Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2020

[RedBar]

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]

[NickMNS]

So would you say impressions (and not average rank) are a better indication of whether your site has profited from an update?

Unfortunately, yes.

[Some_Bloke]

Looks like Googles bad serps are getting some public attention
Google Search results topped by suspected scam gadget store. [bbc.co.uk...]

[samwest]

You won't profit if impression's do not equal clicks. I have plenty of data to prove that's true.
A position #1 impression and a position #5 impression are light years apart.
Now spin the roulette wheel of "Shop for [term]", "Interesting Finds", "images" and "people also searched for. p[term]" and you are sitting at zero on page visitors.

Total traffic shaping today (using the above tactics).
Zero conversions.

[koan]

I have about 20 sites in completely different niches with completely different content and SEO, even different platforms and server locations, and all dropped from page 1 to literally deindexed, all at the same date. Not a single website got a boost.

frostitomik, any updates with your network of sites?

[immrrobot]

Well, looks like this is it. I guess there won't be a huge rollback. So, if this is how it stands, are shorter content the way to go NOW?

[jmorgan]

Unfortunately, yes.

Nothing unfortunate about that. If that's what it is, then that's what it is.

[BoredMeteor]

I don't expect a rollback, but from what I'm seeing this storm isn't quite over, yet.

Last week, my best keyword was flung to page 3. Earlier today, it dropped farther to page 9, and is now moving upwards to page 5. We're doing a dance. They also threw me off of "top images", or whatever they call that next to featured snippets. In the past day or so, my larger competitor also lost a few more keywords that just fell off the face of the planet.

I'm also getting trickles of traffic for keywords I haven't seen active on Google in years. Pinterest and links to books.google.com are everywhere. If they intend to leave things like this, then...well, I don't know. Maybe alternative search engines will get some play (I really wish they would).

Things are weird. I'm mostly just watching out of morbid curiosity at this point. Still in a holding pattern.

[dolcevita]

Almost exactly same drop happened to me 8 years a go. 2012 in May.Then there was issue with link building and penguin update.

I knew what was wrong that time.So what i did was to build better site and not to make same mistake.

I was done within 3 weeks with my new website and you saw how your child grow up and the people like it. I did not build any link and the last 2 years did nothing to change anything.It is tech. website with tools and dynamic content.

And last week after 8 years it happened almost same.This time i do not have any idea why. There was not reason at all. I see it as penalty.It is not drop from position 7 to 20 but from 7 to 200.
It is penalty.

They can say not but if you see drop across whole site with different terms and different pages what is that then? Penalty for sure.

The only good thing is that after 8 years im forced to build again and im already busy.Hope to be soon there where my website deserve to be.
btw
Just to add it that my website never recovered from 2012.Thats reason to start directly with new project .
Im so paranoid right now that maybe machine can.see for exsmple <table><tr><td class=newproject> as something similar in.past, what is in yiur niche and punish you.

[edited by: dolcevita at 7:15 am (utc) on May 13, 2020]

[jmorgan]

It seems these days, I actually make most of my gains between updates. The last couple of official updates have resulted in a slight drop which I, ironically, tend to recover from a couple of months into the update.

Not sure if it's just normal traffic fluctuations/trends, or a sign that there's some kind of incremental self-adjustment or machine learning on the part of the algo.

[frostitomik]

frostitomik, any updates with your network of sites?

No, still exactly the same. Keywords that dropped from number 1-2 position are now still on the 2nd, 3rd page or completely gone from the results. Competitors also took a big hit. Instead, sites from different niche are ranking on the top now.

[samwest]

In my vertical it's all about ad density.
#1 - ad filled blog site..vague content.
#2 - pinterest
#3 - pinterest
#4 - ad filled content farm...no authority on topic
#5 my site sub page
New Top Stories block
#6 my site home page

You'd think having two positions would be good...but not when you are so far below the fold. I'll get many impressions...but zero clicks.

They also yanked my compelling images...and eliminated highly converting desktop traffic.

This May day drop has been happening since May day update in 2010. Total theft. Yeah...Google sucks.

[jediviper]

Who cares only about Impressions?
Always we have to look at the broad picture.

After all everyone cares for conversions. But we have to always check many metrics, like CTR, traffic, clicks etc.
If suddenly your Impressions drop at 50%, does it mean that this is a catastrophe? Of course not, as maybe the clicks will drop just 20% and then your CTR has a nice boost, which is good.
Also, just because you lost 50% of your Impressions, it doesn't mean that the traffic will be equally down.

[Kash1111]

Here is what I am noticing when I type in a keyword for our site which was ranking top 3. Top 10 results,

1. a short piece of content from a high DA site.

2. Pinterest NZ

3. Pinterest CA

4. Pinterest ES

It's all Pinterest, I am in New Zealand, I don't get why I am getting results for Pinterest in Canada, and Spain and few other locations.

[paranoid android]

nice update in google search engine search pages because with my site keywords only open 4 or 5 serp but after this update now google show me thousands of pages check my site url

Great work Google.

//end sarcasm.

Looks like Google temporarily unlock the serps to all new spammy/scammy websites whenever they do these updates and put everyone else away in a sandbox.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Well, the storm settled down and we can share results. I can say Google destroyed everything I've done for this year and right now I'm on May 2019 in terms of traffic. I calculated that I spent XX.000$ on my content this year (May 2019-May 2020) and they are just wasted.

[frostitomik]

Well, the storm settled down and we can share results. I can say Google destroyed everything I've done for this year and right now I'm on May 2019 in terms of traffic. I calculated that I spent XX.000$ on my content this year (May 2019-May 2020) and they are just wasted.

Content doesn't lose its value just because Google makes some temporary changes. If it's evergreen and well written content, it will always have some value no matter what nonsense changes Google currently does. Problem would be if the content will be irrelevant in near future.

Also, you are saying you have invested money for your articles in the last 12 months... Do you actually realize that it usually takes 6-12 months to Google to fully index your new content and make it rank high on the search results?

Don't worry, nothing is lost...

[TeeKay]

It's crazy, 9 days on from the release of this core update and not a single person (forum wise or SEO article wise) has any causation nailed down. Never seen anything like it.

I remember when they released Penguin back in 2012 and within a few days it was fully apparent as to exactly what the cause for a rank drop was, but with this update nobody has a single clue yet.

[sofie77]

but with this update nobody has a single clue yet.

Since June 5th, 2020 I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning. My first thought immediately goes to google and the reasons for the massive drops. This drops are totaly unfair, unusual and seems to be a penalty.

The Update has imho alot todo with synonyms, ads, links and pushing webmasters to adwords.

I can only speak for our health niche:

Synonyms:

Google tries to rank websites on synonyms since the last updates. They removed this synonym changes again in january but rolled it out again on this update with modifications. I hope google stop working on this project because in our niche the results are worse. Its a very bad user experience. You have to scroll to page 2 to find relevant websites. On the first page are only websites without the searched keyword and different topics.

Ads:

Ads / commercial background in Health seems to be evil aslong you are not google self.

Links:

It looks like, that the impact of links is more reduced now.

March 2019 Core Update and January 2020 Core Updates seems to be equal. They removed this synonyms, ads and link changes. May 2020 rolled them out again with little adjustments but even worse.

[jediviper]

So, another opinion regarding to why some sites are losing rankings during the May Update is that Google is punishing sites that are losing more links than gaining, in the last months.
So according to this theory if for a given period (no idea if its 3, 5 or 10 months) you lose more links than earning new links, it may look at the eyes of Google that you lack of authority so now they are pushing down your rankings.

Well, again who knows if this could be the reason, as the number of links doesn't mean much. You may have lost 100 bad links, but in the meantime you have earned 10 really good ones.

[samwest]

Correction to my previous post...

A position #1 impression and a position #5 impression are light years apart.

A position #1 impression and a position #5 impression are the same, but CLICKS are light years apart.

If you are losing clicks, it's not a penalty, it's just the typical May Google money grab.

In case you missed it, in their Q1 revenue report, they missed the mark gaining only 13%.
They then stated that moving forward: "We are sharpening our focus on executing more efficiently, while continuing to invest in our long-term opportunities."
That statement was very telling and I fully expected to see this change as they try to improve revenue...at your expense.
Money has to come from somewhere and it's out of YOUR pocket.

[TeeKay]

As soon as you introduce the word "buy" into a search query, you no longer see your product page for dust!

Google is 'giving' ads credits to merchants who used their ads services throughout 2019, supposedly as a wee helping hand to businesses due to lost sales from COVID-19:

[support.google.com...]

How generous of them...

Guess how that sum of $340 million is being funded?

[edited by: TeeKay at 2:11 pm (utc) on May 13, 2020]

[jmorgan]

@TeeKay

not a single person (forum wise or SEO article wise) has any causation nailed down. Never seen anything like it.

What do you mean by "causation nailed down"? It's an algorithm. Which means a bunch of engineers came up with a bunch of code they believed would improve the relevancy of the search results in Google. Whether or not they achieved this goal (i.e. achieving improved "relevancy") is a different matter.

From my personal experience, I know for a FACT that an algorithm, regardlesss of how good the engineers think it is, will NEVER, EVER be as good as human judgment, which is why we ALWAYS see terrible content, spammy or ad-laden websites slip through the cracks.

The problem is, because the web is literally filled with BILLIONS of websites, having human curators go through each and every domain/website is just unrealistic. And so, they have to ultimately rely on an imperfect algorithm. And trust me. I don't care how good Google thinks their engineers are. An algorithm will always, ALWAYS be imperfect in that it will sometimes reward #*$!ty websites, while penalizing legitimately good-quality websites.

The only question is how much can they limit this and skew the bias towards good-quality websites? They probably think they are doing a good job but, unfortunately, when other publishers/webmasters see a spammy/#*$!ty website rank well, it just erodes their trust in Google and the belief that the market leader in search knows what TF they are doing.

Case in point: A new competitor of mine with up to SIX ad units (that refreshes every few seconds) on their home page appears to be ranking better than ever. How does Google expect to restore faith in publishers/webmasters that they're developing an algorithm that rewards publishers/webmasters with good content when such an obviously terrible website (when it comes to content) is being rewarded for having more ads than content on their website? In some perverse way, I almost feel flattered that Google penalized me (albeit slightly) with this latest update if that is what they expect from me (i.e. having more ads than content) if you use this website as a reference. I don't care how much traffic I will get, I will NEVER stoop to screwing up my website by plastering ads in every corner of the screen real estate on my site, even if that's what Google appears to be rewarding at the moment.

[samwest]

@jmorgan - Right, algo's are simple automation blocks, but Google is using biased AI. [aitrends.com...]
Google is betting AI will be much better than human judgement, not for quality, but for their bottom line.

[gatormark]

May’s update is very similar to the December 2017 Google update which decimated many sector leaders. Although, Google was very quiet about that change. However websites who benefit from this May 2020 update seem to go against everything Google has been advocating. I have been testing the speed of the movers and shakers in my industry and their pages are often very slow. Additionally, their content is thinner than the traditional industry leaders in my sector. The ones who have been industry leaders over the past 10 years have taken a huge hit. All except one in my industry, have been greatly affected. And don’t get me started on the snippets at the top of search results.

Additionally, I am seeing a lot more players who are not in our sector but write one article and that article becomes an authority, somehow, and a high ranker.

[RedBar]

WTF? Just did a search on G.co.uk for a specific specification mobile phone (not make or model) and all I got was results from India, prices, images, articles, everything from India except for USA Amazon!

[westcoast]

Our site got a huge boost from COVID. Lots of people searching our stuff... our site is more relevant than ever right now.

This newest core update sliced off 25% of our traffic overnight. We fell from 1 (which we have had for 22 years) to 6 for core keyword, and disappeared entirely for other main keywords that used to be top 10s.

This is just so stupid. The SERPs for our vertical are now filled with thin, barely even related pages. Prior to this "core update" they reflected the search terms pretty well.

Based on the trash now appearing before our authoritative site, it appears that key words are king. Stuff enough key words in a page, and you'll do well...

I'm sorry, but these results are just plain broken. They need to rollback this crap immediately.

[samwest]

@westcoast...same here...biggest boost since 2014. Site is very relevant to COVID situation but not medical related. Then BAM! Shut right down overnite. This is not natural search behavior...its SE manipulation to increase Gorgs revenue. They admitted that's what they will be doing in Q2...and they aren't kidding.

My guess is that they spotted the rising sites and targeted those for harvest.

[NickMNS]

@jmorgan

Nothing unfortunate about that. If that's what it is, then that's what it is.

My "unfortunate" comment required more of an explanation, but I didn't have the time when I left it.

So it is unfortunate that the "impressions" metric is the most relevant, because what this means is the "position" metric is nearly worthless. Meaning that it is very difficult to draw any meaningful conclusion regarding keywords from GSC. Even more unfortunate, is that 3rd party tools provide even worse information.

@jediviper

Who cares only about Impressions?
Always we have to look at the broad picture.

After all everyone cares for conversions. But we have to always check many metrics, like CTR, traffic, clicks etc.

True conversions are important. Yes, one should check many metrics, but CTR, Clicks and Traffic* all require an impression to occur first, thus the impressions is crucial, and cannot "not care" about it.

*Traffic can occur without an impression if it comes from another source, eg: direct, bing, SM.

[NickMNS]

In regards to the algorithm, I think everyone can agree that it is imperfect, even the Google engineers. When doing things algorithmically, the goal is not to get every answer to every query exactly right (ultimately I guess it may be but it is not a reasonable goal), the goal is to maximizing the correct answers while minimizing the incorrect ones. Remember, that Google works at a scale of billions of queries a day. So even if it correct 99.9% of the time there are still millions of bad results a day. Tweaking the algorithm in one specific area could have unintended consequence for another. And the net result may in fact be improvement overall, but at the cost of seeing a degradation in one small area. Obviously, if that area is your specific niche and your website that degradation may not feel so small.

[gatormark]

@westcoast, I’ve been there and it is very frustrating. I empathize with you.