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.

[Athedian]

Bounce rate went off the roof when I checked it this morning compared to the previous week. Looks like another update's going on.

[markseo]

Bounce rate increased on one of our sites yesterday too. In fact last 2 days have been very patchy for conversions without major changes in SERPs rankings. Feel like we are heading towards the core update this week or next.

Noticed SEMRUSH/sensor has gone up this morning too.

[MayankParmar]

Semrush sensor looks fairly normal in regions where it's Wednesday.

[glakes]

Semrush sensor looks fairly normal in regions where it's Wednesday.

6.7 in the USA would indicate an algo update.

[renatovieira]

Today things are very strange. High traffic spikes followed by zero clicks...

Rollercoaster ahead :-/

[Dooku]

On some of my sites I see a lot of bots from China and I hear from a lot of people I know they see the same thing, as on this forum.
This causes obvious problems among others like bounce rates going up, which in turn affects ranking....as if we don't have enough problems with G updates. Here is a FREE aggregated IP block list, which is kept up to date, to mitigate that issue:
[countryipblocks.net...]

Please note that it's not wise to add the whole block list to your htacces or firewall. But instead check your log files for bot IP's from(and other traffic) from china and add only those ranges from the above list and keep adding as you go.

[MayankParmar]

I can see 6.7 sensor now, but no changes here.

[mosxu]

Complete unnatural patterns of traffic here

[RedBar]

Oh, wow, not sure what to say!

For those of you who remember from 1st September I melded my global B2B sites 1 & 2.

Traffic has been good and especially realworld enquiries therefore I decided to check quite a few keyword phrase rankings and had a shock. Nearly all the ones I checked, and they were the big money keywords, are now ranking at #1 or #2 with various cache dates of between 3rd to 8th September.

Will check more pages later.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Facing with a little traffic increase for the first time since May 4 Update. Not sure what's happening because I did a lot of changes last weeks. Maybe core at last started?))

[MayankParmar]

They pre-announce core updates though.

[markseo]

I think its more likely last week of month based on previous years.

But there was definitely a little bump this morning. Some changes in our niche and a little up tick on semrush sensor.

[ichthyous]

Higher ranking here for a few terms, but GSC showing a big uptick in clicks on the 7th...seeing that it was a holiday doesn't really make sense, But I am seeing more traffic yesterday and today and had two sales today.

My traffic from the UK is up 167% today and is now averaging 1/3 of my USA traffic. It used to be 10% for the last 17 years. So I tend to think that it's not just that the UK traffic is high, but the USA traffic is also abnormally low.

[RedBar]

Just because your ranking positions change do not assume an update ... this is normal G implementation / adjustment fluctuation.

This can happen simply with a cleared cache removing history and search plus G spyware:-)

[samwest]

Back to the constant 2 visit throttle. Completely unnatural. Impossible this is random...just clamped. Unbelievable.

[Webweeb]

No change. Still steadily being snuffed out by spam. T-Shirt websites are ranking again. I'm tired. I dont know how many thousand spam reports I have sent, but I'm pretty much done. There seems to be no use. The kind of spam changes, but its always spam and always more.

Things were kind of stable until sunday, now its going down fast. I never thought I would lose my business to actual spam. To competition maybe... but not to spam.

Guess this can happen to all of us. Google messes up, makes the results objectively bad and you are done. No way to tell them, no way to let them know. Your business is done until maybe one day they accidentally fix it. F monopolies honestly.

[widgetized]

Woah, total zombie traffic here... I launched a storewide sale on Monday (Back to School), and still not a single conversion was registered so far! Usually, this kind of sales works very well for my website. I should also mention I'm seeing a small rollercoaster in my GSC stats. What the heck Google :(

[mosxu]

@glakes

AI will hide search terms for 28% of paid search budgets.

Wait, ... this is due to “privacy concerns”

[MayankParmar]

Created a thread on Google Discover [webmasterworld.com...] :)

[glakes]

@mosxu

Those search terms provide important checks and balances whether it be for paid or free traffic. There's a reason why Google does not want us to see this very important information, and my guess it has more to do with protecting Google's dubious budget busting/poor quality traffic. Simply put, Google does not want us to see the source of the garbage traffic they are sending. Such smoke and mirrors may help to hide what Google is doing, but Google can't hide the poor ROI when it comes to their very low quality traffic.

[MayankParmar]

Sensors are calm today... and Danny is on holiday (according to his Twitter feed), so core update is not happening this week at least.

[mosxu]

@glakes

Transparency should be key in their business model.

But again all they seem to care is 3 ads accounts to keep them making money and afford astronomical clicks, sending them all charged buyer traffic!

Or if there are no ads send all buyer traffic to Amazon.

[samwest]

@glakes - per the latest cloudflare report, 23% of my traffic is definitely fake bot traffic, 16% is suspected bot and 61% is real human traffic. So yeah, almost half of our traffic is useless. Explains a lot. Still in amazement of how with so many page one results, and with a planet sized audience, I can get only 2 visitors at a time, all day, 5am to midnight. Sitting at zero right now.

The technology must be similar to facebook, where you can see your own posts, but nobody else does.

Full blown cancellation technology.

[KaseyM]

@MayankParmar - you give Danny way too much power haha!

[renatovieira]

Bad, bad, bad day! Has anyone noticed very low traffic today?

[RedBar]

Completely normal global traffic levels for me, I emphasise global since I am not country-specific.

[insideout]

@renatovieira I completely agree. Low traffic started late afternoon yesterday and continued today :(

[vlexo]

Anyone in the publishing space seeing their articles being suppressed in Top Stories or or old articles ranking/showing instead in the regular SERPs and Top Stories?

Seeing some abnormal movement/changes from yesterday to today.

[StupidIntelligent]

Danny's holiday schedule needs its own thread.

[renatovieira]

I've already investigated all my sources. GA, GSC, SERPs etc. Everything is ok, but today my traffic just disappeared.

I read a few times that after the Labor Day there always comes a big update. If so, it's happening now in my niche.