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]

[advancedBeginner]

So am I to understand the working theory now is that quality raters are the ones evaluating and ranking websites for Google? And according to Gregorich "But they theoretically only need to rate sites in the top 10". And this is possible because there is a smaller number of websites in the top 10 versus total. BUT how many different variations of QUERIES are there? As NickMNS said "The point is that it is mathematically impossible for that raters to evaluate webpages at the scale of the web." especially when you consider all of the different queries there are.

[thejimster]

Yes, seeing movement, and changes to the actual URLs that are ranking.

[lostshootingstar]

Yes, seeing movement here that started some time after 7pm EDT last night. We are definitely worse off this morning than we have been. Bummer.

[NickMNS]

@Steven29
We can spend days coming up with different scenarios that somehow fit the numbers, that was not the point of my example. The point was that it is orders of magnitude off, not feasible in its most basic construct.

@AdvancedBeginner raises an excellent point:

how many different variations of QUERIES are there?

The concept of quality is not specifically related to a website/webpage alone. Quality in this case is a function of how well a webpage's content matches and specific query. ESPN may have a great website, highest "quality". The quality of the search results would pretty bad if Google returned ESPN when your searching for information about buying an iPhone.

Now take the number of websites to the power of the number of possible queries = infinity or close enough.

Raters evaluate algorithm's not websites.

Forget about the monkeys on type writers, they are not ranking websites they are busy trying the write Homer's Odyssey.

[Cralamarre]

Traffic does seem a bit slower this morning. Seems like between today and last Friday, I've lost most of the gains I made in September.

Is it just me, or do Google updates always happen at the end of the week?

Edit: Actually, looking at just my organic traffic in Google Analytics, it seems like Google is doing okay. It's Direct and other traffic sources that are the biggest reason for the overall drop today. So I don't know what's going on.

[lostshootingstar]

Definitely seeing a drop today: [i.imgur.com...] (this is week over week).

WHY WON'T THIS STOP? Every freaking day for months things have been getting worse. I don't know how much more I can mentally take.

[Cralamarre]

@lostshootingstar
Is that your overall traffic or just your organic traffic? When I compare my overall traffic to last Friday, my graph looks similar to yours today. But if I look specifically at my organic traffic, and even my direct traffic, there's virtually no change between today and last Friday. All of my drop today is from referral traffic. I have no idea where it went, but I'm hoping today is just a fluke.

I know that Monday is Columbus Day in the US, so maybe (maybe?) that has something to do with it.

[samrazzy]

my organic traffic is going down day by day since September 27. Even today it is worst!

[Shepherd]

Just saw something new (to me) in the serps:

[imgur.com...]

"Your site on google", interesting gives stats about your website as it relates to the search query right in the serps.

[NickMNS]

@Shepherd what did you do to see it? What exactly is it showing, is it showing results for a specific query or for all queries where your site appeared?

[Shepherd]

Normal search for a keyword. (logged into google of course) using chrome.
Keyword was related to our website, a search term our site shows up for.
Information displayed is specific to the keyword, shows stats related to how site is doing in serps for that keyword.
Basically it's a snapshot from the new search console displayed right in the serps.

It was pretty interesting.

[lostshootingstar]

@Shepherd, I'm curious what it said if you clicked "See ways to improve". Just a link to webmaster guidelines? (lol)

[Cralamarre]

Not seeing it for my site.

[Shepherd]

Listed under "see ways to improve":

HOW TO IMPROVE
1. Compare this query to your overall site performance.
2. Find out how to use this information to make changes to your site so you can increase your chances to show up for the queries you care about the most.

1. links to the performance tab (for the keyword) in the new google search console.
2. links to a general article "help people find your site on google"

[StarkReality]

What I don't get about this update is why content quality doesn't seem to matter any more. It's like big sites with nice to read stuff, but nothing in-depth, often limited factual accuracy, totally took over. Showing the most relevant results, fine, but how can something that seriously lacks quality be super relevant? Popularity = relevancy? Are quality raters bored and prefer content they can cross check in a 30 seconds versus expert knowledge?

[Gregorich SEO]

@StarkReality

The stark reality of the situation could be that Google is favoring Domain Authority over Page Authority.

So a site with high Domain Authority might outrank you with thin/low E.A.T content, even though your page is higher quality.

With certain keywords, I've been outranked by high DA sites like Esquire, Maxim even though they don't have expertise in my niche.

[broccoli]

I’m pretty sure that you can hack site authority scores by increasing your relevance for the biggest keyword searches, and that you can hack relevance scores with silo theory. I’m going to test this out by creating pages for all the high volume keywords I’m missing, and creating a much stronger site structure with my other pages sitting below all the high volume pages. I’ll have to wait for the new pages to rank then slowly start changing the link structure section by section.

[massimodefilippo]

Guys, do someone knows health website recover after medical update?
I don't speak about websites with 10 visits for day or local websites.
I refer to website with keyword like: tendonitis, mononucleosis, ecc.
Websites that before did at least 10.000 visits for day don't recover yet.
Why? Why no one recover?
Simple, google bring them down ... even if this means bankrupt for many!

[egyfitness]

My traffic dropped from 12K daily to 8K daily on 1 August.
Then on 27th September , traffic dropped from 8K to 4K daily
I am losing business and I am really confused and sad..

[ichthyous]

I hadn't really paid attention to the Medic update, but my traffic started surging on the week of 8/1-8/8. It stayed higher until 9/26-9/27, then it fell off a cliff and it's lower than where it started. 35%+ drops in clicks and impressions across the board, all landing pages and all queries affected equally. A 25% drop in traffic from organic search. This definitely appears to be a reversal of the update at the beginning of August. In my case the reversal of Medic has dropped my traffic lower than it should be now...early October traffic is much higher than early August typically. Could this be a demotion of the value of inbound links? I have been acquiring good quality links from high powered sites (government and non profit orgs) all year and I attributed the surge in traffic on 8/1 to that.

[onlinewhitepaper]

Thanks for the update! Really helpful in deciding the strategy for the projects.

[samwest]

Judge Kavanaugh fiasco finally over, maybe traffic will return to "normal" again.

[Milchan]

Judge Kavanaugh fiasco finally over, maybe traffic will return to "normal" again.

I suspect the fluctuations in traffic that are being reported from people around the world are more likely due to google algorithm changes than a political saga in the US (that wouldn't stop people from using devices anyway , if anything would increase internet usage).
Traffic in my region is down and 99% of people here wouldn't know who Kavanaugh is if he came up and waved his parts in their face.

[samwest]

Traffic in my region is down and 99%

Check your CAT5 connection

[MayankParmar]

The fact that sites like the Express ranking well despite using clickbait headlines makes me feel sad and depressed. Not only they write clickbait, but their entire site layout is pathetic, they have way too many ads and their reporting is inaccurate.

Google favors such sites, it's clearly visible and they ask us to improve our sites :) They first need to fix their biased algorithm.

[broccoli]

Looking at what I’m seeing in my tools/games niche today (on a high volume search term I don’t have pages for) it seems like they might have changed the authority versus relevance weightings. I’m still seeing a very poor new-ish site with no backlink authority but high whole site keyword relevance showing up and beating very professional specialist corporate sites, it’s just no longer first, it’s been pushed down a bit below some broad non-specialist authority sites. However the best site for this particular search is ranking fourth! If I were to take a guess I’d say they’ve bumped up authority weightings further but haven’t altered site wide relevance.

[ichthyous]

Ten days on and no improvement from the decline on the 26th/27th. I see that my top ranking landing pages (categories) got hit the hardest (-26% from google organic search), while my individual content pages are -17.5%. Home page -23%. My home page is my top landing page, while one category landing page brings in almost as many visitors as the home page...it is down -43%....ouch!

I am wondering if inbound links are being revalued, and if links in general are being weighted less heavily in some way. That is the only possible reason why my most linked-to landing pages would get hit this hard across the board. Perhaps links with keywords in the anchor text are being demoted?

[Milchan]

from comparing my site to competitor sites I can see that I actually get higher scores across the board for all the technical aspects such as speed, mobile design and usability etc - I win out in every area apart from the fact they have ALOT more links than me . That is simply because they buy links and run a PBN. Basically as far as I can see the game can still be rigged with creating links and nothing is done about it

[Milchan]

Traffic in my region is down and 99%

Check your CAT5 connection

@samwest LOL

[southernguy]

@Milchan Yes sites with lots of PBNs and paid links are still working, I have them but I am not a fan of them but I need them to compete in my niche, they are expensive and a pain in the arss to maintain. I do have one PBN site that is ranking top position for a keyword that one of my sites was ranking for that is now gone to page 4 :-(

Paid links and PBN's they all suck but everyone wants to be page one and a lotta people are gonna do what it takes to get there even though temporary.

Having said that one of my competitors in my niche (health) who had a lot of links, and 301 redirects is slowly falling for many keywords.