Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2018

[broccoli]

The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4918232.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 4:08 am on Oct 1, 2018, (PDT -8)


I seem to have recovered most of my rankings from before my suspected mobile-first Fred penalty, apart from the very highest volume ones, where an annoying thin-content site is still pushing me down.

The traffic to my site has doubled to about 4K. I’m still well off the 10K figure I was at before the March update pushed up a bunch of low quality sites in my niche.

No corresponding increase in adsense earnings though. As I’m a viral site I see weird, unnatural adsense drops after traffic increases all the time. CPC is still the same but CTR has halved. I hope it settles down. If not, my entire niche may no longer be financially viable.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 12:11 pm (utc) on Oct 1, 2018]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new month [/edit]

[broccoli]

@aristotle I don’t think it can be a classic panda penalty in my case. I’m not in a written content niche. Most of my competitors have barely a couple of hundred words on the page. I have longer/better/more informative content than them and I’ve refreshed it, it isn’t spammy. FWIW I think a competitor with a 900 page site might be under a penalty for looking like a thin content site, because they have better backlinks and topical coverage than anyone and they’re still ranking second. I think because they keep making more and more redundant pages no one would ever search for.

[aristotle]

P.S. I've never had to deal with panda on my sites, but from what I've read here, the most common way people use to try to escape from it is to jettison the lowest-quality and least relevant content from their site.

[Gregorich SEO]

Hi guys,

I'd like to add "article" schema to my ecomm site's blog.

I've noticed some of my competitors who are ecomm sites have it.

But I noticed that "article" schema refers to news articles. I'm not a news source.

Any opinions on whether I should go with "blog" schema instead of "article"?

Thanks!

[Cralamarre]

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the people complaining that their 1500 word essays are being outranked by pages with a single paragraph. And the more I think about it, the more it makes complete sense. If I'm a user looking to find out how to do something, and I come across a page where I'm scrolling endlessly through paragraph after paragraph, I'm not thinking "Wow, this person really put a lot of time and effort into this". I'm thinking "Give me a break, I don't have time to read all this". So I back out and try the next result.

The next result is nothing but a heading, "How to do this", followed by a short list of steps in point form. And in just that short list is all the information I was looking for. No scrolling required. Again, I'm not thinking "Wow, this person sure didn't put much effort into this". I'm thinking "Perfect! Thanks!".

In the past, I was as guilty as anyone for "padding" my articles. I believed that Google viewed 1500 word articles as higher quality than 150 word articles. The thought of writing anything in step-by-step form was cringe-worthy. Nothing says "Made for AdSense" like a page with a single paragraph. Right?

Wrong. Word count is meaningless. What matters today is that we find a way to give the user all the information they're looking for, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. People don't read websites. They scan them. So content needs to not only be accurate and useful, but also structured specifically for the way people on the web consume it. If you can give people everything they're looking for in a single paragraph, or a few point-by-point steps, and your visitors are leaving happy, you've accomplished your goal. Word count is the enemy, not the solution.

[edited by: Cralamarre at 7:22 pm (utc) on Oct 23, 2018]

[mosxu]

midterms fever is taking over this forum...

[southernguy]

So we now need brief descriptive short articles to rank? If it's true, it sure will make everyone's lives easier.

[Atomic]

Word count is the enemy, not the solution.

There are some areas where this attitude and lower word count for (apparently) the sake of lower word count, would be a disservice to your readers. Some ideas are complex and need more explanation. Not all, but definitely some.

[justpassing]

So we now need brief descriptive short articles to rank? If it's true, it sure will make everyone's lives easier.

Write articles the way they should be written.

[Cralamarre]

@Atomic,
Yes, but even content that requires lengthier explanations still needs to be structured, streamlined and edited. Users should be able to find the information they're looking for just by scanning the page (which is what Google does), and every sentence should add value. No one visits your site to count words, or applaud you for your creative writing skills. All they want is the information they're looking for, as quickly and as easily as possible.

[Cralamarre]

@southernguy,

So we now need brief descriptive short articles to rank?

In a lot of cases, I'd say that's exactly that you need. The evidence of it is everywhere. If you can cover your information with a short, descriptive article, what credible reason would there be for making it longer?

[Atomic]

Yes, but even content that requires lengthier explanations still needs to be structured, streamlined and edited. Users should be able to find the information they're looking for just by scanning the page (which is what Google does), and every sentence should add value. No one visits your site to count words, or applaud you for your creative writing skills. All they want is the information they're looking for, as quickly and as easily as possible.

Well obviously, but that's not what you said.

[Gregorich SEO]

@Atomic @Cralamarre @justpassing

From what I've read (article on Google Medic by The Hoth) the ideal word count may now vary from keyword to keyword.

I'm finding short and sweet is more prevalent at the top of SERPs now, but I'm still searching the keyword I'm targeting and checking what ranks before deciding to go brief or long.

[Cralamarre]

@Atomic,
What I said initially was that I was thinking about people complaining that their 1500 word articles were being outranked by 150 word articles. Which implies that the information in those longer articles could successfully be covered with much fewer words. Obviously, this would not apply to every topic, but I wasn't talking about every topic. I was specifically referring to the growing complaint that shorter articles are now outranking longer articles on the same topic. I see examples of it everyday. People want value, and value isn't only measured in money. It's also measured in time. The same information + less time = more value.

[Cralamarre]

@Gregorich SEO,

From what I've read (article on Google Medic by The Hoth) the ideal word count may now vary from keyword to keyword.

Did someone with OCD write that article? This thread seems to have ventured off into intellectual la la land.

[edited by: Cralamarre at 12:05 am (utc) on Oct 24, 2018]

[NickMNS]

From what I've read (article on Google Medic by The Hoth) the ideal word count may now vary from keyword to keyword.

There is only one "ideal" word count. It is 542 words. Every article must be exactly 542 words long or else you will not rank in the first position. Lol...

[HereWeGo123]

It's very interesting how most of us (including myself) are realizing that a target word-count isn't the secret sauce to ranking… I always strived for quality, but amongst other things, thought that a “shorter” article will be considered thin. That's naive thinking. I'm preaching to myself. To be captain obvious here, if we're covering a serious subject matter and can satisfy users with first-hand unique content and present it well in under 1,000 words, then that's the ideal word count vs. an article that is 2,000 words that is just too “academic” and stuffed with a bunch of info that users may find useless.

We've had instances where we had articles for extremely competitive KWs rank atop SERPs. Then we rewrote them because they needed an update and it results in just more information packed with a longer word count. Guess what happened with that URL… Yep, we dropped in ranking. Users have a short attention span and if we're deviating too far off from the core subject matter, users will lose interest, get frustrated, hit the back button the browser and go to the next result.

So is shorter better? Not always, yes and no. If we can answer the user's question in 700 words, then yes, it's better than a 1,500-word article that is just beating around the bush, deviating form user intent, and just is stuffing random nuggets of information.

[Cralamarre]

Users have a short attention span and if we're deviating too far off from the core subject matter, users will lose interest, get frustrated, hit the back button the browser and go to the next result.

I completely agree. I look at each sentence now as an opportunity to add more value to the article, or an opportunity for the reader to lose interest. It's not about specific word counts, and I never meant to imply in my earlier post that all topics can be explained in 150 words. The correct number of words is the exact number it takes, without any filler.

Which of course is 542. :)

[browndog]

I think it comes back to user intent. I have used the example before of myself being diagnosed with widgetitis (therefore I would want to read everything I could on the disorder) vs the wife of my neighbour's brother (I would have a very mild interest in what it was...but no interest in how it happened, treatment options etc). I try to do both now and provide a bullet point summary at the start, and then go into detail.

We've had instances where we had articles for extremely competitive KWs rank atop SERPs. Then we rewrote them because they needed an update and it results in just more information packed with a longer word count. Guess what happened with that URL… Yep, we dropped in ranking.

Yes, that is exactly what has happened to me too. I have never tried to use filler words, but have a habit of including every.single.minute.detail, sometimes going into thousands of words. I was looking at my stats from the past 30 days to the same 30 days last year, and despite 90 odd additional articles, I am 20% down (some of that can also be put down to having a terrible time with webhosts). When I dug deeper, it was the high word count/high traffic articles that took most of the hits. My biggest competitor, who almost always ranks no. 1 (often 2 and 3) and their articles are never long or in-depth (they are still good articles though).

[justpassing]

I'm finding short and sweet is more prevalent at the top of SERPs now, but I'm still searching the keyword I'm targeting and checking what ranks before deciding to go brief or long.

How do you make an article "longer" ? You add void? And in the same way, how do you make an article shorter? You remove information?

The false assumption that an article needed to be of a given word count length, is when Google started to talk about "thin content". People started to try to quantify what a thin content is, and come up with the idea that it was related to the number of words. But this is wrong, . A thing content, is simply a content which is delivering low (or none) amount of valuable information.

[southernguy]

I agree totally with the last few comments, the problem in the past was that regardless of the quality of the article if I had a 700-word article, "that fulfilled the info" someone would come along with a lengthier 1000-1500 and of course a rank increase for them.

I personally found long stuffed articles were ridiculous but that is what seemed to rank. I personally believe if the info can be relayed quickly and to the point that is best, but I was being outranked by 1000-2000 and sometimes 4000 words of nothingness, the only benefit I could see then was more searchable keywords, because a good user experience it was not.

[browndog]

The false assumption that an article needed to be of a given word count length, is when Google started to talk about "thin content". People started to try to quantify what a thin content is, and come up with the idea that it was related to the number of words. But this is wrong, . A thing content, is simply a content which is delivering low (or none) amount of valuable information.

I was just thinking that exact thing. This started (at least for me) with Panda and Google penalising thin content, so some (well, me at least) thought that the more words the better. Not adding fluff but including so much information. Instead of listing 'ultrasound' as a diagnostic, I would go into detail about what an ultrasound is, and what it is looking for (for example).

I was just looking at a couple of my articles that are down by 70-80% and comparing them to the no. 1 article in Google using a word counter site. The competition have < 1,000 words and the reading level is considered 'college level', my articles are > 1,000 words and considered 'collage graduate'. I don't know about other people, but my attention span has definitely shrunk in the past 10 years and I wonder if Google is aware of this and returning results in which the average person can get their answer as fast as possible without the need for a dictionary or a degree.

[justpassing]

someone would come along with a lengthier 1000-1500 and of course a rank increase for them.

May be it was coincidence, may be their ranking "improvement" was due to other factors. Most of factors that Google is using are not "visible". We can "guess" things only from what we see. Let's say tomorrow, a site with a red bar at the top, outranks other sites, then will we assume that the red bar is a ranking factor?

Also, something to keep in mind, is that publishers are always on step late on Google. You observe what is going on at a given moment, you make guesses, you make change to your sites based on the guesses, and with luck you rank better for "this given moment", but Google is already at another step in its ranking experimentation.Said differently, you optimize sites for what "worked", and not necessarily for what is working "today", and working tomorrow. And since too many are trying to trick the algorithm, then of course, it pushes Google to constantly change things. And what worked , can no longer work, or worse be penalized later ...

[oddnumber]

One oddity I've noticed on my own site is this - I'd removed a Trustpilot widget from all pages but the homepage recently, and was hit by the 27th September update. I've recently reintroduced the widget back across the site and as an experiment ran Fetch as Google on one of my previous high ranking pages, and resubmiited to index.

Weirdly, it reappeared in exactly the position it had previously occupied and remained there for most of the day (it had been demoted to the depths of the index on the 27th). It then subsequently disappeared again some time last night.

I don't know what that's suggesting, but just thought I'd share it in an attempt to ease my frustration :-)

[RedBar]

a site with a red bar at the top, outranks other sites, then will we assume that the red bar is a ranking factor?

Naturally, of course, what else could it possibly mean? :-)

[justpassing]

Naturally, of course, what else could it possibly mean? :-)

Was not meant to be on purpose :">

[Shaddows]

When Medic rolled out, we saw correlation in our niche whereby positive scores from review sites, and especially TrustPilot, improved ranking. We are ecom.

Padding "thin content" was always a dodgy proposition. To my mind, padding "thin" content just makes it thinner.

The key thing is to know your audience. You can cater to a long-form audience or a short-form, but rarely can you do both well.

Take 802.11ax. Some members might never have come across that particular string. The may not know it is an upcoming WiFi standard (though those people should read the Feature Threads [webmasterworld.com] more often). An article stating that this is an upcoming WiFi standard, perhaps with some throughput figures, might be ideal.

Other members would consider that article to be pointless waste of their bandwidth. They might want to know the technical details of OFDMA, and whether MU-MIMO is better implemented than in AC (where it sucks). An article that led with this technical detail would be a turn-off for anyone who just wanted to know what 802.11ax is at a consumer level.

For example, at time of writing, the Wikipedia article is mediocre as a newbie introduction. The first section is badly written, but does hit the key points (it's WiFi, includes data rate and thorughput, and real world speeds of 11Gbps). The technical section is better for an already-informed audience, but far from perfect.

To be honest, I'm coming to the conclusion that Wikipedia is the ideal resource for Google. It typically serves a wide range of viewer needs, is well structured (it has defined sections) so you can skim to what you need, and is usually reasonably accurate. It also plagiarises, squashes small sites, and is staffed by people convinced of both their moral authority and their genius. Synergies all round.

[Shepherd]

...from review sites, and especially TrustPilot

We noticed that also. There certainly seems to be a bit of a romance between them and google right now. I was looking at their investor history and was surprised that GV did not have a stake in there. I have to think if there is an affect it may be short term as this signal is very easily gamed. The way they have burned though cash I'm not sure they can afford to battle the onslaught of garbage coming their way. Not sure what their revenue is looking like but their pricing shows they are very proud of what they have to offer. We max out the free package and that's more than we need.

It makes sense for google to use something like this as a signal right now. Also, seems to be good for adwords CTRs, so that's google for google.

[dollarsound]

15% drop starting yesterday. Travel vertical, multilanguage site.
Traffic has been steady through all these updates.

[RedBar]

My trade directory site has been getting a 300-400% increase in PVs this week thanks to a specific US school lesson subject.

None of them ever click on AdSense, they just take the info and run!

I wonder what happens when they all present the same answers?

[Mark_A]

G Rankings are looking a little better.
G organic traffic 24% up on the same week last year.
We have been adding content.

Watching warily at the moment.

UK B2B Technical Niche

[edited by: Mark_A at 1:16 pm (utc) on Oct 24, 2018]