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]

[BushyTop]

Anyone seeing a slight dial back?

[Spiekerooger]

Ok, this is how it feels with this end of april update:

You see your sites rankings exploding, visitors up 10 times to 2018. You say: yeah. The site has brilliant content and should be rewarded.

Than you look at the SERPs Google is showing and start digging deeper. You say: wtf?

About 30 to 70% of Top 100 results have nothing to do with the search term whatsoever? Is Google now ranking sites because they sit on the same inode in Googles index with one that is relevant?
It's like bringing up a car repair howto website while searching for an actors name - with no mentions of said actor, not even sur- or family name anywhere on the car repair website (or in pages linking to the site). Does the car repair website uses the same font color as one that is relevant? Or do they have the same word count? Or why does Google rank those totally irrelevant pages at all?

[StupidIntelligent]

Tons of traffic. No conversions. Thank you Google.

[SEOMike]

@BangkokBaby Google is certainly still indexing. I check server access logs frequently to see how the bots flow through my clients sites. They just aren't updating the caches online right now. We use that feature a lot and losing it would be a huge loss. Historically I've only seen caches get super out of date when large updates are going on, so they're either really doing something big or they're going to stop making caches available to the public. Or it's Google being Google and we'll just see what happens...

[universenet]

BangkokBaby you need wait some time for show crawling results (everyone need)... because even update results from google need now longer time because
google finnishing migrating process to new search console... all seems very slow now with crawling and displaying data ..but seems things going fixing now and maybe websites what lost much traffic with no reason will back in normal

[StupidIntelligent]

@SEOMike "Historically I've only seen caches get super out of date when large updates are going on, so they're either really doing something big or they're going to stop making caches available to the public."

Can you please let us know how many times have you seen this before in the last 15 + years, and did Google really come out with a big update afterwards? Thanks

[samwest]

Anyone seeing a slight dial back?

Yes, to 1973.

Getting traffic, but all Zombie...zero conversions in days.
GA is acting very sketchy too.

[SEOMike]

@StupidIntelligent "Can you please let us know how many times have you seen this before in the last 15 + years, and did Google really come out with a big update afterwards? Thanks"

I wish. I don't count. I do keep an eye on cache dates for various reasons. I know the frequency at which my clients' caches are updated. For some it's daily and for others it's every few days. When I see them getting older than they "should" it's usually indicative of an upcoming algo change. The cache will be several days or up to a week behind where it "should" be and then I'll see a spike of direct zombie traffic. That direct zombie traffic is typically 4-7 days in front of a change.

Want to know an oldschool trick in Google? Well, here you go...

Go to different Google datacenters and you might be able to see live tests. There is a site with a list of "current" known datacenters - the list is from 2006, but still works. So, put a known IP in your browser and you'll be redirected to Google.com, BUT, your results will come from that datacenter. Then check out the results. Are they in sync? Are they different? Check cache dates. Here are two IPs of different Google datacenters: 64.233.161.84 and 64.233.161.18. I just went to them and in the search box put cache:[mysite.com] and hit search. One kicked me back a cache date of April 6th and one April 2nd. The April 2nd is what I get in the "live" results on Google.com, but not April 6th. This datacenter is out of sync for some reason and could be a place where they are testing something. It's not an absolute that you'll "find" anything, but if there is a difference at all it's worth investigating. Enjoy!

[samwest]

I love it when people use the term "Zombie traffic"... ;) there needs to be a wiki with the credit going to backdraft7 (my old WebmasterWorld username) toot, toot!

[StoneSolid]

Same here, traffic is down 30% but conversions are down 90% (those 10% few are probably older users and bookmarks). This is in last 7 days or so.

[EditorialGuy]

FWIW, many countries celebrate the May Day (Labor Day) holiday. I've noticed that today (April 30) our traffic is down a bit in a whole slew of countries, especially in Europe, even though it's up slightly in the U.S.A.

[universenet]

from day to day diferent in traffic is big... up.. down...up...down... and somtimes inside same day are big changes
Like google webmaster say... they updating now backlinks report.
"The issue with missing fresh data in the indexing reports in Search Console has been resolved. The only report that still needs some time to update is the backlinks report. Thanks for your patience!"

and who know what more they doing

[glakes]

Anyone checking the news Alphabet earnings are going down.

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

Google's MO is to nail your traffic and pump Adwords. My Google traffic is considerably down, and it's no surprise that I received not one but two emails from Google today.

I wanted to introduce myself. I'm <<Name Removed>>, your new Google Ads Account
Strategist.

I'm here to help you reach the right customers, improve results, and make
the most of your budget & I've reviewed your account. I'd like to share
some insights that can help so your campaigns may be more successful.

We'll discuss new features and strategies, and I'd be more than happy to
answer any questions...

Google's problem is they can't send converting organic or paid traffic...

[universenet]

glakes what do you think about that google can not send organic traffic?
they do not want or they really can not?
(of course I understand that they want max earn)

I understand that in way that searching in google starting to be "too expensive"
If you understand what I mean about
If people will not get best results in search so for normal people searching on google can be more and more expensive...
if they getting all time paid results so this is not always best results too

[seomotionz]

You guys are seeing zombie traffic? Well atleast you guys are seeing traffic.

In many sites, traffic has fell to just zero this week.

[System]

The following 12 messages were cut out to new thread by goodroi. New thread at: google/4944194.htm [webmasterworld.com]
12:25 pm on May 1, 2019 (utc -5)