Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2019

[EditorialGuy]

The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4944194.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 11:00 am on Jun 1, 2019 - (PDT -8)

Also, with the ad model a majority of people know that you are trying to get something out of them - a purchase, a signup etc - so there is a lesser level of trust there but if they find you through organic whilst they are in the research stage and you provide good info and value, then there is trust built and you get more sales.

On the other hand, people who are actively shopping for a product or service may regard ads as useful information. That was the concept behind Yellow Pages directories and magazines like Computer Shopper.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:07 pm (utc) on Jun 1, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new thread [/edit]

[Dimitri]

I feel the same as @SEO2Go. If people have the wrong motivation to create a site, then it can't work .

[Venomous1]

What do you think about it? - Just another Google Update. I personally have no preference. My mindset is like when I trade stocks. Expect to lose your money at any given time.

What would be the immediate solution? - There is none. Just sit back and ride it out. People that are frantically bashing away at their keyboards, churning out long ass articles, fixing technical issues, just stop. This is the kind of thing that you should have done anyway. No amount of words or redirects will stop the rot. The wheels are in motion.

Start a new project and let this one rest for now? - Diversification is key. Never have all your eggs in one basket.

Do you think it could be a kind of punishment? - No, just Google updating their algorithm.

V

[Dimitri]

This is the kind of thing that you should have done anyway.

+1

[Eloiza Gabriela]

I do not usually monetize with ads, adsense etc.
My websites are exclusively for selling affiliate products.
The famous reviews about products.
Often I create funnel top content to touch the pain of those who search for a term, from depoix I go down the funnel with remarketing, ads, emails, etc.
However, without positioning, the top of the funnel no longer exists.

[Dimitri]

My websites are exclusively for selling affiliate products.
The famous reviews about products.

There are millions of sites of that kind, think about which kind of added value your site can bring to pop out of the crowd.

[Eloiza Gabriela]

Thanks for the answer.
It made me think a bit out of the box.

This is the first update where I get caught up, and my traffic goes all away.

I was having a good time.

But really it is, never put all the eggs in the same basket.

Thank you again.

I'll cool my head, and tomorrow I'll come back on a new project.

[ybendiks]

For those who are mentioning loss of keywords in their SEMRush account, I saw the same thing on one of my sites where I lost 30K keywords in past 3 days but my traffic was unchanged.

I also noticed that they rolled out a keyword database update right at the same time (June 3-4)

I reached out to them and they confirmed that theres no actual keyword loss, just their database update adding new keywords and removing ones they no longer deem valuable.

So check on that before getting despondent.

[whoa182]

@SEO2Go

I wouldn't drop my site because I'm interested in the topic and I live it every day. I've been a blogger since 2006, first started on Blogspot, and then moved to self-hosted WordPress site in 2014. I had hundreds of posts that I migrated over but later deleted many of the old ones that were created before 2014 due to poor quality.

Bear in mind, the articles can take 4-5 hours (some way more) to write, and I simply don't have the time to do all that research and write a good article, only for it to do well and then Google throw it from position 0 and 1 on Google to page 5.

The way I get my content is from experience and through analyzing data, reading peer-reviewed journals, doing surveys, etc. A lot of the praise I get from readers is about how thoroughly I explain the topics and how well-researched my arguments are compared to many people in the niche. A lot of them are very "woo-woo" if you know what I mean.

I'll probably be on government benefits within weeks and looking for a job anyway, so I won't have the time anymore.

And I mean this is becoming a joke now... I've been going up and down like a yo-yo since August 18. Down in August, Up in early Oct, Down on Halloween, Up March, Down June. With each point having gains and losses between 50-80%.

And I've seen this happen to other health sites with millions of page views a month. Exact same pattern. Some of them even have all Ph.D.'s and MD's reviewing and writing the content. So it makes me think, what hope do I have? Even if I niche down a lot.. which is what I've been doing. It's not just about "general health".

I'll have to change my expectations and consider this a long term project. I still believe I can succeed, but I'll have to accept it will take longer than anticipated. And I've learned so much from this project, too, which I can apply better and probably rank better in non YMYL niches.

Although, as I build up another website, I will try to engage more with the community in forums and other bloggers in the niche to gain more authority. I've been reluctant to go into Youtube, but I think I'll pursue that as a side project, instead of writing more articles. I'll make videos based on the topics I talk about on my website. Even 10-year-old YT videos with 200-500 views and also short text to speech videos are performing better than my articles now, so maybe it can't be too hard.

I have quite a few other interests and hobbies besides my main topic, one of which I love talking about I'm very passionate about it. But I just need to look at the competition and think of a unique angle I can come in from and find some low comp keywords.

I think many people start off writing about a topic they don't know much about but they learn over time. And they get experience and expertise over time. You don't have to know everything, you just need to know how to research and know more than the other person.

I don't run ads on my site, just have a few Amazon affiliate links on around 30% of my posts with all the rest being informational content. This provided a fulltime income, which was fairly low, but growing steadily.

My content was always about helping people solve their problems. Helping people find specific types of products that can take quite a lot of time to find. Putting information in front of people that is not available elsewhere.. so I'd go after underserved searched queries. Many of them are still not properly answered, and no one can find my page anymore. It's very sad to see rambling and poorly written reddit posts (with no source) in the niche now ranking above me.

I really wanted to focus and dedicate myself to just one project, but this is not viable or smart anymore. I've watched friends see massive success in niches outside of health (earning 10K per month) in the time I've been serious about blogging (2017). I also know others who have struggled because of updates and they are also in health.

There is nothing to fix on my website, I've improved just about every part of it and all those improvements were reflected by user metrics in a big way.

I've learned my lesson.

[SEO2Go]

@Whoa182, you sound very passionate about the work you do. I wasn't really referring to people like you who do actual work and research, rather those that flip flop around the latest, hottest trend and muddying the waters of those that actually know the topics they are writing about. Search for anything on Google these says and you will get tens of millions or results--many exactly the same or very close to each other.

For me, these updates never have a glaring red flag....instead, everything is just lower. The high points and low points still look the same, but they are now just smaller high points and low points--nothing jumps out as being hit. Everything is just lower.

[Milchan]

Start a new project and let this one rest for now? - Diversification is key. Never have all your eggs in one basket.

It might be possible to say to someone that makes sites that exist purely to create revenue from ads, affiliate links etc find another niche or project or make different sites but for those that have a site that was built on top of a business (i.e. the business exists outside of the actual web site even if now the internet is the majority of the income source) it is not so easy. Some of us have situations that are far more complicated than just firing up another wordpress site with a new domain and trying again. I have employees, contracts, leases, obligations in the future to fulfill. For a long time I didn't have all my eggs in one basket but in recent years, and quite quickly, it seems all the baskets have been taken away by the likes of google, amazon and others and now google has built a fence around my remaining basket and restricts who it allows in. I simply do not have time to work on completely new projects anyway.
Im not stupid and am not just going to sit there watching everything disappear and just complain of course. Im trying to pivot and progress on my exit plan but my situation means it cannot be done over night it is/will take me at least 1 year more (and I have been working on it for about a year already).I have to change pretty much everything in my life , sell everything I have, leave the country I live in , update my skills in order to get a job again, take my wife far away from her family and exit the business. It is a momentous task and I have to do all that because of google.

[MayankParmar]

@whoa182 I am also in the panic mode. I don't know what I should do to fix the site and regain traffic quickly. I couldn't find any case studies where sites quickly recovered after penalty. It all looks like we have to wait for the next core update which may come in October or next year.

I am also considering creating a new site.

[Eloiza Gabriela]

In my case I also have employees to pay monthly.
In total there are 9 families supported by my sites.

I just want to understand where things are going.

In the last 12 months we had excellent results, some better months others worse, but always getting paid and a little left over for cash flow and emergency.

I would like to understand where things are going to take me to a starting point.

I'm a little worried now, because everything I thought I was doing right now is gone. That 's what my rankings show.

[EditorialGuy]

Our editorial travel-planning site's Google traffic has been up slightly in the last few days, but not enough to get excited about.

Then again, our niche (travel) may be more stable than some. If RankRanger is correct, certain niches have been impacted more than others (gambling, for instance). See the RankRanger chart in this Barry Schwartz article at Search Engine Land:

[searchengineland.com...]

[mosxu]

As usual, brain computer interface works

[southernguy]

What do you think about it? - Just another Google Update. I personally have no preference. My mindset is like when I trade stocks. Expect to lose your money at any given time.

@Venomous1 I agree totally I used to be passionate about my sites but after taking several beatings and especially the one in August it's about business. I believe we are competing against full-blown agencies in countries where labor is cheap and they have one goal on their mind and that is to make $$$ just look at the quality of many of the sites out there, its pitiful. I changed my ways months ago and went the way of the dark side.

@Eloiza Gabriela Take a look at whats ranking in your niche, if you did it once you can do it again!

Don't do what I did and expect for the site to come back after a couple of months, mine never did (one of mine is beginning to but slowly), even if it does it will not come back like before. Be proactive, look for a couple of good domains (dropped or expired) start fresh keep your other sites running but in my opinion when this happens its time to move forward get a couple of sites up now don't play nice, get the content up there and get links to them hopefully this will keep you afloat and get some money coming back in.

I know many here say avoid the health niche it all depends, I am still doing it. I really feel for those who have quality sites and got hammered ( especially those passionate about their topics), it sucks big time but its pretty clear Google doesn't want quality anymore.

[RedBar]

I should have prepared for this last year and built up a few websites outside of health.

Do you really believe yours is the only affected sector?

[Halaspike]

It is still very early, Google is still rolling out this update to all their data centers. [twitter.com...]

Once the update has been fully rolled out, some of you here will probably get back all your lost traffic so stop panicking.

[jmorgan]

I actually think it's starting to settle down going by Semrush's sensor most recent value of just 2.2 which on a normal day would be interpreted as nothing much changing.

[MayankParmar]

Even when the update rolled out, the Semrush sensor showed normal variations.

[Venomous1]

@Michan - I totally understand your situation, especially when your have a bricks &mortar shop/office. I really do, so I'm torn on my answer and please don't take it in a negative light.

I feel your answer simply isn't good enough, and there are things you could do, like a second site, that is a lead gen site for your existing business, so yes, your can diversify.

For example, I work at a financial services company, and yes, I have other sites that I build that feeds leads into the main site. There are ways keep that traffic coming in, but I do flsee where you're coming from.

From what I have read here, everyone seems to be in a state of absolute panic like and reading all these blogs by these so-called "experts" and implementing whatever rubbish they are spouting, when the fact is, NO ONE knows exactly what the update is about!

@southernguy I used to be incredibly passionate about my websites, but like you, that stopped when I got hit hard. I was in absolute bits like I'd just lost my mother or something super bad happened, and then it dawned on me what my grandad used to tell me.

"There's no emotion in business" - and that is absolutely freaking true. I'm passionate about SEO. Websites will always come and go.

V

[sk7411]

Via @Danny : The core update is rolled out:




[twitter.com...]

[MayankParmar]

And still no sight of recovery. It's all over :(

[Mr_Dok]

Google lost it all! its bsolutely chaos now in SERPs. youngest, Thin and irrelevant content sites is Up and old, rich and quality content sites is no more in priority. what the hell is going on here?!

The Dictatorship of Google Decide What is True and What is Not and what you should see and What you should Not.

Someone need to stop this hooligans right now.

[emperor2]

Since 3rd of June, organic traffic reduced 50-60%. Never had this much of impact. Still worried after 4 days. GA looks scary.
Hope Google will fix this and everything will be back to normal soon. Just renewed expensive hosting for 2 years :(

[Halaspike]

Brand new blogspot websites with very poor designs and content outranking older websites with perfect quality contents and designs.

YouTube videos searchers don't even want to see are taking all the top spots pushing sites below and killing them.

Youtubers copy contents from quality websites and end up outranking them.

The quality of the internet is dead right now thanks to Google.

[Dimitri]

youngest, thin and irrelevant

Like the Millennials... may be Google just reflects the society ...

[Dexter1]

Now I see that my pinterest pins are better ranked than articles,
At the moment, domain authority is in the first place

[SEO2Go]

All time record lows yesterday on all fronts--traffic, ad revenue, conversions.

I just finished removing all traces of Google code from my website. Won't make a difference but it makes me feel better. Changing web browsers, going to buy an iPhone, dumping Gmail....wow, this feels great!

[Dexter1]

I've been teaching my kids for a long time not to use anything from Google.

[whoa182]

Yeah Google, I need a Medic...

[imgur.com...]

I cannot see how this is right when even crappy Reddit posts with gibberish are ranking on page one while my articles which used to rank #1 are now on page 5.

Domain authority does seem to matter a lot more that relevance and quality of the content (again).

[edited by: whoa182 at 12:32 pm (utc) on Jun 8, 2019]