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]

[gwarftron]

@robzilla Found a search term via BHW "how to babysit a toddler when your wife is at work" which where I am based shows up top 7 results as Google books :D Lol.

[RedBar]

they seem to think about it as some big bad russian spy search engine..

Yep, I've always found it a pretty good engine and it really can throw up interesting results. I've made quite a few extremely good business contacts through it that I would never, ever have found on any other engine.

Fortunately for me my global trade is very English-language oriented even though I do have several Russian language pages for their traditionally used widgets otherwise, apart from local country translations, the industry tends to revolve around English for most things.

[TalkativeEditorial]

So, I've run an experiment. and now I am even more confused.
Since we can now do ads via Google Discover, I thought I'd try it out to see what happens.
Put a small budget on it and, according to the Ads stats, got a decent CTR.

Now here's the thing....... the post that was boosted in Discover..... doesn't have even close to the number of clicks Google Ads claim it has. I'm not talking am minor discrepancy while the GA data catches up.... I'm talking 1.8% of PVs vs what Ads claim.

[samwest]

Staccato traffic again today..never exceeds 4 active users on site...traffic is clearly clamped. Worse, it's not actually 4...it's less as shown by Matomo real time. GART is very unstable lately, long dwell delay for visitors and the "latch up" where traffic number just keeps climbing...never resetting. And they have the nerve to penalize us for minor technicalities. Man, I miss natural traffic patterns.

[Dooku]

@Samwest, are you using Matomo installed on your own server (free), or a paid hosted cloud plan?
If your using the free version on our own server, do you use ANY of their paid plugins?

[rustybrick]

@dooku - re SER posters.

It has been more quiet since I required users to register to post a comment. Previously, registration was not required. Maybe I should remove it again. :)

[nomis5]

Google must be getting desperate.

I have a web page - "review of widgets". It's the best and ranks top for its chosen subject.

It has several pictures on it, all better than the manufacturers shown at the top of the Google SERPS for this subject.

Google are showing four (on my laptop) pictures of manufacturers widgets at the top of the SERPS.

Then comes my entry. They have extracted three of my pictures as part of my entry as the number one result followed by a standard SERPS result for my web page. My pictures and my entry are al enclosed by a light grey box.

So far so good.

But if you click on any one of my pictures you are not taken to my webpage, you are taken to a generalised page of pictures relating to the widgets. Yes, some of my pictures do appear on that generalised page but the majority are not relating to my page.

To my mind this is planned and intentional use of my pictures solely aimed at increasing Google's own revenue. It is bordering on illegal.

I think I am missing something here. When I publish my webpages, at what point have I given Google the right to use my pictures for their own ends? I realise there is a right to use snippets of information from my web pages, but surely not to harvest professionally produced images solely for their own profit.

Each picture has my own website name on it.

Do you think this is legal?

[sofie77]

Something is going on again. It looks a bit like a 10-20% rollback or adjustment of the 5th May Core Update.

[JorgeV]

Hello,

I think I am missing something here. When I publish my webpages, at what point have I given Google the right to use my pictures for their own ends? I realise there is a right to use snippets of information from my web pages, but surely not to harvest professionally produced images solely for their own profit.

You can tell Googlebot not to index your images. This can be done using robots.txt entry, or server side header tag.

[ichthyous]

It looks a bit like a 10-20% rollback or adjustment of the 5th May Core Update.

I'm not seeing that at all, in fact on Saturday my traffic hit levels I haven't seen since I started my site 17 years ago. Traffic is still being highly throttled

[gatormark]

Something is going on again. It looks a bit like a 10-20% rollback or adjustment of the 5th May Core Update.

I saw an uptick early in the day, but Google took all that money away and then some. 20,000 page views and 6 hours later, $3 LESS dollars. 😡😡

[samwest]

Want to some real BS / broken / manipulated / fake Google SERPS?
Type on any three digit number and "new cases" and see the manufactured results. This is incredibly revealing.

[TalkativeEditorial]

No improvement on the Google Discover front and after the second experiment of running Google Discover Ads - the clicks Google Ads claim are there.... aren't. At all. In fact, when going to Analytics and the Acquisition tab, there isn't even a "paid" section like you'd see from general search ads.

So.....what is going on?

[alishah]

Now a days my all keywords falling down and the website is new even not following the google direction getting top position..if i try to do something to get my position back result my keyword push to 4 or 5 page.. really don't know what is going on now a days..

[RedBar]

Here is where I now upset the vast majority here!

As of this morning both my global B2b sites since converting them to html5 some 5+ years ago, have both already had not only their highest PV month ever but also their highest quarterly PVs.

Without a doubt they have definitely had more USA traffic which makes me wonder if their non-US site bias / manipulation has changed "a bit" however I am also seeing more valid traffic from Asia.

Realworld B2B enquiries are varying enormously plus I have no idea what each country / region is doing about their annual holiday closedowns ... are they having any, no one seems to know? After 3 months furloughing in the UK alone, will they?

[BushyTop]

@sofie77 my guess wouldn't be a rollback. We've done okay out of both updates.

[Kash1111]

Big spike on semrush sensor, I just wonder what it will be lol

[MayankParmar]

@TalkativeEditorial No idea, there was another minor spike in Discover but it's gone again.

[TalkativeEditorial]

SEMRush is off the charts O_O

[glakes]

Big spike on semrush sensor, I just wonder what it will be

Knowing Google, it will result in more Pinterest and Amazon crowding in the SERPS. When something is broke at Google, they tend to find ways to make it even worse...

[MayankParmar]

I analyzed several sites in tech niche that dropped after last Core update and there's one common factor: forums on main domain.

[MayankParmar]

Forums on main domain and sub domain too*.

[frankleeceo]

So forums get hit?

[glakes]

My Amazon sales took a dip, but conversions on the my ecommerce website traffic spiked to 4.05%. Reminds me of the good ole days. I know this likely won't stick, but wanted to share my initial observations.

[edited by: glakes at 1:28 am (utc) on Jun 24, 2020]

[SteveWrz]

All of my sites are seeing positive movement today.

[ichthyous]

I had a moderate bump up in ranking across some terms, but no bump up in traffic at all

[gatormark]

I’ve just been working on website speed because I noticed issues with the Core Web Vitals of certain pages.

Since I started this, some keywords have come back that were completely gone from the rankings. Keywords that had previously fallen, are starting to rise.

I removed one of my advertisers from the mobile version of my website and that resulted in the biggest increase in page speed. Also, maybe Google liked that I removed one of their competitors from my mobile site.

I’m not going to do anything to my website for the next 3 months other than improving my Core Web Vitals.

[DjDidier]

It's called pseudo-relation. My pages lost over 50% during the May update, even though they were significantly faster than the competition.
The top positions in Google search are occupied by a competitor that takes almost 20 seconds to load the website. In addition, some keywords are ranked by doorway pages that redirect to advertising pages.
I would say AI is still learning and we are in the beginning of the 21 Century. And it's mainly about links and keywords dropping.
Cross your fingers that it will soon be about quality and satisfaction of the visitors. Definitely not at the moment.

[gwarftron]

Yeah I've seen plenty of others who have focused on improving speed to no effect. Or have already had incredible speed and also low usage of display ads and still got a big drop, with no recovery yet. So I don't see speed (for now) being a dominant factor.

[TalkativeEditorial]

It's hilarious how Google's own resources (like AMP and Ads for example... and goodness Google fonts!) are some of the biggest culprits for tanking speed.

As an aside, still no improvement on Google Discover for us.