Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2018

[Cyril TechWebsites]

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System: The following 18 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4922186.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:04 pm on Nov 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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Facing with big changes. Something is happening again? I'm pretty tired of Google updates for the last few months... Niche: IT how-to's, technology...

[MayankParmar]

CTR dropped for anyone lately?

[aristotle]

but there are other signals than links that are used by Google

If a page has a lot of quality content that's relevant to the overall theme of the site, then it might help the rankings of the other pages by reinforcing the overall theme, even if it doesn't have any backlinks of its own. But if a apge has poor quality thin content, then it might actually hurt the rankings of the other pages by lowering the overall quality of the site.

So pages with good relevant content should be indexed, but pages with thin low-quality content should probably be noindexed.

[justpassing]

But if a apge has poor quality thin content, then it might actually hurt the rankings of the other pages by lowering the overall quality of the site.

When you use noindex for a page, Google still crawls and analyze it. So, Google knows the page is "poor quality thin content". Nowhere it's said that, a noindex makes Google to ignore the quality of the page, when evaluating the quality of the site...

[NickMNS]

Nowhere it's said that, a noindex makes Google to ignore the quality of the page, when evaluating the quality of the site...

Maybe not directly but one can deduct from the comments by John Muller regarding noindex/follow, basically saying that noindex/follow is the same as noindex/nofollow, because if the page is not in the index there is no record of the contents of the page including it links. This same logic must then also apply to all the other signals on the page.

While it is true that crawler may access a page that is no-indexed there would be no way for the ranking algorithm to access that data if it is not included in the index.

The problem with relevancy is that it is not measurable, relevant to what? One can makes assumptions. Removing a few pages may have limited negative impact. But nuking whole sections of a website in my mind is taking a big risk. Moreover, @sofie77 mentioned that this has already been done and since then traffic has fallen. My feeling is that this action has more than likely contributed to the demise. If anything, I would take a very moderated and gradual approach to eliminating or no-indexing large amounts of content.

As to the topic of the thread. Traffic today was up for most of the morning and early afternoon (about 10%) but things are colling off a bit, likely due to the weekend. Let's hope the trend sticks.

[lostshootingstar]

Seeing two very distinct sets of results the last few days, flipping back and forth every 12 hours or so. One much better for us than the other.

[ichthyous]

@MayankParmar No I'm actually seeing a higher CTR as impressions fall for a month straight. From August 1st to Sept 26th I saw much higher impressions but CTR was lower

[broccoli]

Heh, this is so funny. I’ve been working really hard on topical relevance (with the aid of ubersuggest) to fill in missing pages on my site. Nothing significant from Google yet, but Bing just propelled me to the top of its rankings for the short tail/highest ranking keyword and gave me a really cool little carousel of page links with images. I only put my new pages up a few days ago. I guess I have to wait for a core update from google to see a difference.

[whoa182]

There is nothing wrong with the page, the problem is that your description fits many other pages published by many other sites. So you checked all the boxes, necessary but not sufficient.

Doesn't matter, it's back to #1 again.

I probably should learn to not freak out so quickly, but it's hard after what happened in August.

[justpassing]

Unrelated, but an extremely huge Googlebot activity at all of my sites, 10 times more pages visited than normal.

[pritz]

SEMRush showed a spike on 11/1 then next day it go down.

[sofie77]

@Doesn't matter, it's back to #1 again.

Same here...Since 1 hour, the postions that I have lost on the halloween update are back. Not the positions before the EAT Update...but I am not completly destroyed. Fingers crossed that It stays this way.

[skynet84]

no change here. Health website Italy... :(

[skynet84]

the halloween update continue to destroy me.

[jmorgan]

I experience a drop in traffic every Halloween.

[sofie77]

...we meant a drop in positions. from page 1 to page > 5 for all (rest) keys
I feel with you skynet84.

[Kdonner]

In Brazil, the same is happening in the health sector. Approximate loss of 60/70%.

9-year market and destruction in less than 24 hours.

[browndog]

I'm noticing results are becoming more professional as in from universities and labs. I've always considered myself the bridge between those sites (which can get very technical) and the public looking for information.

My traffic is massively down, I think in part because of the above, but also having awful hosting issues, and constant 503 messages.

[aristotle]

Everyone will get an extra hour of U.S. traffic tomorrow.

[dethfire]

today has been a very bad saturday

[vphoner]

I see all sorts of junk sites and UK sites showing up for very desirable keywords. One competitor I watch was at the top, and now is nowhere to be seen. A lot of jumbling around over the last day or so. Hope this gets back to normal. How can anyone run a business with such instability? Really just terrible.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I'm seeing further -8% decrease this week. I don't know why, but meanwhile I got traffic boost from Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and losing traffic from USA, UK, Australia. Maybe my English is so bad, that algo started to think it's Turkish? I have nothing against Turkey and Vietnam, but I've never had been focusing to gain traffic from these countries. Hope that this insanity will finish soon... Right now it's the most unsuccessful and strange update for years from my point of view...

[whoa182]

Keywords are rising and dropping. It's still all over the place right now.

It's funny to see these search results. Another article of mine is right now in position #7 (it was in #2 before the update).

The article is targeting a specific problem (x for y) and the first 5 results don't even have ANY of the keywords in the title or URL. Most give one tiny sentence or paragraph about the topic in the main content, whereas my article is entirely about that topic.

Google trying too hard their super synonyms and failing?

[ichthyous]

It just keeps getting worse and worse...It's been a slow daily decrease since the initial big 25% drop at the end of September. These slow drip declines are typically the result of a penalty on the domain are they not? My site has never been hit by a major penalty in the 15 years that I've been online and has excellent authority so what gives?

[lostshootingstar]

I've had the slow drip since early September. I doubt it's a penalty, I think Google just keeps turning the dial.

I know I should be careful what I wish for, but I kind of wish i could bottom out so I can just get over it and figure out how to recover.

[idanb]

Guys Question,
I notice after 24th update my forum posts (not english) getting index(around 50 pages a day as usual ), but they arent ranking if i make a search for the post topic in google..

i know the page index 100% because when i check with : allintitle:"MY-TITLE-EXAMPLE" for my title im unique,
also when i am searching for info:domain.com/post/ , i can see post is on index but google not showing this new pages anymore if im trying to see the page with other search query like (without the :allintitle)

does anyone also have forum\site that update daily with many topics and notice this problem?
any suggestions?

**** my traffic dropped around 35-40% since 24th

thanks

[aristotle]

The quality of google's search results has gotten worse.

I was just searching for information about a particular nutritional supplement, but the answer box and most of the first page results pertained to a different supplement. This other supplement is sometimes used for similar purposes, but it's derived from a different herb that grows in a different part of the world. It's NOT a synonym.

That's just one example. In general the results have become l;ess relevant.

P.S. This is the first time I've seen an answer box about something other than what I searched for. To illustrate what I mean, it would be like searching for information about pneumonia but getting an answer box with information about tuberculosis.

[Shepherd]

Interesting crawl spike reported in search console for 11/3/2018, we average 3,500 pages crawled per day, 11/3 shows 60,207 pages crawled, in one day.

[sofie77]

@whoa182

Yes, Google is testing again the synonyms. They did that a few weeks ago too and yes, the quality of google's search results has gotten worse.

[Gregorich SEO]

Anyone have experience with SEMRush and Screaming Frog?

I'd like to try that paid version of Screaming Frog but not sure it provides anything that SEMRush doesn't.

[hurwith2]

@Gregorich SEO, Screaming Frog SEO paid is worth it. Only $150 a year I think.
Has anyone really confirmed if Oct. 31 chatter was from update or just Halloween? We strongly feel it was just the holiday.
Also, Nov. 6 in USA, traffic will surely be down due to voting.