pretty good, although I'm not used to the fonts yet. I think I might stick with it for awhile.

[Martin Ice Web]

After a 2 days of good traffic and conversions, we got hit yesterday pretty heavy again.

What obviously changed is that big brands get variants of keywords.
for example:
Keyword: SUB-D cable
variants: serial, RS232

big brands will show up for all variants even if they are not mentioned on the page. Small sites are only show up for the keyword itself.
So searching for SUB-D will put amazon, conrad etc. on first page but allthough for serial and RS232 ,while small sites only show up for SUB-D.

And this is something the site operator can not influence.

[glakes]

let's face it: In many cases, there is no "best," there are a bunch of "bests." If I search Google for the definition of a common English word, a brownie recipe, the capital of North Dakota, or online sellers of Wi-Fi routers, any of a hundred (or a thousand) results may suit my needs just fine.

If you search for a definition, you will be served an answer box, so the other results really don't matter in this case. Searching for a product is a different story. The results Google presents for product searches are often superficial, relying simply on domain authority (ie. Amazon). Knowing that about half the sellers on Amazon reside in China, exporting their Chinese goods to Amazon warehouses for distribution in the USA, what makes such products rank so well in Google? Is it because many of the products are cheap one use wonders? Or is it because of the "Amazon's Choice" label, which is mostly given to Chinese sellers that sell their Chinese made goods via Prime?

[Milchan]

I'm not a Google-hater. Google's been good to me (in general, over the years). But I've just tried out DuckDuckGo and the results are actually pretty good, although I'm not used to the fonts yet. I think I might stick with it for awhile.

You can change the appearance including the font type, size etc in the settings section - actually has quite a few config options and is one of the things I like about it.

[Milchan]

@Martin Ice Web

After a 2 days of good traffic and conversions, we got hit yesterday pretty heavy again.

Yeah I think something might have changed again , or was tweaked at least - I saw a lot of up and down over the weekend. then Monday for me was seeing a good increase in traffic and a good amount of conversions , but then Tues and Wed conversions fell right down and today seems slow also. Could just be end of month of course but the traffic patterns seem a bit strange

[mosxu]

Blessed with lots of zombies at the moment,

AI likes to show my ads mainly to past visitors. Why? I do not bid on audiences

[lostshootingstar]

@Milchan, I have experienced exactly what you said this week as well. I could have written that myself.

[edited by: lostshootingstar at 7:50 pm (utc) on Aug 30, 2018]

[renatovieira]

Things are really not good today. Traffic decrease more than 80%.

Google again joking to be God!

Did anyone else notice anything today?

Tourism, USA

[Milchan]

same for me (tourism) , traffic right down , hardly any sales what so ever.

[yollo03]

Yep, traffic is down for me too. Google added those stupid quick Q&A in my niche but the algorithm is still having problems understanding the niche. It explains why the ranking is still a mess.

[whoa182]

It looks like they've made some changes. Traffic was really low today... just when I was seeing a good recovery from August 1st. :(

[heisje]

Or is it because of the "Amazon's Choice" label, which is mostly given to Chinese sellers that sell their Chinese made goods via Prime?

Some large greedy corporations, such as _ _ _ _ _ care only about bottom line figures, never heard any about corporate social responsibility, including gross tax avoidance.
Make America Great Again! Yeah, right . . . .
.