Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2019

[Mark_A]

---

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)

---

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

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

[Selen]

I did a search about buying something at an airport (simple English term). Results were like:

tripadvis**.com
tripadvi**.co.nz
tripadvi**.co.za
tripadvi**.co.nz
{other site1}
{other site2}
en.tripadv**.com.hk
{other site3}
{other site4}

--

So Google AI doesn't know that the tripadv** are pretty much the same. What's more, they love subdomains and treat them separately too. That is a nice way of spamming when adding an English subdomain to a local country domain (like .com.hk) ranks much higher than other .coms focusing on one (English) language only.

[StoneSolid]

@NickMNS

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.

OP's search really can't be simpler.
If that is an obscure search, then pretty much any minimal detail search is.

Red nike socks - obscure?
or maybe..
nike socks discount - also obscure?

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.

This is correct, meaning is not always easy to compute but the search you called obscure doesn't really need much computing.
There is no negation, exclusion, inclusion or whatever that would require "thinking".

"oneplus 7 pro weight in wet climate" - now THAT would be an obscure search sample.

I have a site that targets large numbers of long tail searches...

I have 2 of such sites, on both ends of the spectrum, so I believe I see this issue very clearly.

One site is going strong (because of "backlink efforts" as goodroi called it in his post).
Second site is failing due to long tail changes that we're discussing right here, and due to lack of "backlink efforts".

Site 1 gets traffic from all kinds of search terms and while most are proper, I'll openly say lots of it shouldn't end up on my site.
(examples would be just like in this discussion, I'm ranking for "oneplus 7 pro weight" and I just have mentions of "oneplus 7 pro" in article)

Site 2 lost a LOT of long tail traffic, which is also fine if I was properly outranked by better sites - but I checked the competition and competition doesn't answer the queries that my site does.

The bottom line is that it is not perfect but I doubt that this lack of perfection is causing any website to loose ranking.

I believe the opposite.

When you run a big (traffic wise) site, you can easily understand why you're ranking for stuff you didn't even aim for, due to sheer amount of text and broad coverage on site, and all the so called trust you have from google.

Perspective is totally opposite when a small niche site site never gets its detailed precise traffic because a word gets dropped out of specific query.

[Milchan]

I agree with stonesolid's post above but for those that think it is an obscure search lets just agree to disagree as seems pointless to argue that point back and forth.

That detail aside though the fact is that both bing and duckduckgo served up much more relevant results to that query and gave me the answer I was looking for a lot faster. I also believe that google would have done the same in the past, probably several months ago but certainly a year or so ago (putting aside the fact the phone and content didn't exist then - im talking from a search performance/ results perspective).

Now of course today the results have been updated and are different and in this case the information is actually presented in a specifications box so the result is now actually better from a user perspective but I wonder how common the updating of results like that actually is. It is likely that in this case the high volume of searches for that product might have triggered that.

The point is, that I don't want disagreements over semantics to move us away from, is that recently I have personally experienced on a regular basis much more difficulty in finding the information I have been looking for when using google than I did in the past - I was offering up that search as something I saw as a good example to open a discussion - and found that reverting to bing or duckduckgo often will result in me finding it easier. Others have reported the same kind of issues.
That of course cant be considered to be conclusive evidence that "google is worse" , just that google in many cases doesn't behave the way we have been used to in the past. Also, from a user perspective, it is not the end of the world to quickly use a different search engine - I found what I needed to in seconds anyway. I just think that if the results continue along these lines it might actually start to effect googles user base - I for one will likely now fire up bing first for some of my searches now if I feel it might give better results.

[aristotle]

For people who are always whining about google's search results, you should keep in mind that the vast majority of articles on the web are poor quality. For a lot of topics, there simply isn't any high quality information available anywhere on the web. There may be some articles, but they're just churned-out garbage.

In other words, oftentimes Google has to show bad results because there aren't any good results.

[StoneSolid]

Ah, my crystal ball needs tuning.. I was expecting someone calling us up on "whining" way sooner than now. I predicted it happening on page 5 at latest, but it took much more days.

For a lot of topics, there simply isn't any high quality information available anywhere on the web

Name one please. I'm dying to see an example.

[universenet]

For people who are always whining about google's search results, you should keep in mind that the vast majority of articles on the web are poor quality. For a lot of topics, there simply isn't any high quality information available anywhere on the web. There may be some articles, but they're just churned-out garbage.

In other words, oftentimes Google has to show bad results because there aren't any good results.

aristotle... there is TOO MUCH information on net...
I do not understand how you can find that is not enough good?

TOO MUCH .. and google just need search best and no search better paid information
It is more of 80% of net very good but not avaliable on search because google no need it if no paid information to google
Google is what can make feeling that is not enough good because exclude many pages and favorising garbage.. paid garbage
ok... now in last time some websites decided to go out of search engines because they have million of users what want be hidden from public or is some other reason but nobody can not say that is not enough good information... it is TOO MUCH googd informations... websites are better and better

[samwest]

Odd anomaly happening at 7pm 5/15/2019...no drop in serps, yet traffic has been at zero for over two hours. Do we have to check if server is plugged in AGAIN? The web is dead, long live the web. [downdetector.com...]

[NickMNS]

I'm seeing odd traffic patterns as well, 1pm, 3pm, and between 5 and 6pm EDT showed abnormally low traffic. But since the last big update these strange drops have been appearing every so often, so it is hard to say if this just a new normal or systemic issue. I'm thinking new normal.

Probably something like, in the words of Miyagi San "Ads on..., Ads off..., Ads on..., Ads off...", I think it was wax, but ads work too.

Oh and (sticking with the same reference) getting ad clicks these days (conversion for you e-commers) is like catching a fly with chop sticks.

[aristotle]

It is more of 80% of net very good

So while nobody was looking, a giant thick layer of cream must have somehow materialized and risen to the surface of the cesspool.

[universenet]

aristotie... problem for google is that can not recognize what is good and what is garbage ,, is not easy in forest calling internet
good things can have links but bad unique garbage can exist too
So google all time fighting how recognize good website
Example ... if you walking on street in New York and listening people what talking and writting all talk text in your website you will have very unique website
but for who will be this useful and interesting?
This is why somtimes we feel that net is full of wesbites what are not useful.. this is correct... but is correct too that net is full of good websites...
Depends of search engines if we will be succesfull find things what we need or not
People do not have time for reserching... they need information in few seconds... if search engines can not give this so good things wil be lost for people
People can not investigate what is good... they using search engines for that
If search engines going in wrong way all going in wrong way on net
if you writing what people talking on street and making videos so you will have website like this
[reddit.com...]
useful?
it is billion links to that website like google say... so should be very useful
is really very useful?
I think is just popular for some population or group people
Popular things somtimes can destroy internet

[NickMNS]

The problem as I see it is not that there are only bad websites, or no good websites. The problem is that once a successful format is hashed out, that is website is created about a topic and it rises to the top of the rankings and users go to the website, all the competitor websites will begin to mimic and/or out right copy the format and the content and then modify that content in someway to gain advantage, some will be successful others will fail miserably. The net result will be a web flooded with very similar website with very little unique content or value to offer. The website's that did offer completely unique content are pushed way back because they are now the outlier, too different. Similarity is a self fulfilling prophecy in a filter bubble world.

[BushyTop]

What's everyone seeing? anyone seeing the update soften a little and results reverting to pre-update?

[glitterball]

In other words, often times Google has to show bad results because there aren't any good results.

I could not disagree more with that statement:
Google has been very successful at filtering out the really bad results, but at the expense of filtering out the really good stuff too.
It would be very unusual nowadays to land on some nasty or totally irrelevant page that has tricked Google with a doorway page, Google-bombing or any other tricks.
Unfortunately, because Google's trust filters are set so high, smaller specialist websites appear much lower in the results than generic articles written by less well-informed writers on very large websites.

It needs to be noted that with Google, the Pareto principle applies: if Google can eliminate the majority of bad results (at the expense of 20% of excellent results) by applying an easy change to the algorithm, then they will do it. Mix in that Charlie Monger observation of 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome', and we can easily explain why the results are the way they are.

[Milchan]

What's everyone seeing? anyone seeing the update soften a little and results reverting to pre-update?

No, im seeing that since last update it has all but killed my conversions and lowered my traffic by 30%. Im concerned that recovery is not starting to show because if it doesnt im in trouble.

[SnowMan68]

@BushyTop

Yes, since about April 28th we've seen a big turn around.

[BushyTop]

Argh right... thanks @milchan and @snowman68. Interesting that we are seeing it soften slightly. You probably wont want to hear this, but I've heard/read that there is some suspicion that this latest roll out was a test for a full roll out in the next few days. That of course could be a load of nonsense, but I thought i would report. Based on who these people are, I am inclined to believe there's a strong possibility to the rumour - coupled with the fact that we've seen a huge influx of Gbot activity the last 4 days.....

[Milchan]

to be honest I have given up trying to second guess google and even trying to make changes to try to improve SEO - no one knows what or why things happen (I suspect google doesnt even know). All I can do is get on with working on things I need to do and what happens will happen.To be honest though , things seem pretty pointless at the moment and it is hard to be motivated to do anything.

It seems like webmasters / site owners are among some of the early groups that are going to be feeling the negative effects of AI and in the coming years there will be many many more people losing their livelihoods to an even greater extent. If they feel how I do currently (and I suspect they will and much more) I can see massive problems in society with huge increases in suicides, depression, drug abuse and probably even more mass shootings.

[JesterMagic]

SERT is reporting that Google says that their was no core ranking algo update on May 9th: [seroundtable.com...]

I was hit defiantly by something and a few others mentioned it as well. Must have been one of the daily algo tweaks that had an impact which was larger than normal.

[Milchan]

core update or minor update its irrelevant really and all that matters is the effects it has. Also, the terms core and minor have no meaning at all for us when we have no idea what the parameters are that they used to ascertain which term apply. They made a change, it had effects.

[StupidIntelligent]

I must live in a different world because any query that has 4 ads on top will only give me click if the site is in top 3. So, if you aren't in the best 3, you'll get zero traffic for those keywords. Why cry for ranking when even that has become meaningless.

[cnvi]

@StupidIntelligent:

Exactly. With Google owning page one full of ads or its own content that takes you to more ads, and shuffling organic way down, we’re forced (illegally) to pay or be left out. Its a sad state of affairs on todays web.

[mosxu]

Only zombies here...

[samwest]

SERT is reporting that Google says that their was no core ranking algo update on May 9th:

right...and Lee Harvey acted alone. ;D

Today I came across a SERP page that had ZERO organic results...all ADS.
That's the likely the coming format for page one and your "new normal".

[ichthyous]

I'm seeing a minor improvement this week. My placement has been ticking up every day according to Semrush, however my actual traffic is flat and zero inquiries for three days now. As usual, I get a sudden burst of inquiries right when the update starts and then it seems to go quiet. I can only imaging how much business I would be doing if Google actually sent me the traffic I used to get without them playing with the knobs behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz.

[jmorgan]

Anyone see any movement in the last couple/few days?

[System]

The following message was cut out to new thread by robert_charlton.

New thread is now in Google Business issues, at:

In face of Google search monopoly, what can individuals do?
https://www.webmasterworld.com/goog/4946140.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:56 am (utc) on May 17, 2019]

[Martin Ice Web]

The last 3 days have been very strong with good converting traffic. But at 10 AM today they flipped the switch and traffic disappeared again. What has left are zombies again.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:57 am (utc) on May 17, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after post split out to new thread [/edit]

[BushyTop]

Seeing some more changes again today ¬_¬

[SnowMan68]

@ BushyTop. I haven't noticed any changes. What are you seeing?

[StoneSolid]

Seeing some more changes again today ¬_¬

@ BushyTop. I haven't noticed any changes. What are you seeing?

Legolas, what do your elf eyes see?

:)