Google Updates and SERP Changes - February 2019

[NickMNS]

The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4931890.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 7:24 pm on Feb 1, 2019 - (PDT -8)


Just to update on the AMP issues, it appears that the issue is solved on my end. My traffic has gone back up to the pre-AMP-errors levels.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 3:32 am (utc) on Feb 2, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new month [/edit]

[Spiekerooger]

@lostshootingstar: Do you have rankings flipping serps (e.g. serp position no. 9 or 12)? With todays update still in progress, sometimes your position will be lost totally, as Google seems to even switch (or build up new) datasets when navigating from top10 to top11-20. And if you are on position 12 in the shown dataset for the top10 and on position 9 in the shown dataset for 11-20, you are practically gone.

At least I'm seeing a lot of flipping between top10 and top11-20 with short tail / strong competition search terms today for several sites. This is going on for some hours and than stable for some, before it starts over again.

(And also search queries where Google returns all kind of languages in the top50 or top100, most of them looking totally unrelated to the search term, but yes, I don't speak Finnish or Pakistani, so I don't know for sure).

[jmorgan]

My traffic looks pretty good today. Maybe I finally got that little bit of rankings boost that I've been waiting for.

[hurwith2]

No changes going on with Auto, I believe.

[NickMNS]

I'm afraid to jinx it! But I am seeing upturn in traffic as well. It's still too early to tell by how much or if it will even hold.

[BushyTop]

Semrush off the scale again in the UK

[Mark_A]

Had a good Monday and now Wednesday, but Tuesday was dismal.

[southernguy]

Same here a big increase in traffic today but most of it seems to be bot traffic.

[Cralamarre]

My Google traffic was up 5% yesterday and 11% Monday over last week. Today seems to be holding strong.

[MayankParmar]

Good week here as well.

[expmrb]

From Yesterday, traffic is falling. Although yesterday a good amount of traffic was holding but today that is also gone.

Looks like Valentine's Day is ruined guys. I mean the mood :P

[BushyTop]

We've seen super low conversions over the past couple of days. It's not seasonality and I'm doubtful that its anything to do with Brexit, even though i suspect it is having a marginal effect. But our conversions are dead atm... for the first time in a long time!

automotive, UK

[Martin Ice Web]

a little off topic:
amazon as a marketshare of 78% now in germany. Seems like google did good work or not.
While they still only want to sell their ads and kill all business, poeple are going to amazon because of the lack of choices they have.

[glitterball]

All conversions stopped for me yesterday. Something very strange has happened.

[Jez123]

Why is it when any sort of update or shake up or whatever you might call it, that conversions go downhill for a while? My site was fantastic all week, from Sunday to Weds and whatever happened yesterday killed conversions.

[BushyTop]

@Jez123 We've never experienced it when others have mentioned it on the forum, but at the moment, we are dead

[Cralamarre]

My traffic has dropped a bit this afternoon, but I'm pretty sure it's because of Valentines Day. Analytics shows the same pattern last year as well.

[aristotle]

People are still paying too much attention to short-term fluctuations.

[Cralamarre]

People are still paying too much attention to short-term fluctuations.

Actually, I find that the best way to avoid worrying about short-term fluctuations is to compare what's happening with the same timeframe last year. My traffic is usually quite steady, so if it suddenly drops, and I can see that the same drop happened at the same time last year, I don't worry about it.

[expmrb]

Why is it when any sort of update or shake up or whatever you might call it, that conversions go downhill for a while? My site was fantastic all week, from Sunday to Weds and whatever happened yesterday killed conversions.

Because of the ripple effects.

[aristotle]

Because of the ripple effects.

If you drop a pebble into a big lake of water, then the ripples from the impact will spread over the whole lake, and reflect from the shores to reverberate back and forth.

In the same way, if someone makes a small change to one website, it could not only affect the google rankings of other sites in the niche, but the changes in traffic and other after-effects could gradually spread throughout the whole web.

[Spiekerooger]

If you loose traffic while still holding serp postions check for your pixel position in serp. I gain rankings but loose traffic by loosing another 1000 pixel or more towards destination carousel, video carousel, knowledge graph and als people also asked for boxes. Gone are the days of ten blue links...

[jmorgan]

Wonder if some people might be taking the Friday off for a long romantic Valentine's Day weekend?

[Robert Charlton]

jmorgan... it's hard to say how widely observed Valentine's Day is in the US. Couples might go out to dinner or cook special meals at home, but work schedules are generally normal.

Note, though, that Mon, Feb 18 is Presidents' Day observed, and that is a Federal holiday, likely to affect many more than Valentine's Day.

[Yagnesh Aegis]

Massive changes in SERP on this Saturday. All results have been going down

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I'm facing drop for my main website. I'm sure that this is happening because of North Korea celebrating Birth Day of Kim Jong Il... [sarcasm]

[jmorgan]

Note, though, that Mon, Feb 18 is Presidents' Day observed, and that is a Federal holiday, likely to affect many more than Valentine's Day.

Ugh. Thanks for that. I had a feeling something was up.

[mosxu]

Very few ready to buy are searching with Google or “researching” better put.

The very few buyers left seem to be spread according to historical spend in Adwords.

[edited by: mosxu at 6:45 pm (utc) on Feb 16, 2019]

[southernguy]

My traffic has dropped as well yesterday and today Saturday the only cool thing is that I have had a few conversions from two of my niche sites, amazingly enough, they have come from Bing.

[lostshootingstar]

My rankings have continued to drop very slowly but surely since the 12th. I just can't believe after all the work I've put in I'm still on a downward trend. So discouraging.

[whoa182]

I think many of us are in the same position. I've put a lot of work into my main site since August and significantly improved it but I've yet to be "rewarded" by Google for any of it. I've seen zero growth in traffic since that update and it's as if my traffic is capped at a certain number. Every time there have been signals of a recovery, a new update comes out and wipes out any gains.

I had an article which ranked number one for 4 years and brought in quite a bit of traffic, but it's dropped to page 3. A website owner who asked me to link their article from my article (the one that ranked well) is now at number #3 and they only wrote their article back in September. I get frequent emails from them sent to 3 of my sites asking me to link to their articles and they'll share my post on Facebook. I guess links matter, a lot.

I've stayed away from link building as I wanted them to just build up naturally. But maybe I should start doing what they do?