Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2018

[lostshootingstar]

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System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4913603.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 12:54 pm on Sep 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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It's a holiday weekend in the USA, I don't think anyone should really worry about traffic volume until next week.

However, I did see some negative ranking shifts yesterday that are concerning and can't be explained by a holiday.

[Jhurwith]

For 9-27 numbers, in the US at least, it seems kavanaugh hearings really hurt. More people watching TV vs. online.

[arunpalsingh]

For past one week, I am seeing traffic improvement gradually. It has improved by 20% after fall on Aug 1 update.
Till now I had been losing more keywords than gained as SEMRUSH reported.

There is trend reversal for the past two days.

I hope it stays.

[KaseyM]

Slight dip in traffic yesterday but seemingly massive today. Entertainment site.

[samwest]

@Jhurwith - worst sales week of the year so far here...but are people really that stupid to be so fascinated by such a ridiculous side show? If so, the human race is doomed.

[samwest]

The silence on this thread must mean everyone is doing fine out there...or just gave up. This week has proven to be the worst of the year across dozens of sites we manage. Funny how they ALL seem to be affected and yet they are on diverse hosting. Haven't really noticed SERP loses, but as the week began, it just went "full zombie" all at once and all in lockstep . They pop out of zombie for short periods and again all in lockstep. Seems you couldn't give gold bars away for free to this quality level of traffic.

[justpassing]

The silence on this thread must mean everyone is doing fine out there

Yes, doing very well this month, better than expected.

Funny how they ALL seem to be affected and yet they are on diverse hosting

Hosting might have nothing to do with ranking, ... it might be more a matter of niche, promotional method, seo, tricsk, ... etc... If all your sites are done the same way they may be impacted the same way too ... just a thought.

[samwest]

Must just be me then....things WERE going OK this month with record conversion days, however, it was looking like we were going to actually beat last month's numbers (which should be happening this time of year), so apparently that's been identified and squashed by the quality quota AI. As it sits, it looks like it will be an exact match to last month...and I mean exact.

Hosting might have nothing to do with ranking, ... it might be more a matter of niche, promotional method, seo, tricsk, ... etc... If all your sites are done the same way they may be impacted the same way too

The sites are about as different as different could be. They also worked fine last week, so it has nothing to do with marketing, seo tricsk (sic)..etc. This is just the usual ON/OFF BS at play, just reporting it.

[renatovieira]

After the update 27/sep, 28 was very great. Today a disaster, both in traffic and in conversion.

Certainly the worst Saturday of the month.

tourism, usa

[Milchan]

The silence on this thread must mean everyone is doing fine out there

not really - I just cant be bothered with it all any more, working on my escape plan and other things.

For 9-27 numbers, in the US at least, it seems kavanaugh hearings really hurt. More people watching TV vs. online.

I would doubt it - most people watch tv with 1 or 2 devices anyway and are constantly checking the internet during it, especially for "events" like that - a movie maybe they will put it down for a bit but otherwise cant see it having much of an impact.

[mosxu]

@sam

Same here but stopped moaning, problem is AI does not take phone calls not sure we can sort the zombie problem

[Jori]

I've been hit also on 27. Lost 30% of my usual traffic.
But I'm searching other reasons than just an algorithm update. Maybe I did a link to a site I shouldn't...

[Adaaaa]

We detected a 15% drop on our organic traffic since 27th, September. And we didn't benefit much in August. Going to cry. : (

[analis]

from September 27th the decrease is 30%, it's not finished, there's still movement on accuranker, for me, accuranker is the most accurate for my website.

<snip>

[edited by: goodroi at 4:48 pm (utc) on Sep 30, 2018]
[edit reason] Please no linking to seo tools in this thread [/edit]

[samrazzy]

Semrush is showing high range serp volatility. Possibly a new update ?

[soloiptv]

new update come ? i lost every day 500-600 visitor

[rustybrick]

Google did confirm it [twitter.com...]

[RedBar]

"Small"?

I have several sites that have lost 50% of their average traffic and, obviously, no freakin' idea why other than G seems to love including garbage these days just below all their ad placements just before the organic SERPs which now start on their second page for many searches.

[Cralamarre]

My traffic has been down 10% since last Friday (the 28th), pretty much erasing the gains I had been making for most of September. So much for "rewarding sites that have gone under-rewarded". But that's okay. It has nothing to do with the quality of my site. It's just the nerds at Google playing with their robots.

[yollo03]

From what I read online it could be a partial reversal of the major August's update. If your site got a boost from that major update and now you see less traffic from the new update there is nothing you can do to fix it in the short term in my opinion.

[Cralamarre]

@yollo03,
There has not been anything we can do about Google's search results in a long time. They are what they are, and they change all the time. If a site has low-quality content, or low authority, or serious technical problems, that's one thing (well, 3 things). But even sites that are high quality with high authority and no technical issues are at the mercy of Google's algorithm updates. After all, two great sites, equal in every way, can't both be #1 in the SERPs for the same search terms. And the difference in traffic between #1 and #2 can be substantial.

[edited by: Cralamarre at 5:30 pm (utc) on Sep 30, 2018]

[ichthyous]

I have had massive 30% drops in SEMrush also starting on the 27th, but a minimal 4% drop in traffic in GA so far. However, it has been very slow for almost three weeks...nobody is inquiring about anything. I have noticed this trend the entire summer actually, but it's getting worse. About 59% of my traffic is USA and the rest of the world is 41%. I have a lot of international inquiries and usually there are inquiries from some part of the world when others slow down...not this summer.

[renatovieira]

I see in GA Real Time very high oscillations. A few minutes of zero traffic and then high traffic volume. This has been going on since this morning.

The conversion seems reasonable. I do not think it's zombies.

Anyway, things are pretty strange today.

tourism, florida - usa

[southernguy]

I don't know about you guys but In my niches health, beauty, fitness, and even an old tech site my major keywords continue to be outranked by web 2.0, Amazon, eBay, blogspot etc. For mobile relevant search results seem to dwindle after page 2. In my case where I do have high traffic, I have 0 conversions.

[lostshootingstar]

@Renatovieira, I have seen that behavior all month, it's very frustrating. I wish Google would comment on what may be causing this eratic behavior, or someone with access to a lot more data than I have could figure it out.

It makes planning and running a business extremely difficult.

[yollo03]

My ranking is up from the latest update so I really have nothing to complain about, means I am doing a good job with the website.

[renatovieira]

Since 27th things are very confusing.

I knew it. One more update:

[seroundtable.com...]

[Cralamarre]

My ranking is up from the latest update so I really have nothing to complain about, means I am doing a good job with the website.

I must be doing a bad job on my website then, if my traffic has dropped. Because that's how Google works. It's just that simple.

[Black_Sin]

After slow creep at 27th, now site (tech niche) traffic back to where it was before August Update. While some keyword still not recovering, every keyword that did not affected before and still on top got huge traffic boost this past 3 days.

Though I agree search results are still all over the place.

[naimisha]

Yes, I have read about this update, but not clear exactly how it works.
I will show effect on current website rank. Read on Roundtable article.
someone elaborate pls.

[justpassing]

I don't know if this is new, but I noticed that some links are no longer working at the SERP, when you click on them, nothing happens... in fact, it seems this is for pages which are redirecting to another page. If you right click on these links, and choose "open in a new tab", then it shows a Google message, which is warning about a redirection.

Is it new? If so, it might be a good idea to fight redirect cloaking, but it can cause problem for webmasters who are in process of changing their URLs structures, and using 301 redirects (until Google replaces the URLs in the SERP).

In the cases I observed, it was legitimate redirects, to handle special characters in URLs.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 12:06 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2018]
[edit reason] Cleanup after splitting threads [/edit]