Update Maverick : Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2019 - Google Search and SEO forum at WebmasterWorld

Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

Message Too Old, No Replies

Update Maverick : Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2019

Malanje

3:09 pm on Jul 1, 2019 (gmt 0)

System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4947706.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 1:17 pm on Jul 1, 2019 (utc -5)

Many advocate that to combat reliance on visits through Google Search you need to build a brand. Obviously it is not enough.

JesterMagic

11:26 am on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

@MayankParmar - I am not sure of the age of your site but I have found for 5+ year old sites after a loss like you experience it will take another major update or 2 (6 months to a year) before things will turn around (as long as you have decent content and backlinks already). Sites don't really bounce around anymore in the serps after doing a major UX change to the site or something similar (I find). You can try to chase down the signals you think Google is using to demote your site (it could be nothing as Google just promoted the other sites) or just concentrate on 1 or 2 things that you were planning to work on anyways. If the sites ahead of you are poor quality or using black hat techniques Google will figure out eventually and your traffic will come back (at least in part) after a core major update. You just have to continue adding content etc.. as you were doing before (which can be hard if you don't have any funds coming in).

southernguy

1:02 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

If the sites ahead of you are poor quality or using black hat techniques Google will figure out eventually and your traffic will come back (at least in part) after a core major update.

In a couple of my niches, this is not happening, yes the blackhat sites ranking get demoted and are replaced by more of the same. As long as there are people that can afford to spend between $3000.00 - $5000.00 per expired domain those sites will continue to rank. The black hatters have a good pattern and its working for them and it seems that Googles algorithm can't do anything about it.

This is why in many areas search is garbage, a lot of the domains ranking are old and have good backlink profiles with mediocre content, they will only last a year or so but if you look at page 2 and 3 there are more of the same coming up behind them, its truly a churn and burn thing.

I have done the same with less expensive domains but in the last update, the ones I had have now been outranked with domains with better link profiles. I think Googles algorithm has now used these types of domains as a ranking factor or comparison.

zeus

2:09 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Does anyone know, what the June Update was about or is now so complicated (manipulative) that no one have a clue.

Milchan

2:57 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

If the sites ahead of you are poor quality or using black hat techniques Google will figure out eventually

Simply not true - I have competitors using blackhat (but doing so very well) for years now and they dominate because of it. They have been reported for doing so with conclusive evidence and nothing is ever done and im talking at least the last 3 years and increasingly so year on year , so unless 'eventually' means decades then I would have to disagree. Google simply does not care about sites using blackhat techniques and things that go against their own guidelines.

aristotle

2:58 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Does anyone know, what the June Update was about or is now so complicated (manipulative) that no one have a clue.

Well anyone can speculate. To me, the term "core update" suggests that google didn't add any major new pieces to the algorithm, but merely adjusted some of the parameters in the "core". Some parts of the core, such as panda and penguin, were originally developed as separate pieces, but now are apparently incorporated into the core. Parameters may be used for adjustments of the different parts. I don't see how it would be possible to ever blend all the parts together.

So if several different parts were adjusted, then some parts could have affected one group of sites, whereas other parts could have affected other groups of sites. That would make it hard to single out one particular part of the algorithm as the main culprit.

But as i said, this is just speculation.

zeus

4:20 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Yes I also think that, but still think they are after Health, Finance,.. sites. So google dont want freedom of speech, they slowly adjust those sites that maybe could have another opinion to a health topic, as example. A little start on Censorship be cause its a monopoly SE. I think thats why some see huge drops.

SweetPotato

5:45 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Freedom of speech when you are giving magical medical advice, no thanks.
I rather read the opinion of a doctor who studied medicine, you know, the science?
I'm glad Google is getting rid of sites selling magical threatment to cancer patients. Seriously f off into Oblivion.

Selen

6:06 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Most people are incapable of making good choices, so dangerous information and ideas should be erased.

RedBar

6:14 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

@MayankParmar

I often use your site for Win updates/info/etc when I think I may have missed something however my question is from where do you get your information?

Are these general trade press releases from MS or an online source that G may be favouring over yours?

This is not a criticism of your site, just trying to help since I don't see any other site covering it like you do, maybe I've not looked enough, but there has to be a "simple" reason why G seems to have smacked you so hard.

paranoid android

6:15 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Freedom of speech when you are discussing your political views that i find reprehensible, no thanks.

I rather read the opinion of the Google-approved list of politicians, you know, the mainstream ones?

Most people are incapable of making good choices, so Google should be appointed judge, jury and executioner and the plebs should be grateful they even have an internet to begin with!

zeus

6:53 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

thanks paranoid android

whoa182

7:03 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Freedom of speech when you are giving magical medical advice, no thanks.
I rather read the opinion of a doctor who studied medicine, you know, the science?
I'm glad Google is getting rid of sites selling magical treatment to cancer patients. Seriously f off into Oblivion.

I get your point... you don't want some website selling homeopathy treatments for cancer... That is just crazy.

There is definitely a lot of "woo-woo" stuff out there, but there is also valuable research being done to pass on information to people where doctors simply don't have the time to even know about. Fasting and cancer is one hot area right now because it can reverse resistance to chemotherapy and protect healthy cells (Valter Longo Ph.D. has done a lot of work here). Multiple clinical studies are on-going but I'd bet that the vast majority of people or oncologists don't know this is even an option or some of the very positive early data.

I wrote earlier how I was able to identify in just 15 minutes the cause of acne for a girl who had it a very long time. Her doctors, as well as dermatologists, failed to spot the reason so it never went away. I was able to do this because of my 16 years of experience on the diet as well as years of research and knowledge I've accumulated from reading peer-reviewed clinical studies. And I had an issue with it too a long time ago... so I recognized it, from experience.

This was her message a few weeks later:

[imgur.com...]

She's just one person out of many that I've helped. None of them serious problems, but I'm able to figure them out mostly because not of qualifications, but experience and research.

I understand the whole idea of making moves for harm reduction.. so let's go with the safest sites which have information reviewed by doctors. But the thing is, a lot of specific queries are now going to completely irrelevant and non-helpful articles. You can't even do a search in Health/Diet without Healthline being top.

I remember years ago when I tried to find something to help GERD. I had it for years... doctors weren't much use tbh. It got so bad that I even had trouble eating at one point. I came across research on how Manuka Honey kills H. Pylori and helps stomach issues. After 2 years of having the problem, it was gone within a couple of weeks. Swallowing issues resolved within days.

Google is helping stop people from doing dumb things by hiding information, and most supplement cures out there is nonsense. But there will also be a lot of people who will not get better because of Google.

But Google is going so far in one direction that you need to be a Doctor now to tell people to eat Broccoli or talk about its benefits.

If Google no longer values experience (which it said it did in its QRG) then it should just say. So we can all move on.

[edited by: whoa182 at 7:12 pm (utc) on Jul 21, 2019]

equidistant

7:10 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

@Milchan

Simply not true - I have competitors using blackhat (but doing so very well) for years now and they dominate because of it. Google simply does not care about sites using blackhat techniques and things that go against their own guidelines.

Agreed. The Google Algo is not as sophisticated as it is made out to be and it is unable to cope with the increasing size of the internet. Yes, it does penalize some bad sites, but along with it, a whole bunch of legit sites. Now what's the point of that?

In many cases, the algo is not even able to find out the original source of article from duplicated ones.

Here's a tip: Want to get your competitors penalized? Simply copy and paste their articles on Medium.com and other such sites that allow user generated content without any screening. You are completely free of liability because Medium now owns the content, not you. And Google will end up thinking that the original article belongs to Medium as Medium has a stronger backlink profile.

Also, not sure if anyone else noticed this, but a whole bunch of books listed on 'Google Books' have nothing but duplicated content. I noticed many books that copy entire articles from many different websites and compile a book. Again, I think Google probably thinks the original content belongs to the book author as opposed the original website.

[edited by: equidistant at 7:37 pm (utc) on Jul 21, 2019]

whoa182

7:16 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

@equidistant

Google can't even figure out that my competitor who is doing amazing with every update is creating fake identities (several sites in one niche) and pretending to be a health professional and their picture is a stock photo from Story Blocks. It's easily searchable with a reverse image search. I don't get how someone could game Google so easily.

equidistant

7:33 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

@whoa182 I am not surprised. Their recent algos have a whole lot of loopholes that need to be fixed.

I remember at one point Google was advocating authors to add the 'rel author' tag to their articles and even publishing the author image in their SERPs. That feature failed as it was heavily abused and they stopped supporting it. But it looks like they are going back to it now.

aristotle

7:41 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

Well a minority opinion always faces an uphill battle against a majority view.

(This post isn't about charlatans and quacks. That should be a separate topic. This post also isn't about gaming google's algorithm. That's also another topic.)

What this post is about are the accusations that google is intentionally suppressing "free speech"

On political and social issues, for instance, the majority usually has considerable control of the schools, the media, the government, etc. It's very difficult for a minority to overcome that advantage.

On the internet, websites that promote the majority view will be favored by most people (the majority). These sites will naturally get more clicks from the search results, more backlinks, more social media mentions, etc. Even if google's algorithm is somehow perfectly neutral (no built-in bias), these sites will tend to win out in the results. This isn't an intentional suppression of free speech -- it's a natural result of the majority's inherent advantage.

As I mentioned here a few days ago, some U.S. politicians have been claiming that google's algorithm is intentionally biased politically. I suggested that this could cause one segment of the population to start looking for an alternative to google.

ichthyous

8:16 pm on Jul 21, 2019 (gmt 0)

If the sites ahead of you are poor quality or using black hat techniques Google will figure out eventually

In my niche I don't think many are using black hat techniques, but once your site goes down it never comes back up again. My traffic has been declining since Sept. of last year and I was doing fine until June. The June update dropped my traffic further and killed off whatever remaining inquiries I had. I'm getting as many inquiries in a week as I used to get in a day. It's been more than 9 months since my traffic first fell off a cliff and I don't think this is ever going to reverse itself. I also wonder if the global economy is slowing down. That has a lot to do with my niche, which is very high price point items that are only purchased when one has lots of disposable income.