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]

[MayankParmar]

@TalkativeEditorial I'm seeing some improvements, but not 100% sure if this is Discover. I'll have to wait for Console update.

Also, the official AMP plugin will get better on August 1 2020 (https://github.com/ampproject/amp-wp/milestones).

[edited by: MayankParmar at 1:40 pm (utc) on Jun 24, 2020]

[RedBar]

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

If you're not in the first three or top of the second page it's very doubtful you'll see more ... in my experience.

[frostitomik]

Also seeing big improvements in ranking positions in the last week or so. If this continues, the rankings will be back to pre-May update soon. Exactly as I was predicting 1,5 months ago.

But, we have another big problem now... There is almost zero traffic coming from Google in some niches. This all will take months or even years to recover.

I am expecting some bigger improvements after September, if the schools will be open and most people will return to their normal routines.

[gatormark]

So I don't see speed (for now) being a dominant factor.

I agree. One of the high rankers in a great keyword category for my industry has a page speed of 3. I don't know how that's possible.

Still, my rankings are improving little by little since I started this mission. One page went from not being ranked (NR) to 13. Other pages from 8 to 3, 9 to 5, NR to 35, NR to 28. So, it's helping and not hurting. Unfortunately, Summertime is my dead zone, so I won't see monetary impacts until Autumn. We'll see what happens the next core update.

[BushyTop]

Does everyone think this is a rollback... I'm thinking not, but it seems a popular opinion.

I can't see them rolling back an announced update!

[SteveWrz]

From my end, I don't see this as a rollback. Two of my sites that saw a big increase with the May update are seeing big gains gain. My site that was hit the hardest is seeing some small gains as well. If it were a rollback, I would expect the two to drop while the other recovers.

[ichthyous]

I think Core Web Vitals is not a determining factor with this update. I do think that the latest update factors in backlinks much less strongly. I have gotten some fairly powerful links from high trust sites recently and in the old days I would notice a bump up within days. Today it has no effect whatsoever.

With the short tail keywords I lost a lot of ground...whereas before there were sites selling items, now the top ten spots are all filled with how to articles and Pinterest feed pages. If you actually sell anything related to the keyword god help you, because you are now on page two or three. While this has affected me very badly, I can see how Google's AI has determined that most searches for these terms are looking for information, not products. Apparently a hefty number were looking for products though, as my sales inquiries have dropped through the floor. Not everyone needs a list of twenty how to articles on the same topic...

[gatormark]

I can see how Google's AI has determined that most searches for these terms are looking for information, not products.

@ichthyous

What's funny is that in my industry, which is information-based, I am seeing more websites selling products in the rankings since May 4. That's not what people are looking for in my industry. Everything is upside down.

[RedBar]

Does everyone think this is a rollback..

Not in my widget sector.

[samwest]

This month has fallen off the cliff. Not a single conversion in days. 70% income loss this month over last. SERP's juggling daily, Interesting Finds and Google interests have again taken over. Zombies galore. Upping their profiteering efforts exactly as stated and predicted.

[glakes]

This month has fallen off the cliff.

May was our best month ever - setting an all time sales record. We are having our best June sales ever, though will fall well short of May's record breaking sales.

I'd love to give Google some credit, but the truth is shoppers are finding us elsewhere - on Amazon, from Bing and Facebook to name a few. Of course there is word of mouth advertising, which we get since we produce very high quality industrial products that get recommended to others by our customers.

If Google really wanted to help small businesses in the USA, they would deindex Amazon entirely or severely demote Amazon pages.

[webdev29]

In France, we are seeing the damage of this update since this morning. I hadn't seen this for several years, the results are catastrophic: our e-commerce conversion rate has dropped by 80% since the first update in June and we have gone from 40 orders per day to 3... We have been a well-known French brand since 2013 with great success. These latests updates are a total nonsense.

[EditorialGuy]

I think Core Web Vitals is not a determining factor with this update.

According to Google, it won't be a ranking factor until 2021.

[Webweeb]

Seeing changes. Bugs still not fixed. Pinterest still ranking with 10.000 CCTLDs and deleted spam pages, hacked websites and extremely obvious black hat spam still ranking page 1 easily in my niche.

Google is still objectively bugged in my niche. It has been almost 2 months now. 2500+ spam reports and no change.

[immrrobot]

well definitely not a roll back at all but must say there is a lil bit of improvement. post that went from 1st page to none has appeared in 5th page. so kind of improvement? You can say so. but is it good? No freaking way

[sofie77]

Yes, I have to substantiate my previous statement about the rollback. It is not. Its like immrrobot is saying. A little bit improvement. Keys that moved from page 1 to page 5+ or nirvana are now on page 2. But not for all keys. Its a bit equal to the september core update.

It is definitely not good.

[immrrobot]

i'm just waiting for Google to fix this pinterest love. It's already hard to get any eyeballs when you aren't in top 3 and when the top 3 is messed up by pinterest and sh!$t, it's not getting any better for the traffic.

[lcfc80]

I saw a slump after the May Update which was quite bad, but the last week was seeing some slight improvements. Some pages were back to pre-May whilst some were just showing potential. If this was a rollback from the May Update for me it got rolled back itself last night as I lost all improvements with some SERPS even worse than with the May update. The SERPS were looking ok before, now Im being outranked by some right rubbish.
I honestly think they've added some sort of filter, it can be the only reason why a page can be ranked page 5 one day then 12 hours later, page 14

[TalkativeEditorial]

No improvement on Discover and still no answers from the Ads team on why there's zero of the clicks they claim came from Discover visible in analytics. Urgh.

[zeus]

gatormark : Pagespeed dont have that big effect on rankings at all. Maybe that will change in 2021 when the new update comes, I could even imagine that links to a site will have less value in 2021. Still a big player but less.

[samwest]

Results are different in every niche
..but they really have my number it appears. Each time traffic starts to rise...as in May...it gets whacked. The current zombie traffic is incredible. The Pinterest scourge continues. Worst week in 20 years.

[glakes]

Results are different in every niche

Couldn't agree more. In my vertical Amazon dominates Google. This is terrible for those USA companies trying to deal with the negative impacts of COVID-19 along with the damage created by a both dominant and oppressive search engine. If the virus does not kill off some of these small businesses, what Google is doing now will surely finish them off. And with 58% of the top 100,000 sellers on Amazon living in China (see [marketplacepulse.com...] ), they will be the businesses that survive as the result of Google's Amazon crowded SERPS.

[KaseyM]

Taking ages to index new content on Google at the moment.

Also - the amount of spam sites just hitting keywords in my niche with muddled English articles and nothing of value.

[ichthyous]

A small uptick in traffic and better positioning across the board so far this week. What I am noticing in my niche is a strong bifurcation in who is now on page one and page two. A good example of this are the terms "black and white photography" vs. "Black and white photos" (or "photographs") . For term #1 the old mix of articles and e-commerce sites has been totally replaced with repetitive how-to articles, review articles, and Pinterest feeds. Anything e-commerce is out, and that has led to massive drops in traffic for anyone selling anything, while I'm sure huge jumps up for these informational sites.

For terms #2/#3 the top ten to fifteen are all huge generic ecomm or stock photo sites. No representation from independent or mid-sized sites whatsoever. So again, big traffic losses on all fronts for small business. At this point I only have traffic from long tail searches left... Anything short tail is gone and my guess is it's going to stay that way. I'm down 27% in total from last June, but much worse declines for some landing pages that are my most important in terms of sales. I'm sure the recession factors into that too, but last recession in 2009/2010 my traffic didn't decline, only sales declined.

Just my observation... But it's across the board for short tail searches, so a seismic shift.

[RedBar]

And with 58% of the top 100,000 sellers on Amazon living in China

Are these all / mostly low-cost products that no one could buy and sell at profitably in the USA?

[glakes]

Are these all / mostly low-cost products that no one could buy and sell at profitably in the USA?

With much of the manufacturing base gone in the USA, the POC to purchase many items is in China - whether mainland China or Taiwan (Republic of China). The Chinese have figured out that it makes more sense, and is more profitable for them, to sell on Amazon instead of selling to American businesses that resell their goods. Sure, plenty of American businesses still import goods from China for resale, but it's shrinking each year as B&M stores scale back their footprint or outright close.

The bigger Chinese sellers do purchase from American manufacturers and ship direct to an Amazon warehouse. Amazon's prep services are designed specifically for this scenario. The Chinese will pay Amazon to label items for sale via FBA, offers bagging services, etc. Amazon makes more money with offshore sellers then they do with domestic sellers, which is why they continue investing in the infrastructure, recruitment, etc. to bring offshore sellers into their marketplaces.

[mosxu]

“The Chinese have figured out that it makes more sense, and is more profitable for them, to sell on Amazon instead of selling to American businesses that resell their goods”

@glakes

Let’s stop running a business and all go on universal income. No point employing people and invest. Waste of time.

[JesterMagic]

It's a downward cycle. As manufacturing moves off shore people are forced to take lower paying jobs which then forces them to buy cheaper goods. With more stringent environmental and employment laws manufacturing cannot compete with offshore even when you throw in shipping over seas.

Blue collar jobs are being run into the ground (middleclass) while white collar jobs income is increasing. A country needs a mix of both to survive or a few countries are going to be in for a rude awaking in a decade or 2.

What does it say about us that while we want a healthy environment and our workers to be treated fairly, it is okay to buy from countries that don't meet or exceed our standards?

Global competition is good but needs to be fair. Not sure how to do that... I hate to say it but maybe some sort of global ranking system that introduces tariffs/taxes based on how well a country meets certain criteria. (which will obviously never happen)

[Dooku]

@Mosxu, No use in blaming the chinese now. You need to watch the documentary "Death By China" and even more importantly Michael Moore's "Planet of the Humans" documentary. Especially the latter about green energy is not what you initially think about green energy but how usa based companies/billionaires earn money abusing the climate debate.

In short, soon you and I can not even afford to buy the products those companies are having manufactured in china because there will be no broad enough base left of consumers with adequate income to buy their products. Sellers as we know it will dwindle to nothing and only larger companies from abroad will be left on Amazon. Also, companies like Apple will become scarce because now you already are seeing the rise of brands like Huawei thinking of themselves to be an "A" brand like Samsung and directly selling to the world and replacing brands like Sony and LG. How long do you think a "service based" economy will survive once normal consumers don't earn enough to use/buy services like car insurance/mortgages?

[BushyTop]

this is 100% not a rollback. Seen more data on it now.