Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2021

[MayankParmar]

The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5025541.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 1:12 am on Mar 1, 2021- (PDT -8)


Web vital update is expected to live in May and there should be a core update too. They might be testing something for the next core update...

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:19 am (utc) on Mar 1, 2021]
[edit reason] cleanup after thread split [/edit]

[TalkativeEditorial]

Curious, seeing the same plunge down a cliff curve in GSC...guess what.... almost the exact same curve as the September 2020 mobile indexing issues ^_^

I'm sure everything is fine though.

[worker]

@gatormark There was no deadline to remove link units from websites. Google is still displaying link units and paying revenue from them despite the timeframe they previously outlined. They said that if you had hardcoded link units, those would be collapsed or just blank after the March 10th date. If you had responsive link units, they would begin showing responsive display ads in that space and rename the link unit area to reference the change.
Google has never stated a deadline for webmasters to remove link units. Please re-read Google's statement so that you are not disseminating incorrect information.

[worker]

With regards to search results, I continue to see very large numbers of manipulated search results by scammers in the Google search results. They are appearing on page one of many searches with scraped text to make the search result look valid, but upon clicking the visitor is redirected to a completely unrelated site, sometimes to a site attempting a malicious browser redirect attack, sometimes to a p0rn site, sometimes to a site in the same industry, but not matching the search term at all.

Basically, scammers seem to have found a way to manipulate Google search results to display links that redirect. It appears that Google's ability to recognize that its primary information system (i.e. the search results) is corrupted by scammers is broken or if it is not broken, it appears that Google has not yet figured out how to stop redirecting search results from appearing within their system.

The fact that the scammers are now taking multiple positions on page one, page two, page three, etc. indicates a significant flaw that has not yet been addressed by Google.

How long before users begin to get fed up with redirects to sites unrelated to their searches? How long before they begin to get fed up with Norton alerts of malicious attack prevention when clicking on results presented by Google? How long before parents begin to get fed up by children clicking on links and being redirected to p0rn sites?

[gatormark]

@worker

I understand what you were saying. I understand that you are still generating revenue from link ads. What I am referring to is the March 10 date that Google gave us as to when they were going to retire link ads. That was made known to everyone well in advance.

[support.google.com...]

[teokolo]

The fact that the scammers are now taking multiple positions on page one, page two, page three, etc. indicates a significant flaw that has not yet been addressed by Google.

@worker I see an increasing number of scammers appearing on page #1, most for branded keywords. Seems like AI is being tricked by some smart guys...

[Athedian]

Super quiet here. Conversions totally died here. Seems like another possible update, again.

Oh, and uh... Analytics is messing up again, showing close to quad-triple the number of active users in real-time stats. Usually this happens when an update launches.

[gedop]

traffic dropped 40 percent in me compared to yesterday, but nothing is visible in the Semrush. Now, traffic fluctuates twice or 3 times a week. I guess it feels normal for everyone now

[TalkativeEditorial]

Saw the smallest uptick in Discover starting late yesterday/little bit into this morning. In my personal feed I am seeing usual publications I have not seen in weeks. Something might be up.

[mzb44]

Rand Fishkin recently covered the issue of zero click search results - [sparktoro.com...]

It seems like this struck such a nerve Google dragged out Danny "Permanent Vacation" Sullivan from his latest one and a half month vacation to publish a PR blog post citing absolutely no data and passive-agressively trying to refute Rand - [blog.google...]

Can they please hurry up with those anti-trust cases...

[Markedd]

Hello. Fairly long time lurker here, but yesterday I saw something with one of my websites that I had to share. I have heard about it, but never saw it 'in the wild', not to this level anyway.
Like the flip of a switch.
[imgur.com ]

[saladtosser]

@mzb44 Danny "Permanent Vacation" Sullivan, this made me laugh! Certainly worrying, I just signed myself into a 3-year contract for a powerful dedicated server to ensure googles users are even happier with the experience on my site, will google still be sending my site traffic in 3 months? A year? to help pay for this expense of trying to improve their user's experience..... or will I be stuck paying for something I cant afford if/when Google pulls the plug on my site.

This line of business def makes you unsure of doing anything long term like dedicated server contracts or even a house mortgage because you never know which day you will wake up to find your broke from an update!

[Neohippy]

Real-time showing traffic off a cliff today, yet SEMrush seems stable. Anyone else seeing big changes today (UK)?

[JesterMagic]

I was so close to investing a lot of time in AMP and updating my website to support it. I am glad I never did. The AMP pages I see in Discover are so full of ads (even video ads) that it is almost a move backward IMO in terms of keeping things quick for mobile.

[JesterMagic]

There's some questions of the validity of this study but it suggests that between 65% and 77% of searchers on Google do not click on the results. This is up from around 50% in 2019.

[seroundtable.com...]

So the searchers either have their question answered directly by Google or clicking on Google's own properties or ads.

I remember back when being on page 2 of the SERPS you still got clicks. Now days you need to be in the top 3 of page 1 or it is just a trickle of clicks for the rest of the page, and forget about being on page 2.

[Markedd]

@saladtosser I was ready to go on a better hosting server before the fiasco with the May 2019 update and, while I did recover in December, I decided to wait a bit longer to see if any new update will move the wheel around again. And it seems I have been wise since for about a week, everything got unstable and the traffic is plummeting (I assume a new core update has started). So 0 incentive for upgrading anything with how Google is running things.

[jmorgan]

I think if everyone was honest, they'd admit that they themselves (myself included) click less on search results on Google with each passing year because Google is determined to give you the exact snippet of information you need that they've scrapped from the other sites without you having to click through the website providing this information.

And, admittedly, they do a great job at it. Whether it's ethical for them to use the hard work and research that has gone into getting this information by a publisher without rewarding said publisher is a different matter. Of course, my determination would be that it isn't at all ethical. However, I think Google's justification is that they already send an extraordinary amount of free traffic to these publishers, so why shouldn't they be allowed to use these snippets as part of their walled garden of information, almost like a commission paid by publishers for the privilege of getting free traffic.

Now, if we ourselves know that we, ourselves, are increasingly clicking LESS on search results, why exactly does Google feel a need to defend or rebut this fact instead of admitting that this is a "feature" of their search engine?

[RedBar]

@Neohippy

So far yesterday 's traffic across several sites at about 75% of average and today's looking similar.

Absolutely no idea why since my SERPs seem to be completely normal HOWEVER I have to admit that initially my SERPs looked awful, I was checking with Chrome using G USA, and it looked very dodgy until I realised I hadn't cleared its history / cache ... as soon as I had done that my SERPs were fine.

Therefore what garbage is Joe Public seeing if they never clean their cache?

[TalkativeEditorial]

Therefore what garbage is Joe Public seeing if they never clean their cache?

Funny you mention that, I've had some really frustrating caching issues on the Google News app recently.

On another note, there are some signs of Discover waking up and picking up some of our content...hrm.

[MayankParmar]

Discover's last three days performance: 1 impression. It used to be 600K+ before March updates.

[Neohippy]

@RedBar (and everyone) - ignore me. Turns out f*cking HQ were messing with things without telling us again, so suspect it's a tracking issue on our side.

[universenet]

Google hogs traffic for itself, according to data showing nearly two-thirds of searches ended without a click in 2020

[businessinsider.com ]

Search Engine has new name.... NO SEARCH engine

[Neohippy]

Big G's PR is already all over it trying to put out the fire. Guess they only act quickly when their rep is in danger: [blog.google...]

[NickMNS]

I think this, from Google's blog, sums it up pretty well.

Over the years, we’ve worked to constantly improve Google Search by designing and rolling out helpful features to help people quickly find what they’re looking for, including maps "Google", videos"Google", links to products and services you can buy directly"Google", flight"Google" and hotel"Google" options, and local business information like hours of operation and delivery services"Google". In doing so, we’ve dramatically grown the opportunity for websites to reach people.

Exactly, opportunities have grown for businesses that are able and willing to pay Google for the privilege of using these services that were previously free and/or provided by other business.

[NickMNS]

I should add that this demonstrates a classic example of "rent-seeking".

From wikipedia: [en.wikipedia.org...]

The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free.[12]

Reading the Wikipedia page on rent-seeking will seem oddly familiar, all the way done to discussion on politics and policy.

[topaz]

Something's up. Discover is surfacing wildly irrelevant content again. Google News not far behind. I think these two are run on the same gears now.

Google should really let News stay news and bring back manual approvals for inclusion. The quality has gone downhill since the automatic stuff. And I think they know this, which is why they've been bumping nytimes, wapo, cnn, and other big names to the top, even more than usual, so that not many people see what's underneath.

[gatormark]

@universenet

The problem is that Google provide too much information in their search results and it has the adverse effect of minimizing traffic to websites. For certain questions, they often provide the answer at the top of the search results. Even my snippets that are displayed have the answers to certain questions, so the user doesn’t have to go to my website.

[MayankParmar]

The featured snippets highlight the main point of the article (definition, features of products, steps in a process, etc). Users don't have a reason to click on the link.

On top of that, Google has always been favouring larger sites over the original reporter.

"We've made changes to our products globally to highlight articles that we identify as significant original reporting." - 2019, [blog.google...]

It's another lie. This change applies to top publishers (big companies) only. Smaller sites are still ignored when larger sites cover the topic and link back to those small sites. I can share hundreds of examples... but it won't change a thing.

And "users" were able to navigate the web when featured snippets and other similar features were not a thing.

[mzb44]

The latest core update was all about high domain authority. Simple as that.

Am I exaggerating? Does this seem way simplistic?

Then search for the following:

"best casino sites 2021"
"best poker sites 2021"

Does it happen you see the first results are pure-spam from PRnewswire press releases? :-) If yes, then welcome to parasite spam enabled by google core updates where only domain authority counts.

Those are all $99 press releases with affiliate links ranking for mega ultra competitive terms probably making up to $1k-$5k per day in affiliate commissions.

Why is that spam outranking legitimate sites in operation for more than 20 years, who regularly and extensively cover the industry and provide original reporting and industry analysis?

- Because prnewswire has a MUCH higher domain authority and has more backlinks. Literally that's it. Those press releases are literally pure spam and PRnewswire is just a press release aggregator. 0 topical relevancy, but who cares right?

So, to anyone who has lost their valuable money keywords and had their legit sites nuked, you can recover those rankings by buying a $99 press release and having a $5 pure-spam article written on Fiverr. Like really, it's that simple.

You can become a spammer yourself and earn big bucks even today! Thank you Google for allowing us little guys to turn $99 into $10k literally overnight. I guess we all misunderstood this whole thing guys & girls and Google really just wants to enable us to make money much easier and does us a favor by by nuking all our high-effort sites.

[superclown2]

There is a lot of movement in my finance vertical today with some high profile sites disappearing and re-appearing almost hourly but this is confined to big money terms. Longer tail queries though seem set in stone.

I've noticed that a particular site that depends on injected links has fallen several places over the last couple of days for numerous search terms. I'm surprised it has survived for so long since the turnover of links is so great with site owners deleting them just as fast as they churn out new ones. These are all Wordpress sites so there must still be vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

Google is determined to give you the exact snippet of information you need that they've scrapped from the other sites without you having to click through the website providing this information.

Before I changed my default engine to DDG I gave up looking at snippets because I found the answers irrelevant to my queries. I just checked some popular search terms over here in the UK and the majority of answers were scraped from USA sites - irrelevant at best and downright misleading at worst.

Therefore what garbage is Joe Public seeing if they never clean their cache?

I've always believed that these cookies that read the cache make searches worse. If someone visits a big site for green woobles that site is going to appear higher than it should for five legged unicorns even though it may be scarcely relevant.

Just a thought: I'm wondering whether to add to a site some humour or entertainment graphic filler such as the 'you'd never believe what she did next' type sagas that keep people on a site whilst bombarding them with ads - I don't know if this really works or how Google view it but it's worth a try. Has anyone here had any experience of this?

[TalkativeEditorial]

Something's up. Discover is surfacing wildly irrelevant content again. Google News not far behind. I think these two are run on the same gears now.

Assuming you are using Publisher Centre, check the caching of your publication on the mobile app. It has been extremely delayed, especially if you are using AMP.