Google Updates and SERP Changes - January 2020

[seomotionz]

The following 11 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4974557.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 10:10 am on Jan 2, 2020 - (PDT -8)

20 years of data show that updates have created MUCH more than a "twitch" in traffic.

Its not a twitch if it costs you a significant amount of money.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:20 pm (utc) on Jan 2, 2020]
[edit reason] cleanup after split to new thread [/edit]

[mosxu]

Strange that a lot of money terms do not appear anymore in the suggested search terms.

Most of searchers will click on something suggested not exactly what they are looking for can’t get the reason behind...

[StupidIntelligent]

Not all updates impact all niches and all sites within a niche. Updates usually hit "growth stage" websites more than established ones; unless a core algorithm change is rolled out.

[jmorgan]

Another update started today or yesterday. Results will be found tomorrow or after.

Is this official? Any source for this?

For the record, I see no changes (rankings wise) on my end. Seasonal-related traffic fluctuations, yes. Rankings, not so much.

[MayankParmar]

Discover traffic is down yet again.

[BushyTop]

Has there been any official word on an update - even if its the normal mumbo jumbo?

[mosxu]

2020 started with an uncontrolled number of zombies

It is shocking how hungry these zombies are. Needed to stop the ads.

[RedBar]

I'm seeing a lot of totally new and completely unrelated rubbish in my SERPs ranking for widget keywords1/2/3 and mostly on WP platforms.

They're not poor trade widget pages, they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my widgets ... What a mess!

[RedBar]

And why is Google ranking top 3 Amazon pages with "Currently unavailable - We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock" listings?

There have been no customer reviews and it ranks on Amazon's best seller at 7+ million and has been there since October 2011.

A total and utter farce!

[southernguy]

@RedBar I was doing a search yesterday on a new phone, I had not yet changed the default search from Google to DDG I searched for the health benefits of a certain widget it literally gave me a list of sites all of which pretty much had the same article (scraped over and over) Did not get this with DDG or BING yes it is garbage and from what I can see it's not going to get better.

[RedBar]

I use DDG all the time and on mobile use the DDG browser permanently, it's a dream for clearing cache and cookies etc, one button on the screen and all the garbage goes up in flames!

[HereWeGo123]

Traffic has been up by about 60%, but this trend has been normal every year beginning the day after Christmas.

[BushyTop]

Seeing big SERP changes again this morning in the UK, Automotive.

[jediviper]

SERP volatility is normal after 19th of December, according to SEMrush. At least for Australia, Germany, USA and UK.
I really wonder what are the sources of people claiming that they see such SERP changes during the last days.

[RedBar]

I really wonder what are the sources of people claiming that they see such SERP changes during the last days.

Good old plain vanilla SERPs search, no programmes, no outside sources, simply typing in MY keyword queries, seeing the results I get and examining them.

Yeah, I know, it's old-school and time-consuming however it usually gives me an idea of where G is at the moment.

Of course this does not take into account that I am searching with a completely cache and history-free browser unlike the vast majority in the world who are constantly being monitored by whomsoever.

And when doing this I use Chrome to see what it is delivering and after each country search, specified in settings, the browser is once again flushed clean. I never use Chrome as my regular browser.

I would prefer to use TOR to do this however G really doesn't like it:-)

About every 3 months I also get various offices around the world to perform specified searches for me to check that they do actually get more or less the same SERPs as me ... It takes a few hours to do however it's extremely valuable information to have when marketing globally.

[BushyTop]

@jediviper manual checks and rank checking software

[heisje]

Sad to say, our job has become a "whack a mole" game against Google (Google not the mole) - inventing SEO tricks to overwhelm the Monster, instead of concentrating on innovation and improvement needing considerable long-term investment that will never pay. Sad for us, sad for progress, sad for society.

Currently in search of the silver lining expected in every cloud!

.

[jmorgan]

Just posting so this thread appears in the "My Threads" list. Carry on ...

[Kendo]

simply typing in MY keyword queries, seeing the results I get and examining them..

Works best for me. Tried all the SEO apps/services and found that most of them are either old hat or off with the faeries.

Every Monday morning we check a list of keyword strings from a list that we have used for several months. We check from Internet connections in Australia, USA and India, logging each keyword for each location. That way we can monitor the slightest effect and movement up or down and compare differences between locations. Our SEO guy plans his strategy for the week based on that movement.

We also get to notice some interesting phenomenon and make our own conclusions. One week a keyword which had been steadily crawling upwards from oblivion suddenly dropped out of site and the following week returned at #6. A week ago we lost 500+ backlinks but this week have 1,000+ more. They were old links and always there.

A lot things do go wrong in G land. I continually get warnings about page errors or phone compatibility, only to find no error but have to request a review. Adwords that we placed months ago are still not live because they claimed that the destination pages didn't work. They always worked and can be seen from everywhere and everybody including their own indexing servers and phone compatibility checks. After wasting several months of my time reporting their errors only to get yet another lame excuse, ie: oblivious to the previous report and the lame excuse that was tendered then, they have finally come back and suggested that we re-submit the ads after changing anything ever so slightly. Sorry, but we can no longer be bothered and was only interested in the keyword reviews.

[seomotionz]

Did someone turned off the internet today?!

Talking about gaining or loosing traffic seems irrelevant.

[StupidIntelligent]

Crawler activity picking up...

[samwest]

Did someone turned off the internet today?!

weekly quotas have been met...exactly. No more soup for you!

[seomotionz]

weekly quotas have been met...

@samwest Not that much lucky this week.

[blend27]

I have made a mistake by not bookmarking URI last month while doing some technical research. The URI is gone. No matter what I tried so far.

What I do know is that I have used technical terms that derived from a large chunk of code within application I am working on. These were not Money words, none ecom stuff.

Gone.

[Mark_A]

It may be one of my new year resolutions, to spend less time in 2020, looking at threads like this !

[grandhi26]

Drastic Drop for my domain authority from 40 to 15 i don't see any MOZ Update please any one help me which algorithm update my domain hit

[phranque]

"domain authority" is not affected by algorithm updates.

[darkness957]

There is a rather drastic change in the keywords and sources of access to my site. Hope everything goes smoothly!

[seomotionz]

Drastic Drop for my domain authority from 40 to 15 i don't see any MOZ Update please any one help me which algorithm update my domain hit

@grandhi26 Why do you care for a third party metrics anyway?! It has nothing to do with any SERP's at all.

Drastic changes or not. SERP's are fluctuating that's for sure.

[Jeppa33]

Noticing changes as well. Had a minor drop overnight on some keywords. Based in Netherlands.