Google Updates and SERP Changes - February 2020

[Shepherd]

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System: The following 6 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4978307.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 6:54 pm on Feb 1, 2020 (utc -5)

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FWIW, seeing the featured snippet holder (wikipedia in this case) gone completely from the SERPs this morning, no longer listed on page 2 or anywhere.

[ichthyous]

@RedBar Fine arts, so low volume and high price point. I have always had to pan for nuggets from the traffic Google referred, but at least there were nuggets and I managed to do well over the years. Since about Sept 2018 its been harder to achieve sales with reduced traffic and unstable ranking. You make money when Google decides that your position should skyrocket again, otherwise crickets. I feel fortunate for the good years from 2003-2018 or so, but it was never a cake walk with Google.

[hopepro]

Regarding search engine position.

If someone search for a keyword in the "all" tab not the "images" tab

If the image appears on first under "Images for XXXX"

and it appears that my image is on top. Will google consider that 1st position in search console?

I found out that one of my 1st position reported in SC says my avg pos is 1st but my site rank on the 10th, however my image is at the top

Thanks

[Athedian]

Last year I had an epiphany when I saw what the previous marketing team had done with the site and the ads: Don't put your eggs into one basket.

When I realized we were literally putting everything into Google, I immediately informed my boss that it was a dangerous practice. And that was before Google started the algo penalty against us near the end of the 2019 (because the previous team really screwed up on almost everything).

Now we also focus on social media and Bing/Yahoo ads to supplement Google and its nasty SERP. And Ahref showing ranking drop again for today. That same competitor with 2.5 million ranking increase in one month continues to increase in ranking. I guess backlink quantity is more important than quality (come on, inter-site linking isn't really quality, it's just a link scheme).

[RedBar]

@hopepro

It all depends and has varied for at least the last couple of years, sometimes you can be #1 in both All and Images however, IME, that's pretty rare these days. The same applies to the Knowledge Box, it is extremely rare to be both the KB and #1, usually you're position #3-4.

@ichthyous

You're correct, there are so many ads now that ranking hardly makes any difference whatsoever. For a couple of weeks my #1 keyword phrase was at a solid #3 in the SERPs. Until a couple of years ago such a position would drive a good amount of traffic and enquiries. This time it did absolutely nothing, zero, all traffic stayed the same, that page had it's regular amount of visitors and enquiries.

I have no idea what G evaluates these days when "watching" what searchers do however if many sites are like mine then it is palinly obvious they are searching deeper than the first couple of pages and also, noticeably, using alternative search engines.

For anyone using G for inforrmation searching rather than purchasing, it is simply a horrible experience. Honestly, the only time I use Google is for testing purposes, I can't abide all the surrounding garbage.

[PassiveInc]

First Post.

I was hit by Jan 13. update. Lost couple of positions on the first page of the SERP. In February 7th to 11th I had a sh*t SERP position but it felt like the traffic was turned by google to ''converting traffic''. After 12th February the traffic stayed the same but turned to non-converting. The afore-mentoned thing has also happened in the past. Google is like playing with the ''converting/not converting traffic'' button.

And let's be honest - if you know your target market and industry you feel when they are converting more than usually or when they should convert (because of the traffic) but they ain't doing it.

In short, I strongly believe that google can choose what organic traffic (converting or non converting) it is sending to us.

[seowinning]

Ending Game, it's about spending thousand of dollars in PBNs or just give up. There is no white hat way that can win this game now.

[NickMNS]

@hopepro

I found out that one of my 1st position reported in SC says my avg pos is 1st but my site rank on the 10th, however my image is at the top

The relationship of keyword to SERP is not one to one (as it once was many years ago). There are many other factors that come into play, personalization, geolocation, browser/search history, time of day, etc... What you see when you search your own keyword is most likely not representative of what your users see. You can clear your cache, use a VPN, change browser and you will potentially see another SERP, but there is really no way of knowing whether even that SERP is representative.

When Search Console (SC) reports that your average position is 1, that means that on average you appear in 1st, but not always.

The other thing that you must keep in mind is that SC only reports results for searches made by users where your website appeared in the results. Example, searchers search the term "Widget" 100 times, and you site appears only 10 times out of those 100. The data for only those 10 searches appears in your report. So if 9 out those 10 times you appeared in 1st, your average position will show up as 1st. But in reality that is 9 out 100. where 90 out of the hundred you didn't appear at all, so your global average was infinity not 1st.

The effect of the bias can sometimes be felt after being negatively impacted by an update, traffic will half fallen significantly and the webmaster then reports that ranking in GSC has gone up. This is counter intuitive but it makes sense, for most query you no longer appear, the only impression you get are situations were Google infers that the user is searching for you specifically, so you rank 1st or 2nd, but only rank infrequently.

The stats from SC suck, but they are the best you can get.

[Rndm]

In my niche, I don't sell anything or advertise on Google neither my competitors do. Yet some went down and some went up so I think it shouldn't be about advertising.

Maybe it's because I'm not selling anything but it's 2020 and I'm making a decent living thanks to Google.

You are definitely selling something or you would not be making money. I think what you mean is that you sell advertising on your site. Google cares about all niches that make money.

[ichthyous]

Maybe it's because I'm not selling anything

I don't have any e-commerce enabled on my site either, but I definitely sell things. I limit the use of terms like "for sale" or "buy" because I do feel that it will make my site a target for bigger drops as obviously Google can monetize squeezing e-commerce sites more than informational sites. Still, I've seen clearly commercial sites with strong back link profiles dominate. Where they're getting those links is beyond me because nobody I know of links to cookie cutter e-commerce pages with no content

[steffanlv]

When Search Console (SC) reports that your average position is 1, that means that on average you appear in 1st, but not always.

You also have to take into consideration the varying index servers where localized results greatly impact SERPs.

[mcnotony]

in the past few months i have seen my impressions go down by 2 thirds, my traffic go down by 50% and my sales go down by at least 80%. I have added at least another 45 pages of decent content that all seems to rank for keywords when i search, updated loads of weak pages and yet my impressions are still slowly going down and my traffic has not improved one bit. i have increased the speed of the website, conducted a backlink analysis (i discovered there was thousands of auto-generated content spam backlinks) and disavow, removed many weak pages and redirected the urls and still nothing. the site was making £200 a day in January and now it is lucky to make £30 a day. The site got hit last year but recovered without me doing much on the next Google update, but was then hit again 3 months later, again without me having done anything apart from add a few extra pages.

what the hell can i be doing wrong?

[EditorialGuy]

Our travel-planning site's traffic has taken a dip since yesterday, but the reason (IMO) is pretty obvious to anyone who's been reading the headlines about "coronavirus" and following the disease's progress.

Not every traffic dip signals an update!

[RedBar]

Protective masks could be a good idea, if you can get them!

[seowinning]

Let's remember that BERT database isn't complete, it isn't near 50% yet, the issue with conversions is that.

[EditorialGuy]

Let's remember that BERT database isn't complete, it isn't near 50% yet, the issue with conversions is that.

Won't BERT always be a work in progress?

[hopepro]

Thanks all

[seomotionz]

Something definitely big is coming up. Huge amount of bot activity. This time their numbers have tripled.

[hopepro]

@seomotionz I've had bot activity since 22nd FEB.

[sk7411]

@seomotionz : We are already seeing shuffling today , down by another 3% . Google hates us since January core update although we were on all time high from sept 2019 .

[hopepro]

@sk7411 Most sites that I have been doing research on (competitors, allies, similar sites) that had a big jump during SEP-OCT have been hit

I've been following their traffic since Jan 2019. 80% of them were hit on NOV 7 (including mine) and also lost almost 60% of the traffic up until now

These sites included big news company site, one of the most reliable news channel in the country, shopping site, Health, Finance, and I found out that one travel site had 5,000% jumped on OCT 2019 and down even worse after NOV 7 update

One major e-com site with low quality have been having jump every month after NOV 7, even when searching for knowledge on products, the site will still appear on 1st and 2nd place

[sk7411]

@hopepro : Same pattern here , it was all good on or before Sept 2019 and suddenly the tables have turned, however i see many spams are dominating in my niche which makes me 0.00001% optimistic that google might do something about it . Spam and low quality is winning in my Entertainment Niche.

[RedBar]

Entertainment, news, health, are these the sites that are seeing huge movements?

Shopping comparison?

[StupidAI]

Is there any update going on ? why all my keywords disappear again ?

[devoo]

In my previous post I said "I think the core update was about recalculation of the backlinks and page authority" now I'm definitely sure about it. Look at this news:

[searchenginejournal.com...]

It basically says that Google will follow and index "nofollow" links at its own discretion starting from March 1, 2020. I think they are recalculating page authority based on both follow and nofollow backlinks a given page has, that's why we are seeing huge changes in the SERPS since January core update and it's not over yet. There might be even bigger shifts in the SERPS after March 1.

What do you guys think?

[seomotionz]

@RedBar News is one. But can't say anything about the others.

@sk7411 Indeed spam is a problem now. And also so is spam traffic. Yesterday we got a ton of traffic which was spam. They just came to drop irrelevant links.

[Dimitri]

Google will follow and index "nofollow" links at its own discretion
What do you guys think?

I think,... that this is long time known, nothing new under the sun.

Google might count your nofollow links if you overuse it [Sep 25, 2019]
[webmasterworld.com...]

Google Adds new options to NO FOLLOW [Sep 10, 2019]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[devoo]

@Dimitri I think they started experimenting with treating "nofollow" as a regular link since September and now they are ready to launch it as a core feature. When Google gives a specific date about something new they are launching, it's news to me.

[hopepro]

Can somebody help to explain to me either in technical or simple way of what possible reasons if there's any minor or medium or huge adjustment in search rationale, quality site will usually drop down and those of inferior ones up to the top? Thanks

I mean, if google adjust this like 200 times a year, quality site will die while those smaller site wins

[seowinning]

Google will only notice the damage when it's done.

[widgetized]

Here we go again... Sales and conversions every day from Feb 17 to Feb 21. Then no sales and a lot of spam e-mails coming in.