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]

[v008370]

I'm seeing a huge spike in direct traffic again

[whoa182]

In the last few days, Google is showing Amazon customer reviews for "best widgets" keywords. Anyone else seeing Amazon at the top for similar keywords in their niche? I'm looking at one right now but I can't even see the bulleted list on the page. Weird...

[NickMNS]

@v008370

I'm seeing a huge spike in direct traffic again

Are you filtering for "Known bot traffic" in Google analytics?

I see the spike but only when I view my data not filtered. This suggests that this traffic is entirely from bots.

[v008370]

Cheers @NickMNS, I've had this site for years now and have a number of spam traffic filers in place. These spikes in direct traffic started on the 14th update and happen intermittently.

[NickMNS]

I am referring specifically to the filter in Google Analytics that filters "known bots". It can be set with a checkbox in "view settings" near the bottom of the page:

Bot Filtering
Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders

[JesterMagic]

start to experience facebook level scandals that make the majority of the public more aware of various issues.

Sure the facebook scandals have not been good PR but they have only cause a blip in traffic loss that has probably been gained back by now. Facebook is so intrenched in peoples lives they just go back and use it. This generations favorite tool is Instagram, which is of course owned by Facebook.

Legislation would need to force these companies somehow to play fair. One other area they need to tackle are the App stores (iOS and Android). Developers must give up 30% of revenues earned to be able to use Google Play or the Apple Store. That's crazy and will not change unless other viable stores are able to realistically compete.

[ichthyous]

Is anyone else seeing massive numbers of pages being moved to "Crawled - currently not indexed" in GSC? I'm seeing almost 1,000 pages suddenly moved to that status on the 8th of April and it started showing up last night in GSC. They all appear as being in the index when the url inspection tool is used. Has anyone had improved traffic by submitting these urls again?

[universenet]

ichthyous Like I said before.. google webmaster need now much time for processing all websites.. is very big data... they need time for this
We need wait months for all that what google need to do with migrating to new webmaster tools
If you see some massive nubers..so yes... me see too... we will see this maybe longer...
some websites has millions of url in sitemaps... including my website too

[ichthyous]

@universenet Google has been transitioning data for months if not years to the new console. I think the issue is 301 redirects and 'Googlebot smartphone'. It seems that Googlebot smartphone cannot process the redirects as well as it used to...some pages are being reported as 404 when they have been 301 redirected for years now. I don't understand why google still looks for old urls when the redirects are in place so long...

[universenet]

ichthyous yes.. you say right... they doing that forever seems... and with problems

[samwest]

@BangkokBaby - absolutely. I have not been here in months, until they pulled the carpet out on the 12th...and every day since.....a big zero on traffic and nothing but mobile and zombies...yet main SERP phrases appear unchanged. Seems they just top loaded more of their own crap...because of course Google owns the web.

[ichthyous]

@samwest Yes, but also there may be major problems with indexing right now. Googlebot smartphone isn't indexing some redirects and many pages are being reported as not being in the index when they are. I have seen such low traffic since the 12th it's scary...no email inquiries or calls...nothing but spam. I am hoping this is not permanent but may ease up if the indexing issues are cleared up. That's an if, not a when.

[Milchan]

Sure the facebook scandals have not been good PR but they have only cause a blip in traffic loss that has probably been gained back by now. Facebook is so intrenched in peoples lives they just go back and use it

Im not so sure about that, facebook is actually seeing a decline in user numbers now with a number if people leaving and new user signups slowing for some time. How much of that is due to the bad press we can only guess but one thing for sure is that it has put facebook much more in the headlights and thoughts of politicians and legislators, so the knock on effect could well be that they are reigned in a bit . If similar happened to google, then it might cause things to be tightened in relation to their business model also.

[samwest]

I see a lot of request for very old pages, from before 2010. I agree ichth, if this sticks, we (those affected) are all screwed.

[Mark_A]

@NickMNS I have bot filtering on.
Monday 8th April 2019 was the all time high for me for direct sessions.

[BangkokBaby]

@Mark_A if you look into HTTPS and Referrer-Policy, some sites use a non-Referrer-Policy which means if a user comes from their site, rather than it showing their websites in your referral panel, it shows as (direct). Might be worth having a look into that.

[Mark_A]

@BangkokBaby, thanks for that, I will see what I can find.

[NickMNS]

@Mark_A have you checked to see if there any odd patterns with this direct traffic, is it concentrated in a specific geo-location, or all using the same browser?

@BangkokBaby your HTTPS explanation describes why one sees direct traffic but it does not explain why there is a sudden increase from one day to the next.

[universenet]

How things going maybe soon we can expect Random search in google
So if you are lucky you will be in search one time but not again second time
Every new search - new surprise
Amazing...hehe

[Mark_A]

@NickMNS I am not proficient enough with Analytics.
I can go Acquisition, All Traffic, Source Medium, Direct .. and see my direct stats, but if I come out of there to look for another analysis it defaults to overall stats / numbers again.

[NickMNS]

@Mark_A go into Acquisition => "Overview", choose "direct traffic", then from the "Secondary dimensions" selector choose "user" and then choose "city" or "browser" etc...

[ichthyous]

Is anyone seeing their Search Console updated with horrible results? All of the sudden Googlebot is showing that all my old 301 redirected pages are either "blocked by robots.txt" or "crawled - currently not indexed" or "crawl anomaly". Perhaps a lot of this drop in traffic is related to Google no longer processing redirects? I have a very long list of 301 redirects that I only keep in place because Google seems to never want to let go of an old URL.

[universenet]

if you put in google search example

weather forecast

and got ot 3rd page of search
there is some link to youtube video where some man talking about weather
This is totaly crazy
Video ihas 196 views
So.. this is enough evidence that something gone wrong in google search
Of course last day they fixing webmaster tools indexing...
All inside is full of mistakes for websites
Really migrating to new platform making a lot of trouble to google

[azlinda]

You would think they could program the Google bot to drop URLs that have 301 directs and 404s. Would that be so difficult for them to do? Instead, they carry them forever.

[universenet]

Google has really limit in proccessing data a day.. they take maybe 10 % of net... maybe little less... little more... they can not manage all... they choose what to indexing not because other is not interesting... they need be picky because they have limited.resources.. if they processing 50 petabytes a day...so maybe this is not really enough... maybe need more of 100 ... more of 200... resources are not cheap... if you see that google did not index your websites days and days... is not that your website is not interesting... seems imple google can not follow all
in maassive data beetwen data centers they loosing controls... doing mistakes... for migrating to new webmaster tools they need have reserve in data processing..seems in futur we can expect more noindexing pages

[Milchan]

I didnt get the youtube result you mention on page 3 when searching (in incognito mode) for weather forecast but found that the first page results were quite relevant but second page contained really random stuff with site for weather in dublin ireland, then Durham north carolina and other strange ones - im not even sightly close to those two places and see no reason why that would be considered more relevant than some of the more general weather sites that are lower for example.

The results from google have certainly become far less relevant this last 6 to 12 months without a doubt and it completely goes against their proclaiming that they are trying to match user intent - if they are trying , they are not succeeding and I suspect most that keep an eye on these things might agree.

Honest question - is there anyone here that thinks that the SERPs have become MORE relevant to user intent in the last 6 to 12 months?

[universenet]

Milchan + of course results are not same for everyone .. depends of location ... but yes... some strange things are there
If anybody think that lost traffic because good or bad site... NO... is because google try make structure and not so sucsefull... we will see with time what will be.. even google said this is from google side.. but all us making crazy

[StoneSolid]

Anyone got any adult (#*$!) side project? :)

Try doing a "sex videos" search if you want to see how totally broken, spammy and insane serps look like.
Total spam takeover, fake "brand" sites, no real content, like none of the algo rules apply there.

[southernguy]

@stonesolid No but most everyone knows that the best search results for #*$! are on Bing :-)

[Mark_A]

@NickMNS, many thanks for your guidance, I didn't know there was a way in that way! :-)