Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2020

[Shepherd]

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System: The following 5 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4982115.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 12:19 pm on Mar 1, 2020 (utc -5)

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If you're in ecommerce this twitter thread is a good read, albeit a bit scary.

[twitter.com...]

[RedBar]

Ecommerce sounds like it'll be a big thing this year. Who's ready? What's your go-to setup?

What?

Where's he been for the last 20 years?

[RedBar]

It is 1st March and not 1st April?

[universenet]

It is 1st March and not 1st April?

Redbar
I wirte here many times that is like some people living in 10-20 years in past
They do not recognize changes years
They need wake up one day, maybe soon
Internet changing every day
But ok, sometimes is better dreaming, maybe

[universenet]

Google isn't rotating traffic they are switching servers so the behavior is similar.

I think that google doing that not with siwthing data centers, this is made by programming and using random traffic
to millions of websites , all data centers for sure working in that way
and with mixing no payed ads made by google, if google does not have ads for some location google make ads free, better using unknown website in some location over no payed ads of using some website what will maybe make money but no for google

[Shepherd]

Where's he been for the last 20 years?

Times they are a changing, even for a perceived behemoth like ecommernce.

What are the SERPs going to look like when google takes an even bigger interest in ecommerce. A(nother) google Shopping pivot, AMP for ecommerce push, acquisition of Shopify...

[mosxu]

WTF?

Spend on all my Adwords campaigns has doubled over night but no conversions ...

[thenightfoxx]

My daily organic traffic dropped by 50% since tuesday. Now my peak sunday is practically dead. What have you done Google...I thought you didn't care about adult searches...

[glakes]

Google isn't rotating traffic they are switching servers so the behavior is similar.

From a site owner's perspective, it does not matter what technique(s) Google uses to rotate traffic. The net result is the same - less traffic for quality websites. If we as site owners had some control over this rotation, to give us more traffic, then that would be a different story. But as I noted before, I truly believe Google's goal is to cut our free traffic out from the knees to prompt us to spend, spend, and spend to replace what free traffic we lost. I will most certainly spend, just not with Google.

@Shepherd

Thanks for posting the twitter link. It's always entertaining to see someone at Google speak about ecommerce when Google has lost so much ground. Judging from the comments at twitter, all one needs to do is spend big on Adwords and even more on a SEO company to sell a lot of products. The problem is there are not enough margins to do this. Being a seller on Amazon, I can say that if I combined all the conversions from both organic and paid Google ads, it's still not even 1/10th of the total conversions I see on Amazon. And only 1/4 of the products I sell are available on Amazon while Google can crawl/rank my entire product line and they are in Google's product feeds as well.

So to answer John's question:

Ecommerce sounds like it'll be a big thing this year. Who's ready? What's your go-to setup?

It most certainly won't involve Google very much. My go to setup is Amazon along with increased spending with Bing where some days I see conversion rates in the 20-30% range.

SEMrush is showing SERP movement today, but I have not seen anything on the other SERP trackers. My traffic appears normal, albeit a little lower than normal but that's to be expected with the cold temperatures departing.

[EditorialGuy]

My daily organic traffic dropped by 50% since tuesday. Now my peak sunday is practically dead. What have you done Google...I thought you didn't care about adult searches...

How is your organic traffic from other search engines holding up? We've had a big drop since Tuesday also, but it's across the board (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, direct, and other sources). The reason in our case seems obvious: We have an editorial travel-planning site that focuses heavily on a region that's been hit by COVID-19, a.k.a. the coronavirus, and our Google rankings (which are holding up just fine) are beside the point.

[worker]

I'm seeing significant drops in page views, impressions and revenue. This has continued for the last few months, with each week more or less a little less than the week before, but a clear overall trend downward. (I am not in the eCommerce area, but rather, I have unique content sites that are over a decade old. These sites are continually receiving newly updated content, so they are not stale sites.)

I have zero idea what is causing all of this. I have been following Google's guidelines to a T and whenever I am contacted or alerted to an issue, it is fixed within 24 hours. There is no visible reason for my sites to have all been downgraded if that is even what has happened. I still see the sites in the search results, although I see a lot of news articles and blog references now appearing in between the first organic result and my sites, pushing me lower on the first page or onto the second page. The news articles and blog articles are not good results to deliver for the various search phrases I've tested, with many being 2-3 years old and not listed on sites that could be perceived as expert sites. Basically, instead of results that match the searcher's intent, I continue to see information sites about the search phrase, instead of sites that actually match the search phrase.

Independent of that issue, I continue to see p0rn site redirects on most search phrases I test. I only go 2 pages deep in tests, so it is more than a little disconcerting to input a search phrase and see a search result on the first or second page of results that looks like it might be a good site/a good search result based on the text Google gathered and display in the results (and then when clicked, you end up on a p0rn site).

Google should know when the end result of a link is a p0rn site. Every now and then these p0rn sites also attempt malicious redirect attacks. Google used to warn of sites that would try to do things like this, but nothing about what Google is doing now makes any sense.

Overall, I've seen about a 70% drop in page views and revenue in the last 3 months and there is no sign that things will not continue on a downward slope.

Google must have twisted a few significant knobs in the last couple of large updates. Does anyone have any ideas on what the big changes are yet? I haven't made any changes to my sites to try to address the drops because there is no rhyme or reason to anything I am seeing. Thoughts?

[thenightfoxx]

How is your organic traffic from other search engines holding up? We've had a big drop since Tuesday also, but it's across the board (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, direct, and other sources). The reason in our case seems obvious: We have an editorial travel-planning site that focuses heavily on a region that's been hit by COVID-19, a.k.a. the coronavirus, and our Google rankings (which are holding up just fine) are beside the point.

Mine is just google alone. My niche is in the adult industry...I've never experienced a drop like this in organic traffic in the whole 7 months I've been going. I also noticed my rank on similarweb has disappeared.

[chrisv1963]

Independent of that issue, I continue to see p0rn site redirects on most search phrases I test. I only go 2 pages deep in tests, so it is more than a little disconcerting to input a search phrase and see a search result on the first or second page of results that looks like it might be a good site/a good search result based on the text Google gathered and display in the results (and then when clicked, you end up on a p0rn site).

Google should know when the end result of a link is a p0rn site. Every now and then these p0rn sites also attempt malicious redirect attacks.

I'm seeing exactly the same and I have been seeing this for the last +- 14 days. Google search results are dangerous lately when you don't have up-to-date antivirus. Google's artificial intelligence maybe detected that a lot of people visit p0rn sites and since Google "knows what's best for you" they decide to serve you these sites instead of the things you are REALLY looking for :-)

Anyhow, I only use Google for testing purposes. For personal searches I'm using Duck.com now since I ran into several malicious redirect attacks with Google.

[samwest]

Page 1, position 1 and 2 across the board and on all suggested searches, yet site sits at zero or a trickle.
The ON/OFF pattern is again in full effect. Amazing.

[hopepro]

recover a bit from last 2 weeks around 20%-30%. These is the list that I have been working on after FEB 7

1. remove bad links from SC
2. pumping new contents
3. some contents are being organically shared to high ranking pages
4. fix the speed issues on mobile (it was already extremely fast, after fixed, it looks the same but google page speed says it's better)
5. Update older contents, until now, the team updated around 300+ contents to have new and fresh info
6. Remove ads that might decrease user experience, such as, used to have 3 ads in content, cut it down to one
7. Re-read E-A-T guidelines several times
8. don't give a darn about nofollow, just reference the info that the writer did research on, don't care how many links to place, but it has to be trustful sources. If the sources are concrete enough, just reference to it, if not sure, nofollow (my own theory is that, you don't want google to waste time thinking that the site is trustful enough based on your judgement)

By this, not sure, if this is a higher-low before going down again or which wave I'm at.

New contents are indexed slower, before was 5-20 mins, now 2 days. Fixing old contents are slowly index too. Some contents jump to 1st page right after published, some takes 1-2 weeks scattered between 1,2,3rd page

What i noticed is that old contents that no matter how hard we try to bring it up, update fresh contents, it seems to have scar on itself and looks like it will never come back on good position again.

Hope this helps.

[RareBit]

I think John Mueller is referring to Coronavirus! hahaha

[seomotionz]

Where did the traffic went today? Most of the sites showing around 25-30% reduction in traffic as compared to a normal Monday.

[sk7411]

Where did the traffic went today? Most of the sites showing around 25-30% reduction in traffic as compared to a normal Monday.

Told ya in my earlier reply.. Something is happening , Sensors are too flawed to notice other range of keywords/sites shuffling around. All i can see is spam sites ranking up with links from hacked sites using display:none . This was a shocker for me, may be we have achieved the regressing level of Quantum AI Supremacy .

[seomotionz]

@sk7411 AI is a joke!

[StupidIntelligent]

AI= Asinine Insignificance

[glakes]

Where did the traffic went today?

Our traffic/conversions are coming from Bing and Yahoo. Amazon is also on fire cranking out sales today. Google is a non-player in today's website sales - just one page wonders which is quick to bounce/bot like traffic that lands on a page and quickly leaves. Google is FUBAR... They really need to fire Sundar Pichai and get someone halfway competent to run Google and Alphabet. That would be a good start to a permanent fix of this mess.

Google ranking pages with redirects to p0rn sites? How low can Google really go? Maybe that's where Google is sending all the buyer traffic - to p0rn sites...

[awsoo]

That's bad but one thing i have learned is when it comes to SERP, nothing to almost nothing is revealed. Only when million of years have pass we know what changed.

If i remember correctly a few decades ago just submitting your site to google was a big secret that a few know. Nowadays worth "...."

[BoredMeteor]

Couple fun observations to show just how quality Google is right now. My biggest site is simply informational, focusing on let's call it science-related stuff. I don't sell anything.

On one yearly keyword (think "Keyword 2020"), Google has given the top spot to a major media outlet. The page has no text, just an embedded video...from the year 2013.

Another keyword has the #1 position granted to...a 404 page. These searches tend to drive some pretty decent traffic, too.

Something's got to be wrong, or I'm just too stupid to understand Google's EAT and BERT and BLURP algorithms.

[oj_mayo]

my ad spend was incredibly high today, but conversions were also up

[universenet]

Google decided totally ignoring publishers?
If you selling something or not selling seems same bad effect, google does not like anybody

[linkbuildr]

Google has the Corona Virus.

[ichthyous]

Google is FUBAR... They really need to fire Sundar Pichai and get someone halfway competent to run Google and Alphabet. That would be a good start to a permanent fix of this mess.

Alphabet's quarterly profits have increased steadily under this CEO, that's all that matters to them. They are free to crap up the quality of search all they want, as a monopoly there's no where else to go in most people's minds. Google is integrated into all our lives so deeply that the user base is very sticky, and they can manipulate the hell out of search to keep those profits rolling in all they want.

[universenet]

Boeing did want just profit too, now is question if will survive 737 max schock

[seomotionz]

Our traffic/conversions are coming from Bing and Yahoo. Amazon is also on fire cranking out sales today. Google is a non-player in today's website sales - just one page wonders which is quick to bounce/bot like traffic that lands on a page and quickly leaves. Google is FUBAR... They really need to fire Sundar Pichai and get someone halfway competent to run Google and Alphabet. That would be a good start to a permanent fix of this mess.

@glakes Yesterday we got traffic from Baidu, both referral and organic. Low quality and irrelevant traffic alright but generated little bit of ad revenue so I am not complaining. Bing and Yahoo along with DDG were able to send some super specific traffic yesterday which I noticed that lead to sales. And some other converting traffic were the direct ones. In the current situation I am glad Google is non-existent because they send traffic so irrelevant that forget sales, ad revenue also became zero. And at the end of the day the site's bandwidth gets all eaten up due to them.

[koalapandaeu]

My traffic for the last 20 days has been steadily improving, however this is not leading to more sales. Social media visitors and clients are flat for February vs January. I think it is a combination of low quality google traffic and people avoiding online shopping from other countries due to coronavirus.