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]

[EditorialGuy]

I think that google still building structure for search results,... this is why results are almost wild and like random

They're always building, and I seriously doubt that many of the search results are "almost wild and like random." You can always find oddities and anomalies, but for the most part, Google (like other search engines) chugs along like a supertanker.

[southernguy]

@StoneSolid Unfortunately there is still a lot of Google love out there, right now it's all about looking at alternative traffic sources. I realize not a lot of people use Bing or DDG but even the small bits of traffic you get from them seem to convert much better than Google.

Having said that right now its fairly easy to manipulate the Google algorithm "at least at the moment". I am hoping it remains this way for a little while longer so I can recoup my losses from the last several months.

I'm sure Google may eventually figure out how to fix the mess they've created.

[samwest]

Seriously, did the internet die this week?

[riccarbi]

How the HELL is Bing so much better at actually respecting content ownership and figuring out what is spam?

That's a real problem. And a huge one. Take images for example, when I post a photo I have personally taken and published on my architecture-related website, I always mark it with my website's name in the filename, I add a proper copyright line just below it in the article, and Google always indexes my article together with that image in a few seconds, puts it in "top stories" and so on...; therefore I can reasonably guess Google perfectly knows that my website is the primary source for that specific image. Yet, when I search for that image in Google images just a few days later, my copyrighted picture is totally outranked by the same image copied, stolen, scraped by other websites that Google, for unknown reasons, likes more than mine; of course their version is also featured at a lower resolution and with a lower quality than my original one, since it's just a cut-and-paste copy they don't even bother to change the filename.

Do you really think that almighty Google is unaware of who is the legitimate owner and first publisher of that picture? When, at the same time, Bing is perfectly aware of it?
I don't think so. I think that Google doesn't' give a damn about the source of that content, as simple as that. Their objective is to make as much money as possible with the internet, if that means to violate every possible copyright they know, that's totally OK for them. It's intentional. As simple as that.
I hope US governmental bodies and EU authorities will start to investigate that kind of (illegal, and intentional) behavior, sooner or later

[edited by: riccarbi at 7:50 pm (utc) on Apr 27, 2019]

[StoneSolid]

@riccarbi
same thing happens to me with my images (and everything else as I already said) and I can 100% relate and agree with all you said
I definitely agree that authorities need to investigate.

[whoa182]

Riccarbi, I have a similar issue with Google ever since August last year. I published an article, ranked #1, a website linked to it that has an exact match for the vitamin, but they simply copied a few paragraphs of my post with no original content of their own and said at the bottom to read more go to the "original source" as the anchor.

Anyway, August medic update happens and the copied content on their site is ranking and mine isn't. Yet I published it 2 weeks before they copied it and linked to me as the original source.

And Google can't seem to figure it out. Crazy.

[aristotle]

If scraped articles or images are ranking above your originals, it might mean that google's algorithm has applied a penalty to your site. Being out-ranked by scrapers is one of the things that people noticed back in 2011 after their sites were hit by the original panda rollout.

[riccarbi]

If scraped articles or images are ranking above your originals, it might mean that google's algorithm has applied a penalty to your site.

If so, why at the same time do they have "elevated" my website' articles to their "top stories' elite" and included many of my reviews of museums in their infamous knowledge graph together with Wikipedia's (and no other's one)? And why giving a penalty to original content creators and at the same time reward scrapers and stolen-content farms? It makes no sense at all. Believe me, it's not a penalty. It's just the way they use the web, today.

[StoneSolid]

@aristotle

If scraped articles or images are ranking above your originals, it might mean that google's algorithm has applied a penalty to your site. Being out-ranked by scrapers is one of the things that people noticed back in 2011 after their sites were hit by the original panda rollout.

THAT is google quote that they like to repeat when they don't know how else to explain their own problems.
It makes ZERO SENSE.

With black hat methods evolving, scraping evolved too. Savvy scraper will now have backlinks pointing to his spam sites, or hundreds of hacked links and such, which google will easily compute and rank the scrape site. I see it daily.

Smart black hatter will TARGET weaker sites (weaker as in - less backlinks) to make sure that he can easily overtake - content and ranks, simply because he got the tools and shady methods to juice up his copycat site with a strong boost of multiple backlinks.

In short:
- webmaster works hard on content, and has very few natural backlinks, we all know it is a slow process to gain them
- black hatter will copy his site in a day and he'll add hundreds of links within a month, easily overtaking ranks and content

..and why is that so?
Just because google gives ZERO damn about content ownership and origin.

I'm saying that for a long time now and the GOOGLE vs BING experiment I did yesterday really confirms it 100%.

I gave google everything - sitemaps, analytics, all my freaking data on every site I own.
I don't even have a bing webmaster account.

Yet, gee whiz, my sites are top spot for my original content on bing for exact queries, and nowhere to be seen on google.

That is just WRONG and I'll even go as far to say - ILLEGAL. Maybe not today, but the day will come.

[Spiekerooger]

Looks like an update is going on since yesterday (April 27th), at least in Google Europe.

[sk7411]

After the march 13th update , we were slowly reclaiming spots everyday until yesterday. It seems the algo has developed a dual personality.

As a side note the site that got boost on march 13th got more boost yesterday and still climbing.

[engine]

I suspect that the google algo and its filtering have become so complex that even the google engineers struggle with it.

[goodoldweb]

^^ It is all "very complex" for a reason. Make it harder for websites to get free traffic so they'll have to advertise. Trying to find any reason in today's algo is a time wasting excersise really.

This article may shade some light on what's really going on in this once great company which now fast becoming a cesspool.

[theage.com.au...]

[universenet]

goodoldweb "PROFIT ERA" started with wish for pay all articles including google maps..
Now almost nobody using google maps ... everyone using alternative...
of course google want that every publisher pay for free traffic too
They playing with Artifcial inteligency
but competition will find chance for take market from google..

[aristotle]

I remember reading the threads about Panda back in 2011. Most of the people whose aites had been hit were in denial. They vehemently swore that their sites didn't deserve it.

Google had said that Panda was mainly aimed at "content farms", but millions of small sites were also hit. Since then I've noticed that it often hits people who keep adding new articles to their sites. They look for topics that have the potential to attract a lot of traffic and write an article about it. I doubt that Google likes this approach.

[universenet]

aristotle you living in past.. nobody care about panda.. tiger .. lion... many people even do not understand what was panda
this was before 8 years...
internet is now better of internet search before 15 years? yes
internet search is better of internet search before 95 years too
and internet search is better of all time of internet search from time when internet did not exist
Is not important what people talking about
Important is evedence what activity happening arround

If advertisers losing trust in google is not good...
Google still can be best in search but if advertisers (BIG advertisers )losing trust in quality is going bad time for google
I think that google maps are still the best.. and google maps are reall the best.. but too expensive for using for big palyers on net
Google depends about BIG advertisers like expedia , only expedia pay arround 5 billions $ or more a year to google for advertising .. this is bussinness how google earning money

If no money more income to google no money for publishers adsense too
Everyone going down
We are all in circle

[w_hebb]

We are seeing some sort of update starting around the 22nd which rather corresponds to SEMRush volatility peak showing for the 20th, traffic is now consistently at the worst level we have seen in 15+ years. Traffic averages are now off 80% from January. Not sure if the 22nd flux was an adjustment from the 7th update but whatever it is we are getting hammered. Is anyone else seeing similar trends?

[Milchan]

@w_hebb - yes I saw effect from 22nd onward. Traffic dipped although not as severe as your reporting but probably around 15 - 20% - that in itself for us wouldn't for certain be an anomaly, but the fact conversions dropped 100% for 2 days straight - i..e nothing at all for 2 days, then just a handful on the 25th was certainly an indication of a change in some way. Yesterday and today have seen a move back to ward "normal" levels again and by normal I mean how the last few months have been.
I do think there was a change on the 22nd for sure. I also now think that regardless of what an algo change does and regardless of if that change would effect your site or not just the sheer fact there is a change causes ripple effects that effect sites, traffic and conversions probably whilst it is being rolled out across server farms, if some kind of reindexing is required etc etc.

[StupidIntelligent]

Nothing but zombies here.

[BushyTop]

Seeing huge SERPs changes for us yesterday like other on here too. Automotive UK.

[BangkokBaby]

Felt changes on the 19th and the 27th of this month for my sites.

[doodoofan]

I'm seeing some significant changes too. Could it be that the March Core Update is only taking full effect now, or there's been another update?

[seomotionz]

Is there an update going on? There is a good amount of drop in traffic from the Asia-pacific region.

[billycorgan]

Here also a 50% up today with organic hits one of my site i wasn't expected. (Company listing site in Turkish language)

But nothing change on another site with full organic and seo-optimized that lost 50% hits on march update.

This is redicilous!

[SEOMike]

We've been refreshing some competitive research for some clients lately and we haven't come across a cache date more recent than April 3rd. Today I checked Amazon, eBay, Whitehouse.gov, my state's governor's office page, Microsoft, Apple, Wiki's homepage, OANN, (Fox News and CNN both came back with 404s), SEW, Search Engine Roundtable, even Reddit - ALL had caches of April 3rd or older. I've not seen such old caches before - makes me wonder if Google is going to drop them.

Traffic for all of my clients has remained steady except for a few that have gone way up this month. Interestingly enough, sales have been off for several of them which I think reflects a softening of the economy here in the US.

[mhansen]

Odd anomaly for us today and curious if anyone else is seeing something similar.

We're in a lead-generation market, and fueled by an informational website that is chock full of industry data and professional information on the topic. Users generally find us through organic SEO, before requesting more info from a local service company in their area.

In general, we cater to the entire USA and our leads rarely come from the same zip codes in the same day. Today however, we've had 16 leads generated so far and 14 of them are from within an almost identical zip code. (Think 55501, 55502, 55503, 55501, 55502, etc - none are within 1000 miles of our office location registered with the domain, or on the website)

I'm going to assume it's due to a lack of Adwords advertisers in those zip codes, which is allowing the organic results to climb higher on the page. Or... G is running some kind of localization test for that specific area.

Anyone else ever see this before?

[mosxu]

Anyone checking the news Alphabet earnings are going down.

What to expect? Updates? More researchers clicking on our ads ?

[universenet]

mosxu all is arround close to expected for Alphabet earnings
Game continue...

[JS_Harris]

Seriously, did the internet die this week?

I've been seeing empty space on websites I frequent all week where adsense is typically located. It seems adsense itself might be having a problem, ads are on permanent "loading" but never show, so if anyone is basing their concerns on adsense earnings this might explain why.

As of late last night, however, something quite large seems to be going on.

[BangkokBaby]

@SEOMike, my site is the same, but when I check the GSC it does show my site is being crawled. I can only assume for now Google are not updating that feature but sites are still being crawled. They have stopped showing coverage data on GSC since the 8th of April, so may have something to do with it.