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...]

[cheegum]

Google's algorithm is seriously messed up in its assessment right now. I am seeing a specific site in my niche gain over 1M in Organic Traffic and 91K New keywords discovered, most of their articles now ranking between position #1 to #3 were published between 2007 to 2014.

I believe sooner or later Google will realise this and correct itself.

[RedBar]

I believe sooner or later Google will realise this and correct itself.

So, do you believe this is not deliberate but a mistake and G will revert its current algo?

I'm not being rude however have you been on the G Kool-Aid?

IRC G has only once before reverted an update, they never, ever admit to mistakes / errors, ever.

[EditorialGuy]

Google updates hardly ever affect us (except for the occasional uptick). Coronavirus, on the other hand, is having a big impact.

[mosxu]

I am saying to AI “buy face masks” and all I get is news sites.

Where is the intend AI?

[glakes]

@mosxu

I'm seeing lots of news sites as well, beneath the 4 ads at the top and above the 3 ads at the bottom. Couldn't help but to laugh at the keyword stuffed eBay ad: "Mask Facemask on ebay | Seriously, We Have Mask Facemask‎"

I think AI face planted on that query altogether...

[mosxu]

@glakes

It is so obvious...

[cheegum]

@mosxu

This is a serious mess.

[universenet]

Real website with mask selling iare excluded from search and Google does not crawling them, Google is focused only only on interesting things not real things

[leeroad117]

Most of my traffic dropped on feburary 24th at 2pm. I remember checking at around 1:30pm and everything was normal. I usually check my real time analytics every hour or so and always have 50+ people on at any given time, mostly from organic search. At 1:30 i checked my real time traffic on google analytics and it was almost completely dead. only a few people online. Ever since then its still the same day after day, only a few people on my website at any given time. No manual penalties in search console. Funny thing is, the day after this traffic drop I received an email from adwords letting me know about their advertising options even though I have never used adwords. 1 thing I have noticed after the traffic drop is alot of sites showing up that was never there before and alot of old pages, mostly from years and even 10 years ago are now ranking at the very top. My organic traffic went from 15-20k per day to struggling to get 1500 now. Adsense earnings down from 250-300$ per day to struggling to make 20$.

[ChokenBako]

If I compare todays visits with the visits from last saturday, i have the same amount of visitors for an hour. Thats in my opinion nearly impossible...

[ichthyous]

I'm tracking mobile and desktop serps separately in SEMrush... Desktop ranking is slowly but steadily declining since January, while mobile is steadily climbing. The result has been almost no new business coming in. Mobile traffic doesn't convert well for my business, they mostly come and go. The more serious shoppers are browsing on desktop

[RedBar]

The more serious shoppers are browsing on desktop

Across my sites visitors are still averaging 57-63% desktop.

Because of the nature of my business, first viewing / contact is nearly always mobile, especially WhatsApp, as specifiers are searchng for information and products and as they share with their professional colleagues they transfer to desktop to view the larger images and videos etc. The information / images is exactly the same however desktop gives them the freedom to download the images and use the product(s) in their projects on their monster screens etc.

This percentage has remained pretty consistent over the last 3-4 years.

[RedBar]

Thats in my opinion nearly impossible...

One would think so however I have experienced that several times across several different sites.

The first time it happened to me I wondered wtf, however on comparing my logs it was pure coincidence, different countries, different systems, different pages and believe it or not it happened again a few days later!

The law of averages and winning the lottery etc:-)

[glakes]

Mobile traffic doesn't convert well for my business, they mostly come and go. The more serious shoppers are browsing on desktop

This is a problem for many responsive websites. On mobile, some/all the inline/sidebar images are pushed down the page which leaves nothing but a wall of text at the top. Viewed on a desktop, the wall of text is broken up with images as the webmaster intended. This is part of the reason why mobile traffic converts so poorly for some.

We too have poor product conversions from mobile traffic. With Google ads, we added a +50% bid adjustment for desktop traffic which was a big and costly fail. I've looked at data regarding general conversion rates across the web/industries, and in 2019 browser-based mobile traffic had a 1.53% conversion rate -vs- desktop's 4.14% conversion rate. For ecommerce, one major concern is how much time mobile users spend in apps. In 2019 I've seen data that indicated mobile users only used their web browser 10% of the time with the rest spent in apps. Amazon reported in 2019 that 42% of their mobile traffic was from their app. With Amazon estimated to get 50% of all ecommerce transactions, getting inside Amazon's walled garden is important if only to gain access to the in-app mobile traffic they receive.

These are truly challenging times for independent businesses. The erosion of sales originating from search engines has pushed many small businesses into marketplaces where seller rules/policies/product rankings benefit marketplace profits over an actual product's features/value to the consumer. I still can't believe regulators, and the politicians that oversee them, were so inept to allow this to occur. Our economy is largely controlled by a handful of companies that are permitted to operate with impunity. And it's only getting worse...

[iamlost]

This is a problem for many responsive websites. On mobile, some/all the inline/sidebar images are pushed down the page which leaves nothing but a wall of text at the top. Viewed on a desktop, the wall of text is broken up with images as the webmaster intended. This is part of the reason why mobile traffic converts so poorly for some.

What you describe is true.
It is what happens when a site designed and optimised for a large screen, ie desktop, is made responsive aka reflow and expected to be appropriate, as is, for all devices, all screen sizes/resolutions.

And that does not work aka convert well at all for visitors on other devices.

For best results one needs design and optimise for each device context, each family of screen size/resolution.
Doing so does not guarantee anything except that one continues to be competitive.

[RedBar]

On mobile, some/all the inline/sidebar images are pushed down the page which leaves nothing but a wall of text at the top.

Do I assume you are referring to ecommerce CMS platforms / templates?

[glakes]

Do I assume you are referring to ecommerce CMS platforms / templates?

Yes.

Unfortunately the workaround for some of these platforms/templates is to use very little text, to give images/photos greater visibility, which may lead to thin content issues. This problem exists not for just self-hosted ecommerce websites but also those templates/themes provided by some of the big players in ecommerce platforms. The correct way to deal with the problem is as @iamlost noted, which can be quite costly for small businesses striving for a unique and memorable presence online.

[lostshootingstar]

In an effort to keep the spirit of this topic alive.... Has anyone seen any major changes the last two days? Our traffic is up like 20+% Friday and Saturday, but no noticeable ranking changes in the areas I track. Can't figure out where it's coming from until GSC catches up.

[RedBar]

Has anyone seen any major changes the last two days?

Yes, the last few days has seen an increase in traffic to specific websites and I know the reason why and it's definitely not related to G changes.

The largest global producer of my finished widgets is China plus China imports raw widgets especially from Brazil and India.

China's production has been almost "on hold" since their New Year, this past few days has seen a notable increase in enquiries to our Indian offices especially from the Middle East which uses a lot of my widgets.

It looks as though China is going back to work as I type therefore it will be interesting to see if this trend continues or not.

It's probably not the answer you were seeking however the traffic source changes to our sites have been very noticeable.

[EditorialGuy]

Has anyone seen any major changes the last two days?

I haven't. Not in terms of Google rankings and traffic, anyway.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

The strange thing is that no one blames on traffic changes last weeks... I'm facing with growing traffic decrease last 3 weeks. I'm still thinking that it's related to c***virus, but I started to doubt on that. Semrush doesn't show any drop. I'm facing with similar picture on the websites I'm tracking too (niche: IT how-to tutorials).

@MayankParmar How about your traffic? Or you are still under penalty?

[RedBar]

I'm still thinking that it's related to c***virus, but I started to doubt on that.

Why are you doubting that?

Insofar as international business is concerned it's definitely having an effect. I know of several other business areas being affected.

On the BBC Friday night there was a claim that in London alone trade in bars, hotels, restaurants etc is down 30%, if people in general feel their livelihoods may be affected then they will inevitably adjust their lifestyles until "normality" returns.

[cheegum]

Many tech sites that were hit on nov-9 are drowning again. Lifewire, makeuseof etc.

[samwest]

Another Sunday totally robbed by the suddenly appearing 'Interesting Finds' block....again.

[swright]

I'm seeing a gradual decline in traffic from the US since last week, around the time the situation with the coronavirus in the country started to look worse and we started getting reports of people panic buying supplies. At the same time, trackers show that my rankings are going up and GSC shows no meaningful changes in CTR and positions. I'm seeing similar declines in US traffic in terms of percentages coming from other search engines like Yahoo and Bing. So I definitely think the virus problems and the associated impending economic disruption play a role.

[samwest]

Zombies...all Zombies.

[seomotionz]

Yipee! Another two day holiday in our country. I will try to restart my brain in the meantime. Virus effect, zombie effect and let alone G itself all are wrecking havoc, so what could possible go wrong?!:P

[samwest]

Dredging new lows in traffic in spite of 3 positions on page 1....but moved from the #1 position to 4, 5 and 6.
Pinterest is again ranking at top of page. It's a hot mess. Traffic sitting at zero all morning. With all the garbage above the organics, you may as well be on page 100.
Added fresh new pages & posts...no effect.
Added fresh new social posts...no effect.
The exercise in diminishing returns goes on...

[JesterMagic]

Noticed on Sunday that I received 11% less traffic than the previous Sunday. SERPS don't seem to be changed much but I noticed that Google Analytics failed to record traffic for about an hour and after that the traffic was lower. Anyone else experience something like this? (Is it an update or just an Analytics issue)

[NickMNS]

but I noticed that Google Analytics failed to record traffic for about an hour

This was due to the change to Daylight Saving Time in the US and Canada.