Google Florida Update 2 March 12, 2019

[BushyTop]

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System: The following 23 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4937425.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brett_tabke - 8:43 am on Mar 13, 2019 (cst -6)

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Seeing some changes this morning. Anyone else. UK.

[Selen]

What I notice that top search results don't have Adsense or 'banner advertising' (they may only have very simple text ads). Could it be a confirmation that ad-heavy sites cannot rank high on competitive terms?

[nomis5]

I have an "evergreen" informational UK website with about 900+ pages in the recreation niche. It seems to have been unaffected by any update and continues to moderately improve (page views wise) year on year. Over the past three years all but one of my independent competitors have been decimated to the point that they either no longer exist or are are no longer updated.

I have several corporate competitors and they seem to be on an even keel. However, the corporate competitors who combine evergreen content (on which they hugely rely to attract visitors) and commercial sales pages seem to be a mixed picture. Some have taken a huge dive and some are simply maintaining the status quo. None (one excluded) seem to be improving. Those very large corporate sites which stick to mainly evergreen content are doing better, but they are very few in number.

My take on this is that if you are selling stuff then G wants to sell it and will not let you sell it. The SERPS are angled that way. Don't look at the impact of individual updates, including this March one, accept the fact that unless you are selling a very unusual product, the long term prognosis is that you are probably onto a loser.

If you are an evergreen site, think of something which will make it unique and difficult to replicate. Depth of knowledge, a unique feature etc. If you don't have something like that, the corporates will also swallow you up in the long term because they acquire customers through their evergreen content which then leads onto their commercial pages.

[robzilla]

A disproportionate amount of academic and scientific sites, along with a bunch of non-profits, have made their way into the SERPs I'm tracking; both high-profile organizations, like major universities, and surprisingly small ones. They don't always have much content, and much of it seems quite old and perhaps not even particularly useful to a lot of searchers, but they are now apparently considered more relevant than the many commercial, ad-supported sites that have been pushed down. It's a very diverse bunch now... maybe that's the point. Just perhaps a little too diverse.

I'm still usually ranking #1, sometimes also #2, although Search Console reports the average position has dropped a bit (small traffic dip noticeable). Hard to see which sites would otherwise be ranking above me, no matter what tool or browser I'm using. Any suggestions for that?

[ichthyous]

@HereWeGo123 I was wondering the same thing about disavowing links. I've noticed that a very spammy site is now the largest source of backlinks to my site, with 1720 links to 550 pages. Today I checked and the site hosts malware and all kinds of pop-ups that take over the browser so it has zero value...I added the domain to my disavow file today. Most of the time the spam sites come and go, so I don't bother to add every domain, but this one has been around for a few months and still increasing. I wonder if this will have any effect at all.

[Halaspike]

I'm seeing images & YouTube videos overcrowding the serps. It looks disgusting & pushing down relevant search results making it hard for visitors to find what they are looking for. Images & videos should have their own section.

[Fatlossplanner]

For the sites that lost almost half the traffic.. Have they been hit by a penalty or something? For me none of my pages have improved.. And to best of my knowledge I have not do e things that will may big G unhappy... It looks like it's a penalty or something..

[broccoli]

@JS_Harris

I really don't think the March 12th core update had anything to do with backlinks.

I got hit on March 13-14th, it’s entirely possible the update has more than one component. Also, it sounds like your links look a lot more natural than mine.

[aristotle]

robzilla wrote
A disproportionate amount of academic and scientific sites, along with a bunch of non-profits, have made their way into the SERPs I'm tracking;

This the counterpart in the informational sectors of the increasing dominance of big brands in commercial sectors. It's not just universities, but also big organizations, government agencies, museums, and similar.

Trust and authority have become more important to google than the value of the content.

[thepointer]

Anyone else noticing a huge increase in spam sites stealing images that link out to your site creating a horrible looking PBN link?

[martinibuster]

...it’s entirely possible the update has more than one component.

That's a good observation, broccoli!
;)

[EditorialGuy]

Trust and authority have become more important to google than the value of the content.

Our site has had (and still has) many, many #1 spots in Google for queries related to a topic that we've covered in depth since the 1990s. On the other hand, for a couple of queries on a highly specific subtopic, there's now an answer box at the top of the SERP with information from a site I'd never heard of. To make matters worse, the information that Google is displaying from the site is at least two years out of date.

Still, anecdotal evidence is more about anecdotes than evidence. I'd be reluctant to make any assumptions about what this latest "core algorithm update" is rewarding or not rewarding. There are just too many variables.

[whoa182]

...it’s entirely possible the update has more than one component.

I think the clue is in the name: Broad Core.

Google has said that you need to think about all aspects of the website and user experience. It's not about any one single thing or page...

[NickMNS]

I'd be reluctant to make any assumptions about what this latest "core algorithm update" is rewarding or not rewarding. There are just too many variables.

Also, there is no telling whether or not this update has fully rolled out. I hadn't seen any impact since this is said to have started, last Monday or Tuesday. But, today as of 9am I have been seeing traffic up and holding steady by around 30 to 40%.

[HereWeGo123]

@ichthyous - I hear you and agree. To recap what martinibuster and John Mueller keep saying with respect to obvious looking spam links - they’re pretty good at detecting them and just discount them. Our site has thousands of bad spammy links and I can’t say that we’ve been negatively affected by them, yet. My main concern was always two fold. (A) what if what we believe to be genuine and natural backlink strategies are actually the opposite in Google’s eyes (although those strategies were recommended and endorsed by reputable thought leaders in the industry that you probably heard of) and (b) what if a very clever perpetrator would want to do nSeo against someone but beyond the scope of just blasting thousands of spammy links but rather they were to mimic negative seo in way that makes it appear that they were SEO self made links that Google would frown upon and/or create PBN links? I bugged John Mueller many times on Twitter about disavowing spammy sites like the one you’re describing and he said that there’s no need to, but if it makes me feel better, then I can disavow. So I agree with what you said, I highly doubt that that particular malware site with spammy links would have an adverse effect on you but to play it safe, it’s good that you disavowed it. I would do the same.

[jmorgan]

I'm a little confused with these "core algorithm" updates.

A) Are they just updates to adapt to the changing search landscape?

B) Does it involve a refresh of the signals/data they've collected on websites since the previous "core algorithm" update?

C) Or is it some kind of admission that the existing algorithm was defective? Which would be puzzling given they have stated they roll these out at least once or twice a year which would imply they believe every "core algorithm" rolled out will eventually be deemed to be defective at some stage.

[Shaddows]

C) Or is it some kind of admission that the existing algorithm was defective?

Is every new model of car an admission that the old model was defective? Or just the obvious result of the fact that technology moves on, and companies can produce a better version now than they could before?

Of course, once the new model comes out, the old version will be substandard (or defective), relative to the new state-of-the-art release.

[seo2019]

I would hold off making changes until at least next week. I can still see ranking fluctuations.

No point in acting on an assumption that may or may not make your situation worse only to discover that the issue was something else entirely.

As with all core updates, Google should provide more details eventually.

[lazywebdev]

One of our ecommerce sites has been steadily improving in the serps over the last few years to having hundreds of our top keywords in the top 5 positions. Previous large updates have given slight jumps in improvement but progress has been steady. The middle of last week we saw our site occupying snippets, 1st and 2nd (and sometimes 3rd) positions all at once. During the end of last week and over the weekend we have dropped down 3-5 places. Competition sites with lower quality that have been slowly dropping over the last 2 years have suddenly jumped back to position they were in 6months-2 years ago. Some content which is being presented is older than what was there recently. Almost like the SERPs are showing listings based on data from historic indexes.

[Jori]

About bad links. Using GSC, we can see there all the links that Google is considering. The really spammy ones would eventually disappear (in my case, all from the spammy "The Globe" network).
I'll manually disavow those that stick on GSC after X months.

[BushyTop]

@lazywebdev I'm seeing a very similar pattern. Almost as if sites that have been around longer are reaping the benefits, regardless of their SEO practises. Could this be anything to do with how EAT is now evaluated?

[BangkokBaby]

So from what I've read on this fourm, blog comments and other forums, the results of the update are:

1. People who did nothing to their sites after Aug/Oct updates, traffic has gone up a noticeably amount
2. People who did work on their site during the hit in Aug/Oct have noticed a traffic increase
3. People who haven't work on their sites saw their sites go down further
4. People who did work on their sites went down even further.

I guess it's safe to say that Google TESTS various algorithm factors and once the data come in that it yields a poor user experience based on all their parameters, it gives that factor that less weight overall. If it does well and improves the user experience, it gives is more weight in the next core update.

I wonder how many new factors they are testing in this core update, and once it shows to provide a better/worse user experience it will be adjusted again. I believe this will be the future of SEO for the next few years at least. This is why Google says work on providing the best UX because that is what's going to win in the end.

You may lose the battle, but you'll end up winning the war if you follow that mantra.

Every few months there will be ranking changes as the AI gets better and better by making assumptions that the algorithm will refine. It's going to be a roller-coster ride for SEOers for the next few years at least.

Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye-bye!

[lazywebdev]

@BushyTop We do everything we can to do everything "right": solid technical base (no html errors, the odd script tag validation warning but usually none), relevant content, decent length and informational blog posts, Q&A on product cat pages, structured mark up where appropriate. Galling to see competitors whose web pages have 100+ technical html errors, thin content and no mark up suddenly jump up.

[lazywebdev]

Little update. Seem manufacturers are getting more high positions rather than those selling their goods in our industry. For a long time they have been nowhere near the top (generally have poor HTML to boot).

[ichthyous]

Anyone else noticing a huge increase in spam sites stealing images that link out to your site creating a horrible looking PBN link?

@thepointer Yes, I just mentioned this myself. These sites are a scourge on image heavy websites like mine. They mostly come and go and by the time Google reports backlinks the domain is usually gone, but in some cases they stick around for months and that's when I disavow the links. Still waiting to see if that has much of an effect, but so far it doesn't seem to have hurt.

[lazywebdev]

Additional note: looked in GSC - over the weekend had a spike in 404s which have then gone...appears the links being looked at are all years old. Appears some URLs/index data has been pulled momentarily from somewhere and then gone again.

[NickMNS]

Anyone else noticing a huge increase in spam sites stealing images

Unfortunately (or is it fortunately) I am not noticing a "huge increase". This has also been a problem for me, except that it has been going on consistently for a long while.

[Lagonda]

Looking good.

Comparison between last 7 days (Mar 11, 2019 - Mar 17, 2019) vs same weekdays 2018 (Mar 12, 2018 - Mar 18, 2018).

Avg. Session Duration
+36.73%
Bounce Rate
-4.90%
Pages / Session
+15.36%
Number of Sessions per User
+5.22%

This is me rationalizing.
This is me not rationalizing:

New Users
-78.25%
Sessions
-77.14%
Pageviews
-73.63%

And in the last two days, it got even better:
New Users
-86.69%
Sessions
-86.27%
Pageviews
-85.66%

Now, you don't get to see this written here often so, amuse yourself:
I've always questioned a large number of my top organic pages - in my opinion they weren't useful to anyone.
But hey, free traffic, why not.
Yet, I have several other pages that I considered useful and those got almost zero traffic.
Maybe those aren't high volume searches, don't know, don't care.
It was already a "pet" site, seriously wondering now if it will become a "defunct pet" site.
It's how natural selection is supposed to work right?
It works? It lives. It doesn't? It dies.

I'm only sorry because it had some interesting testimonies that, unfortunately, will be lost forever.
The old rule applied: 20% of the (some bad) content brought 80% of the revenue, when that's gone, the ratio got inverted and it's no longer sustainable.

Background info about this site: [webmasterworld.com...]

[thepointer]

@ichthyous
I've been noticing that these image PBNs have really started ramping up around 2018 and here in 2019 I'm seeing even more. Even worse is if you do a "Site:" for their name in Google they're indexed.

This is a classic PBN but with a new take on them. They're getting clever.

I've noticed that they'll scrape images and more importantly backlink to everyone in a niche. If they're backlinking to everyone it's harder for Google to punish anyone without taking everyone down. They know this so even the sites they want to help still get linked to but I'm thinking they get linked to less. Google has a curve of what weight they'll give to a backlink until they ignore and then start hurting the site for too many spam links. It's almost like a niche-wide negative SEO attack. It's the perfect PBN because Google can't easily stop it. It's every month they spin up a new server and repeat the process to hide their footprint. It must be effective because these types of sites seem to be growing every month.

Just because these spam links don't show up in Search Console or Google says they don't do something doesn't mean they're not hurting your site. What is going on sure does feel like an algorithm penalty to me. So far the sites able to handle this attack either use a CDN for their images or have so many strong backlinks to counter-act these spam ones or still new and haven't been scraped yet.

[Fatlossplanner]

Anyone else who lost the traffic post Google updates?

[lazywebdev]

@Fatlossplanner - down 40% ish traffic this Monday (and over weekend) so far compared to last and previous.