Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2020

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The following message was cut out of the April, 2020 thread at:
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4990589.htm [webmasterworld.com]
by robert_charlton - 1:39 am on May 1, 2020 (PDT -8)



A quick review of a few of my sites' this past month:

1. Global trade directory site about -10% but with increasing PVs as the month has gone on.

2. Global B2B widget site, -20% v Jan / Feb however +15% v March and over the past 4 weeks a nice, steady increase with this week probably being the highest of the year.

3. Global B2B widget site that was hardly affected at the start of lockdowns and has shown a steady PVs increase to the extent that April has been it's highest-ever month at +17% v 2020 average and +8% v March. Good quality enquiries continue.

4. UK B2C widget site has seen a dramatic recovery. Overall PVs are still -20% for the month however since Easter PVs have been completely normal. I need to investigate the actual business performance of this site for more details.

5. UK hotel / pub site, understandably still on its back at -90%, all rankings fine, awaiting lockdown to be eased however I do know future accommodation enquiries are consistent.

6. UK urganic meat and bakery site. This has maintained its +400% increase in PVs and its actual business has now gone national rather than just regional. I'm really surprised with this business since its products are NOT low cost!

Several other sites mostly down in varying amounts however they're all brochure / informational sites so that's not a surprise.

Anyone else with interesting stats?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:47 am (utc) on May 1, 2020]
[edit reason] split thread to new month [/edit]

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I just don't know what to do. This update kills my website more and more every day. I updated the majority of the content since November when the drop started, I don't find any technical issues, I see nothing more. Right now my website with great content that was a favourite one for algo, and for readers, is dying more and more everyday, bringing my life to ruins. I don't know why this is happening and I can't find the way to stop it. Just don't know what to do now. I'm very dissapointed in this bussiness, you can't stay safe, Google can assassinate your life in any moment, just because something happened, and you will never know what exactly.

I took a look at other SEs: Google is the only engine that does not love my website anymore, I don't have any problems with Bing, Yahoo and DDG.

[Mr_Dok]

@Cyril TechWebsites - Totally true and sad. I'm facing same thing with my website. If the covid-19 virus didn't get me, this core update sure does.

Googlers - you should be ashamed of yourself.

All this technical #*$! and still Google Serps never been so irrelevant as now. this days, google should learn a lot from DuckDuckGo and Bing about website authority and relevancy.

[StupidIntelligent]

Google books is coming high up on SERPs for many strong queries. Could it be an indication that the update is still on going?

[Dooku]

Well, maybe there is hope still:
[nytimes.com...]

But on another note, (which I have to confess are still rumours), once this covid crisis is over, the EU commission is preparing something for Google that will make their latest fine look like childs play.......think in terms of what China and Russia did to Google. If, and that's a big IF, that is true, that will hurt them like nothing Google has seen until now.

"And now for something completely different" :-) From what I see the latest algo update is nothing more than fine honing the latest lemon squeeze theory we all know. Profitable search terms that were doing well or were climbing are now being scooped up by google for their own profit. None of the "theories" like more links lost than gained I read some pages back and all similar stuff have any influence (checked my log files on all test sites, no correlation at all). If your making good money, and if your not a billion dollar company, than Google is now just scraping your money terms some more for their own bottom line. And with the next algo update they will go after a different group of websites/industries, just to make sure it's not too obvious (so google can always claim; hey! there will always be losers and winners in the serp results).

[shadowlight]

All this technical #*$! and still Google Serps never been so irrelevant as now. this days, google should learn a lot from DuckDuckGo and Bing about website authority and relevancy.

Irrelevant organic listings on the first page from malicious sites with redirects, thin content and sometimes content that is not even relevant to the country your searching for just make the ads more and more relevant. Hmmmmm, intentional maybe?

[samwest]

WTF is PINTEREST taking top position across the board with single pins in the 1 and 2 position over 20 year evergreen, authoritative content?

Google is an f'n mess right now. Are they totally broken or intentionally steering away traffic to financially kill us all off? It appears they are putting their foot on our throats to force us into paid ads. I'd sooner die than waste money on their zero ROI ads.

[edited by: samwest at 2:20 pm (utc) on May 17, 2020]

[ichthyous]

[nytimes.com ]

This IS good news. If many states attorneys general join the federal government Google will be assailed from all sides. Hopefully California will join NY, TX and other states. This is strong signaling to the EU authorities to join the fight. It will be interesting to see what arguments will be made against Google... Will they have the capacity to really drill down and understand the level of google's manipulation of the results, the traffic throttling, the targeted hits on websites' most important and profitable terms?

As I have said previously, and as @Dooku has reiterated today... Its clear that since around Sept 2018 Google is analyzing each site's most important and profitable terms and systematically removing that traffic in an effort to apply pressure on each website owner. It's a highly targeted and highly manipulative tactic that will be hard to prove because it is tailored to do maximum damage each site's traffic over time through constant algo updates. Traffic data for millions of websites would need to be analyzed to find the most important terms for each and the dates that each term was blitzed into oblivion. A clear pattern can be gleaned as valuable term after term drops.

As for my site, Google is guilty of repeated assault and battery on my most important terms. Sometimes it recovers, only to get whacked again. That is the real goal of google's constant algo updates since 2018. AI is just the smokescreen Google is using to deflect blame, and we all know it.

[samwest]

@ichthyous - the AG's can contact me any day and I'll happily testify to what has occurred over the past 20 years. My college buddy is a DAG in California, so I'll rattle his cage. They need testimony from people like us who live and know the technology and have real supporting data. IMHO, Google crossed the line in May 2010.

[gatormark]

Traffic is down 30% from last Saturday. Saturday was the lowest earnings day for me since 2012. Google SERP changes have me wondering, how low can it go...

[gatormark]

@StupidIntelligent

Oh, the update is still going on. Each day, my main keyword pages are being removed or lowered by this update.

[TeeKay]

@gatormark - I concur.

Being a business in the UK that ships internationally, I am actually laughing hysterically at this stage, to the insanity of even being able to survive the following chain of events:

March 2020 > Coronavirus lockdown: drop in sales due to millions suddenly unemployed around the globe (an unemployment rate that I may soon be contributing too) + international shipping nightmare as parcels take 6 weeks to reach countries they used to reach within 14 days, due to most flights being grounded.

May 2020 > Google Core Update: Google decides to plummet my website away from traffic that has known and loved my website's information and products for over 10 years.

January 2021 > Brexit: Loss of EU sales due to customs delays and duty/tax being charged on imports to EU customers.

Where's that bottle of whisky that I can no longer afford?

[gatormark]

@Teekay "Where's that bottle of whisky that I can no longer afford?" Thanks for the laugh. I needed it..and the whiskey.

[ChokenBako]

Today stats again down about 10% compared to last sunday...Ridicolous =(

[samwest]

From all reports, this update appears to be affecting sites similarly across the board, and very sudden which indicates it's intentional, and during this particular time, inhumanly heartless. Down further every day now.

[immrrobot]

@samwest Isn't it obvious that Google wants to show its customers that nothing is stable in serps unless you are willing to fill their pockets with PPC. They just want to rub their search engine dominance at our face. And, we can't do anything about it. They will probably even buy Pinterest as their quest to entering social media with G+ was such a bomb. So, this is probably things to come and make the investors happy.

[gatormark]

@immrrobot

The problem with the PPC theory is that I use Google Ads as well and I am still getting hammered. I’ve had to adjust the amount I spend with Google because my rankings (and income) are getting hammered.

[BoredMeteor]

Well, whatever happens going forward, I'll never listen to another thing Google says, or take any of their recommendations. Their guidelines seem meaningless at best, selectively enforced at worst.

Same goes for any traffic or revenue Google serves up. It's transient and unreliable, and who knows what other goofy moves they'll make in the future. I'm tired of that game, constantly trying to be in the good graces of a lunatic AI (and its owners).

I mean, this is stuff I've known for ages, but it's all come to a point.

My best case scenario would be that Google borks their search engine so badly that more and more people spread out and move to alternatives. Not just one, but a variety. I get decent traffic from Bing, but also DuckDuckGo and Ecosia (though they're all powered by Microsoft, correct?). Having a single entity basically controlling the flow of information online is just disastrous. Couple that with all the privacy issues, and things need to change.

[jediviper]

Guys probably the May Core Update it's also Schema FAQ related!

Our main site had around 243 kws ranking for the FAQ schema till the 5th of May.
Then from the next day that we started losing our rankings, there were 0 kws related to the FAQ schema. So there must be some correlation.

[imgur.com...]

[jediviper]

Also, have u noticed before that FB pages could be ranked as Featured Snippet?
I just noticed that now!

[sofie77]

Yes, the update is still going on. Last night we lost more of our keywords. This is very close to the end for us ....

[Cyril TechWebsites]

It's so sad to read this forum right now... As I see - there are a lot of folks, which are near the edge, and people from G don't care, they didn't share any tips on how to survive and improve. They are taking so many actions on how to spread the info on Coronavirus and to help to stop spreading of people's deaths all over the world, but at the same time they don't care on those webmasters who left on the edge after their "update" in these times of pandemia. It looks pretty strange.

[StupidIntelligent]

It's a zero sum game. Surely, whoever is losing must have been replaced by new set of winners, even if a good chunk of them are spammy, but come on let's be real. New market leaders are the making, while the old ones retire into oblivion.

[christianz]

You are wrong @StupidIntelligent. This is not a zero sum game. The traffic they take from webmasters is not going to other webmasters. It's going to Googles own properties or their Valley tech cabal friends.

For example, they are are killing webmasters with spamming search results with YouTube thumbnails (their own property) and even in YouTube they are killing these same kind of creative people by pushing CNN, NBC, Fox etc content above normal user content.

This is not a zero sum game, its a game of channeling all web traffic and advertising profit to THEM.

[mandiradebnath]

People are now in different treb]nd, all-time searching the news related to coronavirus. Maybe this is the reason for the traffic decrement for some site.

[JesterMagic]

@StupidIntelligent Definitely not a zero sum game if you take the last few years into consideration. Like christianz said, Youtube and other Google owned properties are taking a larger chunk. You have more paid ads (Google's ultimate goal for people to click on) along with all the widgets and information that is displayed in the SERPS that is lifted from other websites which is designed to keep you on Google going in a circle and spinning your wheels until you click on one of their ads.

In regards to the NY Times article, I hope they also look into the Google Play app store and how advertising works there along with the insane cost they charge developers to use the app store which you are basically forced to use as there are no other real options (Apple needs a lesson in this as well).

[samwest]

Cant understand Gorgs sudden obsession with Pinterest in the SERPs. Its double packed into the top of every search result. I too smell aquisition. "Quality results" are right out the window.

[southernguy]

@StupidIntelligent The replacement winners in my niche are medium.com, Ezinearticles, Google Docs, Facebook and Pinterest there are a few spammy sites in between but its utter garbage.

My business is hanging by a thread but I hope I get to see Google become a has-been and disappear along with their puppet Sundar Pichai.

[gatormark]

I feel for everyone. It looks like we are all in the same sinking boat. I would like to hear at least ONE success story.:.anyone? Bueller?

[westcoast]

We dropped another 10% yesterday for a total loss of 30%. We had weathered every other core update, but this one is just decimating us.

If they're trying to manipulate us for earnings, it's going to backfire, at least for us: last night we removed all Google Adsense ads from our site. The only thing we had done to our site (at Google's prodding) over the last few months was to increase the number of Adsense ads on our site. So to us it appears we are being hammered in Google Search for following Google Ad's advice.

Google revenue from our site is thus now going to be zero. Over the last 20 years we have made them millions of dollars, but apparently they're now penalizing you for hosting their ads.

[edited by: westcoast at 1:57 pm (utc) on May 18, 2020]

[Mr_Dok]

My website represent our Criminal Law Firm who offers legal consultation, representation and accompaniment for normative suspects and defendants throughout the entire criminal proceeding.

On the Firm’s website, I tried to provide my visitors with quality and important information regarding criminal law, including professional content, articles, guides, forums, information sheets, explanations, rulings and legislations, as well as various publications by criminal lawyers, offered to our visitors at no charge in order to prepare them for what is ahead.

I have worked hard to resolve all technical and quality issues on my website and I'm completely committed to Google quality guidelines.

In spite of all that – Google keep beating me each update and the last one – cuse me death.

I really don't know what to do anymore. I lost all hope and power to dance by Google flute

[edited by: not2easy at 4:30 pm (utc) on May 18, 2020]
[edit reason] Please see ToS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]