Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2020

[ichthyous]

The following 2 messages were cut out of the June 2020 thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4997607.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 5:45 pm on Jul 1, 2020 (PDT -8)

Either that, or my website, is getting a lot of fake bot traffic.

Don't underestimate how much bot traffic and scraping is going on. I spent June creating firewall rules in cloudflare to keep them off my server and yes my traffic reported in GA did drop because of it. Cloudflare doesn't even catch a lot of it. I blocked scans of my server for all kinds of files and URL combinations that don't exist. I don't need the endless bots sucking up my resources. And I still had a brute force attack from China two days ago that CF did not prevent.

I'm wondering if the lower bounce rate and longer time spent on the page from real traffic will benefit me in any way... Doubt it!

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 1:57 am (utc) on Jul 2, 2020]
[edit reason] split thread to new month [/edit]

[Ahtesham08]

Yes, the sites which got hurt a week back, they are being pulled more yesterday and the day before yesterday. It is because of an update. The first one, which happened a week back only destroyed our rankings in the image search, and the most recent one also killed our normal organic rankings. I can confirm this based on what happened to my 3 sites, plus, I am removing them al from GSC and GA today. I can't trust google anymore.

[Mentat]

I’ve checked and there is no big holiday in the US, but my US traffic is gone! Nice weather? Covid19?
Google Update?

[paranoid android]

None of the above. You can attribute the lack of traffic to Google just taking it away from you. Nothing else. It will continue like this until only the largest of corporate sites get organic traffic on Google and small players like you or I either do it as a hobby or don't exist any more.

[ichthyous]

There is no holiday, but there was some question as to whether an update was rolling out earlier this week. Last weekend I saw increased traffic, but this weekend my USA traffic is down by a lot. Let's hope it's a temporary drop

[renatovieira]

Google Real Time is down. Has anyone else noticed the bug right now?

[universenet]

Google Real Time is down. Has anyone else noticed the bug right now?

Yes, it is down seems

[christianz]

Yes. Showing only small portion of traffic.

[EditorialGuy]

Is anyone else seeing a big drop yesterday and today? My USA traffic is down considerably this weekend

The U.S. traffic to our European travel site has taken a downturn since the EU announced that American tourists weren't welcome because of COVID-19.

Traffic from other countries is up, though. (By double- and triple-figure percentages in most cases.)

[Athedian]

Is anyone else seeing a big drop yesterday and today? My USA traffic is down considerably this weekend

@ichthyous - Yup, definitely seeing it, as my page ranking had been falling off the cliff since last Friday. Sat bounced back just a tad and then took another nose dive again on Sunday. Not only that, even Google Ads got messed up badly on Sunday morning at 9:30am when there shouldn't be anyone clicking at ALL. Instead, we got crap loads of clicks and zero conversions. Large amount of budget got wasted in the first half of Sunday.

This problem already happened once last month for us and it happened again this month. It's ridiculous.

I am really suspecting Google Ads and core algo updates are now tied in together, regardless of how "distinctive" both systems may be.

[webdev29]

It's impressive to see how Google is literally crushing the small ecommerces with the latest updates. I see on the SERP FR side huge traffic losses on many niches and the only sites that go up are "bigplayers" and sites that have nothing to do with the initial search attention (including thin content ones and autogenerated content) . I really hope they will realize this before putting too many web workers in disastrous situations from an economic point of view...

[jediviper]

Maybe it will be better to mention all the countries when u notice any drop.
For Hungary, Netherlands, Australia, I really see no difference in rankings or organic traffic of the last week.

[Lisa01]

@Ahtesham08, what will happen by removing GSC and GA?

[ichthyous]

I'm also seeing quick turnarounds in traffic in some cases. So at noon you may be down 60% in your USA traffic, but by midnight you are back at normal levels. Traffic is really throttled by the hour now, it's incredible. I have removed GA and nothing happened at all...yet.

[samwest]

GART is currently reporting fake traffic. Running it site by side with other analytics to verify.
Yesterday had a one hour window of crazy fast sales conversions, then, once again, POOF....back top a metered trickle of Zombies. Intentional or inept...it's a mess.

[Jeff_Fidler]

We saw a massive decline here in Canada for one of our clients July 15 and 16th. We run a .com and .ca - USA and Canada. Both sites tanked on this date.

This looks vertical specific, as other clients saw absolutely no changes. Who's taking the top spots? Amazon.ca/.com, Walmart, and lots of magazine sites - Cosmo, Marieclaire, Womenshealthmag, Allure, etc... taking the top spots.

No technical issues with the sites, decent content - lots of links, always room for improvements, but no real major issues with the site(s) as far as we can tell, yet we got clobbered.

Anyone else seeing something similar?

[ichthyous]

Amazon.ca/.com, Walmart, and lots of magazine sites - Cosmo, Marieclaire, Womenshealthmag, Allure, etc... taking the top spots. Anyone else seeing something similar?

@Jeff Yes, but that has been the case since early May. Everything got taken over by articles and blog posts overnight. But even before then traffic was already getting hammered from January, when Google updated to include so many more options on the page for a broader range of searches. It has never recovered, and in fact traffic is still at the lows for my site...most likely in combination with the pandemic, school being out and the recession of course. There would need to be a major reversion of the May update to see some of that traffic return...it's August so doesn't look like it's going to happen. Can only pray that in Sept another major update takes its place that is favorable.

[RedBar]

From my current viewpoint, don't change anything G!

All sites with highest genuine numbers and I know from when this started to happen with improvements / additions I did to sites 3-9 months ago.

Ok, 3-9 can seem a big number however local / national sites react faster than global sites and were expected to take this long ... do not expect instant results.

[Athedian]

Currently seeing page ranking continue to decline (though I may have inadvertently found a possible reason why page ranking continues to drop) though impressions and sessions are bouncing back. It doesn't make any sense. Google Ads acting up again, as I'm seeing a lot of clicks and low conversion once more.

I know what you're doing Google. You think you are sneaky by secretly manipulating the traffic sources from time to time to get as much $$$ as possible without being too overly obvious.

[ichthyous]

@ RedBar So which changes and additions did you make 6-9 months ago? We await your response with bated breath...

[mhansen]

Not sure if this is allowed in this sub or not, but there is a great article about Google in The Markup today, about Googles most popular search results, being Google products.

The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page

[themarkup.org...]

[Jeff_Fidler]

Great article @mhansen.

Yes, trying to decipher what Google's looking for when hit by an update has become a guessing game these days. You can get hit even when you're following all the best practices - good fresh content, fast glitch free mobile experience, no real technical problems, good site architecture, healthy external linking profile, etc....

So what do you guys do and where do you look for answers on what action to take when negatively impacted by an update?

[BushyTop]

Seering some weird traffic today and some tweaks to search results pages too. :(

[samwest]

Today the tech giants stand before a non technical Congress to have absolutely nothing come of it. Wouldn't it be great to allow us all to ask them some SERP and censorship questions and get some REAL answers under oath? Who am I fooling, even then, nothing would come of it, as they can easily explain it away with more smoke and mirrors. "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Follow the money trail.

[ichthyous]

So what do you guys do and where do you look for answers on what action to take when negatively impacted by an update?

@Jeff Google's updates are now so often that there is no point in trying to "fix" your site for each one. These days sites inexplicably rise and fall, and there's nothing any of us can do about it. Make sure that a good portion of your drop in traffic isn't simply due to Google adding more and more content on the first page from its own properties. I lost traffic on a rolling basis as each landing page to my site lost traffic over time for this reason...with no drop in ranking or visibility.

Another thing to keep in mind is traffic throttling. Pay close attention to the patterns of your daily traffic...do they make sense? Is traffic now low during your normally busiest hours? Do you see close to the same numbers of visitors day after day? Big drops in traffic from only one country? Google is clamping the flow of traffic these days...no improvement to your site will help.

If you have a sudden inexplicable drop in ranking after a Google update there may be something you can do to improve your content, but again...rushing to make major changes every time Google updates has become futile...changes happen often now. In Sept 2019 my site skyrocketed and stayed higher through end of the year, only to fall off a cliff after the May 4th 2020 update. Focus on making your site user friendly, quality content, authoritative, fast loading and most importantly...diversify your sources of traffic away from Google as much as possible. That has been the hardest thing for me, as I do not get lots of traffic from social media, affiliate sites, etc.

[samwest]

Big SERP changes in the past 48 hours with Pinterest right back at the top and domain crowding. Single pin ranking #2 with no followers. Disgusting.

[Treud]

Huge drop today as well, after a big up. Gp back to before the last update.
Probably a tweak of the last update

[ichthyous]

Huge drop today as well, after a big up

There seems to be no pattern anymore. Saturday my traffic shot up...Tuesday it was terrible. Today it's strong again. When I say "strong", that means within the already lower range I've been in since the May update, which I have not managed to snap out of at all. It's day by day...

[ratraceescapeartist]

I've given up on trying to rank using SEO and following the google's guidelines.

Now I am focused on writing content to please my readers not what google wants.

I'm also in the process of trying to transition from relying on google over to email marketing where I know I can build a loyal fanbase and whose traffic source I own. I know long term I will be OK but in the meantime...

[Treud]

Yeah same, focus on customers first. Keep site in good shape and let’s roll.
I had 4 days with a traffic 2 times what is normal, received 1 inquiry.
I think I ranked for a popular keyword that drives no engagement.
Also when I had my Google penalty last year I had a super good month in sales :)

[ratraceescapeartist]

@treud

I have noticed since the May update that google is sending me a lot of low-quality leads.

People that either wasn't too interested in my topic and niche or people just looking for free stuff.

Conversion rates have been pretty bad with these new crappy leads.

Not only have they taken away a huge chunk of your overall traffic but they have somehow also limited the amount of high-quality leads (ie. relevant visitors) for your site.

Scumbags!