Google Updates and SERP Changes - February 2021

[JesterMagic]

The following 2 messages were cut out of the January 2021 thread at:
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5022136.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 10:19 am on Feb 1, 2021 - PDT -8)



Notice Google Bot has been extremely active our our site yesterday and today. Probably about 3-4 times the visits compared to a normal day.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:25 pm (utc) on Feb 1, 2021]
[edit reason] cleanup after thread split [/edit]

[AdrianRozic]

My sites went down in December. I touched nothing and I was patient. 2 days ago everything went back to normal traffic went up by 80%

[topaz]

New articles over the last two hours or so are appearing as indexed in GSC, but are not being found in SERPs....even if you search the URL or unique terms.

[TalkativeEditorial]

New articles over the last two hours or so are appearing as indexed in GSC, but are not being found in SERPs....even if you search the URL or unique terms.

This has been happening on/off for the last few weeks....and the opposite also happened - GSC would say 'not indexed' but stuff would be there. Most frustrating part is that this nothing new - and these things keep happening even when nothing changes on the site / rankings.

[iamxtian]

Good Morning! Has anyone recently observed Google's strange handling of externally canonicalized AMP pages in the organic search and the Google News app? In other words: If the AMP version of an article points to an external domain, then the AMP article itself ranks, but if you click on it you land on the canonicalized AMP article. I've never seen this before last week. Anyone?

[Cezara]

Hi there! New in here, but somehow relieved I'm not the only one who has ranking drop issues. Wish this didn't happen, especially after long, assiduous work we've all put in. My website's ranking has been dramatically dropping for a week now after a good spike in December and January. I thought it was something I did wrong, but it appears is the Google February 8th update that affected many website rankings. have you found some solutions or it's better to wait for a while and see if it's just a temporary issue? Thx

[Neohippy]

Also feeling the squeeze the last week or so, though it's a bit hard to tell what's going on... GA sampling errors seem even worse than ever, and data's all over the place depending on date ranges used.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Sensors seem to be dipping to green again and seeing some self-correction with the ranking of outdated content.
Wonder if it'l last more than three days this time though :-)

[RedBar]

Cezara - Welcome to WebmasterWorld

To all UK posters here ... have you experienced a traffic bounce since BoJo's "re-opening" message on Monday?

The hotel venute site I run immediately was hit by visitors and within hours was taking room bookings.

The traffic is now running at about 66% of "normal" and although hotel and a full restaurant service is not until post 17th May people are engaging rapidly which is very good to see even though some restrictions will still be in place.

Until we get live music back after 21st June I doubt we will be able to evaluate just how much of a "fear factor" there may be.

Anyone else?

[renatovieira]

@Cezara - It seems that we have the same situation. Dec and jan were of great results. After the feb/18 update, everything disappeared. My AdSense earnings from yesterday were the lowest ever. Anyway, welcome to the team!

[johnmoorey]

Observing too much fluctuation in the ranking.

[Londonwebsite]

I'm in the UK and no bounce though I'm not in the hospitality trade - but CPC and CPM is still way below normal as are views. I put it down to an almost complete absence now from Discover and I've no idea why. Nothing has changed in terms of content.

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld johnmoorey

Observing too much fluctuation in the ranking.

Too much? IHow much is unacceptably too much?

For me there is always a constant state of flux except for the "garbage" sites which never seem to move!

[insideout]

Important traffic fluctuation in UK and France :( here we go again and again…

[yollo03]

I dont know yet if I got all my keywords back (over 2k), but those that dropped a lot are starting to recover. They are still not back to where they were but there is some recovery. If this continues every day for about 2 weeks that will be great.

The performance wasn't updated for over 30 hours.

[renatovieira]

@insideout - here we go again and again and again and again and again... :-|

[TalkativeEditorial]

A song for how things have been going

Google puts your rankings in, they put your rankings out.
Then they shake it all about.
They get the SERPs to burp
Then they turn it all around
That's what it's all about

[insideout]

@TalkativeEditorial :) We should sing this song every day before we start our workday. Very reassuring :) :)

[TalkativeEditorial]

@insideout: indeed... plus, there's something about an upbeat jingle conveying a miserable subject that makes things better, even if that's just superficial

Narrator: and that's how the global anthem for webmasters everywhere was born :-)

[Cezara]

@renatovieira Sorry to hear that. Hopefully this is just a temporary thing. I do not have shady back-linking or anything that would penalise my ranking out of the blue. But I'm kind of hope for the best and expect for the worst right now. As if Covid wasn't a heavy rock enough for tourism :)

[Cezara]

Thanks, @RedBar! I'am in incoming tour operator, so for my business to pick up restrictions to travel abroad have to be loosened. National tourism is pretty ok, on its way to recovery. But i need interest from international tourists and that, I think it might take a while.

[Chickensalami]

There are 3 things that are guaranteed in life: Death, taxes, and Google volatility.

[ichthyous]

Comparing my traffic for a ten day period at the beginning of the month to now shows a 14% drop off in USA traffic and a 31% drop in UK traffic. Australia and Canada were actually up quite a bit, but that doesn't compensate for the loss in traffic from USA/UK.

Every day the SERPs are bouncing...today I gained back 7 top three spots but have lost 14 since this started. Tomorrow might lose them all again. All I know is that before this update I was getting a steady stream of inquiries in January and February, and now it's back to crickets...no inquiries at all so the traffic quality now is also lower. They've even introduced a huge Twitter carousel on the page to push the SERPs down further. Why would Google be pushing tweets now? The first organic SERP is at the bottom of the page

[RedBar]

Google volatility.

If you had said Google's constant flux I would have agreed.

Analysis of this flux is desirable however constant adjusment to it should not be performed siince it usually takes ages to see any SEO "attempted manipuation" these days. IME it's far better to note several "improvements / alterations" to be made and only do this every 4-6 months, daily tinkering gets you nowhere.

[superclown2]

The top ad in one of my verticals, covering half the fold, is in German. The first one after the SERPs is in Swedish. I'm in the UK.

That just about sums up how useful google is these days.

[engine]

I'd like to think that the current SERPs are going to work their way through over the weekend. I'm finding specific companies crowding the SERPs (not necessarily domain crowding, although there is some of that). Do we really need several entries for the same company, even if they are from a different country. I think not.

[engine]

Oh, and search is currently favouring keywords in links, as opposed to keywords on pages with no link. I'm sure that won't stay like that.

[saladtosser]

Hey Google, stop the ride I want to get off :) Now if I was only not housebound and could take on another job.... I guess back to the ride then, Google, continue lol

[Chickensalami]

Ironically this is the highest month for impressions so far but lowest for clicks since late Decemeber. Wtf Google!?

[mhansen]

Whew - So I was interested in a new game that's on the market in the Fallout series, based on the New Vegas here in the USA. I've never played but saw someone talking about how cool the graphics are, effects, etc. I figured I would go to Google and see what they had to say.

Has the "Information Panel" widget on the right side of desktop and very top of mobile always been so encompassing? From top to bottom, there is no way you're getting to the websites with the information easily. Every one of the "next" sections below are expandable widgets that show the content from the website Google has sucked it off of, in the name of fair use.

Top - Google images
Next: Wikipedia entry for the game
Next: Console commands from a different website
Next: Cheat codes from a different website
Next: Ending scenarios from a different website
Next: Factions you can find in the area
Next: Local stores to buy the game (Map)
Next: 4 ads

I get it that Google wants to be the purveyor of ALL information, but this really crosses lines when websites RELY on traffic for advertising fees, etc. I'm all for free market capitalism, but this is getting a bit out of hand. I'm not even in the gaming niche, but can't see how anyone could survive if search traffic was a part of their business plan.

[worker]

Google search results are filled with so many redirecting sites and 404 pages and Pinterest and app store listings that I switched my default search engine in my browsers to Bing. It is night and day how much better Bing's search results are. I have seen a few problems, but when I search for X in Bing, I see a lot of sites about X.
I don't see:
-AD
-AD
-AD
-AD
-One organic listing
-PEOPLE ALSO ASK ABOUT
-3-4 organic listings including Pinterest and app stores
-redirecting search results to p0rn sites
-AD
-AD

Seriously. And I used to really like Google. They are off the rails from what I can tell.