Update Maverick : Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2019

[Malanje]

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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)

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

[Shaddows]

We've been below trend on revenue (we're B2B ecom) since late June. Somewhere around 15% down.

Seen a big uptick today, overshooting trend. I suspect we'll be back to trend next week.

[Sally Stitts]

@whoa182

Is anyone else also noticing a significant increase in traffic from DDG, Bing, and Yahoo? (Health/Diet).

Yes. But not just health/diet.
Across the board, I am seeing Google Analytics "Top Referrals" dropping off, and DDG, Bing and Yahoo increasing.
Especially, DDG.

Google used to be over 50%, always. Now, it is under 50%, always.
.

[zeus]

I really hope with time we see DDG increase big time in search. So we have 2 big players. The best would be if all webmasters just stopped letting google spider there sites and not buy adds as a protest. We just need more competition.

[NickMNS]

Is anyone else also noticing a significant increase in traffic from DDG, Bing, and Yahoo?

It has been a few weeks now (I'm not in the health or diet niche). Traffic went from less than 1% to more than 10%, and this a real increase and not relative one resulting from a drop in Google traffic. But the problem remains, at 10% of traffic, it still needs to grow 10x before it can make up for Google.

[topaz]

It's like they turned off traffic to AMP pages today.

[southernguy]

Is anyone else also noticing a significant increase in traffic from DDG, Bing, and Yahoo?

I have been seeing a slow trend for some time now it has been gradual but over the last couple of weeks there has been more prominence from DDG, Yahoo and Bing. I think this will be a gradual trend upward, people will only tolerate something for so long until they get tired of poor search results.

I have not used anything Google in my home since last August even saying the name in my household is like saying a swear word. :-)

[aristotle]

Well in the U.S. some politicians have been escalating their claims that google's results are politically biased. Whether this is true or not, many people probably believe it. Just like they only watch news channels that re-inforce their existing views, they might start looking for search engines that do the same.

[equidistant]

Is anyone else also noticing a significant increase in traffic from DDG, Bing, and Yahoo?

I would say these recent changes opens up the market for smaller search engines. There is a lot of market share to tap into if these search engines play it right.

Instead of doing exactly what Google is doing, Bing and others can show a different set of results not dominated by the big players. Show the hidden results. Let people discover more from a variety of sources rather than a select few. And while doing that, ensure that you are crediting the right sites instead of copycats and spammers who are growing on the internet at an alarming rate.

The problem with Bing as of now is that their SERP features resemble that of Google a 100%! They have the rich snippets, the answer panel, knowledge panel etc. Why are they copying Google instead of coming up with something unique of their own?

How about search results that are cleaner and to the point like the good old days? Just a set of 10 results and nothing else. No clutter? I am pretty sure one of the reasons why Google gained popularity was because of their simplicity.

Yahoo looks like a spam house right now with unrelated ads plastered all over the place. They need to stop this if they need to be taken seriously.

As for DDG, a name change needs to happen.

[glakes]

I really hope with time we see DDG increase big time in search. So we have 2 big players.

I thought DDG still pulled the majority of their results from the major search engines? I don't recall a DDG bot ever crawling my site. For them to truly compete, they will have to crawl, index and rank pages.

[equidistant]

I really hope with time we see DDG increase big time in search. So we have 2 big players.

For new search engines to succeed, they need a Unique Selling Point. Something different than what Google offers.

DDG's USP is 'privacy', but that does not stick. The USP has to do with the "search results".

And yes, they need to start crawling, indexing and ranking on their own. Until that happens, they cannot even be considered a competitor.

[equidistant]

I think DDG pulls results from Bing, rearranges them a bit before presenting it in the SERPs.

[whoa182]

I wish that one of the other companies would push harder against Google. If anyone has the resources it's Microsoft with Bing. Where is the leadership in trying to take on Google? As what Equidistant said, they should start out with a very clean page and make the results stand out. This is what drew me to Google initially also.

With everything on with Google right now, other search engines have an opportunity to push the idea that they are a fairer and more diverse search engine.

From what I see in my own niche, smaller sites seem to be able to compete with big corporations much more easily especially when they nich down and cover a topic really well. Like Matt Cutts used to say: if you go really narrow and cover a topic well, you stand a chance of doing well against the big boys and eventually, maybe, become one of them and from there you can branch out. The moves Google is making lately will completely stop this from happening.. even the most general sites that cover every topic is beating very focused websites.

It feels that Google is now so obsessed with the absolute truth as they see it and they leave little room for diverging opinions, new hypothesis, new ideas. And while I appreciate that there is so much bad advice out there, there is lots of good advice from people who have experience which is now getting buried in favor of more generic and mundane articles.

A little anecdote but I think it's important... Why experience can still matter and not just formal qualifications.

Not that long ago a girl saw my post, she follows a particular diet and has suffered chronic acne since elementary school. Over 10 years of seeing doctors, dermatologists... no one could keep her skin clear. It covered her whole back and face.

I spent 15 minutes talking to her after she messaged me about my article, I agreed she should try the supplement based on the analysis of her diet, current scientific evidence from double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in humans, and the rate of zinc deficiency in this "group." (close to 50%). And from my own experience many years ago after suffering for months of acne and it completely stopped after starting to supplement... within days.

So anyway, 3 weeks later she messages me that her acne is 90% gone on her back and her face has clearly up hugely and everything is healing. The first time she wore a tank top since school.

It reminded me that this was the reason I do this... not just because it pays me, but I felt so happy that I was able to help someone in a meaningful way. And I was able to because of my 16 years of experience (I live this diet, I know the draw backs) and extensive research of scientific papers for close to 20.

I am fairly close to "mainstream" as they get but I've been punished. And that is just one story, I have hundreds more like this and I was able to help because I have a lot of experience and a large extent I am able to interpret scientific papers. I usually give people ideas of what they can explore and speak to their doctor about, I don't offer miracle cancer cures, I'm not anti-vaccine, and I don't believe in homeopathy. And I'm not against pharmaceuticals (and never give advice on those..)

But now, in from June 2019, that girl would never have found my article, nor will anyone else because it's on page 10 of Google from position #1.

But experience and referencing high-quality studies doesn't matter anymore, or at least nowhere near as much as it used to.
,

[paranoid android]

Well this July update continues to see our rankings/traffic plummet. The June update had an initial similar effect on us, but then we recovered and swung the other way and made some gains.

I wonder if this will be similar?

[BushyTop]

Seeing a comparison site doing very well out of this update in our niche. Just pages of links linking out to 3rd part sources. No on page content. This is so frustrating!

[southernguy]

@BushyTop seeing the same thing but I have created a few BH sites over the last several months (that I'm not proud of) that are ranking, Sucks having to stoop to that level, my authority sites that did well for several years are nowhere.

I see that SEMRUSH sensors are through the roof this morning but not seeing any fluctuations, probably just more Google shenanigans. Sigh..

[jmorgan]

I don't see anything major for my niche.

[ybendiks]

anyone seeing any mass movements today?

SEMRush sensor shows a 9.0 today for US Mobile

[imgur.com...]

[SnowMan68]

I'm not seeing movement on any of the keywords I track manually. But our traffic increase has remained consistent since Monday.

US. ECOM

[MayankParmar]

Massive movements for me. All my keywords have dropped again :( I can't believe this

[imgur.com...]

[paranoid android]

Same happening here. If its any similar to June's update, there might be room to recover in a week or so.

[MayankParmar]

I didn't recover from the June update. It took away more than half of my traffic. July 13 update took another 10% and today's update is going to take away the rest :(

[EditorialGuy]

The only noteworthy change that I've seen in recent months has been a slow continuation of mobile growth at the expense of desktop and tablet traffic How much of that can be credited to (or blamed on) Google is anybody's guess.

[Jeff_Fidler]

In Canada, we're seeing some clients up, and others down. On our end, we're seeing it hit specific verticals - again the YMYL and authority issue seems to be playing a role from what we can see. Our sites are otherwise very healthy, great content, no technical problems to speak of, etc... this is the only factor that we've not been able to properly address.

Anyone have any insight into what could be the possible causes, other than it just being Google messing with the dials again?

[Milchan]

I was seeing large spikes earlier today when I was monitoring and have had overall some steady conversions today. If there is something being pushed out then I find it is not uncommon though for there to be spikes and dips whilst it is and I dont see it as an indication of what the after result will be .

[mosxu]

It is not uncommon?

What do you mean did you check the conversion rate from Bing traffic? 100 visitors produce 4 conversions almost every time.

Unlike others sending 100, 200 even 500 visitors with no conversions!

[steffanlv]

Not much volatility even though the sensor is so high. In fact, most of the sites I manage are actually up over the past couple of days. I like this.

[seomotionz]

@MayankParmar I feel you. Most of the traffic which we got yesterday were from referrals. Big G traffic is falling everyday.

[Dimitri]

This is so good for ranking!

What is "so good for ranking"?

[samwest]

After a reasonable "recovery", suddenly user behavior (not SERPs) changed, now seeing hours of zero visitors...looks like GA is broken.

[Milchan]

Barry from searchengine roundtable (rustybrick - who is also on here - hi Barry) is reporting that all tools are reporting massive activity as of last night. Google Search Liason twitter account not saying anything and there are not reports from google that there has been an update but all the signs are that there has been one, or at least some changed that has had 'update like' effects.