Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2020

[RedBar]

The following 11 messages were cut out of the October 2020 thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5011839.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton



My numbers are in for Occtober 2020:

Global B2B Melded Sites October v September 2020 +8.68%

Melded Sites October 2020 v Sites 1+2 October 2019 +418%

The last week of October was much quieter with, seemingly, no SERPs changes. I am expecting lower traffic levels during Npvember and December.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:51 pm (utc) on Nov 2, 2020]
[edit reason] split thread to new month [/edit]

[Hfzai]

To those affected, let’s hope its just Google’s way of saying Thanksgiving this year and be over the next day or the day(s) after.

[christianz]

You guys seem to be overrating the Core Web Vitals influence on ranking. Its not that big of a deal and not a make or brake factor that can cause major traffic drop. Not in my experience.

[rcodabas]

You guys seem to be overrating the Core Web Vitals influence on ranking. Its not that big of a deal and not a make or brake factor that can cause major traffic drop. Not in my experience.

True. Since October this year, my website was capped with around 1k visits a day, an 80% dropped. My core web vitals were the same since last year, all green Good URLs. Viewing the competitor’s crappy websites, which are actually copying from my leads, they do have much worst data in page speed. Hence, their sites are on top spots of Google search.

[Athedian]

You guys seem to be overrating the Core Web Vitals influence on ranking. Its not that big of a deal and not a make or brake factor that can cause major traffic drop. Not in my experience.

I disagree. I think the Core Vital is already being launched and Google's doing tests right now. If it's not that big of a deal, then why bother creating a separate category/system on its own and making an announcement regarding when it'll be "officially" rolled out?

I believe the Core Vital is just as important as the backlink, as Google knows that their algo is still a big mess and unable to determine the true intent of users that are searching the keywords for their needs. That's why they've been pushing this concept of page speed more than ever, just another block in the jigsaw puzzle they are throwing in to make their incompetence less obvious.

What you saw before on Core Vital may not have much of an impact before but certainly some people are feeling its impact now. Core Vital could have lesser impact on certain sites and more so on others. So my guess is that just because competitors' sites are not in the green doesn't mean Core Vital isn't in play, it's just Google's still tweaking its functionalities so the traffic becomes extremely volatile right now. That's why some sites get massive traffic drop and others not so much. Then you have one day with really good traffic and the next day being a total disaster.

Then again, to play devil's advocate, if I were to say: "No one knows whether if Core Vital is indeed important or not", then the same thing can be said against me. So therefore, I'll just leave this comment: "Believe what you want to believe". Could be just indexing issues for all we know but I know on my side, there's no major indexing issues (seems that G fixed it).

[jediviper]

I dont know what you guys are noticing during these days, but it's not generic.
No change for my traffic coming from Australia, Netherlands, Poland.

[renatovieira]

25 nov and yesterday were the worst days of all my sites. From different niches.

I know that yesterday we had thanksgiving day, but that doesn't stop people from accessing the web.

Today I still have no traffic on almost all of my sites.

Something big has happened. We just have to wait... : - \

[RedBar]

As usual different sectors are seeing completely different metrics... both my global B2B and trade directory sites were uncannily and precisely on average traffic levels which were, for a Thanksgiving, unusually high!

[JesterMagic]

We usually see a dip before and on Thanksgiving in the USA but the "dip" this year is definitely larger. Not sure if it is COVID related or not (our traffic is about 10% lower this year to begin with than last)

[ichthyous]

I am finding that this Thanksgiving dip is following the pattern of a steep decline in traffic to my home page and top landing page...huge drops. While the other pages on my site seem to be holding steading or increasing. That landing page has not decreased in rank at all, but on the days where traffic is lower the traffic to that page gets hammered.

[ChokenBako]

After some optimizations I get with Lighthouse and GTmetrix CLS Scores of 0.01 (green section). But in Webmaster console my "bad" Core Vitals increase because of CLS. Do you experience something similar?

[ichthyous]

But in Webmaster console my "bad" Core Vitals increase because of CLS. Do you experience something similar?

Yes, and it started out of the blue earlier this year...they all turned red because of CLS and LCP issues. Then they all went back to yellow / green. I think Google is ridiculous with the CLS issue reporting...it's almost impossible to satisfy their standards in the real world

[christianz]

FID and some of the other ones is even more ridiculous than CLS. With CLS you can at least do things to remedy the issue, but FID is nothing you can fix if you run third party javascript. For example, even if you run Googles own AdSense, your pagespeed score in general will go from 99 to 20 and it will be only because of third party javascript (rich ads, ad auctions, tracking code etc).

I just learned to not worry about Core Web Vitals too much. I do best that I can do on my end and let it be as it is. Haven't seen any big correlation with ranking/traffic and CWV.

Like I already said - some of you care too much about it. Because in general webmasters are in dark and don't get any feedback from Google on what to improve. With CWV they give you some feedback and all your attention goes agonizing about it, simply because its the only thing you got.

[mosxu]

Where are my brothers @samwest and @glakes ?

[Chickensalami]

It’s so hard staying motivated/positive after being down almost 7 months from the May update. Especially with the last few days of traffic being absolutely horrible. Hope all is well with everyone else’s traffic.

[renatovieira]

@Chickensalami - Everything here remains absolutely warm or dead.

[RedBar]

Traffic here looking completely normal but I am getting some very bizarre, however genuine, enquiries.

Bizarre as in unsual widget specifications ... Is this going to be the new norm? I have the money therefore I want something completely different / even more bespoke?

[MayankParmar]

The traffic from the U.S is dead :)

[StupidIntelligent]

Other than RedBar; everyone else seems to be in the doom zone.

[NickMNS]

Other than RedBar; everyone else seems to be in the doom zone.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not in the doom zone camp. Sure things could be better, they always can be better. But the trend is "no change" save for a few short bouts of volatility things and an expected drop for US Thanksgiving, things have remained steady for months.

[RedBar]

Other than RedBar; everyone else seems to be in the doom zone.

Insofar as my USA traffic is concerned it has been totally different this Thanksgiving, it's not altered whatsoever, normally it dies from the Wednesday until Sunday.

[EditorialGuy]

We've been in the "doom zone camp" since late February, but because of COVID-19, not Google. (Travel isn't exactly a hot topic at the moment.)

On the bright side, our traffic (Google and otherwise) has been creeping up of late, which isn't at all typical at this time of year. Normally, I'd expect our traffic to bottom out between late November and Christmas. Maybe all the talk of COVID vaccines is generating aspirational travel planning among the work-at-home employed who have money to burn.

[ichthyous]

Other than RedBar; everyone else seems to be in the doom zone.

My traffic dropped like a stone on the 25th and 26th but was normal yesterday and today...there was an outsize impact of the holiday it seems. The thing that concerns me is that there are very few new inquiries even though everyone is shopping.

[Negrash]

My traffic dropped on the 25th and 26th and didn't recover since then. Started to lose ranks and traffic on 25th and then lost almost all my non-branded keywords on the 26th.

[teokolo]

@Chickensalami same here: hit hardly by the May update, no recover at all. Every week I see a very slow increase in traffic, then a drop to go back to previous traffic.
Same happened Nov 25th: another drop bringing traffic back to 30 days ago level.

[shelloux]

@Negrash same here lost all rankings and keywords... Massive loss from 26th. Don't know what to do and what to expect.

[renatovieira]

The same here. Since 25th, a daily drop in traffic.

Until today only negative results.

Does anyone else have any doubts about the thanksgiving update?

[jediviper]

@StupidIntelligent

I would suggest you check also a bit more about your estimations, as I have also mentioned that for different markets I have noticed no difference in tracking.

[christianz]

Dip in traffic since 29th. Maybe 28th. Not dramatic but can be if it becomes a trend.

[ichthyous]

The 28th and 29th traffic recovered, but USA traffic is down hugely today so far...38% at noon. Traffic to my home page is down 68% today. I have seen USA traffic recover many times with a late day surge, especially on weekdays...so too early to tell. Today is also CyberMonday...many people are browsing pursuing deals on tech/electronics not what I sell.

As an aside...I gained five top three spots in the last few days, but GSC is now reporting almost all of my product pages as having CLS issues and they are red again. Could this be a problem with cloudflare? I really think sometimes CF causes big problems with Google speed...if I turn on some CF speed options Google speed test immediately shows worse results.

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by goodroi. New thread at: google/5018435.htm [webmasterworld.com]
5:52 am on Dec 1, 2020 (utc -5)