Google Updates and SERP Changes - April 2019

[dollarsound]

The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4937425.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 11:52 pm on Apr 1, 2019 (PDT -8)



Today traffic is 35% up. This site wasn't affected by these previous updates in march, in august had an increase in organic traffic also, and since then has been fluctuating

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:58 am (utc) on Apr 2, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new month [/edit]

[Milchan]

The large fluctuations in conversions are not the levels of fluctuation you would expect when taking into account traffic levels, date,day or time (so seasonal, day of week, holidays, time of month etc) and the usual other external influences like competition, world events etc.
Which of course suggests that something else is going on and that google must be in control of that.

I haven't made any significant changes to my site in recent months, my SERP positions and general traffic levels havent changed alot and therefore the fact this happens suggests to me that google controls the amount of relevant or non relevant traffic they send me somehow. I presume im not the only one its happening to so therefore that suggests google is regularly sending users to places that are not relevant for them - i.e. google is a mess and because of that I and many others suffer.

[NickMNS]

The large fluctuations in conversions are not the levels of fluctuation you would expect

Yes, randomness. If you can expect, predict or if a pattern repeats itself with any degree of consistency it is by definition not random.

...this ... suggests to me that google controls the amount of relevant or non relevant traffic they send me somehow.

Yes they do, they demoted your site and are sending you less traffic.

Converting traffic is like a funnel, the first 100 users include say 30 that will convert. Say, 50% of those click on the links on one of the top three links, of these 50% of those would convert convert (15 gone converters gone). The next 50% click on the next few links in the serps, 50% of those converters are gone (7 more gone), and this repeats down the serps.

But wait! It gets better, those that converted are finished their journey, whereas those that didn't continue. Let's go back to the second group (50% of 50%), in addition to those 25 users you will also get 50% of the first 50%, so 25 more users, but out of those 25 there are no longer 30% converting, there are now only 15% who may convert. So out of 25 only 3 may convert.

To recap at step 2, add that 25 to the 25, you have 50 user total. In the first 25, 7 might convert, second 3 might convert. Converters are 10 out of 50, not 15 out of 50 as in the first step. With each subsequent step the decay continues.

The percentage and ratios above are there as example to illustrate the general concept. But the basic point is that the further you get pushed down the serps the bigger this filtering of potential conversions is going to be. As the ratio of converters to non-converters declines the less consistent the conversion are going to be and the more one will get the impressions that there are Zombie users.

Also, note that the filtering effect is be more pronounced than the decline in overall traffic, because the those that convert generally stop searching whereas those that didn't convert as well as those that will never convert will continue searching.

Basically the person that buys clicks on the first link and buys the product. The person that doesn't click on the second link, the third, the fourth etc.... That means that each website got traffic, but only the first get the traffic and the sale.

[Milchan]

I understand all about conversion funnels and the ratios that serps positions are supposed to get - which only serves t back up my point and that is that the patterns I experience are so extreme that you cannot corrolate them to what is considered the norms. I have been running my site over 10 years so Im quite familiar with the patterns that would be normal, im also not saying that updates of the last 12 to 18 months haven't effected me - they have but my serp positions pretty much remain about the same (that is 1st in a number of keywords, second for most of the good keywords I target and pretty much 3 or 4 for most else that I might want. It hasnt changed, the traffic levels remain roughly the same , with some 10 to 20% variations when there is an update maybe. All that is understandable but the conversions part is not when I experience spikes of 500 - 600 increase one day, then back to normal, then followed by a 100% drop - they are so extreme and do not fit within expected variable parameters. Not even close.

[NickMNS]

I have been running my site over 10 years so ... but my serp positions pretty much remain about the same

There is no reliable way of measuring your actual SERP position, specially over a span of 10 years. Personalization, geolocation, knowledge graph, featured snippets, more ads, fewer ads, ads on top ads on the bottom, image carousels, Google shopping, video carousels, mobile. desktop, amp etc... the list goes on. What is position 1? Where? What context? For who? At what time of day?

Your #1 position from 10 years ago is certainly not equivalent to the #1 of today. In fact, #1 from the last impression isn't even equivalent to #1 of the next impression, because there is no way of knowing which of the many factors above are coming into play.

But one thing is certain is that these factor will have direct influence as to the number of converting users that reach your site.

We are not really saying anything different, I'm simply framing this in a less conspiratorial way. There is no nefarious or malicious super AI that is routing traffic to one website over the other. But Google is certainly making every effort to retain users on their properties as long as possible in an attempt to their maximize profits at the expense of yours.

Google is the lion and we are the vultures.

[ichthyous]

@NickMNS What you are saying is interesting. I've never had to really think about it until now. In the last 9 months, and especially since March of this year, I've lost mostly my top ranking keywords. I am now in fourth place where I used to rank first or second last year. The resulting drop in traffic has been about 30%, but the drop in calls and inquiries is much worse than that...its been silent since March 12th.

It don't know if it's a demotion, or just that the algo is now favoring other factors. In some cases I have had entire swaths of searches now taken over by articles rather than ecommerce/product sites. There is a completely different crop of sites there. So none of my competitors are there anymore either, it's just silly article mills that churn out articles night and day.

I've worked night and day to improve my site, but it's basically an online archive of product X, and not a blog or article based site about X. It never will be that so I don't see much of a way to recover such a huge drop in business. I've started spending a lot on other non-search platforms with poor results. It actually seems like throwing money away compared to the targeted customers I used to get.

[universenet]

Remember... google is NEVER focused in any niche.. not in good/bad websites... not in links... not in webste reputation.. not in responsive/noresponsive websites.. (even they saying that all time)
Google us JUST focused how earn more money
If can more earn with bad websites google will make favorize bad websites
If your website is very good but if google see chance earn more if your websites no ranking good so google will "in second" make your websites down... over nite

So simple

( I like post from NickMNS Google is the lion and we are the vultures. ... With that words NickMNS said all true and important)...

Why google changing algorythm all time?
Becuase want better search ? NO
Google want earn MORE
Simple again

[iamlost]

I am the first to shout correlation does not imply causation and I do believe G et al when they say that search and ads are for all intents Chinese walled, however sometimes events offer amusement...

The end of last month (March) I pulled all AdSense code ending [webmasterworld.com] a 15 year revenue relationship.

It varies by site but on average Google, through first week of this month (April), traffic has been pretty much steady for a couple of years, slight upwards trend MoM but far below warning thresholds. From second week April on Google referred traffic thresholds have been exceeded more often than not. Current G search traffic is up 160% (yes, that's up double plus another 60%) above 'normal' in two weeks and still climbing. Once is happenstance...

Now... if I hear from AdSense... ...twice is coincidence...
Nah, my sites are just purely awesome, Google simply hadn't realised just how much until now, right? :)

have popcorn, sit back... hey fox, there be chickens...

[Milchan]

There is no reliable way of measuring your actual SERP position, specially over a span of 10 years.

I only mentioned 10 years simply to establish that Im very familiar with my traffic patterns and not it relation to SERP position - I was in fact number 1 for just about everything for about the first 8 years and it is only the entrance of competitor using dodgy blackhat tactics that has koncked me off.

Regarding SERP positions, whilst you cannot know 100% exactly you can get a good over view by using different location VPNs, private browsing, different devices and various SEO tools. Like I say not 100% but it will give you an indication of where about you are and if there are significant changes (as in enough to cause the kind of fluctuations im referring to) you will almost definitely see them.

[Milchan]

We are not really saying anything different, I'm simply framing this in a less conspiratorial way. There is no nefarious or malicious super AI that is routing traffic to one website over the other. But Google is certainly making every effort to retain users on their properties as long as possible in an attempt to their maximize profits at the expense of yours.

Last reply was a bit rushed sorry as only had a minute - but yes the quote above is spot on. Google is of course focused on their own profits more than anything else. From a business perspective I can understand that and I also don't think they are purposely doing so at the expense of me/others (although against their own competitor yes). But the sheer size. power and market share google has means they are a monopoly and if they use that power in a way that leaves so many businesses at their mercy (when they were not so much before) then it is time for legal solutions and legislation to curtail that power. It can only have a detrimental effect on economies and society as a whole if it is not. At least there is the beginnings of a whisper that some politicians are waking up to this a bit. We will see if they do manage to get a clear grasp on what is happening and manage to get solutions in place though. Personally I think that will either not happen or if it does take too long for me to stick with my business. I started my exit plan some months ago with this in mind.

[BangkokBaby]

Google isn't doing it on purpose, this is a bad way to think of it (emotionally).

What happens is your rankings have changed and now you're getting less conversions (data driven).

As an SEO marketer it's your task (should you choose to accept it) to find out where your site/pages are lacking and what you can do to improve them.

The only thing Google is doing is to improve it's search engine algorithm. I think we can all agree that it's better today than it was 15 years ago, and 15 years from now it will be much better than today.

[mosxu]

@Michan

You are actually correct you cannot have 100 visitors coverting at 4% and next 500 converting 0-1% as Nick says the converters should stop searching but for some reason 500 of them don’t.

Instead of 500 you should have about 30-50 visitors converting less 1-2% let’s say without breaking the bank.

A person buying behaviour has been heavily personalised on different websites they visited in their life so it easy to personalise them away from your site even if you may be the highest bidder.

[engine]

Interesting "fail" with SERPs right now. Searching shows "understanding" has been lost and "literal" responses appear to be returned.

[whoa182]

SERPs looks better today for me. Google is returning what I'm looking for instead of what it thinks is better for me (which is often not what I want). Results seem more relevant.

[Milchan]

SERPs looks better today for me. Google is returning what I'm looking for instead of what it thinks is better for me (which is often not what I want). Results seem more relevant.

and guess what - im seeing an increase in conversions today after days of nothing or very low. Just backs up my theory that when google is less relevant for the user my sales suffer.

[StupidIntelligent]

Google sending tons of crap traffic. Not converting. Another day. Similar story.

[mara89]

Google Analytics Not Showing Analytics Data in from last 3 ago (03:00 to 06:00 still continue) , Real time overview shows current users ( all medium) but analytics can't display that , would you any one help in that

[Mark_A]

Coming to the end of a couple of quiet Easter week / season.
A lot of our contacts have been on holiday and web traffic has been down.
Looking forward to next week being busier.

[engine]

One way to tell how the SERPs are looking is to search for specific aspects not related to your normal patterns.

Can you find the best, or the most relevant, or the most corporate? Or did you not find what you were looking for?

If it's short term, there are data center updates going on. Give it a few hours and it'll seem different.
I see less impact from data center updates in recent years.

[Rageboi]

Traffic down! Was there another update or is it because people are busy watching Endgame on theaters? Gaming niche.

[EditorialGuy]

The only thing Google is doing is to improve it's search engine algorithm. I think we can all agree that it's better today than it was 15 years ago, and 15 years from now it will be much better than today.

That's true, but it's important to remember that Google's search algorithm is only one part of what makes a SERP. The other part is the user interface. (In fact, Google has separate teams for search and the UI.) Even if the algorithm improves and the organic results get better, a change in the UI (such as adding answer boxes and ads) can make a SERP less appealing from a site owner's point of view.

Also, what users prefer and what site owners prefer may not be identical. Site owners who depend on organic results for a living may hate things like shopping results or answer boxes (unless the latter are driving traffic to their sites), but searchers may be perfectly happy to have shopping results and answer boxes at the top of the SERPs. Google does a lot of testing, and I doubt if it would be putting so many alternatives to traditional "blue links" above the fold if testing showed that users were responding unfavorably.

[Selen]

From strictly user's point of view, they prefer not to leave Google / Bing page at all. What I'd like to see is a PREVIEW button near each result - after clicking, the page could expand so that user could view the whole page. Google could afford to pre-fetch all pages so that they load instantly after clicking on the preview button. That would allow the searcher to browse more results without going back and forth; it would decrease the bounce rate too.

[southernguy]

@engine This morning I did a search on a topic I never search for. It was for a car rental (for some relatives) in a small Mexican village. I figured I would give Google first shot. For starters, I got a bunch of ads at the top followed by a suggestion box and then the results which were all from Tripadvisor, Expedia, and Yelp with car rental agencies that are 20 miles away.

I then did a search on Bing (same search query) and it was spot on, top three small car rental businesses located in the center of the village where they are staying. To the right nicely laid out maps of each business followed by ads at the right and underneath everything else.

This is just one example of thousands out there.

[engine]

@southernguy that's a perfect experiment!
We should draw our own conclusions, and for me, Google SERPs are not there.
It's as if Google is trying too hard.

[EditorialGuy]

This is just one example of thousands out there.

And many of those thousands may be generated by a multivariate layout-testing algorithm. Never assume that what you're seeing is what John, Jane, Joe, or Jill Searcher is seeing at any given moment in time.

[universenet]

And many of those thousands results show many times in competition between better search results and better earning... better profit wins

[mosxu]

Conversions go to certain players,

No point wasting time making yr website better

[EditorialGuy]

And many of those thousands results show many times in competition between better search results and better earning... better profit wins

I'd guess that user metrics are what matter most. Google isn't known for having a short attention span.

[StoneSolid]

@southernguy
Nice experiment, and it actually inspired me to do my own.

I did a "full sentence" search from my site that tanked in google.
100% written by me, original 15 word sentence, published a year ago, from a medium sized article.
I repeated it 5 times with 5 random (long) "sentence" searches, from my different pages.

GOOGLE
- always 15-25 results, my site is never on top, 2 times not even listed for my own exact sentence
- results are from all kinds of scraped content coming from various hacked / fake sites as well from free ones (.ga .cd .gq and such domains)

BING
- my site was #1 on all 5 queries, 4 times result was for the article iteself, once it was from a tag page
- 1, 2 or max 3 results per query (all from my site article and/or tag page), ONE instance of other site shown, a Cyrillic one so no idea how that sneaked in


..and I can't even explain how frustrated and even angry I am now.
How the HELL is bing so much better at actually respecting content ownership and figuring out what is spam?

Not to mention, I'm still ranking high for all my main keywords on bing and I'm nowhere to be found on google for the same ones (since some random update from a year ago).

If this isn't proof enough that google serps are bad, I really don't know what is.

[StoneSolid]

I'd like to add one very specific comparison as well...
One particular article with pictures, very original, very unique text and everything (my readers loved it as well), I wrote and published it in 2016
It was always #1 for exact title query in google for years (it is so unique that it barely has competition for exact title match, even without quotation marks, 4 words all together)

Since a year ago, it got pushed down in google by tons of scrapers and such sites, stolen and copied to hell and back
So, comparison...

exact title search, no quotation marks:

GOOGLE
- I'm on spot 3
(it took me hundreds of approved google dmcas to return my site there over time)

BING
- #1 there, query (never even checked it until now)
- I never sent a bing dmca, not even one


Frikkin.. fantastic.

[universenet]

I think that google still building structure for search results,... this is why results are almost wild and like random
They still did not full finish migrating to new search console... job is seems too big so need much time
They are very slow in fixing mistakes with sitemaps and urls..
So,.. that mean they are busy with working on
We will see what will be soon...for now I do not like how all that looking...