Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2020

[gatormark]

The following 13 messages were cut out of the May, 2020 thread at:
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4994037.htm [webmasterworld.com]
by robert_charlton - 4:31 pm on Jun 1, 2020 (PDT -8)



I just don't know anymore. There is no rhyme to these rankings. I tested the speed of one of the top pages that replaced mine and it has a page speed of 3 for mobile and 23 for desktop. THREE FOR MOBILE! How the heck is that possible and they're in position #2? Google disregards all their recommendations. I am at a complete loss these days. Up is down, Right is wrong.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 12:44 am (utc) on Jun 2, 2020]
[edit reason] split thread to new month [/edit]

[TalkativeEditorial]

I'm torn between just leaving it for a while (because some of our stuff is time sensitive) and working on some other projects, but I don't want the signals to look like I don't care about the site/like I am giving up.

[Dooku]

@SteveWrz, this is from the same article:
"In 2017, when The Times of London published examples of videos that exploit young children and appeal to pedophiles carrying ads, Mr. Ramaswamy reached a breaking point.
“This is an impossible conflict and we kind of muddled our way through it,” he said. "

Anyone need more convincing what the algo updates are about? It ain't about improving the SE, or the user experience, or great content, or AI, or providing a good service in general.

However, one cut-throat type of guy has been replaced by another with the same mantra "What is thy bidding, my Master?" , so nothing will change.

[seomotionz]

@MayankParmar Any improvements in Discover?

Anyway although yesterday was extremely bad in terms of traffic. We are seeing a significant rise in traffic today, around 20%. We have to wait and see whether it rises further or falls. Just like it did in the Core update of last month.

@RedBar Are you seeing anything positive in Mobile/widget sites? Because I am hearing some are gaining rankings since yesterday.

[ViktorN]

@TalkativeEditorial @MayankParmar

About publisher center
We have two properties there. this is how it looks like: [imgur.com...]

One is the main site (which is in English), in Google news for like two years, was accepted in the old format of the Publisher center.
I was told not to update to the new publisher center (so I didn't touch it since then and it says "draft" below it).

Now, we were running our Spanish version of the website, and got approved by Google News two months ago but for the new format. So we had to fill all the details of the new publisher center format. However, despite approved to Google News in the Spanish version (showing "Live" under the ES property) - none of the Spanish articles actually show up in Google News. This is another frustrating problem, but I don't really care about the ES version now since that AMP/Discover drop took place.

Now my question is this - did any of you were approved by Google News for the old format? did you fill up the details in the publisher center or not? I'm afraid to change things there, but maybe we should fill up the details to match the new format

[glakes]

Anyone need more convincing what the algo updates are about?

As it pertains to news, which a number of members are discussing here, the Media Alliance sees it in the same way. See the story titled "Google Attacked by Publishers for Refusing to Pay for News" at: [msn.com...]

The publishers take special aim at a technology Google created in 2015 called Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, aimed at decreasing the load time for websites on mobile devices. The AMP-formatted articles are hosted on Google’s servers rather than the publishers’. That allows Google to form a direct relationship with readers and to collect data that would be valuable to publishers, according to the paper.

The paper says publishers effectively had no choice but to adopt the format because, in doing so, it helped improve their contents’ ranking in Google search results.

“In short, through the exercise of its monopoly-like power and the threat of lower search rankings, Google dictated non-negotiable terms of service or otherwise corralled the news industry into less-than-fair terms for use of its content,” the paper says.

The News Media Alliance said some newspapers with paywalls found that the AMP format hurt their ability to convert readers into subscribers. One major newspaper studied subscriber conversion rates for mobile traffic to its regular website compared with the AMP format. It found that the number of subscribers per million users was 39% lower for AMP traffic, according to the report.

Policies and "features" that reduce subscribers/direct visits to websites, which forces users to return to Google in the future, is not something new. I argued years ago that Penguin, which penalized links to websites, was done to scare webmasters into linking to other websites. This in turn would and did result in many websites removing links, making users more dependent on Google to find what they were looking for. Amazon has similar policies, which discourage directing visitors to purchase items outside of Amazon. Amazon also heavily restricts communication between buyers and sellers under the guise of "spam prevention" for their customers. Both Amazon and Google attempt to "own" and monetize the consumer via policies and features that are designed to limit/restrict third parties from developing relationships with such consumers who would otherwise bypass either Amazon or Google in the future. This is the oligopoly at work - Amazon controls consumers of products while Google controls consumers of information. Meanwhile regulators, and the politicians that have oversight of their agencies, remain asleep at the wheel...

[TalkativeEditorial]

@ViktorN - we were approved under the old centre, switched over (some reason we didn't have a choice) and everything was totally fine....until 10 June.

Two other publishers I did work for though, are having similar issues with not showing up in News.
The one was approved for "Newsstand" and is still showing Discover traffic - but has never shown up in News.
The other one is live and approved in Publisher Centre but has never shown up in News OR Discover.

[MayankParmar]

@ViktorN I was approved for the old publisher center and it says 'draft' and I haven't filled in the details or made any changes to the publication settings since 2017 when I was approved.

I have noticed that if you get approved after the new publisher center, you may or may not show up in News or Discover. It's now algorithm based for newly approved sites and approval does not guarantee anything.

I'm not seeing any improvements in Discover or News. The bug is still here and it's 6th day and counting.

[ViktorN]

@TalkativeEditorial @MayankParmar
yes, same as here. AMP traffic decreased. I thought it might be related with the old/new publisher center, but maybe it's not. and again, I'm afraid to update the details for the property approved in the old one, because it can always get worse.

[MayankParmar]

Yes, I wouldn't touch Publisher Center right now. That's a separate issue/thing and has nothing to do with our sudden drop in Discover/News/AMP traffic.

[TalkativeEditorial]

I really feel for those who aren't in news and have to hustle the SERPS. Been doing a bit of content research for a client today and the results are appalling. Same article, rewritten 10 times by different blogs on the first page.

[KaseyM]

I'm pretty sure Google News applications are just for the app now as opposed to the Google results. That's open to everyone*

AMP required and ill-defined rules must be abided - easiest to get in if you're scraping content using a free WordPress theme.

[Ashirwaad kumar]

Whenever Google algorithms changes, that means your website can perform better or can perform worse in the search engine. So, knowing is important when Google makes changes algorithms, your website will work according to that algorithm.
Google doesn't care how great our site is, what organic links we have, the authority, or any other things we have control over.

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Ashirwaad kumar

I would sincerely hope that all webmasters have already known this for two decades:-)

[Steven29]

"I've realized that I have nothing to fix and the problem is with the algorithm, which favours companies. Scrapers rank because they don't care about the small or mid-core publications. I have never seen a scrapper outranking a well-known site which is backed by a company."

I seem to observe the same patterns.

In my niche, I believe the scrappers are the well known companies... It seems to be one of their ways of throwing stuff on the wall until 1 sticks, so they don't have to post smaller news to millions of users on their main websites (they want you to pay!) and to make what they are doing less noticeable. If the scrapping doesn't work, usually the authority site will post within the day.. just so nobody can rank except them.

If the spam sites ranks, they will reach out to the company and try to get advertising.

Since the Google Updates, these scraper websites have taken all ads off in an attempt to get higher rankings (they don't seem concerned with money... right now, but taking out the niche competitors).

They even cross share content on social media and the sites cross sharing have posted the same content in the same 30 minutes, to the same wordpress theme with a few modifications. This is pages with 2.5 MILLION fans that came out of no where - was 200,000 a few months ago...

Does anybody else have the company Dot Dash (previously about dot com), in their niche? [fastcompany.com...]

[riccarbi]

This not the web I fell in love with, 27 years ago. It has turned into a nightmare. And the worst thing is that those who have turned it into a nightmare have been able to make us think it was because of OUR fault.

[gatormark]

I have noticed another update to the SERP. The few major high ranking keywords I have just dropped again today. Anyone else seeing SERP movement today?

[samwest]

Yep gator...all down.
20 years of great fathers day traffic...1 conversion on a trickle today. Something did move in the past 24 hours...lost one Pintetest spam listing...so that's good but it's pretty clear the AI is still hard at work filling Googles coffers.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Still no change on Discover traffic.
Some very slight SERP movement - but total opposite in US vs UK rankings.
I give up.

[MayankParmar]

:(

[TalkativeEditorial]

Wonder if any of this (as well as the weird Pinterest search results) relates to the launch of Google Keen.

From an article: "Keen was developed by Google’s Area 120 group. It was created in conjunction with Google’s People and AI Research team, “dedicated to human-centered machine learning systems,” project co-founder CJ Adams wrote in an inaugural blog post."

[MayankParmar]

There was a minor upswing in the discover traffic yesterday night but it's gone now.

[MayankParmar]

There wasn't any algo update and no changes were made to the site or the AMP page. I just can't believe that Discover traffic simply disappeared overnight.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Same @MayankParmar :-(

We didn't change our output either... I KNOW fluctuations are natural, but this is just mad.
Even more frustrating since I can see that competitors who use wire copy are showing up in the Discover feed.
And others who have two entities but publish the same content are showing up as double.

I'm completely out of ideas.

Edit: I also wouldn't be so frustrated by it if I was the only one who noticed something. But there are at least three of us who can pinpoint the exact date where something snapped. Which is what's getting to me.

[MayankParmar]

I hope Barry from Seroundtable will see these reports and ask Google

[samwest]

Just when I thought they were fixing the Pinterest bug...its back. Was gone for part of yesterday...as well as a reordering of the top 10....but everything reverted back.

They must be A/B/C/D/E/F/G...testing.

[Dooku]

@MayankParmar, have you noticed how quite the seroundtable posters are lately.........hardly any reactions anymore below the daily news articles. That should tell you something.

Yes, june 18/19 was a definite algo update. Since about 10 to 14 days a lot of keywords that were gone from May 6th update, are coming back and ranking again, but traffic is bad.

I suggest, if you did not already do so, work on getting your site ranked well in Bing. You will then rank in Yahoo and DDG also.
MUCH better audience and conversions than G. Free tip: A few of my sites also rank very well in Yandex, don't discard Yandex, for some reason yandex.com is also used by english speaking people outside russia!

[BushyTop]

@dooku you're right. These changes have become the norm now and people don't react like they used to. It become commonplace to hear of someone lose 60% of their traffic overnight, with no explanation.

[seomotionz]

@Dooku What can report seroundtable? Our crying that how Google has f*ucked us? I don't think so.

We have a huge discussion about fluctuations here. Barry sees it or, sees some high numbers in SEMrush & then Barry reports it. And what Google says in return that "Nothing much, its regular updates which we do". Or says "People aren't ranking because their page isn't worthy".

Its been going on like this for too long now.

[edited by: seomotionz at 1:09 pm (utc) on Jun 22, 2020]

[RedBar]

for some reason yandex.com is also used by english speaking people outside russia!

Why the exclamation mark?

I've been using Yandex for years, I even have their own browser installed to ensure compatibility. I use it to test widget rankings and also to view alternative opinions:-)

[Dooku]

"Why the exclamation mark? " Current audience excluded off course :-)

But most website owners just don't give Yandex any thought, they seem to think about it as some big bad russian spy search engine.......like G is a saint ? The best feeling you can get is when you reach a point that all other traffic sources reach a point that G is not important any more for your income. Another benefit is that if you have diversified enough than your new situation is also much better if any one of those new sources would stop suddenly because you didn't put all your eggs in one basket.

@MayankParmar, don't worry, there will come a day that seroundtable will not be relevant any more. We need to be patient, I never expect that much from upcoming investigations into G. But somehow I have a feeling in the next 2 years things may just change for the better. Within the EU they are fed up now with companies like G not paying anywhere near a decent tax on their earnings and new legislation is being made and already implemented as we speak. This means they(G) will be forced to change their business model as then even stake holders can not even dictate and demand "everlasting growth" from G each year.