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.

[Leosghost]

^^^the way it should be
@jmorgan..Have a virtual beer on me :)

[EditorialGuy]

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..

That kind of thinking is about 10 years out of date (even for, or maybe especially for, cynics who are just out to make a quick buck).

There's a difference between MFA ("Made for AdSense) sites and genuinely useful information sites that happen to run ads. The former are in a race to the bottom, in part because advertisers have more control over where their ads run than they did back in the olden days.

[EditorialGuy]

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..

That kind of thinking is about 10 years out of date (even for, or maybe especially for, cynics who are just out to make a quick buck).

There's a difference between MFA ("Made for AdSense) sites and genuinely useful information sites that happen to run ads. The former are in a race to the bottom, in part because advertisers have more control over where their ads run than they did in the past.

[MayankParmar]

Ah it's depressing :( Despite backlinks and exclusive stories, the G updates are crushing my site. Revenues are way down, so I'm not able to invest.

I should be in Top Stories like my rivals but Google simply hates me :(

[aristotle]

I should be in Top Stories like my rivals

Who are your rivals? Are you talking about big well-known news organizations with numerous reporters and exclusi9ve original sources of information?

[MayankParmar]

@Aristotle Not well-known news organizations but they have a DA of 60-75 on Ahrefs. I don't even appear in Top Stories when I'm the original source of a story. Those who have linked back to my site shows up in Top Stories but I don't :( I'm talking about a particular niche.

I've noticed that a new two years old site that hardly has any backlink is appearing in Top Stories... and they don't have numerous reports or exclusive stories.

[NickMNS]

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..

Just because there are ads on a site does not means that the only reason for the website is to show ads. I take offense to those that suggest it. My website provides a valuable service to the users in exchange we show them ads typically related to the topic of the site. I work very hard to ensure that the ads that appear a high quality and not overwhelming.

I'm with Jmorgan on this.

And for the record, my website was unaffected by the recent update and,

This is a matter of luck more than anything else. I don't think anyone can predict who will or will not be impacted by updates, and I don't think any website is immune. Certain practices will increase your probability of being penalized but one can always be impacted as collateral damage.

The biggest challenge is that Google has trouble seeing the finer details and thus tends to favor the average, the common approach. Most users do not see these differences either. Getting enough of those visitors that would see the difference is difficult when Google doesn't reward you for it. On the other hand, spun content simply reinforces or confirms the bias towards "the same old same old". I believe it is much easier to gain traction with spun content than it is with something truly unique and different. But at the same time it is also much easier to fall from glory with the spun content.

[Leosghost]

Just because there are ads on a site does not means that the only reason for the website is to show ads. I take offense to those that suggest it. My website provides a valuable service to the users in exchange we show them ads typically related to the topic of the site. I work very hard to ensure that the ads that appear a high quality and not overwhelming.

So..lets take that a sentence at a time ..

Just because there are ads on a site does not means that the only reason for the website is to show ads.

unless you made the site long before making ads ( placing adsense on it ) and / or are quite happy to keep the site up with any ads ( usually adsense ) removed and add further content to it..then it's purpose is to show ads..usually adsense.

I take offense to those that suggest it

I take offence at those who steal my content and then slap adsense around it..they would not do so if adsense did not exist..

My website provides a valuable service to the users in exchange we show them ads typically related to the topic of the site.

You cannot opt your site out of showing adsense, no matter what you might think, I confirmed that here publicly years ago with the last adsense advisor..Almost all of your visitors will see ads that are far more likely to be related to their previous browsing than to your ( or any site running adsense )."typically" they'll get ads that are related to their previous browsing before they got to your site..
unless they opt out of "personalisation"..not you opt your site out of it ..they have to..before they arrive at your site..

I work very hard to ensure that the ads that appear a high quality and not overwhelming

you can decide how many ads they see so as for the ads to not be overwhelming..you cannot c decide what ads they see..even if you spend 24 hours every day blocking ads in your adsense filters..Google still keep adding more in ..every minute..
Clear them all one day..and there are loads back the next day..You'd have to spend 24 hours per day, 365 days per year dong nothing else but block ads to stop that happening..

I read your posts ( you are one of the posters whom I follow ) since you began posting, I know that you are one of the people who tries to be responsible, and that you genuinely do try to make the quality of your site as high as you can and try to do the same for the ads shown on it..but it is impossible to know hat ads your visitors see, you can only know what ones you block..
My comment was not referring to at you..( there are few others in the thread ..like RedBar , and one few more that it was not referring to , which is why I said " most" and did not say "all" )I know al lot of the sites of those who comment in these threads, my comment does hold true for most of them..especially those who have content that they lifted from other sites, or whose sites have so little content on page that is not ads that only the ads are likely to get clicked on..and then there are those whose ads are indistinguishable from their content ( very carefully done* ), and so the clicks are "bait and switch"..the "visitor" does not know that they are clicking an ad..tricking the visitor, and ripping off the advertiser, with the complicity of Google..

*Adsense is all about "fool the visitor into thinking that they are clicking to another part of the site that they are on"..hence "blending"..encouraged by Google since the beginning of adsense..When occasionally G say "less blending" it is only because the advertisers are complaining..not because Google suddenly became honest..

[Leosghost]

Btw..If ever Google decide to make being truly GDPR compliant a major ranking factor ( not likely because Google it self is not GDPR compliant ) most of the sites of WebmasterWorld members will be penalised, and there will be "wailing and gnashing of teeth" all over these fora if that "update" happens..especially amngst those whose websites claim that they are GDPR complaint when they know they are not and in some cases whose websites say the equivalent of "if you want privacy" get off the internet..

But I have always thought ( ad said ) that if Google get too much hassle over GDPR, they'll throw most of the adsense publishers under the bus ( close the accounts ) and only let the huge publishers "play" via "site hosted API" like Overture , and later Yahoo and breifly MS ran with Yahoo..

And only those who know how to run a self hosted API that placed the ads ifs if they were "native" would be able to "play"..

Ps..Someone here ( in another thread ) cited ( "aligned" themselves with ) some members who they said were in GDPR compliance..except neither one cited actually is GDPR compliant, far from it..I was surprised that they cited ( and associated themselves with ) the other sites without actually looking at them..My principle would be "would I stand bail for someone" based upon how honest I think they are, without first checking that what they say is true..

[Leosghost]

Correction..I didn't say "most"..I did say "vast majority"..which is still not the same as "all"..
Oh..and excuse all the typos, my keyboard is not an English layout..I'm posting at the same time as eating..and as I block all scripts,( because of Google tracking when they are called from WebmasterWorld ) I can't edit my posts here..

[browndog]

My site was created before Adsense existed and would continue to exist if Adsense ever disappeared, although with no revenue, I'd have to get full time work and have less time to add content. But, the intention of the site was always to provide useful information and it definitely wasn't and isn't made for Adsense.

*Adsense is all about "fool the visitor into thinking that they are clicking to another part of the site that they are on"..hence "blending"..encouraged by Google since the beginning of adsense..When occasionally G say "less blending" it is only because the advertisers are complaining..not because Google suddenly became honest..

I've never agreed with blending, I don't like fooling my visitors and all that achieves is invalid clicks which annoys both the visitor and the advertiser.

My site is maintaining its position, no major increases or decreases since early August when I had a boost.

[aristotle]

And for the record, my website was unaffected by the recent update and,

This is a matter of luck more than anything else

It may be a matter of luck for some sites, but certainly not for all. There are many high-quality sites that have been around for 10-20 years, and have gone through many updates, including Panda, which killed far more sites than anything since.. Some of these old websites may have been nicked once or twice, but they always managed to survive while millions of other sites were falling by the wayside.

[Leosghost]

all that achieves is invalid clicks which annoys both the visitor and the advertiser.

For many sites ( who I know..and some of whose adsense figures I have seen, in their earnings panels ) it has achieved , and is still achieving 5 figure monthly incomes.. not all the ad laden , tricky , sites get killed or demoted in the updates, some thrive, and some have done so for years, even through the Panda update..

Because some individual site owners are honest and are interested in running their sites even without the ads..the vast majority are not..Adsense is still on many "doorway pages into "cyber lockers", as is re-captcha..and is still on many warez sites, as long as the site's traffic is high enough Google does not care..They do not get the same adsense conditions as smaller publishers, despite their illegal business models..

The "updates" ( with the exception of the "too many ads above the fold and on page one" ) are merely to "stir the ants nest" to try to coerce those ( especially those with ecom businesses ) who want some "SERP stability" to buy adwords.

This one was a while ago now, and was only in response to complaints by advertisers..Google still pocketed most of their adspend money..and their adwords interface gets ever trickier and harder to control for the advertiser, who cannot ( unless they are a huge corp ) spend the time to try to monitor what happens to their ads on the "content network"..

[browndog]

Clicking on ads needs to be mutually beneficial for the reader and the advertiser. If false clicks are generated (let's say by merging ads to look like links to other content, or whatever), then the advertiser is losing money and will eventually pull out of Adwords. If the user clicks on a link thinking they're going to a) page, and end up on the advertiser's site, they will lose trust in the authenticity of the site. I don't like sneaky methods. If somebody clicks on an ad on my site, I want then to do so intentionally. In the long run, that benefits all of us.

I do think Panda made the Internet a better place. There used to be so many awful content farms and spammy site. Sure, some still exist, but in my opinion, the results are better than they were 7 years ago. I do think Google place too much weight on branded sites, and have in the past compared it to buying at McDonalds compared to an unheard of a-la-carte restaurant (in Google's eyes).

[EditorialGuy]

unless you made the site long before making ads ( placing adsense on it ) and / or are quite happy to keep the site up with any ads ( usually adsense ) removed and add further content to it..then it's purpose is to show ads..usually adsense.

No, the purpose of the site is to disseminate information.

It's no different from any other form of publishing. The means shouldn't be confused with the mission.

[MayankParmar]

If you've a AMP version of your site, can you guys please check if Google has also indexed the AMP pages alongside the non AMP page?

site:example.com inurl:AMP

I've come across several big publications with 10+ million views hit by this bug. Canonical tag is there and there are no AMP errors so it appears to be a Google glitch.

[NickMNS]

@Mayank I am seeing amp and non-amp pages indexed.

[JesterMagic]

I see another big brand (mashable) has invaded our niche in the pass month or so. They have risen quickly to the top of most search results for almost all the major brands in the niche. I am surprised at how ad heavy they are now especially on desktop. The content is good and they even link back to us a few times (without nofollow). With the March and April update our site fell for a lot of keywords 5 to 10 positions in the serps and have yet to see much of a recovery. Big media sites seem to have made the most gains in our niche. A few have decent content (like mashable) while most do not.

On a side note I have been looking at getting a 4k tv. Doing some research on what to get and finding lots of media sites (both large and small) out their publishing fluff content pieces with clickbait titles. These drown out the more legit sites who do actual product testing. Who says affiliate marketing is dead...

[MayankParmar]

Thanks, Nick.

So Google has a AMP bug and they haven't fixed it yet :/

[NickMNS]

@Leosghost

unless you made the site long before making ads ( placing adsense on it ) and / or are quite happy to keep the site up with any ads ( usually adsense ) removed and add further content to it..then it's purpose is to show ads..usually adsense.

I don't know about you but I do not run a charity. My site provides a services and it is paid for by the users being shown ads. This monetization method has proven the best thus far, in terms of fit for my websites content. AdSense is the best ad network by far of any that I have come across. That is not say that Adsense doesn't have its issues, it does but other networks are worse. Maybe you have some suggestions of more nobble means of monetization. The shoe maker doesn't make shoes for the sake of making shoes he/she makes shoes to sell and make money so that he/she can feed his/her family. My product is not shoes but web content.

I take offence at those who steal my content and then slap adsense around it...

A thief is a thief, there is no argument there. But at the same time when one writes an article stating that the sky is blue and then another website also publishes an article stating the sky is blue this is not stealing. Some are quick to accuse others of thievery where it does not really exist. Obviously copying content word for word is stealing. The line between what is or isn't theft can be gray.

You cannot opt your site out of showing adsense, no matter what you might think,...

Well in a puritanical sense or absolute terms you may be correct, but practically you are wrong. There are several effective methods for blocking unwanted ads, non of which are perfect but combined produce a good result, this includes Ad-Review Center and Ad-balancer. I review my ads on a daily basis and can say that the number of impressions going to spammy low quality ads is very low, well under 100 impressions. Compare this to the total number of daily ad impressions and the probability of a users landing on a low quality ad on my site is very low. Now I realize that I am not the average publisher, but never the less the tools are there.

Yes when you block the spammy ads they re-appear the next day and I feel stronlgy that AdSense could do more to help fight this battle. One must be conscious that the Ad-Review center provides a biased view of the ads appearing on your website. Once an ad has been reviewed and accepted that ad will continue accumulate impressions but never appear in the review again. If you block an ad that is the end of it, no more impressions will be shown. In the case of the spam-ad reappearing in the review, it is a new ad that will have only a few impressions. Yet the ad will have appeared twice or more times. Now remember the legitimate only appeared once, while the spam ads appear multiple times, so you are getting the impressions that spam ads out number legitimate ads. When you look at the situation objectively, the total spam ad impressions are very low whereas the legitimate ad impressions are very high. If you choose not review ads, well then all the ads continue to accumulate impressions and who knows how much the spam will account for then.

This has deviated somewhat from the topic of this thread, but the bottom line is that how one monetizes one's website be it by ads, subscription, product sales (e-comm), affiliate sales, etc... should in and of itself have no impact on rankings. But the degree to which one is abusive in one's chosen monetization method should and almost certainly does have an impact.

[Leosghost]

Breifly , because yes it has drifted..:)

You cannot opt your site out of showing adsense, no matter what you might think,...

was a typo, or to be more accurate I missed out a word..it should have read..
You cannot opt your site out of showing personalisedadsense, no matter what you might think,...
my apologies for the omission of "personalised"
So..with the best will in the world ..you have no idea what ads anyone will see when they land on your site, you can only control to a small degree what ads they won't see, if you blocked them, repeatedly..
Content theft that I'm talking about is the sort where you write about where you live, and find the same text on dozens of sites from all over the world from people who have never been to the area, pretending that they have..and with adsense all around it..
Far worse again..is when your images ( photos drawings etc ) get copied and reused on multitudes of sites, all with adsense around them..not counting obviously the pinterest theft.. mine are all watermarked now, and pinterest users are blocked , for which Google will not index my sites that they are on, they crawl, but do not index, so be it..Bing, DDG etc crawl, and do index..
Yes one can file DMCAs ( all day long )..it is"whack-a-mole", but if adsense went away..you wouldn't have to, the means of monetising the content theft would have gone..prior to adsense there was very little content theft, adsense came along, content theft exploded..
I and many others who produce original content ( text or images ) long for the day adsense goes away, taking the content thieves with it.
ps..I do run some sites ( you'd call them "charity" ) with no ads at all ( not even direct sales, and have not run adsense in a long long time ) , just to encourage people to visit the region, :)
The rest of the sites are ecom ( luxury market, own product(s) )..or hobby, ( the "hobby" ones do have direct sales ads )..

How one monetizes one's sites ( if one monetizes them at all ) should not affect ranking, but in ecom it does, it is ( by implication from Google ) "want stable traffic ( and thus semi-predictable sales ) buy adwords", or risk getting shuffled around from time to time..I don't get affected..But I know many who do..and whose margins ( unlike mine ) do not allow them to burn money in adwords with the Google bait and switch about where they will be shown and to whom..

[Milchan]

@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.

This is pretty much my history too - travel niche site , was number one for about 10 years and since the beginning of this year dropped down to mid to lower part of page 1 (sometimes for lesser keywords now off page 1) when before I pretty much dominated all my keywords. The sites and content that beat me are not doing so through by having better content but from either being tripadvisor, viator or similar , or in the case of competitors by using blackhat tactics.

I am beginning to notice some things though wereby I have a couple of pages that do well, beat the competitors but I cant quite work out why. The content is good to ok, but I have better content that performs less well - so im trying to analyse the ones that work in order to use them as a blueprint to see if I can replicate the results, or at least improve things for some pages.

[Black_Sin]

@MayankParmar +

Ah it's depressing :( Despite backlinks and exclusive stories, the G updates are crushing my site. Revenues are way down, so I'm not able to invest.

I should be in Top Stories like my rivals but Google simply hates me :(

Not intend to scare you but it's time to recheck all stuff in your site, especially backlink for PBN user
You definitely got a hard shadow hammer

My friend site was one of the top tech news in my country and got the same thing
December last year, his site just vanish from top stories (still can see it Top if I type the site name)
Now, his site barely make any page 1 and traffic drop 99% compared to before

[Martin Ice Web]

jmorgen wrtoe:

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?

Well said,
I try to do the same thing. Seeing the site from a user view. in the past i was saying " ah this small error isnīt worth to put work in", That for sure is was an failure. even small errors (spelling, misssleading content, wrong pictures ) can make the user see your site as non professional. Every time i take a deeper look i can say to myself: this could be better though. Do it!

Second is to offer service. Having a good background service ( private customer login area ) with lots of options and a clear view of orders and shippments are required right now to keep distance to semi professional sites.

I keep focus on business users as the private users are lost to amazon.
Amazon has not become that big because of the great website, they have become so big because of offer service and offer lots of items and not paying tax ( this is something i canīt reach but i can offer the other things ).

By the way google is in first place a listed company. They have to earn money. Even 1% away from some silly progonse will make the course fall.
Some germany newspaper just said some very true words about google last week:

"They have to make the organics just enough to be good to keep users on their site and click on ads."

[dollarsound]

@Leosghost What about CPM ads? They dont need to be disguised as content as they are not billed for clicks

[JesterMagic]

@scottB

Then six months ago they abruptly dropped to the bottom of page 1. Replacing them were entirely a handful of big brands...

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.

@Milchan

This is pretty much my history too - travel niche site , was number one for about 10 years and since the beginning of this year dropped down to mid to lower part of page 1 (sometimes for lesser keywords now off page 1) ... The sites and content that beat me are not doing so through by having better content but from either being tripadvisor, viator or similar , or in the case of competitors by using blackhat tactics.

I am beginning to notice some things though wereby I have a couple of pages that do well, beat the competitors but I cant quite work out why.

Similar stories to mine but my site is not Travel related.

[NickMNS]

I just checked my stats for yesterday and I ended the day up over 20% with the jump in traffic starting at 8pm EDT. I was up over 50% between 8pm and midnight. If this sticks I would have recovered from the August 1st update. Its too early to tell how today will turn out. My fingers are crossed.

[BushyTop]

@NickMNS

UK market?

[pritz]

SEMRush sensor showing high volatility (9.2)..

Still G is not stable? very less conversion on Monday and tuesday till now.

[Nutterum]

There was a definitive Algo change starting from 29 of Aug. I monitor EU and US websites and traffic and everywhere there was either a reporting bug or all rankings were put in a barrel and shaken up. I can report that normalization of all queries is happening since 08.09. The niches I mainly monitor are business travel, financial, investment and some tech totaling nearly 8k relevant keywords.

Most SERP weather websites propose 24-26 August as the start of the update, which is plausible since it takes time for the algo change to trickle everywhere. Again there is a spike on the reporting sites around the 06.09 which is in line with what I am seeing as a rollback/recovery.

Anyone feel that algo update stuck in some niche after 06.09 ?