Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2020

[RedBar]

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System: The following 5 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5004404.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 6:16 pm on Sep 1, 2020 (utc -5)

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I know some of you are not going to like this however here are my metrics for August 2020:

Global B2B Site 1 PVs v July +27.7%, v August 2019 +332%

Global B2B Site 2 PVs v July 22.9%, v August 2019 +299%

UK Hotel / pub PVs v July 60.3%, v August 2019 +40.25%

All other sites have shown excellent traffic increases, several with their busiest month ever for instance:

UK Specialist widget site v August 2019 +212.2%

The B2B sites ought to continue to show growth as I add more specialist widgets, the interesting thing will be my melding of 90% of Site 2 into Site 1 as from today, 1st September.

Realistically I cannot see the hotel / pub site doing more simply because we're not adding any more information plus the live music scene is still not happening other than selected outdoor acoustic sessions and with the end of the Government's Eat Out to Help Out promotion we expect the food service to drop considerably.

All-in-all, for an August, a quite unexpected traffic month plus all the respective businesses are reporting good enquiries and real sales which is the real test insofar as I am concerned.

[RedBar]

At my very worst I think it was 95%, I had one site that went in a short few months from 100K PVs per day down to about 5K PVs, understandably that crucified my AdSense earnings over the following years as, I believe, most site's AdSense CTR declined. When I first started it was about 7% and was about 1% when I finally removed it.

Personally I used to have loads of sites however as G's algo updates have improved / refined, I have found much less need for them to the point where I have now 90+% melded my two largest sites together this month and as a business we shall be meeting very soon to discuss the future direction of the businesses.

Quite simply, shall we "need" them all in the post-Covid world?

[Webweeb]

Make the goddam spam stop.

Google is probably busy teaching the algorithm how to fairly rank CEOs on a gender spectrum and dont have time to deal with actual spammy results that millions of people see every goddam day. You know actual scams and spam...

So I get to compete with black hat bots while they are programming algorithms to sway people to vote one way or the other in november. Algorithms that will be completely useless after november.

Prabhakar Raghavan... show us how bad our next decade is going to be.

[KaseyM]

100% on spam but it seems some new sites can instantly rank in Google news with complete rubbish.

[RedBar]

Ok, Google Discover newbie here!

Where the heck is it?

I logged-in to a GMail account, checked all the icons and even did a search ... nothing, absolutely nothing.

What did I, am I, doing wrong?

[mosxu]

Again had to stop the ads again massive influx of zombies. It would be a big mistake to raise bids when zombies take over.

[RedBar]

Oh Discover is on mobile only?

Solely Android?

[MayankParmar]

The Google app feed [play.google.com ] and [apps.apple.com ] is Discover.

Up to 1 billion users a month, so it is huge ;)

100% agree with the spam problem. The scrappers somehow appear in Top Stories/News without backlinks or original content and Google is doing nothing about it.

[RedBar]

Yep, 1 billion users a month being spied upon and "influenced" ?

[jmorgan]

Should we have a new thread for Google Discover?

[TalkativeEditorial]

@jmorgan A Discover thread would be great.

[glakes]

Should we have a new thread for Google Discover?

Would be useful since targeted traffic from actual Google search queries is largely directed to the big players or other Google owned properties.

[StupidIntelligent]

Soon Google Discover would become Discover Google.

[EditorialGuy]

We lost 90 percent in one fell swoop years ago, but it was the result of a technical glitch. I made a simple change to our .htaccess file, and the traffic was back within a month.

[ichthyous]

The 2010 Google Image massacre was due to UI changes on Google's part. They just stopped making the source site so evident and down we all went. That traffic never came back. This year's May 4th update was almost as bad...I lost 60% of my image traffic over the course of one month. It has improved minimally. That was due to algorithmic changes in ranking the images, which went hand in hand with devaluing the pages they are on.

[StupidIntelligent]

Is the index being refreshed today, or is it my imagination?

[ichthyous]

USA traffic down 1/3 today compared to average Friday...it's a holiday weekend in USA but that seems a bit extreme. My ranking has increased this week almost back to before The Glitch, but no gains in traffic at all and conversions have been non-existent for weeks. I think the USA economy is slowing down.

[MayankParmar]

Quiet....

[TalkativeEditorial]

Some Discover traffic returning now.... such random fluctuations.

Rankings still quite stable and traffic average ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[glakes]

USA traffic down 1/3 today compared to average Friday...it's a holiday weekend in USA but that seems a bit extreme.

Not really under the circumstances. Many local public schools are beginning their first day of class on the 8th. School districts providing only virtual instruction were assigning/handing out laptops to students on Thursday and Friday. After waiting in socially distanced lines, parents have to get the laptops home and added to their WiFi. Parents like me, with multiple students, then find out their WiFi coverage in their home sux so they have to run out and buy a new wireless router. Thankfully I did that a week ago, buying a ZenWiFi AX mesh system, because those are out of stock everywhere now along with desks, chairs, etc. The added time/expense parents are going through with setting up for a virtual education will impact website traffic and conversions.

I think the USA economy is slowing down.

But the news states the opposite - pointing to a rebound if you can believe it (I don't). With schools opening up, mass layoffs will start. I know a number of school districts around me sent 30 day layoff notices to staff in August. My school district, which has just under 4,000 students, will see over 200 employees laid off this month. This is happening to schools all over the country. GDP numbers can't be trusted either. Yes, there is a lot of spending going on but it's artificially inflated with Government spending on PPE and other COVID related purchases. My school district is waiting on a shipment of 2,000 laptops from China to support virtual education. Once again, many schools across the nation are in the same boat and such spending will artificially increase the GDP. One thing is for sure - COVID was an excellent economic stimulus event for China. And while China has ramped up production to meet USA demand for their goods, many local schools, cities, counties and states are just starting the first phase of layoffs.

I don't see the economy getting better anytime soon. I expect to see lower conversions from Google and all search engines as people clampdown on their wallets. And I believe that clampdown has already started with a unique, time consuming and costly back to school season like none other.

[MayankParmar]

Well, it remains dead for me. Emailed John Mu but no replies lol.

[samwest]

Traffic and conversions returned earlier in the week...but now traffic has turned all zombie. No more conversions. More apparent quotas. Holiday weekends were traditionally very good for my site...not anymore. Every one of them gets scalped these days.

[RedBar]

@TalkativeEditorial

Some Discover traffic returning now.... such random fluctuations.

Surely if Discover is only available whilst being logged-in to Google on a mobile device, and something else I think, then a lot of traffic is going to revolve around non-work times and other times when mobile is normally used and would maybe increase during socialising hours or when someone is bored with nothing better to do?

Plus with Google tracking everything what Joe Amateur is doing and never cleaning-out their cache etc, the stuff that is displayed may not include anything new, just the garbage Google wants one to view?

I have no idea, I use the DDG browser and neverr logged-in to G.

[ichthyous]

@samwest @glakes Google's May update plays a large part in the lower traffic and conversions, but don't underestimate this scale of this recession. This entire year has been not just down in terms of a normal recessionary drop, but has dropped probably 85% for my business. After the 2008 crash it was only a 60% drop. And I sell to upscale clients who have not lost their jobs nor been affected financially by the pandemic as much as middle and working class. They have stopped spending or have lowered budgets for everything from what I can see, and that is while the stock market is zooming. Wait until the stock market plummets 20%-30% again, which is going to happen I assure you. Then you really won't have any spending going on at all on big ticket items. I really hope I am wrong, but this is not going to be a quick recovery in the USA.

[mosxu]

I am getting hypnotised when I see Google search results

[glakes]

@ichthyous

I benefited from the virus since it delayed my Chinese competitor's ability to deliver goods to USA consumers via Amazon Prime. July sales for me were up 60% YOY and August came in at a solid 30% increase YOY. Regardless, I know this will not last. About the only ones hiring in my region are McDonalds and Amazon. At the shop, I'll hear 2 or 3 Amazon ads over the radio every hour and every day of the week. Americans delivering Chinese goods to other Americans seems to be the big growth industry, and will only get worse as more domestic businesses close.

I can't agree more when it comes to the over-inflated stock market. When the market starts coming undone, and red ink starts steadily flowing, consumer spending will free-fall - leaving many consumers spending on necessities only. This will decimate website conversions and likely lead to some very lean months and possibly years ahead.

[TalkativeEditorial]

@RedBar When we say Discover traffic stopped/is dead - most of us don't mean usual fluctuations that you'd expect through the day. We mean it's literally dead - as in zero, sites seemingly at random completely stop appearing in the Discover feeds.

[MayankParmar]

Hmm Disavow works [twitter.com...]

[RedBar]

sites seemingly at random completely stop appearing in the Discover feeds.

Surely that's a consequence of Google's "personalisation / customisation / selection"?

If a user only looks for / looked at Widget A G may never show Widget B based upon G's limited "Personalisation" information.

The whole point about "Personalisation" is completely naive since it assumes the user is only viewing a very few selected "subjects" no matter if their intent is for information or purchasing.

Am I getting this completely and utterly wrong or is something else occurring that I do not know about?

Chasing cookies around is one thing, how are Discover's subjects with a clean browser cache?

I tried it on an iPhone with a DDG browser and it doesn't seem to work, surprise, surprise:-)

[MayankParmar]

Discover is linked to your Google account and they track what you browse. Discover is based on your browsing history, your interests, and your frequently visited sites.

However, Discover apparently favours big publishers even if you don't visit those sites frequently and Discover do experiments with smaller sites.

[RedBar]

Therefore it's Google's Catch 22 for publishers?

If one is fortunate enough to have been visited and it's in G's history / cache one has more chance of repeat visitors however the probability is that one's site is not going to be seen hence the publisher has to pay to be seen ... correct?