Google Updates and SERP Changes - December 2019

[glakes]

This post and the following 3 posts were moved from Nov 2019 thread [webmasterworld.com...]
by not2easy at 5:42 pm (utc) on Dec 1, 2019

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Solid quantity of traffic coming from Google, but it's all rubbish. I'd likely have a better conversion rate with the same quantity of traffic using pop-unders on unrelated sites.

Bing/Yahoo are converting well and Amazon is solid as always. Just another day of Google proving their irrelevance in my ecommerce industry...


[edited by: not2easy at 5:42 pm (utc) on Dec 1, 2019]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:44 pm (utc) on Dec 2, 2019]
[edit reason] split cleanup [/edit]

[Mark_A]

This year has been down on the last 3 years for G organic, however in the next week or so traffic will decline a lot for the break, just picking up again as the new year starts. Same every year. What to do about the reduction this year? We still have plenty of #1 keywords but they don't drive traffic they used to, that seems the best explanation I can find, #1 organic is now well down the page. I think in 2020 we will be putting more effort into finding relevant traffic elsewhere.

[RedBar]

@RedBar I guessing you sell direct ads now?

Nope, I don't carry any ads whatsoever now, my sites were always fast, they are incredible now without G slowing them down:-)

The G ads were a nice bonus for a few years, simple and effective, however I don't need their ads just like they don't need me, our marketing strategy has changed with the decline of The Internet's effectiveness in my widget sector.

[seomotionz]

@RedBar Its a good thing that you are not dependent on Google. Atleast you can sleep at night without any worries.

[RedBar]

Its a good thing that you are not dependent on Google.

During the late nineties and noughties all the search engines used to generate new enquiries every day, companies were experimenting with finding potential new suppliers and products, however looking back it is very evident that the 2008 crash changed the way many in my global industry did things.

I'll tell you a true story that has happened only this last month.

Our company exhibited at a very large, annual widget trade fair in Poland, in the week before, during and the week afterwards, we only had two visitors from Poland to the website viewing only the index page each. The business we actually generated at the fair will account for several million US Dollars and this is a trend we have experienced at several fairs over the last 4/5 years in China, Germany, Italy, Middle East.

BUT, having said that we are still generating new business enquiries via The Net and especially so for the more expensive and "rarer" products for which we rank extremely well. For instance only this week an Indian project for USD 3+ million which I'm very sure we shall land simply because we can source the raw product meanwhile many others, quite simply, cannot.

I had better admit to having given up on cheap and popular several years ago!

[Seo_Support]

What is this latest update is all about ? I can't see any effect on my website. Traffic is similar as earlier.

[SteveWrz]

Why is that most everyone I talked to saw an initial 30-40% decrease with the November update and then consistent 5-10% decrease week-over-week since. This pattern spans nearly every niche too. These same numbers consistently pop up and I can't make sense of it. There feels like there's little to no variation on how much of a decrease people are seeing.

[engine]

Two things of note for you, with this first one less impactful.

Google Search Console now has Messages Integrated in the UI [webmasterworld.com]

This one is more important to note.
Google BERT is Rolling Out in Many Languages [webmasterworld.com]

[browndog]

I'm seeing some nice gains, with a 27% increase this past Monday compared to 18th November. But, I have switched from .com.au back to .com (was last .com in 2003 until a web host hijacked my domain name), and installed a theme/made other changes to speed up the site. This could just be a honeymoon period though.

[glakes]

Why is that most everyone I talked to saw an initial 30-40% decrease with the November update and then consistent 5-10% decrease week-over-week since. This pattern spans nearly every niche too. These same numbers consistently pop up and I can't make sense of it.

Not saying the weekly drops are not related to Google's continual algo flux, as it probably is to some degree, but it is the holiday season. As we draw closer to Christmas, more people are focused on shopping, and the biggest benefactors are Amazon, WalMart, etc. Each year fewer people go to a search engine to look for products as search engines tend to provide a limited and highly biased selection. Also, more people shopping in stores/malls means less people searching for other things online. Therefore, the traffic decrease some are experiencing could be normal degradation in traffic leading up to Christmas.

[SweetPotato]

Also people are sick of sites recommending stuff only to profit from affiliate marketing.
"Top 10 widgets" pfff says who? Most of these sites tried NONE of the stuff they are recommending. Why should I trust them? There's too many and all are useless. Be gone already.

[topaz]

Old publisher center and Google Producer now merged into New Publisher Center, and no more submissions for Google News inclusion.
[webmasters.googleblog.com...]

[gatormark]

What is this latest update is all about ? I can't see any effect on my website. Traffic is similar as earlier.

@Seo_Support

I’ve been trying to figure it out. My main website was not affected, at least as far as traffic. However, the traffic on one of my other sites increased 450%+ when many of my keywords jumped to the top ranking. However, I don’t know why it happened...still examining.

[seomotionz]

@RedBar Thanks for the share. You are correct 5 good visits are always better than getting 500 useless visits than cannot or never will convert.

Anyway, seeing a spike in traffic. Mostly useless but every 2 visits out of 10 are good ones. So, there is that.

[BushyTop]

Still seeing loads of movement... endless

[mosxu]

@RedBar

AI has access to your bank account and realised that out all those millions they sent to you not much is invested in ads. Not even 10% Am I right?

[manishvats21]

From 9th of Nov. my site start getting good traffic by Organic and my most of the keywords came on the first page and slowly was getting good impression and clicks in webmasters.

But Today my site traffic is down 70% approx then i have checked the keywords ranking in Google of my converted keywords, which is not showing anywhere in Google.

is today/yesterday any update comes in Search Engine ?

Note : I have not made any changes in On Page.

[edited by: goodroi at 12:01 pm (utc) on Dec 11, 2019]
[edit reason] fixed formatting [/edit]

[seomotionz]

@manishvats21 Which niche are you in?

[manishvats21]

@seomotionz : Jobs+Abbreviation+Customer Care (Got only impact in Abbreviations segment, that was in ranking)

[RedBar]

AI has access to your bank account and realised that out all those millions they sent to you not much is invested in ads. Not even 10% Am I right?

Hahaha ... Firstly I had all my AdSense earnings paid into my personal account, it was always kept separate from the business for taxation purposes and secondly, 10% is nowhere near, try 0%:-)

My efforts, my rewards insofar as I was concerned and also my companies' boards.

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld manishvats21

i have checked the keywords ranking in Google of my converted keywords, which is not showing anywhere in Google.

You're not the only one, I have seen many top-ranking companies sites almost disappear for their keywords however, at the moment, I cannot tell you why this update seems to be so "selectively random" ... yes, I realise that's an oxymoron however I can't think of another way to describe it right now!

[Jez123]

I am seeing quite a large shake up happening this afternoon. Anybody else seeing anything usual? I'd say unusual but it's really not these days!

[EditorialGuy]

What is this latest update is all about ? I can't see any effect on my website. Traffic is similar as earlier.

Ditto here. The only noticeable changes are for very specific topics that are influenced by current events (weather, strikes, etc.), which have happened on several occasions in the last few weeks.

To use a fictitious example: If there's currently a plague of locusts in Widgetville, I'll probably see a boost on our "Widgetville Plagues" page, but otherwise it's business as usual.

[SteveWrz]

semrush sensor is super high today. My traffic in Analytica looks down another 25% hour by hour compared to yesterday.

Anyone seeing similar?

[dhananjay]

@SteveWrz Exactly the same here today. Been unstable since the beginning of this month.

[jmorgan]

Seeing no difference in my rankings despite SEMrush. Unless, I'm looking at a yet-to-be-updated datacenter.

[hopepro]

This happens again, in my region, during this period of the year, the traffic will be double to triple (12.12). It is very clear for me that google is giving very specific quota traffic each day. 1 keyword has 100 visitors, another 3 keywords starting to rank and gain 3 X 33 = 90+ visitors. The first keyword drop down its position right away. Since we're connected to brand and advertisers directly, in some extent, we're the only one who has the information about the promotional campaign, but when searching for those keywords, other sites with non-relevant contents come up first. Is this BERT that google so proud of? Wish this was over soon

[jmorgan]

On second thoughts, just looking at my analytics there did seem to be a noticeable change (drop of about 3-6%) at some point/time yesterday. Whether it was related to search or not, I'm not too sure yet.

[iamlost]

I still get antsy every time I see a Search Engine Roundtable weather report that yet another Google change is in progress although it keeps right on being a beautiful day in my neighbourhood. I sometimes wonder if Barry (plus many of the regular commenters here at WebmasterWorld) and I are in alternate Google-verses.

My Google organic search referral traffic has, in absolute numbers, been increasing at approximately 1% annually for the past five or so years.
Note: after bot cleansing.

As traffic increase has been pretty much in line with population increase I guess my Google traffic is in maintenance mode. :)

There have been noticeable fluctuations in two Google organic referred traffic associations:
1. conversion rates bounce around a lot. So much so that I for the past several years just look at weekly and monthly numbers for comparison purposes.
Note: smaller sites even weekly is too noisy; monthly only.

2. bot traffic relative to human also bounces quite a bit. I keep thinking there should be a correlation with the updates but, sadly, not significant.
Note: bots in G organic referral were brutal over the BFCM weekend, dropped off but have been ramping up again... and a berry botmas one and all...

I cut out AdSense totally earlier this year, all ads are direct ad space sales. I do still have a few Amazon aff hole fillers but even affiliate presell is mostly direct.

The third party ad/af networks have become (1) an ROI concern, (2) a direct UX (quality) concern, and (2) an indirect UX (time to render) concern.

This does not bode well going forward for non-unique proposition or new(er) sites even without the continuing Google transformation into GIGO portal of assimilation.

[rustybrick]

iamlost, sorry about that. I am posting one this morning - scheduled for 8:01am ET. Honestly, I rarely see changes in my rankings but it is just a summary of what people are talking about here, on other forums, social media and the tracking tools. So we are kind of in the same Google-verse...

[dollarsound]

25% extra down starting on December 10th. 50-55% down since November 7th.