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]

[SteveWrz]

13 years and I never once focused on link building. I saw increases with almost every algo update and that all changed last November. Since then my site has continued to fall with every update since. My traffic is down 75% since Novemeber and falling.

I've followed Googles guidelines as close as I possibly can and its just not working anymore. I started building links in Feburary as a last resort and that had had no effect. At all.

[ichthyous]

Has anyone who's ever had their site nuked by Google ever fully recovered?

I wouldn't necessarily see this as your site getting nuked if so many others are seeing the same thing. And it's a matter of the extent of the carnage. I've also seen some terms that I have ranked on for ages, and still deserve to rank at the top for compared to what is there now... Drop to third page. That has not happened to me before, and traffic was still dropping as of yesterday. Today things seem to be picking up a bit, but it's been a downward trend since the update. I wouldnt assume that your site is going to stay down forever. I've seen Google shake it up and then your site slowly starts to recover placement. I've also had my site drop, then skyscrocket and stay up for months. Since the january update Google has managed to kill off conversions very effectively. My sales so far this year have been truly awful because of that (and corona)

[BoredMeteor]

@StupidIntelligent

Site will be 9 years old at the end of the year. Several thousand organics a day before getting hit, yeah (more than that at its peak). Two of my competitors who also got hit hard are around the same age (well, one a few years older).

If this is the new normal...well, it sucks. I've got some new stuff lined up that can take over for it, but to be honest, this one started as a kind of a passion project and was doing really great there for a while. It's sad to see it like this, now.

Just for a little perspective, I'll also mention that over the years it's received links from The Guardian, the Independent, AV Club, Seventeen Magazine, Buzzfeed, Bustle, io9, blah blah blah. It's not some fly-by-night shady operation, I'll tell you that much. Oh, well.

@ichthyous

Yeah, the fact that I'm definitely not alone in this keeps me from just throwing in the towel, and I do hope for some kind of eventual recovery. I have to keep that in mind.

[edited by: BoredMeteor at 7:47 pm (utc) on May 30, 2020]

[gatormark]

@BoredMeteor

Seriously: Has anyone who's ever had their site nuked by Google ever fully recovered? Is that a thing that happens?

Ever since December 2017 I’ve had many algorithm updates that have severely impacted my website with drops from 30 to 40% overnight. I tried to do some things to make up the difference but at best there was only a 10% increase. Right now, I am 25% of where I was at my peak.

[BoredMeteor]

@gatormark

See, that's why I'm not super optimistic. My site also began a slow descent in mid-2017. I didn't have those steep overnight drops, but a gradual decline. Say, the loss of a few decent keywords each update. Then a boost at the end of 2018, but never again have I reached my previous levels. If I crunch the numbers, right now I'm also at an amazing 20% of my peak.

It honestly feels like once Google targets your site, it's permanently wounded, even if you gain back some from time to time. I don't know if that's true, but it feels like it.

I do, however, hope the effects of this particular update (loss of 90% of Google traffic overnight) don't last forever.

[leadman1]

I have a news site about music. Actually, as one of the biggest websites for that genre, we are writing 20+ unique articles every day.

In April, we reached 12 million page views from the organic search and Discover section. Now, according to Semrush, we lost %85 the search traffic. On the other hand, Discover traffic dropped too. In May, we reached 7 million page views, which is a massive and devastating traffic loss.

This is really disappointing. I'm really upset. I'm in some kind of hesitation and lack of motivation to create new stuff.

In the last two years, all core updates affected us in a really positive way. But this time, there's a huge and devastating negative affect. I don't understand.

PS: Sorry for my poor English.

[immrrobot]

Here is a fun fact: I've been testing a lot and somehow have a positive upward rankings to 4 out of 5 tanked keywords. But here is the caveat. These 4 keywords are in 5-7 positions. And, with google's serps filled with so much #*$!, it's really hard to get eyeballs if you aren't ranked 1. So, if you are ranked 1 then awesome. If you are just in page 1, then don't expect much

[gatormark]

So, my last remaining high traffic keyword was just pushed off the first page for the first time in 10 years. Pinterest and a few other junk sites replaced it.

[widgetized]

It honestly feels like once Google targets your site, it's permanently wounded, even if you gain back some from time to time. I don't know if that's true, but it feels like it.

This is so true, unfortunately. My website is 10 years old, and its decline started 3-4 years ago, despite adding more new content, improving user experience, etc. but nothing stopped its decline. Many times I thought it would be better to start a new one with the same content. Just a clean start. But I put so much heart and effort into it, that I just can't do that.

I see many newborn sites (2017-2018) on the same subject, they all look amateurish, bad design, or are just made with Wix. They're flooded with keywords or have no text content at all. But it took a few years to totally outrank me. It hurts so much to see them above me on SEMrush, and they never seem to get penalized after Google updates.

[Dooku]

This is the current situation of G's so called AI trying to understand user intent.
BTW current AI tech is absolutely nonsense and ridiculous as long as human beings are designing the input for the algo.

So, I was searching for the best BIM and architectural software and also carbon fiber filament types for specific applications.
All I got was a first page SERP loaded with "10 best....", "Best architect......", Top 10.......", "8 Arch.......", "The best 3D......"

So as an example I open all3dp(dot)com and have a look (checked other sites also), but this site looks good, well designed.
Checked their top left menu for different categories and opened several "article" pages to read some info on subjects I was searching for.
But basically this site, and the others in the same serp result, are nothing more than SPAM that looks good in a well designed website.
It's utterly ridiculous spam garbage. The articles look nice but when you read them they are actually short descriptions of products with ADVERTISEMENTS between almost every product paragraph, and on top of that a couple of links to Amazon and other companies where you can buy the products using their affiliate links.

This is nothing more than garbage "informational affiliate" website SPAM with superficial information at best.
Because I was looking for in depth info on BIM software and Carbon Fiber filaments. I know how to search, even if I change the search query to be very specific the serp results are still littered with these "10 best....." websites and I need to go to at LEAST the second or third page until I find what I am looking for.

Seeing as how these websites are constructed and using ads and probably other payment options within their affiliate payment system you do not need to have an Einstein equivalent IQ to see who is profiting the most by presenting these serp results on the FIRST page.

I know many of you are complaining about the spam, scraped and stolen content and other utter garbage that is topping many serp result pages these days. But I find the above examples of websites at the same level of SPAM garbage with the only difference that they have a nice design and look more "professional". Because even if I search directly for a certain product I want to see a page with an extensive review and specs of that product and NOT this "10 best....." crap with ads in a superficial 2 paragraph text and affiliate links.

[christianz]

@Dooku

You hit the nail on its head.

Yes, the AI is overrated and Google engineers have deluded themselves. Probably read too many Yoel Noah Harari books.

Yes, affiliate information spam websites are outranking long established ones. If you discount site age and old links, this is whats going to happen. Shallow MFA (made for affiliate, made for adsense) sites which pass all technical recommendations (site speed, word count, fake author names and photos for fake EAT etc) will float to the top, along with MFS (made for search) garbage with "top 10 best 2020" type headlines.

Also scraper sites, spammy image directories with hot linked or stolen images, Pinterest (the very definition of thin content, user generated cesspit) etc. will outrank long established sites which humans can recognize as the true authority of subject matter, but Googles filters can't.

[Robert Charlton]

But it took a few years to totally outrank me. It hurts so much to see them above me on SEMrush, and they never seem to get penalized after Google updates.

widgetized... what do the results look like on Google, adjusted for different search intentions?

Truly, I can't understand why you would get upset over the results of a third party tool..... SEMrush is a tool with a good interface, but I've never gotten its results to match our own observed results on which we have kept stats.

In my experience, SEMrush (and other third party tools) make good PPC usage suggestions on a limited number of popular queries. It sucks at long tail... and I don't think it can give what I'd call a business-based data set, ie, one based on the range of queries and search intents that a company supporting a product over its lifetime should expect.

This latter takes your familiarity with a product and customers over the lifetime of a product... not with a list of high volume trophy keywords that no longer signify to Google now what they used to siginify several years back.

To the posters who feel that generating thousands of pages is going to help, I'd rather have few new pages but with much higer quality.

[samwest]

Exact same results in my niche. Also not able to refine searches because you get the same results from the same group of MFA sites.
Now add to this the recent Pinterest Pollution. Yesterday my result was pushed down one more position by a new dedicated "[search term]-Pinterest" carousel. So..results are now...
1. Shop for [search term]
2. Images...mostly pinterest
3. First organic :- Long winded MFA site. One ad at every scroll.
4 - Content farm aggregation of "10 BEST..." over 10 on page ads.
5 - INTERESTING FINDS
6. PINTERST PAGE
7. SINGLE PINTEREST PIN
8. NEW PITEREST CAROUSEL
9. People also searched for [search term]
10. my site...which used to hold 1 and 2 pos.

Changing the search term gives basically the same results. No wonder I'm pushed to profanity.

The result of the recent update was initially a 25% instant drop. Now it is again dropping like a rock with zero visitors on site. The few that do appear are all Zombie. Its highway robbery...again.

[gatormark]

[QUESTION] In addition to all of the other search results weirdness, I am seeing something else VERY strange. Sometimes my last remaining high-ranking keyword page is listed in the search results and sometimes it isn't. I will search the keyword in a browser that doesn't cache and the first results don't show my page anywhere in the rankings. After navigating to page 2 or 3, I will go back to page 1 and then I WILL see my page listed. It happens EVERY TIME. What the heck is going on? Has anyone else experienced this?

[samwest]

Lots of manipulation going on. Google has to make bank for Q2...and its it's coming out of our hides. Extremely frustrating when for the past 90 days we've been doing quite well. Zero stability in SERPs...at least from my reference point. GART also has a very long dwell time long after visitor has left...perhaps to make us think we are getting more traffic interaction than actual. This head fake proven by Matomo data.

[RedBar]

At what point is Statcounter going to post a notice of what is / is not happening?

I'll tolerate it for another 24 hours but then I shall cancel my subscription ... silence is not the solution!

[BoredMeteor]

I do like Statcounter (used them for years), but honestly they've been kind of wonky for a while now. Some people on Twitter are saying the app is still working, but I don't use that. Strange that they've said nothing.

I'm trying out Clicky on one of my sites.

@gatormark: I've seen that very same thing from time to time, and it predates the most recent update. Sometimes, it's like a page will get lost in the "in between" of positions 10 and 11 and not appear at all, or something. And, like you've seen, sometimes I'll not see a page until I return to page 1 after going deeper. It's a mess.

[Athedian]

Saw my competitor outranked me when their blog site was covered with a large banner saying: "Subscribe now to access the free content!"

Focus on user experience? What a lie.

Keyword research for today shows that G does seem to push more towards How-To subjects than actual content with informative info.

[RedBar]

Just scanning through the metrics for May:

1. 2 x Global sites PVs about +10% however new enquiries noticeably lower. Insofar as business trading is concerned cutbacks have already been made, certain divisions are going to be allowed to die naturally as their projects complete, we anticipate the business to be 33% of its current size within 3 years.

If this sounds pessimistic, it is not, we shall be operating to our strengths.

2. UK specialist retail widget site PVs about 70%, staff furloughed right now and the owners, both 70+, considering closure for several reasons since no one is interested in its purchase.

3. UK hotel / pub site, at least it has recivered from the -90% drop, it's now at 16%. All staff furloughed, accommodation for valid workers ok however yet another minimum month of zero food and wet income has the owner seriously questionning it's viability after the summer with some of the ill-thought-out UK "social distancing" proposals / suggestions / whatever being both unworkable and impossible.

If anyone's wondering what I mean consider 300 people watching a live band on a Saturday night as one example. Solutiions appreciated:-)

Insofar as I am concerned I have been melding sites for quite some time now, this will continue and I would say by the end of the summer all will have been completed and I'll most probably "retire" ... Honestly, I can't be doing with all this cr@p going on any more!

[System]

The following 13 messages were cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4997607.htm [webmasterworld.com]
4:31 pm on Jun 1, 2020 (PDT -8)