Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2019

[BushyTop]

- Split out of...
Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2019
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4957935.htm [webmasterworld.com]
by robert_charlton - 1:31 am on Sep 2, 2019



I've seen a comparable drop to the first of June. Like alot of people on here (I'm becoming increasingly frustrated) I feel like alot of the drops are down to the size of our brand and not the state of our SEO. Conversations internally in the business mean that i am going to have to lean away from some of the principles that i have leaned on and tweaked for maybe 10 years. I'm going to redesign the site.

We have a high proportion of non indexable pages. Whilst these obviously dont rank, I'm starting to wonder whether the high numbers of these pages proportionally across the site are maybe having an impact on our indexable pages. I know that might sound crazy. In my head, I dont understand how that would be an issue, but maybe Google thinks i'm trying to hide something?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 1:00 am (utc) on Dec 2, 2019]
[edit reason] cleanup after splitting & combining threads [/edit]

[HereWeGo123]

@StupidIntelligent

just do a haircut of the current website

The idea of pruning alone isn't a black and white answer. In our case, to some capacity, it is, in conjunction with other important moving variables that we saw for a couple of years in the making but were just too comfortable at the time to address proactively. We don't expect the new site to pay the bills right away, we're well prepared. I am just thinking of what's a better longterm strategy in terms of maximizing our resources most effectively today.

have you had experience of pruning/giving a site a big haircut and seeing results?

[TeresaD]

possibly fake but .... tonight I have people on my site from Seychelles,Brownsburg USA, Villenus and other places I have had to google to see where they are.

Very very strange that I geo target my country and have a .mycountry domain, why am I not getting hits from Ireland, Europe or the UK?

I am going to wait and see what happens on 27th/28th because it sounds plausible to me, something went wrong and on last months thread I reported about all of the "foreign" hits I was getting that did not make any sense, who knows what happened a geo targeting algo error would explain what is going on.

It would also explain why most of my traffic is google.com not google.my country, please someone in Google fix it or roll back , you also broke google shopping, fix that and I will happily pay you for sales again :)

[Dougie1234]

I too have 30% visitors from US.... And a bounce rate which has leapt from 50% to 80% normal for me as an Australian site is approx 8% from US..... Please note Google .......Australia is not a state in the US... Even though our crap Prime Minister would like it to be.....

[Dougie1234]

And further the US visitors are all from Chicago.... Why?.... This has to be a bug... 30% of visitors to an Australian site from Chicago.... Grrrrrr

[HereWeGo123]

@Dougie1234 - are you referring to paid traffic or organic?

[Dougie1234]

Organic

[rbrtrbrt]

@Dougie1234 It's probably a bot. I had the same problem problem - about 2k visits daily with a bounce rate 100%. Google Analytics shows that this bot's internet provider is "Microsoft Corporation".

[jmorgan]

Are there any webmasters who would pay to get (i.e. manipulate) a high Alexa rank even if it means nothing?

Are there webmasters who believe the ego (or dopamine) boost from seeing their site ranked highly in Alexa is worth paying for even if it doesn't translate to real traffic?

[TeresaD]

jmorgan +

no, all I want is my customers to search for something and the closet match to show up in search, if they do not like my product or website that is my problem to work on, if they find what they are looking for they will buy

[browndog]

Are there webmasters who believe the ego (or dopamine) boost from seeing their site ranked highly in Alexa is worth paying for even if it doesn't translate to real traffic?

No, but then again I wouldn't have a clue what my Alexa ranking is. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong.

[StupidIntelligent]

With the number of people complaining about aliens visiting them from unknown countries; it seems that Bill Lambert post was on the spot.

But, his advice about starting fresh with a new domain is very dangerous. Which is why I'm not too sure if he's the same guy, lest he's right about 26th/27th - which would also mean that Google will stick to its decision of drone-striking GEO-focused websites.

[capulkit]

Lost all major positions to irrelevent pages of branded websites. Google is killing small businesses.

[HereWeGo123]

Anyone, including this alleged imposter of “Bill Lampert” could’ve made that post spot on Barry’s site. It’s not rocket science to see whet people are reporting on here in terms of traffic from irrelevant countries. How could that be the “new norm”? Doesn’t make sense what so ever. And it would be bad for google to do that, for their interests sake. Think about that for a moment. Unless I’m missing something?

[StupidIntelligent]

@HereWeGo123 - Like I wrote before; in case he's right about 26th/27th - that would confirm that the comment was from the real Bill Lambert; and it would be disturbing if Google sticks to their new norm.

[TeresaD]

To whoever is looking at this thread, thank you very much, today has been mycountry and also google.com but the traffic is all from my country so something is working differently, I have not had to google somewhere i have never heard of

[samwest]

Some traffic has returned' but it's all non converting.

[Milchan]

just noticed something very suspicious - on Friday and Saturday I had EXACTLY the same amount of users both days, EXACTLY the same amount of sessions and almost exactly the same amount of new users (3 difference so a tiny percent). The traffic graph is almost identical also. Always suspected that google throttles traffic in some way but I am completely convinced now because there is no way that can be a coincidence.

[samwest]

@Milchan - any experienced observation shows that traffic is indeed throttled and controlled. Those of use who have been doing this since the late 90's know what unfettered traffic looks like....and this is FAR from unfettered. I still contend that having dozens of page one results should produce more that a tiny trickle of 1 or 2 visitors and then long periods of nothing. My GART display shows about the same level of activity at 3am as 3pm. Never used to be that way until Google profits started to soar.

[NickMNS]

on Friday and Saturday I had EXACTLY the same amount of users both days, EXACTLY the same amount of sessions and almost exactly the same amount of new users (3 difference so a tiny percent).

Wow those guys at Google are really stupid, the messed up royally, now we have all the we need to prove it.

Always suspected that google throttles traffic

Lol.
[en.wikipedia.org...]

[StupidIntelligent]

@NickMNS - Milchan has over 5 million visits to his website every month; which makes his property top 1% of the internet. He deserves a lot more credence because he's got a larger data set.

[glakes]

Very heavy crawling from the wee hours of the morning and continuing. A precursor to yet another update?

[RedBar]

Well something's going on ... or absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Yesterday, Sunday, saw my lowest-ever traffic across all properties and today is looking similar. After half a Googleday my hotel site has had less than 18% of it's normal traffic which is way out of kilter.

My specialist widget sites I have to wonder but only because we have a huge global widget trade fair in Italy this week where tens of thousands of trade visitors will be attending and these fairs always do affect widget site metrics.

[Jori]

Strange things going on.

I just submited a new article to google. It was indexed 1 min after.

But ! The title and the meta description are in Japanese, nothing to do with my website.
The ads (adsense) on it are also in japanese. Why on earth my european website is considered by Google a japanese website ?!

Google is broken.

[samwest]

@RB - You are not alone. Seeing lowest levels here too, at a time when traffic and sales were typically on the seasonal upswing.
It's not just traffic, it's also a sudden change in user behavior.

[BushyTop]

Seeing an increase in traffic... just for context, i have been spanked since june.

@Jori, I would be lying if I said that didnt make me laugh. Cracked me up actually.

ではごきげんよう

[seomotionz]

@Jori that's unusually strange. Anyway got a little traffic from Baidu today with 100% bounce rate ofcourse.

Google's traffic still low.

@Milchan. I saw that, mine was Saturday and Sunday.

[TeresaD]

My traffic is still low but it is all from my country, I am "out of season" so not expecting much until the Christmas build up.

So far today all of the hits are human, a lot of products being added to the cart and a couple of sales.

Long may it continue!

[samwest]

My signup page has been made of teflon the past three days.

[Selen]

Google AI has outsmarted (confused) itself. Broad search queries are artificially changed to include related, but very specific terms. Sometimes, the main keyword is totally ignored. It is not correct user intent.

[NickMNS]

@StupidIntelligent

Milchan has over 5 million visits to his website every month;

Good one, the mine is bigger than yours argument.