Google September 2019 Core Update

[MayankParmar]

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System: The following 22 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4962430.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brett_tabke - 9:39 am on Sep 24, 2019 (cst -5)

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Holy #*$!, official core update will be rolling out later today!

[twitter.com...]

[browndog]

I really like DDG, I even changed my phone over to it today...not as a protest against G, but because I genuinely like it.

I do agree with grainofsand that ultimately, G will push visitors away, but it may take some time. I do understand why they are doing what they are doing, trying to stamp out dodgy medical advice, apple cider vinegar to treat pretty much everything, antivaccers etc., but they've gone too far.

As for my site, I dropped significantly, had a rebound, and have dropped again. But I do think these core updates can take several days to settle. I'm not going to hold my breath, only time will tell.

[shakiramarkk]

I have to read you services briefly that is more informative for me. This would helped me a lot. i would be awared for your new updates. Thanks alot.
Google announced this morning on Twitter that it is releasing the September 2019 core update later today.

[BushyTop]

Has anyone seen a dramatic change in SERPs or Traffic BTW or are most seeing a slow delivery. We seem to improving, but the changes are really slow. I'm wondering whether it will peter out into just a marginal improvement.

@MayankParmar have you seen a dramatic surge in your recovery. or is it slower building? Are the changes you have seen to new content that you have published and are you seeing that rank better than previously newly published content, or has the now older stuff surged too?

[TeresaD]

mosxu + I deliberately put the bid so low to see what would happen as my paid sales fell off a cliff.

My (unproven) theory is that if my ads are shown at that price I must have unique widgets or keywords that the competitors do not have or are not bidding on.

If I have unique widget keywords my sales should not have fallen off a cliff so my campaign that was very successful and died overnight is somehow broken.

[samwest]

Right back to zero again. This after what appeared to be a magical recovery late last week as the predicted filter wall fell, albeit temporarily. Robust traffic and conversions restarted but now have died. If you don’t believe in these filters, you will in 3, 2, 1....

[zeus]

see all this suffering over the last years in SEO business / website owners thats why it is so important to let your user know you support other search engines, if you still dont do anything to get some competition on that field, you are not allowed to complain.

[TeresaD]

@zeus + that leaves me stuck, Google is by far the biggest search engine

Search Engine Market Share in Ireland - August 2019
bing1.6%
Yahoo!0.99%
DuckDuckGo0.5%

[zeus]

TeresaD - yes I know - what I mean is we have to spread the word that there are other search engines, who else as the webmaster can do that. That way we maybe over time see more competition and you are not so reliable on Google. I miss the good old times where Alter Vista and Yahoo was king and google slowly getting there. The we had 3 with almost equal share of the market.

We have :
Duckduckgo.com (duck.com)
Ecosia.org (they plant trees from the income)
Qwant.com a European search engine.
Bing.com


ohh Im not sure if Robert once again is after me on those recommendations :)

[Histerius]

@zwus + Interesting. Been searching for my domain, exactly same results on all search engines. The "authority" of the site before anything else. It seems they all use very very similar algorithms.

[sofie77]

This is just one of many things that have been very annoying over the past year. If you try to look for discussion on health topics and add on "forum" at the end, it's often the case that no forum results show up at all, you just get sites like Healthline.

This is a clear example that Google is ignoring you and hand-holding, trying to be guardian, protector.

@whoa182 +

Yes, thats the point.

In our case (Forum for a specific disease) we do NOT sell any alternative medicals, e-books, Affiliate or unserious treatments.

People with this disease share their opionion and they help each other in times of pain and frutstration. It helps alot, to know, you are not alone with this disease. But Google is cutting our traffic and refer affected users to a hotline or to a article and this for our main key "disease forum" and thousands of long tails.

When I use DDG or any other search engine we are always on Nr1 for this disease.

I hope that google will rethink their decision anytime. But to be honest, I dont think so.

[samwest]

I think it's time we get a new thread on the "medical site debate topic" - this one is veering wildly.

[Selen]

Webmasters should start using the name "Duck" (Duck.com) instead of "DDG"

[samwest]

Seeing a weird pattern of regional traffic clustering today.

[RedBar]

Blimey, I go away on business for a few days and G goes into another meltdown mode, again!

Webmasters should start using the name "Duck" (Duck.com) instead of "DDG"

I've been promoting DDG for years, along with a couple of others, and I've found that most people seem to remember DDG much better than Duck or Duck.com

I reckon it may be the rhyming of letters DDG rather than Duck which rhymes with something else.

I'm pretty sure someone will explain the "psychological" reasoning for this.

[Selen]

DuckDuckGo made a basic marketing mistake when they used this weird name as their brand. They have recently fixed it by buying duck.com domain. Now they should get rid of the "DuckDuckGo" theme and move everything to duck.com. A regular user has no clue what DDG means ::

[samwest]

still sitting at drip or zero traffic all day. None of the trickle is coming from my #1 and #2 listing pages, all coming in from obscure side door posts. Whatever traffic does make it is total zombie again. This is beyond bizarre. Feels worse that when the internet ran on 300 baud. 20 years later who ever thought it would wind up like this. All smoke and mirrors.

[oldnewby]

Long time lurker, thought I'd offer my observations since I'm now registered. :)

Ecommerce. 16% spike on the 25th, 29% drop on the 26th. Then a climb back up. Weekly visits down 3.4% from the prior week. Bounce rate up a touch. Pages per session down a bigger touch.

Avg Session duration way down on the 25th, from 6.32 to 2.13. Back up to 6.28 on the 26th, climbing through Sunday to 7.58.

Conversions -0- (not including phone orders and other SE's like DDG) for 4 days, from the 25th through the 28th.

All in all, not much of a change yet for us. We have a lot of content and google ranks that much better than our products.

[samwest]

@Oldnewby - the zero conversion thing seems to be very widespread which makes us all wonder wtf they are doing? It's not the population as a whole behaving like a murmeration of birds...its Gorg twisting the knobs and squeezing the proverbial turnip.

Update...now one conversion today, a renewal from a previous customer who signed up in 2005...14 years ago, other than that nothing. Do I get bonus points for that level of customer retention? Lol.

[ybendiks]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to corroborate some data and theories I am seeing.

Can anyone confirm ranking improvements on sites with lots of long form, detailed content? What about sites with lots of long form, detailed content but weak backlink profiles?

[samwest]

So I'm guessing I'm the only one here who at 5pm CST in the USA has got only one visitor on the site from Kayseri Turkey where it is currently 1am and nothing else for the past hour. If this update is done rolling out, then no matter my page one positions, I'm done. GART looks wacky as can be today. Can we trust these analytics at all?

[akusnet]

I have noticed for a while to date, that Facebook advertising is related to the conversations of a person carrying a nearby cell phone. The same happens for WhatsApp in written conversations, as well as commands and voice searches.

I think this latest update has to do with personalized results through voice conversations, maybe that's why traffic on our sites is so irregular, I don't know, it's just a theory.

[Milchan]

DuckDuckGo made a basic marketing mistake when they used this weird name as their brand. They have recently fixed it by buying duck.com domain. Now they should get rid of the "DuckDuckGo" theme and move everything to duck.com. A regular user has no clue what DDG means

I agree, I use it as my main search engine yet sometimes I have have to rack my brain to remember what it is called . I might know it is duckduck? - I just forgot the go bit , or just in general takes me a moment or two to remember. The should just change it to Duck.com or refer to it as Duck Search. I wouldn't be averse to "G Can Go Duck Itself" either but Im not sure that is too catchy.

[seomotionz]

I am getting garbage bot traffic from yesterday. Its direct traffic. In Analytics "Country" is showing 'not set' and "network domain" is showing 'google.com'

[JesterMagic]

My stats seem to indicate that the update is still rolling out? Anyone else see this?

[BushyTop]

@JesterMagic yep, still seeing plenty of movement

[glakes]

Anyone else see this?

Yes. We had a couple days when Google let some converting traffic slip through and now we are back to crap.

[sofie77]

I think it's time we get a new thread on the "medical site debate topic"

would be great.

When I look at the health serps at the moment, I observ something like this:

if ($health)
{ 
 if (($ebook) OR ($ads) OR ($affili))
 $trustscore = $trustscore - X;
 }
}

With the X google is playing.

[seomotionz]

What happened today anyway? Traffic becoming low, these things can happen while an update rolls out. But bot and zombie traffic! again?

[Travis304]

I'm experiencing much of the same thing others are on here: Wild changes in SERPs/rankings, and a random, huge drop in conversions and sales with traffic either bouncing up and down, or falling off. Key words that were historically well-established keep jumping between pages 1 and 2. Some jumped 5 or more spots (up and down) with no rhyme or reason. It's really annoying. I'm in a niche widget eComm market. My sites have decent backlink profiles with lot of new, high DR links, plenty of new, good long-form content that is "E-A-T" as can be, as stupid ole' GooOoogGle likes to spin it. None of it matters.

[Malanje]

Since this update I noticed strange things in SERPS. For instance, if I search for codigo postal, which means zip code in portuguese, I get in the first result the company that has the responsibility of deliver mail in Portugal, witch is correct. But after I get 7 results from another website, all the same, just changing possible locations.