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]

[samwest]

conversions just keep dropping... test site will see it's 20th birthday soon. At one time, just before MayDay 2010 it did 100k/year all by itself. Now hard to get 10k/year out of it.

[thejimster]

@Milchan I can confirm your observations of local searches being a mess in August.

We had a 50% increase from the Medic update. Now Google/organic is down 60% to pre-Medic Update. We basically don't show for anything anymore other than branded searches. Even those branded queries tend to show pages you wouldn't think should show up.

We used to be pretty dominate in our niche across multiple high competition keywords.

[massimodefilippo]

Good morning,
Someone knows what john mueller told yesterday in the hangout?

My website drop down every update since april, before it was very good, now is going to the hell! :-(

[thejimster]

@massimodefilippo John said nothing but boilerplate answers in regards to the last update. "Just improve the website..."

*edited for niceness*

[pritz]

It is little confusing now, as per Google what is the definition of quality links?

Quality Links vs Natural Links?

[BushyTop]

Can we stop asking JM about algo updates!? You'll get a more meaningful answer if you fax an Omega 500

[massimodefilippo]

Ok Guys, finally I understand what happen in medical update!
In the reality, it wasn't a medical update, but only a normal update.
At the same time, they take 10/15 websites (in italy) and they push them up, giving ranknig 9/10.
After, they took the first 50 greatest websites speaking only about health and they give them ranking 1/10.
It's a manual intervention, not an algorithm.
I studied all the website flying after the update and there are no features common.
The same for the websites dropping.
My websites now is over the 10th page, it means that every website, even very bad, perform better than mine, even if they have little or bad content, ecc.

That's why no one recover until now!
That's why google just told: if your website drop down 90% there is nothing bad inside it.
Some website that before performed worse, now they perform better.
Just get better contents ...

Nothing about panda or penguin where everyone knows what happened.
And Trump? DO you think is completely stupid to attack google?
Do you really think google is pure? Now in Italy in the first page of google, about health, you see only pharma factories, newspaper, magazines, ecc.
All the doctors have lost their position before update.

[southernguy]

@massimodefilippo I don't know about your niche but in mine sites with copied content and very poor content are outranking many good sites. So, I don't think quality content is a real player. From what I am seeing in my niche health and fitness the sites that are outranking everyone are sites with High DA, a sh*t ton of links and 301 redirects from other domains. My site has moments when it jumps back up to page 1-2 and then just drops out of nowhere.

In fact, what I am seeing in many niches is that many sites don't even come close to Google's recommended guidelines take the worst of the worst and its ranking meaning the sites I am seeing have poor design, low-quality content some (thin content) terrible load times etc.

Here is a presentation from Rand Fishkin I found interesting about the direction of Google [youtube.com...]

[southernguy]

@massimodefilippo I don't know about your niche but in mine sites with copied content and very poor content are outranking many good sites. So, I don't think quality content is a real player. From what I am seeing in my niche health and fitness the sites that are outranking everyone are sites with High DA, a sh*t ton of links and 301 redirects from other domains. My site has moments when it jumps back up to page 1-2 and then just drops out of nowhere.

In fact, what I am seeing in many niches is that many sites don't even come close to Google's recommended guidelines take the worst of the worst and its ranking meaning the sites I am seeing have poor design, low-quality content some (thin content) terrible load times etc.

Here is a presentation from Ran Fishkin I found interesting about the direction of Google [youtube.com...]

[renatovieira]

Does anyone notice the same as me?

Since August, analyzing Google Analytics Real Time, traffic stagnates every day after 11:30 a.m, Punctual! Gradually the traffic begins to pick up again.

And again the traffic is stagnated at 17:30 p.m. Punctual! And then gradually returns to normal.

Every day!

[pritster]

@southernguy that's a very interesting video thank you for posting - maybe it is time to retaliate against Google monopoly in search and block Googlebot via robots. If they can't index the OUR sites and extract the best bits to display to mobile users so they don't need to visit sites. Then they might start listening to good webmasters and SEO who work very hard to meet Googles guidelines !

I guess we have nothing to lose I would definitely recommend everyone to watch the Ran Fishkin

[Cralamarre]

According to Google Analytics, my top referrer is "googleads.g.doubleclick.net". Am I mistaken, or is that not Google Ads? If it is, and I don't buy any ads on Google, does it make sense that I would be getting traffic from it?

[NickMNS]

@Cralamarre

"googleads.g.doubleclick.net"

This referrer appears as a result of ads that appear on your site, it is an Adsense issue. I don't remember why exactly but I believe its due to an ad with an error in it's code that when clicked is causing this. Not something one needs to stress about.

[Cralamarre]

@NickMNS,
Thanks. I wasn't stressed about it, but wasn't sure what was causing it. I've noticed it for a long time, but today I thought, "Why not just ask". And now I know! :)

[samrazzy]

I have the same issue.

Edit: After September 27, My traffic has dropped huge. I was having 45K total users which is now reduced to 37K... Today my traffic dropped once again.. Dunno why!

[broccoli]

I’ve been trying to understand why so much weak content is rising to the top of the serps.

I think Google has placed so much emphasis on site-wide scoring as part of the authority and relevance algorithms that there’s an imbalance developing between the site scoring and page scoring, forcing up weaker pages on sites with a higher authority and/or relevance score.

Perhaps that works in crowded serps like medical and news, but it’s trashed the quality of search results in my niche.

I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about their comprehensive articles getting overtaken by weaker content from authority sites and trying to figure out what it has to do with relevance. I don’t have a content site, I have a kind of viral games/quiz/tools site, but since March I’ve seen the same effect, so I don’t think it’s the actual content on the page. My strongest pages (I mean - thousands of backlinks and social media shares) are being outranked by weaker pages on the sites Google has picked as the big authorities for the highest volume keyword searches.

My niche is currently being dominated by a 1.5 year old site with 13 backlinks according to Alexa. Most of those links are from a network of sites owned by the same author, only a couple of which have actual authority. The site doesn’t have particularly good EAT. It looks like it was designed in MS Frontpage, has a practically unusable interface, and it delivers poor quality content. It has less than thirty pages, but those pages comprehensively cover the top keyword searches. Effectively, it has tightly manufactured site-wide relevance and now it ranks highest for the most non-specific keyword search above a much bigger, better site with thousands of backlinks.

My own site isn’t yet comprehensive because I went for quality and entertainment value as priorities. Naive perhaps, but until earlier this year I had a decent income.

So either the Frontpage site was manually ranked by idiots, or there is some kind of authority and/or site wide relevance score dominating over the page score, pushing my pages down in the serps below this site wherever we show up in the same search. I think this site hitting the jackpot with the biggest keyword search has created a kind of false authority.

I could be wrong and I could simply have been hit by an ad-heavy penalty much sooner and harder than I thought and the current update didn’t fully remove that penalty. But I’m not the only site this has happened to in my niche. It seems to be across the board, and bigger sites than me have lost out to this site too.

[GodLikeLotus]

Google stopped giving out real and helpful advice years ago. You need to be the most informative site in your niche, with up to date content, and strong natural link in. If your selling a product that Amazon do well at, then good luck.

CONTENT IS KING

[Gregorich SEO]

@HammerDown

Same with me. Big dominant site bombed big time on 27th. Thin-content site with weaker links and less keywords now dominates with 100% growth.

We were mobile first indexed a week before the drop. And our page speed isn't the best.

Looking at E.A.T guidelines, as we are a site whose advice could potentially harm readers' health. Google is strict about that.

I suggest reading The Hoth's article about recovering from Google Medic, as well as Charley Floates article.

[southernguy]

@Gregorich_seo I think many of us have read a lot about this update and how to recover. The problem I have and can't speak for others is that many of us have followed the guidelines and are outranked by sites that have not.

I myself have recently been ranking a few sites based on what is ranking now.

This means high DA expired domains 301 redirects and a few pages of long content.etc I need to survive until something changes.

Believe me, it's a lot of work to take this route but that is what's working.

The only sites I have that have not tanked are those which have almost no competition.

I continue to look at authority sites like Dr.Axe and Howtogeek etc who have not recovred and can't see that their sites are bad.

In my opinion this was a disaster and maybe it's.Googles way of weeding out online marketers.

[Gregorich SEO]

@southernguy

Good points.

Didn't mean to sound condescending. Just wanted to point out those articles since before them there was a troublingly low amount of data-driven feedback about Google Medic.

I hate to come off too cynical, but I am also seeing a disaster. A fairly inferior site is dominating my niche now. Down is the new up.

Maybe Google is favoring site-wide authority over page authority. I'm also noticing big sites like Maxim and Esquire ranking in my niche now. Even though the articles don't offer as much value as ones by sites within the niche.

Good luck guy.

[massimodefilippo]

Yes Gregorich SEO, this is my impression too!

[southernguy]

@Gregorich_seo I did not see your post as condescending at.all. I guess I all the ups and downs of this update are getting to me.:-)

I guess all.we can do now is keep pushing forward until something gives.

[WebEnthusiast]

I do not know if it's the right topic for this conversation, I hope so:

Have you guys realized that if you are looking for keywords like "ERP", "PPS", "CRM" etc. Google returns only 22-26 pages, around 260 results. That is kind of strange don't you think? Is it mean all other "86.900.000" quoted from Google Search when you look for "CRM" are penalized webpages?

[massimodefilippo]

Bhe google is changing, getting worse:
[youtube.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

Have you guys realized that if you are looking for keywords like "ERP", "PPS", "CRM" etc. Google returns only 22-26 pages, around 260 results. That is kind of strange don't you think? Is it mean all other "86.900.000" quoted from Google Search when you look for "CRM" are penalized webpages?

It's about efficiency (as in speed and not wasting resources). How many real-world searchers are going to dig through more than a few dozen pages of results?

[jmorgan]

"Medic Update" was just a term Barry at seroundtable came up with independent of Google, as he does sometimes. IMO, it was more of a "YMYL Update".

[analis]

After the fall of 27 September, a small recovery on 3 October.

Accuranker still signals movements even today we hope continuous recovery.

[WebEnthusiast]

It's about efficiency (as in speed and not wasting resources). How many real-world searchers are going to dig through more than a few dozen pages of results?

I do understand that, but if it would be the only case, they could just stop at page 10 always. Here they doing it different. Each keyword has different amount of pages. So in other words, if you have a page about CRM, ERP and you are not in this results, it might mean somehow you are penalized by algorithm for only this specific keyword.

[broccoli]

@Gregorich_SEO

Maybe Google is favoring site-wide authority over page authority. I'm also noticing big sites like Maxim and Esquire ranking in my niche now. Even though the articles don't offer as much value as ones by sites within the niche.

Yes, that’s happening in my niche too. Sometimes Buzzfeed type sites will try and get in on the kind of viral content I produce. They’re rarely any good but now they’re popping up at around position 4 or 5.

Also there is an authority site that SELLS a thing (rather than making a game for a thing) ranking #1 for keyword searches for (paraphrasing to hide identity): “type of thing type of game” purely by creating a spammy doorway page with an image meme on it. *sigh*

[KaseyM]

Trends I'm noticing is big outlets who cover the subject in a broad manner will rank above us. Express.co.uk, DigitalSpy and other big outlets doing very well from this outlet from my research.