Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2020

[jmorgan]

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System: The following 16 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5008345.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 2:13 pm on Oct 1, 2020 (utc -5)

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I, personally, am not experiencing any negative effects from all these alleged issues that are being reported. However, the following has been a bugbear of mine:

And John Mueller's over there on Twitter throwing his hands up saying "I'm not aware of any issues. Did you make a thread in the [very, very always useful] help forum?"

I always cringe when he says this. Typically in these forums (such as this) you get a lot of hysterical webmasters frustrated with Google and not really providing much helpful advice. Soliciting advice from them could actually prove more harmful than beneficial.

[RedBar]

Welcole to WebmasterWorld mehmethasana

In a new project,

How new, days, weeks, months?

How competitive are the "keywords"?

[renatovieira]

@deriklogov

On my side I think there is debate every day! My main site is dead...

Congratulations G! : - )

[Webweeb]

@christianz
In theory, using AI over links and other classic signals as a main signal makes sense. However, using AI to interpret usage data brings up some very difficult and sensitive issues:
- User IQ needs to be considered when interpreting user data
- User age, gender
- Bot armies
- How can you tell what the individual users intent is?

Some of these issues are issues that many Googlers are politically opposed to confronting:
- What if the average searcher for s SERP is simply not intelligent enough to tell spam from legit?
- Should therefore user data from such users be ignored?
- How do you tell a bot from an actual user? (spoilers: you cant)

It would be extremely interesting to be a fly on the wall and hear some ultra hard lefties over at Google discuss how to consider IQ, gender ect in their algos. Especially since on average IQ is very geolocation dependent. Must be some of the most awkward stuff on earth.

If you use users to sort out spam, you better be sure the user is intelligent enough to recognize spam. If you construct an algo that assumes that everyone is an IQ 130+ engineer from silicon valley that spent their whole youth in front of a PC, then your SERPS will be spammy as hell.

[southernguy]

Somehow or another "just shooting from the hip" I think these nightmare search results and fluctuations will remain until after the U.S elections. Deep down inside I think things are running amuck with Google search and will continue to do so until after Nov. There has to be a reason why things are continuously and consistently breaking so often.

It could have nothing to do with it, maybe this is all just coincidental.

[RedBar]

An interesting thought southernguy, certainly if historical updates are anything to go by then "something" should be happening soon.

After Nov? Well, that would totally mess with their usual Jan. update unless, like Apple and MS, updates can be done every other week now!

And judging by how slow DDG is to update stuff at the moment it makes one wonder whether there's a complete blockage somewhere? Frustrating times for many!

[Steven29]

I think southernguy has hit the nail on the head and brings up a good question. Where are all of the political ads?

You can't watch TV without seeing back to back to back political ads, but I don't see them running online.

Is this something you have to "enable" in your Adsense account and shouldn't revenue be much higher from the additional competition of these ads that only happen once every 4 years?

[ichthyous]

@Steven29 - Political ads by the millions on social media. Do you live in a swing state? If not they aren't wasting money on you. They can target everything very precisely.

@Southernguy I think there is no correlation. Google has clearly dropped links as the prime mover for ranking. My link count has skyrocketed this entire year because Google is intent on counting every last BS Pinterest link now. I have also gotten links from high rank high reputation sites like CNN and it didn't move the needle on my rank at all. My traffic is lower than before the May update and still very spotty.
Google is depending on content length much more heavily now...or at least its AI is. I suspect that this is a permanent change...Google was long overdue to get away from links as the main ranking factor, they can be manipulated too easily. I have a very good backlink profile so it has hurt me badly.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic down for a second day, despite gaining back six of the Top 3 ranking terms I had lost today. The constant chaos unleashed by the OSS (Orange Super Spreader) is suppressing traffic until well past the election. If there is election chaos and a spike in new cases, it will remain suppressed in USA until well into new year 2021.

[StupidIntelligent]

I wonder if the the so-called core update was launched already in bi-weekly intervals in September.

Is it mandatory for the Google search team to inform Danny Sullivan of core updates? I wouldn't think so.

But that's just my brain going bonkers.

[Webweeb]

Google announces core updates.

There is a new head of search. That means we cant really speculate as to when the next update is released. It also means that he will most likely be taking search in a different direction, which is good... probably, maybe, hopefully. Or maybe the old head of search was not extreme enough on the use of AI and search result fairness ect. In which case it will be gender transition for marketing purposes or losing your business.

[ichthyous]

I wonder if the the so-called core update was launched already in bi-weekly intervals in September.

I wonder the same thing...if so it was quite mild and very disappointing for everyone still suffering from May's disaster of an update.

[samwest]

As expected, the previously rock solid results are changing hourly in my niche. That is a sure fire indication of a major update being digested.
Where she'll stop, nobody knows...

[TalkativeEditorial]

Seeing tentative signs of life from Discover (since they said they have started fixing the indexing and canonical issues....). Won't get too excited about it just yet, and difficult to say for sure whether or not any of the recent issues are related to this.... but will be quietly optimistic for now.

Rankings steady as usual.

[Mr_Dok]

Decided to giving up on Google. their stupped engineers just ruined everything. the serps results become more and more ridiculous and irrelevant then ever.

[MayankParmar]

@TalkativeEditorial One week ago, I had emailed Google News support about the canonical problem. They've replied back and instead pointed out that I need to fill the information and re-apply for publisher center. Right now, my site is labelled "draft" in the Publisher Center, but I'm included in the News tab and I do appear in the News app.

Makes me wonder if this draft thing is hurting our DIscover traffic? I believe Publisher Center approval unlocks site for News app and Discover.

[TalkativeEditorial]

@MP interesting. It could very well be that the two are related. I do know that many other publishers also got hit with the 10 Aug bug and have not recovered.

I am also now fairly sure that either canonical issue or the mobile indexing issue impacted our Discover traffic. Signs of recovery continue - including a steady flow or US traffic returning from Discover.

Also, just wanna say Mayank, thank you for being so persistent with trying to get the issue of the canonical noticed. You have doubtless helped many other people in the same situation who probably didn't even notice.

[ViktorN]

@MayankParmar in this regards, our site is also 'draft', as it has been added to Google News as it was the old publisher.
We were advised not to apply for the new publishers center, but this also makes me wonder if we should do it or not. We are both at the same situation, Discover traffic went to almost zero compared to the months prior to September.

[ViktorN]

@MayankParmar I have two other sites, applied for the new publisher center, in both of them it shows LIVE, so it's approved.
However, none of them are presented in the News section. So this is very confusing and the situation can always worsen.

[mehmethasana]

@RedBar It has been an active website for 2 months. Competition is 6-10% according to Ahrefs. Can you help with this topic?

[StupidIntelligent]

Doesn't seem like a core is going to happen this year, with so much breaking apart.

[MayankParmar]

If they don't do a core update in October, it will probably not happen this year. Companies usually don't release updates in the fall.

[ichthyous]

Lost five top 3 and six top 10 ranking terms that I had gained back last night...but traffic is 38% higher today than the previous four Saturdays. The SERPS appear to be disconnected from actual traffic.

[BoredMeteor]

Oh, come on. No update for the rest of the year? Are they trying to drive me nuts personally?

[RedBar]

I am not seeing any update as yet however I am seeing a constant shuffle of the first page every time I check.

I hesitate to say top ten since it varies between 6-10 results nonetheless no matter which cache-clean browser I use sites are moving up and down, ebay is always there, Pinterest sometimes.

One notable thing that has changed for the moment is that the #1 position at the moment is no longer standing out above all the others, it simply looks like the SERPs used to do.

Maybe that's just my widget sector?

I don't know why however I have this "bubbling under" feeling as though something's about to explode ... I've been watching too many volcanoes :-)

[MayankParmar]

Semrush is in 8. range in all regions today - a new update or new bug?

[TalkativeEditorial]

a new update or new bug?

Maybe we're getting treated to both this time.

Google Analytics real-time has been glitching a few times today. But who knows what is or isn't related these days.

Are all your dropped pages back in the index now @MP?

[MayankParmar]

@TalkativeEditorial Not yet, but slowly coming back.

I'm also seeing some traffic from Google Discover in the U.S. Around 8K impressions for October 4 (partially updated report). It's not close to what it was in August, but something is happening with Discover.

[HereWeGo123]

Just a thought - maybe the SERP volatility and SEO tools spiking are the after effects of google continuing to restore everything back to from the canonicalization and de indexing issues. Once the issues started Early sep, the natural result may have caused shuffling initially, hence the tools spiking. Google still hasn’t confirmed that everything’s resolved, just that it’s in the process. Just my opinion.

[janvitos]

It is truly baffling to see how much of a mess Discover has become. I am not sure how they were able to break it so much. It was perfectly working before. Plus, I was getting really good traffic from it and now there is no sign Discover traffic will ever come back.

Now, Discover shows me totally irrelevant content 90% of the time. I have to spend more time hiding specific topics and news sources than reading articles themselves. Sure enough, someone at Google didn't do their supervision job right. I mean, Discover’s goal IS to show you relevant articles based on your search history and general interests. How can it be the absolute opposite? How can a company as big as Google mess things up so badly?

Has AI taken over Google and now they lost control? Surely seems like it.

[topaz]

Agree with HereWeGo... shuffling in the tools has gotta be related to them fixing the bugs.
I'm also seeing Top Stories panels out of date by 4-5 days and wildly irrelevant articles coming in on Discover.

Is any website under 1-2 years old getting traffic from Discover?