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.

[toddkronwy]

Yes, confirm another updates. Huge spike.

[BushyTop]

We've seen some drops again.... saga continues

[sk7411]

Seeing Drops ..

[ChokenBako]

On my side too. About 15% less visitors compared to previous week....

Does anyone have the problem too, that content gets indexed within 10 minutes, but the content will be visible within the index after 5 or 6 days? I have that problem since the June Core Update =( No way to step out.

[RareBit]

My favicons are back on desktop search..

[seomotionz]

An astrology site took a pretty good hit. Today traffic drop around 50%.

So, my guess will be that Google is encouraging everybody to be a skeptic.

[glakes]

Traffic down about 40%. Our Chinese competitors on Amazon are now dominating Google's SERPS. Maybe the Chinese can pay for Google's Ads since Google seems intent on making small domestic manufacturers extinct.

[universenet]

That another update is stronger now..
[semrush.com ]
maybe visits will finnaly go to normal websites and not more to "safe" zones (youtube., twitter)
We feel like in quarantine, but bots coming like a crazy since half of January ... many are just spam

[samwest]

Traffic actually UP...but conversion non existent all week. They are screwing with quality again. Server response is fast and stable. Bounce is all over the board. Good indicator of traffic quality variation.

[glakes]

conversion non existent all week.

I actually had an organic Google conversion an hour ago. I was shocked! That single conversion will probably fill my 90 day quota though. :(

Yesterday I had a PPC conversion from Google, but I can't count that one really. This customer called and was referred to us by another customer. Instead of finding our contact page by clicking a page in the organic listings, she got to our site via a paid ad. This is one of the problems with Google suppressing organic listings for our company. It leaves them no choice but to click an ad in Google just to get to our site. That's how desperate Google is to drive clicks instead of value to their users. Or it's possible that Google's everflux just happens to be omitting our pages in organics which one day may or may not return. Regardless, I never miss an opportunity to educate our customers about Google and suggest they use a different search engine that does not so heavily manipulate results.

[seomotionz]

Traffic actually UP

@samwest What's the point? If the traffic is useless. One of our site (edu) used to get 10 sales of courses. I checked their traffic pretty much doubled today but got only one sale today. And that one was also from a referral traffic not from google.

[mosxu]

@glakes

“Chinese competitors dominating Google SERPS”
Probably a lot cheaper in price and have had created some user satisfaction that Chrome had measured when users were using Amazon to buy can only imagine that the Chinese product popped up.

But I would worry Google does not care about small businesses and if they do not show the higher converting pages they loose intelligence like where to funnel the buyer in case escapes Amazon.

[Jez123]

@ glakes

Google suppressing organic listings for our company

On mobile search, a comany in Ireland that decided to call its restaurant the same name as my buisness. The owner is a famous chef and attracts more links and media than mine and now I am on page 2 for my company name. I don't mind even being second but now I have trip advisor and every review site above me for my business name! On desktop I am still #2.

[glakes]

Probably a lot cheaper in price and have had created some user satisfaction that Chrome had measured when users were using Amazon to buy can only imagine that the Chinese product popped up.

Definitely cheaper in price. But it's like buying a cheaper car, and the reason it's cheaper is because it does not include wheels. User satisfaction can be monitored by product reviews, but Amazon's review system is corrupt. There are three ways someone can leave a product review on Amazon for FBA (Prime) products. (1) Click the product review link in the email Amazon sends post-purchase, (2) In your order history or (3) by returning to the product page. If you're a domestic manufacturer, shipping unique items direct to American consumers(FBM / Fulfilled by Merchant), buyers only have option 3 to leave a product review. In other words, Amazon's reviews can't be trusted because of how they manipulate them. I believe the base pick and pack Amazon fee per product is $2.50, plus the 15% commission all sellers pay, and this is why Amazon snubs domestic sellers that ship their own goods. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if Google trusted Amazon's reviews despite how heavily manipulated they are.

But I would worry Google does not care about small businesses and if they do not show the higher converting pages they loose intelligence like where to funnel the buyer in case escapes Amazon.

It's more than just intelligence Google loses. The Chinese are not buying ads in Google, but domestic sellers with their own presence outside of Amazon are. Of course Amazon is buying a ton of ads, and they have shopping ads in my industry. In fact, Amazon has shopping ads running now for a couple of the products I produce. But it's that big mobile text ad Amazon has on Google that I believe is killing our organic sales. The Amazon text ad dumps people on an Amazon category page with sponsored listings at the top. I can't compete with this when Amazon is engaged in and Google is allowing ad arbitrage.

@Jez123

Wow, that's terrible! And I thought my problems were bad. Can you trademark the name and start filing DMCA takedown notices? I get that DMCA is only honored in the USA, but maybe you have similar laws or trademark laws you can fall back on to help.

[edited by: glakes at 5:20 pm (utc) on Feb 4, 2020]

[StupidIntelligent]

@Jez123 That's the core of Google algorithms. It's a fame parade. The more people know you, the more traffic you get from them.

[renatovieira]

January was incredible. February drop, drops and f****** drops...

[mosxu]

@glakes

Interesting that amazon is running ads in google with your product that means amazon may pay only if converts and AI as a result will eliminate other converting websites around when new buyers are searching.

Since you are the manufacturer most of the conversions will come to you so as a result new buyers will not have to see your ads or rankings.

[samwest]

SERP death...page 1, #1 organic and you might as well be on Mars.

[TeresaD]

Here it is in black and white, this is a screenshot taken just now from my adwords.

[imgur.com ]

I would expect Ebay to be above me due to the size but Amazon are miles ahead, they must have a huge budget which they are prepared to use to bury small sites.

Maybe a bit tin foil hat but could Google be trying to even things up in organic for smaller sites and the AI has lost the run of itself?

[Jez123]

@glakes
Yes, it's bad but more annoying than that is that it's a Republic of Ireland restaurant so not even technically in the UK even! I am not sure that there is anything that I can do about it. My own domain name used to be the second most searched for term in my stats - now it's way down so I am defintely losing business. For what is an irrelevant result in my opinion. I should not be forced to use adwords to get my own brand name to the top. 20 plus years old too!

[BushyTop]

Dross continues. Bounce rate is inflamed and conversions continue to be at an all-time low. Times like this, i wish we got more traffic from every other search engine, but alas, Google likes us the best. It just doesn't want to give us the traffic.

[SweetPotato]

Do you guys have a disavow file up? or nay?

[seomotionz]

Do you guys have a disavow file up? or nay?

@SweetPotato What do you mean by disavow file up? If a site has caught up some bad links then its evident to use the disavow tool. Its better than getting a manual action penalty.

[glakes]

@mosxu

Since you are the manufacturer most of the conversions will come to you so as a result new buyers will not have to see your ads or rankings.

I'm not aware of Amazon having a CPA agreement with Google outside of Shopping Actions where the transaction occurs on Google. I also doubt that I'm getting most of the conversions from Amazon shopping ads since all product landing pages on Amazon are filled with a dozen + offers including a block of sponsored ads. Since I'm the only seller of these two items on Amazon, I could zero out the available inventory on Amazon which will disable their shopping ads on Google. If there were a way for me to prevent Amazon from advertising my products on Google, without removing them from the Amazon marketplace, I would. But I can't. Doing so would be counter-productive and an example of how both Amazon and Google have me over a barrel. And raising my bids for these products, to get traffic to my website instead of Amazon, makes no sense since I'm essentially trying to outbid myself.

@Jez123

In your situation I would definitely consider getting a trademark and trying to boot that restaurant off UK SERPS. But if your business name is too general and can't be trademarked, I'd consider rebranding to a new trademarked name since you are losing a lot of business. With the way Google botches up geographic regions, I would not expect them to correct the issue. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!

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This morning I see my total traffic cut in half. SERP monitors appear to be settling down, so who knows if this update is over or just part of Google's everflux. I will say the traffic pattern from Google is highly unnatural today. There will be no Google visitors on our site for 15+ minutes, then comes a burst. Once the burst is over, another 15+ minutes with no Google visitors then the burst process repeats itself. On the surface this burst pattern looks like an unsophisticated traffic rotation system. The problem is Google's traffic is terrible with a high bounce rate and no conversions. Why is it that little ole Bing can crush Google when it comes to traffic quality? And it's not just traffic quality but cart totals. Conversions from Bing tend to have order totals that are 2+ times that of Google.

[SweetPotato]

@seomotionz Google: If You Don't Have A Manual Action, You Don't Need To Submit A Disavow [seroundtable.com]
Some say it might cause more harm than good, since only Google knows which links are doing you good or bad.
I'm trying to establish causality between drop in ranks and the use of disavow.
Does the people seen drops update make use of it?

[pritz]

The ranking is improved but no conversion for last couple of days.

[BushyTop]

@SweetPotato Nope, I'm a firm believer of only using it when a manual action comes out. Given its a google tool, I tend to follow JM's instruction on this one.

[ChokenBako]

Crazy, since two hours traffic is up 40% comapred to last week - Rollercoaster ^^

[samwest]

@pritz...Seeing the same effect here...again. Welcome to 'behavior shaping'...aka Zombie traffic.

[pritz]

@samwest what do you mean by "behavior shaping" or Zombie Traffic? There's no traffic from targeted countries.