Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2019

[Mark_A]

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System: The following 12 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4940766.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 12:25 pm on May 1, 2019 (utc -5)

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For my main current site, Google Organic accounts for 28% of sessions.

I swear it takes up 80% of the effort though!

[RedBar]

@Poshnjari ... Wow! A member for 7+ years and this is your first post?

I lost my website traffic more 80% Now what to do?

Unfortunately no one has the answer to that since no one knows ... possibly even Google.

It's all an horrendous mess, if one has been hit, bad luck, not hit, one's been very fortunate.

Me? I've closed several unique widget sites and seriously considering the closure of several others plus locking down my most important trade sites to registered, bona fide, trade users only ... Yay G, information that used to be freely available and not found anywhere else on The Net may completely disappear from the public's view.

Congratulations

[StoneSolid]

Here is one more thing made possible by current state of google (backlinks > everything).

Black hatters simply bombard a site with hacked links and the results are very juicy.

Seeing more and more of it in many niches but I'll just give the wildest example I saw so far:
[prntscr.com...]

Before someone says "yes but that doesn't last long" - I agree, it doesn't, but I'm monitoring the site from the alexa graph since March. That is 2 months of very nice profits (and counting..).

[southernguy]

Before someone says "yes but that doesn't last long" - I agree, it doesn't, but I'm monitoring the site from the alexa graph since March. That is 2 months of very nice profits (and counting..).

Agreed @StoneSolid several of my competitors have been ranking well with these methods and a few of them have been going strong for over 6 months now. I have done a few myself to keep the money coming it but Google search is truly flawed right now, what I thought would only last for a few months has turned into a long term nightmare.

[BushyTop]

Anyone still seeing changes?

[Milchan]

Before someone says "yes but that doesn't last long" - I agree, it doesn't, but I'm monitoring the site from the alexa graph since March. That is 2 months of very nice profits (and counting..).

Ive seen this lasting for well over 18 months and having a competitor dominate from it - if done in a sneaky way google does nothing about it at all. Google does not act on reports of paid links, spam, links, fake reviews what so ever

[SnowMan68]

Since April 28th we have gained about 23-25%. We had experienced a drop after the latest core run in March. We are close to even again.

Have to wonder if something is about to drop again though. Feels like we're prime for it.

[Milchan]

I have just had a good example from personal use of google search were by it did not serve results that were good for my very obvious user intent.
I searched for "oneplus 7 pro weight" (I didnt use quotes in the search but it should be very easy to ascertain what I am looking for) and simply wanted to find out what the Oneplus 7 Pro phone weighs - something that google would in the past likely have returned the results for quite easily and quickly.

The SERPs contained a featured snippet for a trustedreview.com article that reviews the phone - that article does not have any reference to weight in it at all.

Then comes a People Also Ask box with 4 questions that dont help me find my answer. One of those questions is "Is OnePlus 7 5 g? - which then provides some text that does not even answer that question (also all those questions are for a different phone the oneplus 7 and not the pro)

Next comes a Top Stories box with 2 links to reviews by the Verge which also do not contain the weight

Following this is a videos both with links to 3 video reviews - I didnt watch these as cant be bothered having watched 2 review videos already just before this search.

Then comes the organic results , well below the fold, with the first one being the exact same Verge review from the first slot in the Top Stories section above
Second is a techradar review that also does not contain the weight

The next result is a gadgetsnow review link which actually does contain the weight but I only found this out after looking through all this to write this little report - I had already found out the weight by going to bing.com and doing the exact same search and clicking on the top result (a gsmarena article called OnePLus 7 Pro - Full Phone Specifications) which gave me exactly what I needed quickly. DuckDuckGo gave me the exact same result.

This is a very clear example of how google results now do not provide the user with clear and relevant info in a way that is presented in to the user in a clear way. The AI is making it difficult for people to find what they want and the SERPs are presenting things in such a horrible ways with all these different kinds of boxes, questions etc that apart from pushing organic results so low down no one will see them , it is providing info that is not relavent.
Google is broken for sure.

[Poshnjari]

@RedBar
eh yes, I had forgotten :D

[Shepherd]

oneplus 7 pro weight

Maybe this is YMMV situation, I see the weight in the snippet of the 3rd organic result...

That said, Bing does answer the query a little better.

Seems like a fairly obscure search (I've never heard of a Oneplus phone) to hang a "google is broken" tag on.

[HereWeGo123]

Just a speculatory observation here guys. Preaching to the choir here. Obviously Google monitors this forum along with other forums, collects user feedback, other data and as has Quality Raters evaluate. As a result, I “suspect” that the next major quality core update will have a lot of reversals. I am confident that many (not all) sites that got hit on March 12 and after which were not supposed to be hit may see recovery even if they did not do much so-called cleanup. Of course not all sites will recover because some of them deserved to get slapped due to various reasons. But I suppose this is the case with every major and significant update. But I am bringing this up now because never have I been dissatisfied with the search results based on personal use as much as I have been now. As a result of my personal frustration as a regular consumer using Google, I have been discouraged from searching for some queries because I was convinced I would not get the search results I need.

[Milchan]

Seems like a fairly obscure search (I've never heard of a Oneplus phone) to hang a "google is broken" tag on.

not obscure at all - OnePlus are a fast growing mobile manufacturer that in the space of a few years has actually made inroads into the premium phone market and now has the 5th largest market share in the USA (much more in other countries) - yes it is a small percent compared to apple and samsung but considering those brands are sales are shrinking along with overall phone sales it is an impressive feat.

Anyway , my point is that just because you happen to not know what it is it doesnt mean it is obscure and a search engine will without a doubt be aware of the One Plus brand, should have a large amount of indexed sites referencing that new phone model and should be able to differentiate between <phone model name> + weight , in order to return relevant results that contain the weight - that is the key here, google returned all sorts of sites that referenced the One Plus brand (so clearly knew what it was) but as I outlined in the original post they did not contain the weight.

Also, obviously I am not hanging the google is broken tag on them purely from this single search either - I just posted about it directly after having a bad user experience (from a purely personal user perspective not an SEO / web site owner perspective) as it seemed like an apt example that was in line what many on here and elsewhere are saying and that I have experienced myself in recent months.

[StoneSolid]

It is a good example, because it goes into long tail category - and google currently sucks for long tail.
I should start writing down such examples because I run into bad search stuff daily, during personal and professional use.

Long tail queries specially fail if your search is for something specific about a well known product, something that would never be listed in product description, yet something that some savvy reviewer would notice and write about.

Example "versace shirt something specific" and you have no chance of finding it.
Versace is a strong brand + only strong brands are selling it, and the "something specific" part of the query most often gets fully ignored.
No chance you'll find the info you ask for in such a cesspool of big brand ecommerce sites.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't that be rule #1 in google algorithm - resulting pages should contain all words from the query.

Once that minimum is honored, they can build up on it (synonyms, variations, grammar... etc).

[universenet]

I saw enough with keywords "weather forecast" I saw in third page some youtube video with man (man looking like escape from prison) what talking about weather forecast... video had so much views ....almost 150 views... crazy... not 150 000 JUST 150....
and this should be like "good search results from google" ?
What is argument from google for put that video in third page in search results what handle half billion results?
Exactly in search what handle many many pages.. millions pages we can discovering if google working good or not
For now results are not encouraging

[Milchan]

Call me crazy, but shouldn't that be rule #1 in google algorithm - resulting pages should contain all words from the query.

I think you have kind of hit the nail on the head (more simply than I was putting it) - the results I got had plenty related to <phone model> but not about + <specific info I wanted> - i.e. I may aswell just searched for the <phone model>. It never used to work like that.

@universenet - I agree there is so much stuff that seem non relevant , although I cant fully relate what your saying about "weather forecast" as that to me seems quite a generic search - but I guess your saying there is no logic that you can see in some of the results from that search as to why they would be considered relevant above many (millions?) of others.

[EditorialGuy]

Call me crazy, but shouldn't that be rule #1 in google algorithm - resulting pages should contain all words from the query.

Not necessarily. Meaning matters more than exact words do.

For example, you might search on "beardie dog" and get results for bearded collies. Or you might search on "condenser mike" ("mike" being the old spelling for "mic") and get results for condenser microphones. In each case, the results would be correct even though the listed pages might not include the word "beardie" or "mike."

[Selen]

When you search for "BMW {something specific}" and get results about {something specific}, the results are correct too. When the results would be incorrect though.

[Mark_A]

I see this in Goggle Ads also. We target "green widget" exact match and now someone searching for "green widget special details Russia" gets our ad under exact match close variant. Assuming they wanted green widgets from Russia, Google has wasted their time and our money! .

[riccarbi]

I searched for "oneplus 7 pro weight"

Just as an experiment, have you tried to reverse the terms (i.e. "weight oneplus 7 pro") and checked whether results are more pertinent or not?
I remember some old technical paper in which Google pointed out that the order of terms in a page title matters, maybe it's the same for long-tail search queries.

[Bluejeans]

For example, you might search on "beardie dog" and get results for bearded collies. Or you might search on "condenser mike" ("mike" being the old spelling for "mic") and get results for condenser microphones. In each case, the results would be correct even though the listed pages might not include the word "beardie" or "mike."

That's a different matter. Your example is of a "did you mean" type whereas Milchan's is of a "results must include" type. (Of course it "must include" the word. Otherwise why would I type it?)

Milchan's experience is now so frequent with my personal searches, I barely notice it anymore. I just steel myself for an ordeal when I know a search may be even slightly uncommon. The problem is that G has turned the dial way up on authority and way down on relevance.

[JesterMagic]

@EditorialGuy - I understand what you are saying but your splitting hairs a bit. I would consider "condenser mike", "condenser mike", and "condenser microphone" pretty much the same search query.

I don't know anything about microphones so I could be wrong and this is Google's failing as well. The "AI" is so limited . It doesn't understand the content it consumes at all. That's the reason why Google is pushing structured data so much.

Anyways, it's one of my biggest complaint as well Google dropping keywords from my queries. Google tends to generalize search results now by not including important keywords (not counting conjunctions). This means they tend to return more fluff pieces from major media outlets.

[StoneSolid]

@EditorialGuy

I'll quote myself, just so you can see the other line below the one you quoted :)

Call me crazy, but shouldn't that be rule #1 in google algorithm - resulting pages should contain all words from the query.

Once that minimum is honored, they can build up on it (synonyms, variations, grammar... etc).

Also, I'm more thinking:
beardie dog dancing polka - if there are results for it, by all means, show me all of it, rank it fairly

if there are NO such results at all, google is welcome to offer "did you mean" and "people also ask", but I really don't want ads for beagle dogs and dobermann dancing on a rave
(such results are specially clumsy on phone search, when you're in a hurry and have to scroll forever through wrong results)

[RedBar]

I searched for "oneplus 7 pro weight"

Hahaha ... Out of interest I did the search and sure enough Google gets it correct at the top of their page for the Pro at 206gms.

Why am I laughing? Because it also shows it's from 22 hours ago ... way to go WebmasterWorld, let's all do our hard-to-find searches here:-)

[Shepherd]

it's from 22 hours ago

Might also be that this phone is not even available until May 21st, obscure search for information about a product that hasn't even been released yet...

[EditorialGuy]

I understand what you are saying but your splitting hairs a bit. I would consider "condenser mike", "condenser mike", and "condenser microphone" pretty much the same search query.

I would, too, and that's exactly the point: Meaning is what matters (as opposed to restricting the search results to "all the words from the query").

[Milchan]

Hahaha ... Out of interest I did the search and sure enough Google gets it correct at the top of their page for the Pro at 206gms.

Why am I laughing? Because it also shows it's from 22 hours ago ... way to go WebmasterWorld, let's all do our hard-to-find searches here:-)

Lol Yeah , I now see a specifications google box top of page that shows the weight.
Does raise some interesting questions though. Did the AI recognize that there were a few searches (at the very least from webmaster users there were a few) for the the weight and then trigger something to create that box?
Or is there a google employee monitoring this forum that trigger it somehow? Im doubtful this is the case but if there is please let us know if this is the case and if you can even shed some light on how this info might have suddenly appeared that would be great!

[StoneSolid]

@EditorialGuy

I would, too, and that's exactly the point: Meaning is what matters (as opposed to restricting the search results to "all the words from the query").

Me:

Once that minimum is honored, they can build up on it (synonyms, variations, grammar... etc).

I'm repeating this for the third time because you obviously skipped the first two time I've put it.

No one is expecting fully different search for every version of the same word.

I'm just saying that all keywords in the query should be honored (in one way or another, exact or variation of it), and very often it does NOT happen.

Someone already wrote here that "lately coding answers are impossible to find" - that is also a great example of what we're discussing now.
If coding query doesn't get searched with all keywords included, no way you can find a precise answer for it.

[Milchan]

@shepherd

Might also be that this phone is not even available until May 21st, obscure search for information about a product that hasn't even been released yet...

Your presumption that it is an "obscure search" is purely due to the fact that you hadn't heard of it (that's understandable of course) , but that doesn't make it an obscure search. I provided some explanation as to why it wasn't but as you seem to be maintaining that it is then I suggest you check out Google Trends [trends.google.com...] and searches yesterday where you will see that OnePlus Pro 7 was the 3rd highest search in the US yesterday above even news stories like "Alabamba Abortion law" and "WhatsApp".

[universenet]

Someone already wrote here that "lately coding answers are impossible to find" - that is also a great example of what we're discussing now.
If coding query doesn't get searched with all keywords included, no way you can find a precise answer for it.

If you expect that all words will be included in query so for google this can be problem because in this way is not possible put google ads... is not so many ads variation how many possible queries is... is logical problem for google...normal organic search is more wide and can cover almost all variation of words but displaying ads from google what google pushing all time can not do it..we are limited now inside google wish and not inside what google should do
Goal is now best ads results and not best search results

And next problem is that google for now does not have enough data in search... is like lost some things..

[Shepherd]

Your presumption that it is an "obscure search" is purely due to the fact that you hadn't heard of it

Has nothing to do with my not having heard of this phone before, has everything to do with "oneplus 7 pro weight" being an obscure search. "OnePlus Pro 7" is not an obscure search. "how much does the OnePlus Pro 7 weigh" would even be a less obscure search. Couple that with fact that this product is new, not even released yet, one has to wonder how many documents are (were) available at the time of the search that included the weight specs for the phone. Judging the search results based on this search is a red herring at best.

[NickMNS]

Your presumption that it is an "obscure search"

The term you looked up in Trends [oneplus 7 pro] is likely not an "obscure search" but the term "oneplus 7 pro weight" certainly is.

I would just like to point out one important fact in this discussion, the problem of inferring specific meaning from a collections of words is not a trivial CS problem. Google may not always get things right. Yes it can be frustrating when it goes wrong and I like many others see cases where it goes wrong often. But focusing on a single search term or cherry picking terms where the systems has failed is not representative of the performance of system as whole.

I have a site that targets large numbers of long tail searches (as in statistically located in tail of the distribution, not long, as in many words, ie: obscure search terms), over the years I have seen Google improve by leaps and bounds at associating the correct terms to the correct meanings. In the past I would often get traffic for unrelated search terms because all the words matched a subset of words on a page or in a title. These have become rare, and tend to occur when the search terms are linguistically ambiguous or simply misspelled.

This said, Google still has a lot of work a head to get this to be perfect. One area I see an issue is with negation, eg: "Blue widget that is not round". The result often drop the not and returns results for "round blue widgets". I see this a lot in coding queries, eg: "js how to replace substring no jQuery" this will almost always return answers for jQuery.

The bottom line is that it is not perfect but I doubt that this lack of perfection is causing any website to loose ranking. To the contrary, the gradual improvements probably reduce number users sent to websites that have benefited from misguided matches.