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.

[seomotionz]

Semrush showing 9.3

@cheegum Here comes the roller coaster. Everybody brace yourselves.:P

[StupidIntelligent]

Semrush metrics are mostly fake breakouts. The real changes happen subtly that most monitors wouldn't pick up.

[worker]

SemRush/sensor/ 9.3s and 9.4s across the board on desktop and mobile

For those who watch this, when are sites likely to see/feel the impact of what is being displayed today in Semrush?

[worker]

Also, the 'core update' on the 14th did not generate this type of volatility in the Semrush monitor, so (speculating) do people think this is a 2nd core update? a rollback? something completely different?

Basically for those who have seen this in Semrush before (across the board of categories), what has it typically meant in the past?

[auksem]

I didn't know what to think, and what to say. Yesterday website traffic go down 88 % and today is the same problem. What I must to say to my boss? :D

[glakes]

so (speculating) do people think this is a 2nd core update? a rollback? something completely different?

Could be at least partially related to the layout tests as Barry noted ( [seroundtable.com...] ). Favicons are still coming and going for me, so it's possible there is a rollback component to what we are seeing and datacenters may have vastly different SERP layouts which is being reported as high volatility by some SERP trackers.

those who have seen this in Semrush before (across the board of categories), what has it typically meant in the past?

Since BERT, high volatility in SEMrush has generally resulted in higher traffic to our info pages and a major offsetting reduction in traffic to our product pages. The net effect is stable total traffic for the entire website, with a major crash in conversions due to the loss of product page traffic.

As I noted previously, Bing has been using BERT nearly half a year before Google. We don't have any problems with converting traffic from Bing. In fact, Bing's traffic converts very well. I find it bizarre that BERT appears to analyze language vastly different between Bing and Google. Based on traffic quality and conversions, it's quite clear Bing has a better understanding of their user's intent and how to match properly to destination websites. Google, on the other hand, appears to have their head stuck up their behind.

[EditorialGuy]

Our Google traffic has been up since the January Core Algorithm Update: about 15 percent (year over year) in the latter half of January and around 8 to 10 percent, on average, in the first week of February. Average search position for our top 100 queries has dropped maybe a tenth of a point since last week, but it's up about 1.5 points in a latest 28-day over previous 28-day comparison.

[Jeppa33]

Yep I'm seeing big drops in several niches, holy ****!

[lostshootingstar]

I am seeing absolutely massive shifts in ranking today in our space. WAY more than I saw in the week or so following the announced January core update. For us personally it appears to be a mixed bag. Way up in some locations, way down in others.

[sk7411]

Can confirm this update , down by another 10% . I am pretty sure the sites will continue the same trend as in the jan core update.

[glakes]

Google messed up and let a single organic conversion slip through. Today's Google organic conversion rate is .72% so far. Compare that to Bing/Yahoo's stellar 25%. LOL My guess is Google's BERT is ineffective with all the other layers of algo components, filters, etc. Bing is definitely rocking with their BERT!

We had enough orders, no thanks to Google, to open up the shop and ship today. Thanks Bing and Yahoo!

[BoredMeteor]

Every other week we've got a tweak or some new update going on. What's the end goal? I never see Bing shifting keywords around so much. But maybe that's what people want, if we consider search engine market share.

I'd really just like to see some stability from Google. Some day!

[ichthyous]

Over the past six years, they've gained 10% points on Google in search and that trend is not slowing down.

If only this were true... My share of traffic from bing is ludicrously low... Perhaps 3% of what Google sends? It'd been going down for years.

[EditorialGuy]

I never see Bing shifting keywords around so much.

It's been quite a while since Matt Cutts said that Google's focus, going forward, would be on "things, not strings."

[venturebeat.com...]

[TeresaD]

Bing is not a thing in my country so it is G or social media, I am in widget season and already down over 4 figures on organic and paid is behaving like Bert 2 is on the way

Great another teenager in my life but this one is a bot and can not be grounded

[koalapandaeu]

Not seeing much of a change right now. But my goog traffic for the last 7 days is flat. Like literally a flat line.

[MayankParmar]

Not seeing any changes here

[renatovieira]

Update happening right now. Sunday morning, heavy traffic on my two sites with the same content.

[ichthyous]

My my Google has been a busy bee this morning...according to SEMrush I see that my two top competitors have been blasted into oblivion and have taken huge drops. Meanwhile two other sites have been climbing day by day and are poised to overtake my own site (now temporarily in first) and take their place soon. Interestingly, this shakeup today hit me hard in the #4-#20 ranking terms but top three ranking terms were relatively unaffected.

My own site is in limbo since the update around January 8th...one day rising next day falling...but seeing what happened to my top two competitors this weekend I feel that at least I have been spared a huge drop (for now).

I suspect this is all temporary...my top competitor has been completely stable and parked at the top for years now, and it is a large company...#2 is an enormous enterprise in the billions of dollars so I don't see either of them staying down for long.

[RedBar]

What a mess!

Which dial have they turned-up now, the magical mixing bowl of garbage?

My SERPs area has been relatively stable recently, now, using G.co.uk, I'm seeing pointless Ebay and Pinterest sites with totally unable to supply US corporate sites ... These companies are 100% US importers and do no export anywhere!

After saying that my traffic is up however definitely not from Google, enquiries are up and realworld orders are up, people are finding me by alternative routes since G has rendered itself almost incapable for my widgets but it's been like that for several years now.

My widget industry is in an alternative universe to the Google gods / intern apprentices with no idea of life.

[JesterMagic]

Seeing changes a well in our niche. Our traffic has been dropping slowly the past few months when it is suppose to be our busy season. One thing I have noticed is that about 4 different spam sites have been rising slowly in our niche for the past 6 months and now have reached the first page. They are operated by the same person but use different templates for the CMS but the content is very similar... very frustrating.

This past month I have been updating the site though including better support for structured data so that may play a part of the reason for our drop but I don't think so based what I see churning in the serps...

[seomotionz]

I am seeing a lot of traffic from Bing and Baidu today.

[fearlessrick]

@ glakes and others. The reason Bing's SERPs are relatively stable and Google's are all over the place is because Bing has a business agenda, whereas Google has a social agenda.

Bing seems to be focused on being a better search engine, keeping their customers happy and making money. Google wants everybody to conform to their way of thinking, and I would expect most of you know upon which side of the political spectrum they fall. Essentially, I don't care for their morals/ideals. Ever since their idiotic "do no evil" statement, I kind of figured they were either mentally-challenged in some manner or liars. Now I think they're a little bit of both.

Maybe this new CEO will make some changes, but I seriously doubt it. Just waiting this out for now.

[ichthyous]

The reason Bing's SERPs are relatively stable and Google's are all over the place is because Bing has a business agenda, whereas Google has a social agenda.

Oh please...Google's "social agenda" is just a thin veil of an excuse to squeeze every last cent out of the internet possible and make its share price increase so that all those Googlers with stock options get richer and richer, period. Google is doing what businesses do, making as much money as possible as quickly as possible and trying to wipe out any competition. They succeeded, and now are free to squeeze the internet to death and make sure that only the largest corporations with huge amounts to spend get found. We have one corporation controlling the internet, that is our reality.

The only solution is that another company innovates and beats Google at its own game, or that some government creates non-profit search engine as a public utility. I wouldn't hold my breath for either. The real question is...as Google continues to manipulate its search results in favor of the highest bidder and not the best quality content, will people catch on? And if they do catch on, will they care?

[seomotionz]

@ichthyous You are correct. Google does not have any agenda they just want to make money that's all. And even if they did had an agenda then its pretty simple imperialist to us.

Anyway, I am seeing that traffic is getting throttled. But the traffic is coming back somehow from other sources.

[edited by: seomotionz at 5:03 am (utc) on Feb 10, 2020]

[Rahul Suresh]

A huge hike in some high competition keywords and location-based keywords dropped. However, Is this a core update or a local update?

[Athedian]

Lots of traffic, almost no conversions. It happens almost every. single.time. When traffic was low, conversion increased. When traffic was high, conversion went MIA. At least for my industry that's what I'm seeing.

Seems like Google loves sites doing inter-site link building of each unique language with their own unique domain of the same company site (EN > JP, JP > CH, CH > EN). At least, again, that's what I'm seeing from Ahref.

I mean it's fine, but such link building provides no actual usefulness because if I were native English, why would I visit a Chinese or a Japanese site? I thought Google didn't like that? But when I checked competitors' sites, the ones with MASSIVE increase in ranking for the past two weeks from the updates, that's the trend I'm seeing. =_=

[michaeldhayes]

Mozscape is showing 115 degrees, higher then even the january core updates.

Seeing enterprise level site at +15% over the weekend, this might even out to 8-10% in the weekdays. This site wasn't really affected on Jan 13, maybe saw 5% increase eventually in the weeks that followed.

Smaller sites in the tech niche (saw 20% increase in September, gave it back in Jan) seeing maybe single digit increases.

Seems like these core updates just shuffle the deck around. I'm going to start ignoring them. Just keep my head down and plug away.

[cellist]

I'm seeing no change in visits but page impressions are up and bounce rate is down.

[jediviper]

Huge ranking drops for one of my sites in AUSTRALIA.
Lost around 20% of rankings at positions 1-3.
Haven't been affected so much from the previous Update, so this made quite a big difference.
Traffic had a minor drop on the 9th though, so I am sure the real results in traffic will be visible in the next days.

Semrush was absolutely right about the sensor of 9.3