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...]

[worker]

Without any identifiable change to search engine positions for the many search phrases I monitor, my traffic and revenue has dropped precipitously yesterday and further today. There isn't any indication of anything significant in Semrush. There is no explanation I can identify for the steady decrease in traffic or revenue over the last 2 months. There are no warnings or notifications or penalties on my account. Whatever Google is doing seems to be killing large numbers of sites based on the comments continually posted for the last few months. Does anyone have any ideas on what change Google could have made in their algorithm that could be causing the problems we all seem to be experiencing?

[deriklogov]

This is not Google related, this drop going across all traffic sources. We all in same position and i hope it wont last more than a week

[worker]

With all due respect deriklogov, many of us have been on here for well over a decade and have a good sense of the ebb and flow of Google. While the Coronovirus may be partially involved, the problems I'm referencing began 2 months ago and are continuing. There were clearly significant changes made around early to mid-January that have continued to cause problems ever since. For some of us, a larger number of people staying at home should lead to more traffic and more ad impressions and more revenue. I cannot identify what changes were implemented beginning in January despite having tested for pagespeed, disavow file, IP blocking, ad blocking/unblocking, content addition/modification. Basically, I don't have a clue what is causing so many webmasters (including myself) to have so many problems. I've never seen anything like this in over a decade of Google ups and downs. Even the most impactful of updates did not negatively affect so many webmasters so dramatically in such a short period of time. And especially without any of us being able to identify any specific criteria that could be worked on to moderate the impact of the Google update. So, I ask again, does anyone have any idea what changed in mid-January that could be the cause of what (I think) we are all struggling through now?

[NickMNS]

does anyone have any idea what changed in mid-January that could be the cause of what (I think) we are all struggling through now?

Not a clue.

Even the most impactful of updates did not negatively affect so many webmasters so dramatically in such a short period of time.

I think this has more to do with those doing well are not participating in this forum, given that the general tone is negative with a heavy bent on Google conspiracy to rule the world.

Since mid December I have had close to a 5 fold increase in traffic, going from my worst traffic levels since starting to restoring traffic near my peak levels in from early 2018. Google has definitely made changes. I have seen a reversal of the trend over the past week, and I suspect that there is something new a foot with Google. But given the uncertainty caused by Covid19 it is impossible to say.

There isn't any indication of anything significant in Semrush.

You cannot rely on services such as SEMRush. The relationship between keyword and SERP is no longer 1:1, as thus there is no way that these services can provide representative statistics. This is true now more than ever with the introduction of algos like BERT, and the erosion started way back, think Hummingbird.

What boggles my mind is how everyone here is highly critical of Google's SERPs when it does not agree with SEMrush and others. Shouldn't you be questioning SEMRush?

[swright]

Semrush may not be 100% correct, but there is some correlation at the site level (not talking about Sensor). Plus you should never use only one source to make conclusions. In my case, Semrush shows increases (or at least variations in the usual range), Ahrefs shows very slight fluctuations (<1%), other visibility tools show an increase. GSC shows rankings in the usual range for the same set of keywords and shows reduced impressions as the main driver for the decrease in traffic. I'm checking some of my biggest KWs through VPNs from time to time, and they haven't moved much, if at all. The only other thing I've seen in GSC is reduced CTR for some KWs for the same ranking position.

So I'm pretty sure Google is doing something, as it always is. But that alone doesn't explain such a huge drop, especially when other search engines are showing the same drops percentage-wise - at least in my case.

[glakes]

So, I ask again, does anyone have any idea what changed in mid-January that could be the cause of what (I think) we are all struggling through now?

A core update occurred in mid January, which is likely what initially hit your site. I haven't seen much analysis publicly displayed by SEOs about this update. One source that discusses the January core update, with some detail, is: [mariehaynes.com...]

On January 22 Google began de-duping search results for featured snippets. This too may have impacted your site as it impacted ours. We hold a number of key featured snippets for peripheral product related questions. When we lost our standard listings in the search results, we also lost the ability to display our products alongside the answer to their questions. Featured snippets is an unfortunate side effect of very high quality content. We're still debating on whether to disallow featured snippets and how it may impact us elsewhere.

For us, the substantial drop in sales started the second week of November. I believe this was the result of Google releasing Bert. Since Bert was initially trained from Wikipedia, I believe repeated unannounced minor Bert updates have siphoned off even more conversions while our traffic has remained relatively stable.

[NeapTide]

All those experiencing significant drop in traffic, please spam your website as much as possible as sites with more links are winning the SERPs these days, just saying.

On a serious note, quality backlinks are the major factor your site will rank better. Plus make sure the entire site loading speed is "fast to moderate" in Search Console. Get rid of dead backlinks. And update all old pages even if it is by just 1 word.

[whoa182]

Traffic dropped a lot yesterday and it was a larger drop than normal for a Friday. I've manually checked my positions and most of the main keywords are stable although I see a few new snippets apepar for other sties just above mine. Need to wait for search console data...

However, I think this is more related to Coronavirus news in the US and people are spending more of their time searching that.

[oceanlair]

Long time lurker, first time poster...

Suspect, there is something strange afoot. GA reporting...who knows..but from an indexing/rankings POV, I've noticed odd behaviours with things getting/not getting indexed in Google News (despite the publisher being active and working fine in publishercentre). And yes, I'm aware the publishercentre has changed as has the algo for GNews... but.... this was form one-day to the next.

Edit: To add to that - there is actually some really odd behaviour across the news indexing with many old articles surfacing... could be Covid19 related....maybe.... trying to curb false info and what not.

[JesterMagic]

Traffic down further today. Must be COVID19 related as keywords still look fine but Google Analytics is reporting less traffic to our pages (unless it is a long-tail keywords issue). One thing I notice while checking the keywords is that the favorite icons are back in the SERPS for some reason in incognito mode only

[EditorialGuy]

does anyone have any idea what changed in mid-January that could be the cause of what (I think) we are all struggling through now?

Our information site has been doing fine in Google since the first of the year, and our Google traffic took an especially nice--albeit not huge--bump after the January Core Algorithm Update. Our only problem has been with the coronavirus pandemic, which has clobbered online travel planning and the travel industry in general.

[Cralamarre]

My traffic is actually doing a bit better than expected today. Still down but not as bad as yesterday. Since my site is education-based, my hope (fingers crossed) is that with schools closing and moving to online classes beginning next week, I'll see a jump in traffic. But of course that's a best-case scenario. Worst (and most likely) case is that the next few months will be a disaster.

[SnowMan68]

I would have expected our site traffic to drop with COVID news taking up almost all of the coverage. We were up 10% yesterday with G organic and the increase is consistent today as well.

YoY to date we are up about 52%.

[glakes]

Ecommerce Conversion Rates:

March 13, 2020
Google Organic: 0%
Google PPC: 5.71%

March 14, 2020 (as of 5:30PM EST.)
Google Organic: 1.48%
Google PPC: 21.05%

March 11 and 12 were absolutely horrible. What gives with these swings in conversions? All other sources of traffic produce stable conversions unlike Google which appears to do makeup days to try to balance out days of nothing...

[mosxu]

Google PPC: 21.05%

That means your conversion rate has to get dumped

[glakes]

That means your conversion rate has to get dumped

Google pre-dumped it the days beforehand and I'm sure conversions will disappear in the coming days!

[ichthyous]

Traffic down 40% yesterday week over week. Don't fool yourselves about the effect of the pandemic on traffic. I'm seeing a slight drop in desktop positioning in SEMrush but nothing major.

[PlinyTheElder]

Everybody is talking about the traffic drop, but almost no one said about the traffic increase. Isn't is suspicious? The answer is pretty simple. With BERT Google cut off long tail keywords.

Previously, your website had a chance to climb onto the 1st place in the SERP by a long-tail keyword. Since BERT was launched, all the big players took all your long tail keywords. That's all.

The Jan core update just shacked up the SERPS depending on the domain authority and has additionally spread the long tail keywords between the big players.

As a result, almost each of us experiences a huge drop in organic traffic.

[devoo]

Since the core update "authority" sites got tremendous power. They even rank for the long tail queries their pages don't match at all because BERT thinks what you've typed could be similar or related. This is nothing new but it looks like their power increased after the core update.

On my web app I introduced a new service recently and when I search for it my competitor with better overall authority was ranking for that term at the top although they don't provide that service at all. Its like BERT thinks "these two sites provide similar services so I'll show the authority site at the top in almost every search query even if the authority site doesn't explicitly say they provide it".

[deriklogov]

It looks to me that situation over all getting better , i had a drop of less than 10% yesterday compare to same day last week. Its much better than 20% drops 2 days ago.

[SteveWrz]

a drop of less than 10% yesterday compare to same day last week. Its much better than 20% drops 2 days ago

Exact same on my end.

[Cralamarre]

@deriklogov My traffic drop yesterday was less than 5% compared to last week, so things do seem to be a bit better. However, weekends for me are always slow, so the real test will be Monday. And with the whole world shut down, I'm expecting the worst.

[RedBar]

Isn't it amazing how actual physical shopping has become popular again?

Two metrics I'm looking forward to:

1. Big online food / essentials (f / e) shopping sites figures considering how many are not allowing (f / e) on-line shopping. Is this happening in other countries?

2. The post-apocalyptic spending plunge will be even worse than Xmas / Easter since most people will be over-stocked at home meaning in a week or two there could well be some tremendous fresh food bargains.

Is there anyone here who's involved in major online (f / e) retailing who will be able to give us these figures?

[EditorialGuy]

Everybody is talking about the traffic drop, but almost no one said about the traffic increase. Isn't is suspicious?

No.

First, not "everybody" talked about a traffic drop.

Second, the coronavirus pandemic is a far bigger factor than Google for at least some of us.

Third, this forum represents a very small sample.

Fourth, support forums tend to attract people who are looking for support. (And let's not forget the expression "Misery loves company.")

[EditorialGuy]

Isn't it amazing how actual physical shopping has become popular again?

Sure, if you're looking for Purell or toilet paper. :-)

[RedBar]

In the UK almost every product line is disappearing off the shelves not just the headline ones.

I actually saw a hair dye / colouring section almost cleaned out, what?

[goodroi]

Mods Note: Let's please get back on-topic.

This is a difficult and stressful time for many. If someone's business is struggling, we can be a better resource for them if we limit each thread to one topic. We want to make it easy to find different topics and follow the conversations.

If you want to talk about something that isn't directly related to Google Updates & SERP changes, please start a new thread. Thank you.

[ichthyous]

Ok back on topic...has there been a confirmed or suspected update since the 12th? My traffic went off a cliff the last three days

[Dooku]

For the attention of the moderator: Yes, this IS about the Google algo changes.

I don’t post often, rarely actually, this is going to be a very long post......you have bee warned :-) But at least you will learn why for example Glakes is not half as paranoid as he should be! And why most website owners are acting like rabbits caught in the headlights of a car just waiting to get run over into a pile of #*$! pulp by Google. Hopefully this info will mitigate the results of Google algo changes and give you new ideas.

Since my last post in a similar algo update thread in 2016 I have built test websites and currently run 5 digital ocean droplets and paying an average bill around $350 to $400 per month. Yes I know! It’s much cheaper to use one or two good SEO tools. But I find the info I get from those 20 to 30 test websites much more valuable and I see this not as a cost but as a well worth investment. Besides, the paid info from tools like Semrush I now find rubbish compared to what I collect from all the automatically processed logs from my test websites.

Now, to be clear, these test websites are NOT my money websites! These are test websites ranging in different niches and industries. This was a lot of work setting this up at the beginning off course. But after that all changes and testing processes are outsourced to a few developers in India. I just email them instruction sheets of what exactly needs to be done. All information from those test websites are collected, processed through some scripts, fed into excel sheets and into a few well known log file and statistics analyzers. So basically everything is running on autopilot except for the occasional redesign of a website to keep up with current technology.

I ditched Google Search Console (GS) in 2016 and practically never used Google Analytics (GA) anyway. Tools like SEMRush and similar are all nice, but not half as valuable as the info I get from my own log files from those test websites. Those test websites allow me to test many things like any of the “new hot today, gone tomorrow” seo ranking indicators pushed by the well known seo guru’s to see if such an indicator or new method really works as they say. The possibilities are actually endless. I will give you ONE example to explain what I use those test websites for. Google changed their website load speed some time ago making it more stricter and every Tom, Dick and Harry off course shouted this is a very important seo ranking indicator. So I sent my developer instructions to slow down a bunch of the test websites and to increase that every week by another half a second (approximately). I just wanted to know when the test websites would tank in the rankings. Well guess what, they hardly moved while at the end the load times were just horrible and almost every visitor would just move away. Then I started to mix other ranking factors in together with the load speed to see what would happen. Be it positive or negative, the results are ALWAYS interesting and almost always NOT what you expect or what is touted by all the seo guru’s. As I said, this is just ONE example of a HUGE number of things I have tested since then and are testing now. Just think of what can be tested like this......it’s limited only by your imagination.

But what I have learned from the log files and continuous testing is that Google has now become a master of regulating useful and converting traffic to wherever Google thinks they will make the most money. And the scale, detail and refinement they are now able to do this is, is at a level even Glakes can not imagine in his wildest paranoid dreams :-) Someone in this thread mentioned that building backlinks works great and even spamming produces good results. Well that is actually true, although I do not spam, not even with my test websites. But from what I can see in my processed logs is that there is much LESS correlation between keyword rankings and the amount of traffic you receive compared to the “old days”. This also means that websites with crap content and large amount of backlinks CAN rank very well WHEN done “correctly”. And even though there is much less correlation between keyword ranking and traffic, when you have enough keywords ranking well you still get a very decent amount of traffic(although of questionable quality). But this also proves that Google really does not give a sh|t about making sure the serp results are correct or even decent because their focus is on regulating “good” traffic in a manner that makes them the most money, not you! It’s the same as Forex platforms trading AGAINST their customers to make sure you loose your money to them.

Every month there is a “google algo changes” thread and every month we see the same complaints for years now. Businesses being killed off, website owners that are in pain because of loss of income and nobody knows what to do about it. Yet, by far, most of you keep handing all your most valuable assets over to Google because you use GS and GA. The internet with all its content is a BIG shopping mall for Google where every item is FREE! With items, I mean YOUR websites and their content. It’s absolutely free for Google to use as they see fit and make money off your backs. Yes, I know they pay a huge electricity bill for all their datacenters around the world, but if it was not so hugely profitable, they would not do that.
And to all people saying “Google does not owe you or your business anything!” I say think again and don’t be so stupefyingly ignorant.

It’s like handing over all your CRM info of your business to your main competitor(s) and than complaining that you can not compete anymore and are outwitted by them. Who in their right mind would do that in real life? Yet you willingly hand over that same info to Google because they provide GA for free. uuhmm...free....Really? I always laugh at those seo agencies thinking they “see” and can use “valuable” information in GA. The info presented there is utterly crap because you do NOT receive any info that explains any process from which you can derive and create an actionable plan to make improvements to your website “that will actually work and get positive results”. Instead, you are just handing over the axe to your executioner and placing your own head yourself on the wooden chopping block.

Because of this I have differentiated my traffic sources and now can see what comes from Google and what comes from anywhere else. All traffic that most of you receive now from Google is basically the left over crap that they divide among smaller websites. And even that left over crap traffic is now becoming scarce because Google is squeezing the lemon more and more and more for every cent they can. I can see from my log files that most other traffic converts very well because it’s simply from sources that are not controlled by Google. To give a small hint: Google can not control a visitor to use a url or even type some text in a url bar that they see on a page.The difference between those traffic sources and the Google traffic is so huge that at first even I was suprised, but it’s actually very logical. With Bing, Yahoo and Yandex I don’t even need to use those alternative traffic methods, which should tell you what is going on!

I will give you one more “crazy” example I use on one of my actual money sites: I don’t allow customers to use a Gmail email address when placing an order. Yes, you heard correct! They just see a popup that we do not accept Gmail email addresses as soon as a customer enter a Gmail email. The popup message displays a suggestion to use some alternative free email services instead. I can do this because I don’t have much competition in this particular niche. And from my log files I can see I don’t loose many orders even though I basically hinder the customer when he/she tries to place an order! I don’t even want Google to know how many orders are placed through customers that use Gmail, so I don’t accept customers with Gmail email addresses. Yes, even this produces some interesting results. But if anyone of you thinks that Google gave up on “reading” emails from all people using Gmail as they stated in some press release a few years back “because they really do not need that anymore”......than think again.

From the results I have seen in the past few years in the log files of my test websites I have noticed that reality is actually FAR MORE WEIRD than fiction in our minds of “what we think” that Google is doing.

People are inherently scared and act like sheep. This is even worse when you realise that as website owners you have far more power than you realise. Google knows that people are scared and just can not get organized and they make good use of that fact. If for example tomorrow 100.000 website owners ditched GS and GA than I bet some alarm will be raised at Google headquarters. If 100.000 website owners started ditching GS and GA in the next 10 days each day, than I can assure you the board of directors at Google will start #*$!ting their pants. While at the same time Google just can NOT remove the websites of those website owners from the index.....it will NOT happen because your websites is what keeps Google running. But those website owners who ditch GS and GA will then take control of their websites into their own hands......don’t even use Google fonts or their recaptcha on your website!

Every “product” Google develops and provides for “free” is only used to collect data to improve their profiling through which they control the internet traffic even better than they did before. Stop using Recaptcha, AMP, Structured Data code....etc...etc, because it only serves Google to know more about you and control the traffic they send to you. This has now been proven over and over in well documented articles on well known tech websites......so there is no need to take my word for it.

We can keep discussing these Google algo changes each and every month in these long threads until we are blue in the face and nothing comes of it. I am actually too busy running my websites and I am sure many other website owners are also. And the ones making good money will also not waste any time on this forum when they know “how to work the system” to make a good income. It’s just human nature I guess and I can’t blame them. It’s very simple actually, opinions don’t make money, data does, all the rest is just a guessing game and conjecture. So, unless you start taking control in your own hands and diversify through other search engines, different traffic sources and other SEO methods, nothing will change and the Google algo changes will cost you dearly. I just wanted to vent my theory based on what data I have collected and still collect to show that nobody is going to solve YOUR OWN problem but YOU.......especially NOT Google!

[Cralamarre]

@ichthyous A lot of website traffic went off a cliff three days ago, right after the World Health Organization used the word "Pandemic".