Google Updates and SERP Changes - January 2021

[MayankParmar]

Traffic is very low for me as well. It dropped around December 14.

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Previous Monthly Thread [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: goodroi at 6:56 pm (utc) on Jan 1, 2021]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[christianz]

Anyone else annoyed with google images, youtube videos and "people also ask" being placed above most organic information queries? If I wanted videos or images id to click the videos or image tabs and if wanted to know what people also ask id want to scroll to the bottom of the current result set if the current results didn't answer my query......

I have been saying this for years. The aggressive push of YouTube (their own platform) is just criminal.

[ichthyous]

The aggressive push of YouTube (their own platform) is just criminal.

Not that I am one to defend anything Google does, but is it really criminal? I know more and more people who watch YouTube videos all day long. I have to admit I have become a fan of some historical documentary channels on there. Google makes a higher profit from Youtube, and people watch a lot of videos...hence videos at the top.

[Eshunanthony]

System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5018726.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 2:52 pm on Jan 8, 2021 (utc 0)

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Wow! Another core update?... Seeing inconsistent changes in traffic. Still monitoring and waiting to hear Google say "done!."

[westcoast]

We are seeing an insane sudden drop in traffic too. Down -30% right now as to what we normally see on a Thur night at this time.

Something big time is screwy with the SERPs.

[strummer19]

Sudden drop at 10h CET too

[renatovieira]

@strummer19 - Same here. My traffic is gone. G issues or... :-|

[ichthyous]

Another update? Aha! Now I know why I actually got some new customer inquiries in the last two days. Once it settles down it will go back to the normal pattern...no new customers.

[mini_007]

Looks like big update and a lot strange changes Norway different casino keywords

[RedBar]

Normal traffic levels for me so far today. My SERPs are in their usual state of the mini-flux G has been doing for what, 12-18 months?

Whether anyone other than serious researchers / buyers ever go beyond all the ads is very questionable and that's IF they go to Google at all when Joe Sheep is buying.

I had to source a new laptop this week with a critical specification ... hours and hours it took me. G / DDG / Y were all downright useless and nearly all the usual online suppliers were equally hopeless, and with lockdown in the UK try getting hold of someone to talk to!

It took me the best part, on and off, of two days to find it.

So the www makes things easier does it?

[JesterMagic]

Not that I am one to defend anything Google does, but is it really criminal? I know more and more people who watch YouTube videos all day long. I have to admit I have become a fan of some historical documentary channels on there. Google makes a higher profit from Youtube, and people watch a lot of videos...hence videos at the top.

That is because for years Google has been promoting Youtube. No other service had a chance to compete.

[MayankParmar]

They should be showing our sites in YouTube search results too, then it would be fair ;)

Featured snippet, people also ask, videos, question box, and top stories are also pushing me down in my niche. Almost all keywords have videos and people also ask.

[christianz]

Not that I am one to defend anything Google does, but is it really criminal? I know more and more people who watch YouTube videos all day long. I have to admit I have become a fan of some historical documentary channels on there. Google makes a higher profit from Youtube, and people watch a lot of videos...hence videos at the top.

Maybe I am weird but I have never went to Google.com to search for YouTube video. I always use YouTube.com. Likewise for eBay, Amazon etc.

Also - is YouTube so popular because it is being pushed in website search or is it pushed in website search because it is so popular?

The criminality is that YouTube is preferred over websites which answer search queries 100x better than lengthy off topic YouTube videos. In YouTube they have lockdown on advertising - it is AdSense/Google only, so naturally they want everyone to exist only within their own platforms.

Spammers already know that any worthless YouTube video will outrank web pages (unless they are well established) so it is a matter of time when YouTube will be bombarded with (often auto-generated) crap and it will be a lot like web results today - mainstream media/big brands plus laser-focused, keyword-stuffed long tail fake eat spam sites.

Not to mention the awful awful censorship and totally unfair search results prioritization for "mainstream" channels in YouTube. Ultimately they want entire web to be like this. Or just force everyone into platforms like this.

[christianz]

They should be showing our sites in YouTube search results too, then it would be fair ;)

Exactly!

Their seemingly legitimate goal is to have the main Google search portal to be one stop shop for everything - to be universal search across everything and provide Images, Videos, News tabs for specific categories.

In that case, how about "Websites" tab? Why not have that?

Also, like I said previously, much of those YouTube results are not best fit for search queries and, at least, should not be shown on top, before organic web results.

People Also Ask makes very little sense to be on top also.

Google should stay in its lane and stop trying to become information aggregator/publisher. World doesn't need one biased corporation full of weirdos to teach us all things about everything.

[ichthyous]

I'm still seeing much higher traffic since about the 4th-5th...up 47% at 2pm EST today. Up across the board for USA, UK, AU, CA and EU traffic. Perhaps this new update hasn't fully rolled out yet...I will close my eyes and pretend that this will last for a while.

[MayankParmar]

Slow/delayed Google News indexing issues again :(

[renatovieira]

Huge drop on all my sites. Did anyone notice anything different this morning?

[janvitos]

So here's my (extremely frustrating) situation.

All year, I worked really hard on EAT for my news website. I would say it is more focused on certain topics, but I do publish general articles on recent events & politics when appropriate.

On December 27, my website started being included in Top Stories for various topics. I started seeing a nice traffic spike from December 27 to January 2, and was also getting great keyword ranking for recent articles. Seemed like my EAT work had finally paid off.

But on January 3, my website vanished from Top Stories. Also, all recent search keywords that had been ranking nicely fell from position 1 or 2 to 8+, some even 20+. New articles also completely stopped ranking.

Now, my traffic is even lower than before the core update, and it seems like it won't pick up any time soon. This is extremely frustrating. I have absolutely no idea why this happened or why Google could have promoted my website and demoted it after. I thought the core update had been rolled out since December. So why make these huge changes / rollbacks in January?

2021 isn't looking good.

[edited by: janvitos at 1:13 pm (utc) on Jan 9, 2021]

[Cryogen]

Big drop on my site as well. Everything was good until about second half of Jan 7th, then yesterday the traffic went significantly down, going below the New Year's Eve level. Of course, the sales stopped as well. :(

It's as if G wants to give us a little short glimpse into how the really good traffic looks like, but that rarely lasts long. "I was just joking!" and then the plug is pulled.

[AdrianRozic]

We are running 70 mid size niche sites, something happened yesterday. 80% of our sites traffic went down by 30% but Adsense earnings went up by 100%. Same happening today. High quality traffic and no spam. 20% of our sites gained traffic but earnings went down by 50%. WEIRD.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Opposite here. Been seeing a steady increase since 6 Jan and returning to the levels seen in the first week of the December Core Update.
Thought we had a delayed indexing issue, too, but that was a caching issue which has been resolved. However, this has been kind of standard in terms of the extreme swings over the last six months or so. Not holding my breath.

[ichthyous]

World doesn't need one biased corporation full of weirdos to teach us all things about everything.

An even more biased weirdo than you? I'm not trying to goad you, but in reality we can all be seen as biased weirdos from someone else's perspective can't we? Considering that they are approaching a trillion dollar business I think that the issue of bias is probably being tackled on a day to day basis there much more than it is with any of us. Corporations may have an inherent culture and therefore a bias, but overt bias is bad for business and bad for employee morale. Google and every other tech company is distancing itself from right wing rhetoric for a reason, because it is becoming increasingly radicalized and dangerous and they don't want the blame for perpetuating it.

[renatovieira]

My traffic was restored after a huge drop in all my sites in different niches this saturday morning. I think it was a G Analytics issue. Anyway, very strange...

[Psalber]

Reading these posts restores my sanity. I thought the downturn in the last number of days was only happening to me.

I was hit significantly by the Dec 2020 Core Algorithm. I am in the health space where there were a few big winners (one site, owned by a large multinational branding company, got a 210% increase. Many smaller sites, like mine, lost traffic despite having more than recovered from the June 19 update hit.) I was on my way to recovering from this hit as well, making up about half the losses in a few weeks. That was until the last few days. I thought at first the recent drop could have been related to the anxiety people were feeling about the violence in DC, but my traffic is still drifting down today.

It's so hard to know what to do. We have done a lot of technical SEO improvements and my SEMRush site health is the highest its ever been. We are publishing high-quality original content written by doctors with good EAT. It seems there is a complete disconnect between the work we do to improve our site and what Google does to it rankings.

We update our articles regularly, yet we see featured snippets and "people also ask" featured links with 2015 dates. Really? Last week I saw a url that I ranked #1 for was followed in the #2 slot by a spammy site that scraped the exact same article from my site!

Since I monetize with Mediavine ads, the impact on revenue has been devastating - down 75%. It makes it painful to keep spending more and more to improve the site only to see what seem to me to be irrational Google search results. Thoughts? Maybe I am approaching this all wrong.

[ichthyous]

Huge drop on all my sites. Did anyone notice anything different this morning?

No my traffic is increasing. It's unusually strong for a Saturday and across the board from every region. I'm not holding my breath that it's a long term trend though.

[EditorialGuy]

Crazy drop in visitors today (nearly 25%), and it's not just Google: Direct, Bing, Duckduckgo, etc. are down even more. No obvious pattern, except that Google Analytics shows significant traffic drops in the U.S. and Canada. (Other countries or regions look normal.) Maybe a Google Analytics glitch? Or the chaos in Washington, D.C.is keeping Americans and Canadians glued to news sites and cable news channels?

(I should add that our traffic tends to be very stable, with few of the swings that other members complain about.)

[TalkativeEditorial]

@Psalber

Your situation sounds deeply frustrating, but very familiar. I wish I could give you helpful advice, but the "it's hard to know what to do" sentiments is something many of us share. You probably couldn't do much different/better - other than wait it out and hope for the best.... and hard as it is... try not to panic and start making tinkering with everything on your site because you are certain something is wrong your end.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Well, that was nice while it lasted. Can see the downward trend emerging again after a few days of more stable behaviours.

[whoa182]

Health site also and I was recovering from the December update but this new one the last few days seems to have put a stop to it. Actually, this is pretty much how it's always gone. If I get hit by a core update, subsequent updates are mostly bad. If I get a boost from a core update, further smaller updates usually are positive.

I'm seeing the same thing with my website. I have an article that I published in in 2018 and it was ranking 1-2. A website published an article that copied most of my content for their page - even the structure of the article itself is very similar - and they're also is using my featured image that I created. They are ranking #1 and published the article in November 2020.

It's crazy how they can't even get this right.

[jmorgan]

I might wait a couple of weeks before assessing the impact of the reported update.

[MayankParmar]

Significant drop in Discover traffic.