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.

[mosxu]

@sam

That means that there is demand and genuine users do not get to your site!

You are saying that you see the rankings stable but not the “cheese”

Strange

[arunpalsingh]

Shake up getting more aggressive. All I fear is that reverse might happen while I wait for a recovery.

[RedBar]

Whatever happened yesterday only lasted a few hours for me and was over and done with by 22.00 GMT.

So far Friday after 12 hours of a Googleday my traffic is at 15% of yesterday.

Yeah, completely normal and fubard!

[yollo03]

Nothing has changed on my end. This is only affecting the US at the moment. If you have a local US website you are probably seeing the changes. Nothing special for me yet.

[RedBar]

This is only affecting the US at the moment.

So for a period of about 6 hours yesterday my UK registered and UK hosted sites ALL moved to the USA?

[MayankParmar]

I removed social share buttons after the Facebook incident. Just added back :) maybe it'll help.

[yollo03]

Nope. I am using semrush sensor, the main shifts are in US only. You can track it yourself here [semrush.com...]

[RedBar]

This is only affecting the US at the moment.

the main shifts are in US only.

So, not ONLY the USA?

[yollo03]

Ranking changes every day as you already know. The more volatile shifts are in the US. If you see less traffic in the past 24 hours (not in US) then its safe to say its not related to the current update.

[Martin Ice Web]

This last update targeted all our converting pages.

This are the best pages on the site with good content, pictures a.s.o. ( not the best on the web though ) but quiet good ( and much better than the big brands pages). All this pages lead to conversions or to lead poeple to surf further.
Now all this pages are replaced by generic big brands pages with no content.

What has left is traffic for up to now not good visited pages. Keywords have completly changed.
I see this on several eShops that i have data from. All suffer the same way.

I guess this updated targeted business sites in #1 place.

Searching in our vertical is pure horror. google ignores keywords or replaces it with silly other keywords.

When I search for a power cable I don´t want to see amazon silly pages with HDMI cables. google is more than broken.

[yollo03]

I would like to add to the above, Google changed my keywords as well. My daily impressions dropped by 70% as a result. It is intentionally ignoring my main keywords. There is no real explanation to this but I am confident nothing can be done because the algo makes sure I wont get these keywords.

My solution? Launching a new website that is unaffected by the algorithm.

[RedBar]

The more volatile shifts are in the US.

Who says so? You, Google, Semrush?

At times you make statements as de facto with absolutely no proof or evidence other than "this website says this" and then you present it as the absolute truth.

[yollo03]

I trust semrush. You can disagree with me on this but I am entitled to my views. If you believe you have a more reliable source then please do share with the community.

[NickMNS]

@yollo03

I trust semrush. You can disagree with me on this but I am entitled to my views.

You are definitely entitled to your views and beliefs.

If you believe you have a more reliable source then please do share with the community.

The fundamental issue with a service such as SEMrush is that reliability is impossible to verify or prove. Other services exist, but those services will face the same issue that reliability can not be verified or compared. So asking for a more reliable source is essentially asking to enter in an argument about "mine is better than yours".

SEMrush and other similar service show you a result that is updated on a continuous basis, whether or not that results is statistically representative of reality is impossible to determine, it may be and it may not be, it may be today and not tomorrow, there is no way to know. I think RedBar's point is that he sees evidence to suggest that it is not representative, feel free to ignore his input but note that making decisions based on poor information results in bad decisions.

[Leosghost]

If you believe you have a more reliable source then please do share with the community.

I'm guessing ( actually , no, I know RedBar, knew his sites from before joining here ) it is called experience, from being on the internet with websites before google existed ( or semrush existed for that matter ), and having a large number of contacts in various locations worldwide to compare notes with down the years..
better to believe your own experience and observation than that of others whose ultimate aim is to sell webmasters their "services" ..

[RedBar]

If you believe you have a more reliable source then please do share with the community.

That's the whole crux of the matter, none of us do have a source we could unequivocally quote as being true and accurate since Google/Bing/Yahoo/DDG/et al keep it to themselves and I would do the same if I had that kind of data. The information offered by services like Semrush are at best educated guesses simply because they do not have direct access to every single site on The Net whereby they could then analyse their data, and if they did have that access it certainly would not be an overnight processing job.

Too often on these forum boards idle speculation is made without any research or verification as to what may just have happened across the entire web spectrum, not just one specific sector. I have seen posts here by reliable long-term posters who have seen in their country Google seemingly wreck entire Internet sectors by making them even worse than they already are, honestly, at times we seem to question the sanity of the algo-makers since it certainly doesn't make sense to most people ... unless ... one happens to be the silent beneficiary of an "update", they are the people/sites we need to examine and learn why they have benefitted rather than those of us who seem to be sacrifical lambs with high quality e-a-t sites.

Although the problem is where are the ones who have "gained"?

[scottb]

Where are the ones who have gained? I can give you an example.

I have a niche site in travel that is 11 years old. For years, I had a rock solid #1 ranking for articles "abc" and "xyz" because there were no other articles like them. I also have quite a bit of authority and experience about those subjects.

Then six months ago they abruptly dropped to the bottom of page 1. Replacing them were entirely a handful of big brands with articles about "ab" and "xy". No one still has any articles on my specific subjects.

My site survives, but it has lost 65% of its Google traffic entirely to big brands with less authority and more general content. I can't see how readers benefit from it.

[Leosghost]

You might want to look up the meaning of "gained" it doesn't mean "survived"..
I think RedBar meant we haven't heard any posts from anyone who has gained ..or something to that effect..

[lostshootingstar]

I'm sure EditorialGuy has gained. He gains with every update! :D

[scottb]

I'm not confusing gained with survived. My point is a specific example of how the big brands have gained. I don't expect any of them to post here.

[Leosghost]

lostshootingstar..NaCl is required when reading certain posts ;) .

scottb..Martin ice Web posted "how big brands have gained" about 6 hours prior to your post, and he posted the same sort of thing re "big brands" a few days ago..as did milchan, ( who like yourself is in travel ) , and TinkyWinky ( fitness ) each post was just as much of a "specific example" as yours..perhaps you missed them..
I'm wondering if the travel "niche" in particular is particularly vulnerable to the spend of the big names dragging their organic placements upwards, at this time of year ( and after the Xmas and New year holidays ) the big names in travel spend much more on both online ads and TV and press ads..if enough people then search for example "tripadvisor Greece*", because they just saw or heard an ad for tripadvisor that pushes Greece, if that would not result in SERPs "boosting" the brand names.
*Just using tripadvisor and Greece as examples of brand and destination combinations that get searched..

Here the big "brand names" have been ramping up their TV , Press and Radio ad spend since a week ago, they have also been increasing their adwords visibility..If their ads work ( and they will and do, I know because I was involved in the ad business with major ad agencies handling many products , services and niches for a long time ) "brand+keyword" is likely to be a common search string..when something gets searched for enough time ( popular ) Google tends to float it to the top ..they don't reward quality ( no matter what they say ). they do reward popular ..

Which is one major reason ( albeit not the only one ) why SERPs for many things has turned into dreck over the years..
Dumb people ( those most easily affected by ads ) search in a dumb way, those searches ( phrases, keywords** ) become "popular"..G boost "popular"..People click on the top 3, and it goes into self reinforcement..

**Watch how most people search, they tend to search "dumb"..one or two or at the most 3 words when they want something..
example "cheap holiday Paris"..even if they include "in"..G will ignore it..

EG already posted that he gained a few pages back..

[NickMNS]

The serps are a zero sum game, if one website gains in rank another falls and vice-versa. If your website has fallen, there must be a winner.

The serps are not a zero sum game, any given web-site gets traffic from a large set of keywords, one may loose positions for one keyword and gain for another. One keyword may provide more impressions than another, gaining position on a keyword that provides fewer impressions results in a net loss in traffic. Therefore there can be a situation where one has many loosers and few winners. It stands to reason then that big brands could be gaining marginally on the high volume keywords leaving all the smaller sites nearing a breaking point.

If I am not mistaken the travel sector is specially susceptible to this given that it is dominated by a few very large players (Expedia et al.). These companies have engaged in predatory practices on and off the web. They certainly have the link power, given the wide array of popular web-properties they own to ensure a top ranking in Google. All without Google's complicity.

Does this result in the optimal search results? Should Google do something about it? Probably. Will Google take action? Probably not. These travel companies are also among Google's biggest ad buyers. Would you prefer to have a bunch of small independent sites that have no power p-ssed at you or your most lucrative customers?

I'm not sure if this applies to all spaces on the web. But I'm sure it applies to many.

[Mohit Kumar Mehra]

May be holiday can be a factor. But from the recent algorithm update it become hard to tell whether the traffic drop is due to holiday or ranks shuffling. I am seeing uncertainty in ranks in regular basis. For example if we check the results in morning that are showing in page 1 but if you check the same keywords in afternoon then results shown in page 2 or page 3. So this thing is very uncertain and hard for the expert to handle clients.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

@Mohit Kumar Mehra
...
May be holiday can be a factor. But from the recent algorithm update it become hard to tell whether the traffic drop is due to holiday or ranks shuffling.
...
Did I miss something? What holiday is now? :) Guys, please give some details, cause I'm facing with a little drop.

[McPheeSees]

No one SEO service can tell you everything you need to know, serps are changing constantly and personally. BUT using them along with other insights YOU find from the web itself can reveal some nuggets here and there.

[McPheeSees]

This has been a big update and it's making the update that ruins a website, not the update itself. For some reason whenever another significant update is rolled out, the conversions go down, and zombies appear, after that "somewhat" back to normal. What I find curious is why would that affect Bing, Yahoo, DDG and Facebook? What is it about Google that affects other software, it should be completely different. I should get normal conversions from other search. That's always been my question through all these updates. Is this something else? Is this some other kind of Internet control in play?

[jmorgan]

My solution? Launching a new website that is unaffected by the algorithm.

So you only build websites according to algorithms, not users? :)

I'm not saying you shouldn't build a new website. But how about trying something different. How about putting yourself in the shoes of a user and building something that they would really, and absolutely, find useful instead of constantly thinking about what you need to do to rank better?

[Leosghost]

How about putting yourself in the shoes of a user and building something that they would really, and absolutely, find useful instead of constantly thinking about what you need to do to rank better?

But that would kill adsense sites, ( which is the vast majority of posters in this thread and elsewhere on WebmasterWorld ) whose sole function /reason for existence is to entice the visitor to them and then hope that the visitor clicks out of them again via an adsense ad as fast as possible..
Put the users first ?..build sites that they would really, and absolutely find useful" ? are you insane ?

[southernguy]

To @jmorgan At one point in time, I really believed in building a quality website for the user. The question is, how do you do that in light of this update. Especially when you have a website that works well and answers users queries yet is outranked by one-page websites with spun or rewritten content. I wonder what the people with big sites like Draxe and Mercola are thinking right now as they watch their rankings continue to fall.

[jmorgan]

Well, here is my approach. And I've stated this in some form before so apologies if this sounds repetitive.

I build the website that I can be proud of. I don't care anymore about my competitors, or what google thinks, or alleged "one-page websites with spun or rewritten content". I build the website that I myself would use if I was a user, and I do. I actually use my website above all others. Because, let's face it, if you don't rate your website enough to use it above another website, why should Google rank you above them?

I genuinely believe that this approach works best. And for the record, my website was unaffected by the recent update and, if anything, received a slight boost. I'm going to focus on my approach regardless and I'm confident that it will bear fruit as opposed to constantly worrying about what Google is going to do with regards to its algorithm.