Google Updates and SERP Changes - May 2021

(Part 1 of 2)

[sk7411]

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System: The following 21 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5032067.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 9:52 am on May 2, 2021 (utc -5)

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Here we go again ,

Something started brewing yesterday.

[mzb44]

There is clearly something going on.

I am surging significantly while almost all non-news site competitors are falling. Every single site in my niche (all legit industry sites) was brutally hit by the last core update and mostly replaced by news sites with thin content affiliate pages.

Most of these competitors are bigger (and older with better links and much more content) than me but they are falling, I am increasing. I do not expect this to stick. Even if it benefits me and it's great, objectively it does not make sense.

Of course the news sites still dominate and continue to exclusively go upwards. - All of us are still a shadow of what we were before the December update and still buried beep below the news site spam.

[RedBar]

.and that there are alternatives to Google?

Whilst there are alternatives IMHO the one I have been using for several years now, DDG, is now also throwing-up very wierd and ranking very strange sites and in some cases almost a duplicate of Google for some searches.

It's results quality has gone down insofar as I am concerned especially now it's started to rank EBay, Amazon, Pinterest and basic WordPress sites with scraped info and images as its best result with the originals nowhere to be seen.

People have tried it, and whereas it was improving, its actual traffic levels have faltered and fallen:

[duckduckgo.com...]

At the present time I am now finding I am doing the reverse of what I used to do, first check DDG then Google since I couldn't find it!

[superclown2]

As part of a research project I help with I've been looking in the Google SERPs today (not easy!) for new and innovative websites in my own vertical. My brief was to go no further than page three. I couldn't find any. Not only that, I couldn't find any of the sites that I used to consider to be competitors either.
I remember when the Web was an exciting place to be where small businesses with fresh ideas could take root and grow. Right now my advice would be 'don't bother' until this advertising agency is controlled.

[RedBar]

'don't bother' until this advertising agency is controlled.

Absolutely, the biggest problem with the US SERPs I find is its plethora of product shopping pages for my widgets as opposed to factual information. The likes of Wayfair, Home Depot, Ebay, Amazon and other retailers who very often only list one or two products.

That would be fine IF people were seeking those items however I know for a fact the factories in India and China that produce them no longer do ... there is no demand for them. Six years ago we mothballed a factory created in aboit 1981 since there was zero demand.

If all Google wants to do is have a shoping channel then do it, give us the choice when we arrive with two simple buttons, one for shopping, one for search ... job done.

[ichthyous]

My home page is down 66% from a normal Saturday at noon, while overall USA traffic is down 44%. Some of that will recover my end of the day, but it's been a pretty steady daily reduction of 20% - 25% in USA traffic since the end of April. This is ridiculous...all of my inquiries are now coming from outside of the USA, very few inquiries (and no sales) from my own country!

I have noticed very strong UK and EU traffic, but Canada and Australia are alternating...one day one surges and the other vanishes, then the opposite. Anyone else seeing this?

[TalkativeEditorial]

Oh boy. Definitely something badly wrong. Just been running the personal Discover Feed checks and the issue with it being cluttered with old and irrelevant content is back again.

[yollo03]

I can agree with some of the above. It's very hard to find competitors in google if they don't exist in your country's database. For example. one competitor could be dominating India but if you search one of their strong keywords in the UK they won't come up. Same with other countries. Since the core update I was limited to US only, I hardly exist online outside the US but it is beginning to change at a very slow pace. I have no idea why they chose this path in December's core update.

[samwest]

Horrible traffic and sales this week, which I suspect this is the result of the cyber attack on the pipeline, as users are more interested in surviving rather than browsing and buying online. The world is in a digital war.

[RedBar]

Wow, my UK focused (90% UK traffic) sites are so far today, Sunday, exceeding my global sites for PVs ... WTF have they done apart from destroy non-USA company sites?

I know that may not make sense to US members here however there must surely be a correlation as to why G's SERPs is so dire and full of popular social and shoppong sites for so many queries.

Has G really hit the lowest common denominator button, quality and accuracy no longer exists?

Utterly bizarre!

[superclown2]

Has G really hit the lowest common denominator button, quality and accuracy no longer exists?

You've hit the nail right on the head. Search for green left handed unicorns and you'll get a first page full of high ad spending horse comparison sites. I have never seen such useless results from Google. Even way back in the 'Burning Man' days, more than 20 years ago, they were accurate and highly relevant.

Maybe this is down to the switch to AI. whatever the cause it's destroyed this advertising company as a serious search engine. All I use it for is the more in-depth research now. They still have the biggest database even though I have to search through all their junk first to get to the meat.

Personally I'm now optimising my sites for Bing and DDG, I reckon google is a lost cause for e-commerce until (if?) it is regulated.

[RedBar]

I can't see it being regulated in the USA since G, FB and the likes have too many willing political sponsors / bendovers however in the EU something may happen but whilst G retains control of its overt manipulation lever, it is very doubtful anything sensible could be done.

I understand FB is kicking-up an almighty fuss because the EU has said it cannot transfer EU data to the US ... Surely that horse has bolted?

The solution for G is very simple, we already have Google Search and I'm Feeling Lucky, simply change this to Google Search (with one strip of ads top and bottom of the page) and Google Shopping (spend as much as you like on ads) .

I'm allowing ads on the Search page since it is their engine with all its associated expenditures.

I have no idea what the preference may possibly be however almost anything has to be better than the distorted and manipulated mess it has right now.

[MayankParmar]

Based on these sensors, it looks like they're doing/testing something almost every weekend

[TalkativeEditorial]

It appears that stealing content in the name of a "good user experience" wasn't enough for the Featured Snippets. I've just seen a new form of it where Google is telling me what I should be searching for instead and adding a featured snippet according to a search term I never used. What fresh hell is this.

[samwest]

Maybe this is down to the switch to AI.

Yes, the ad pushing AI. 33% gains YOY is pretty much all we need to know about their modus operandi.
The bigger problem is that even though we know they are no longer a search engine and are now just an ad engine...some keep relying on organic results to feed their business. That's a recipe for disaster. Find alternative traffic sources and cultivate those instead.

[RedBar]

some keep relying on organic results to feed their business.

I know where you're coming from, I knocked that one on the head in 2010 however I am not a B2C producer which is where I feel most of these issues are happening with overweight gorillas throwing their 1,000lbs around.

They are not going to go away and I guess they are more prevalent in the US than many other countries simply because of the distances involved between major population centres.

[yollo03]

I also used to rely on organic traffic in the past. I have my own affiliate system, I am paying my affiliates 40% per conversion, which I think is pretty good. The problem begins when google takes my top affiliates down in rankings. Very unpleasant.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop yesterday and today the trend continues.

[KaseyM]

Had a good Friday but slowed to a crawl again today.

Anyone got any coping tips? Should I just stop checking analytics?

[christianz]

Anyone got any coping tips? Should I just stop checking analytics?

If your revenue is increasing, you can just look at that instead of the traffic :)

[ichthyous]

Big drop this weekend...its only USA and Canada traffic that is lower, everyplace else is going strong. This is a pattern that has been getting worse and worse since mid March.

[Nagendra052]

From April 28th 2021 there is so much fluctuations in the Average positions and other metrics in Google Search console performance reports of one of my website.

Is these because of Google updates?

The average positions prior to April 28th 2021 was in between 35 to 36, post April 28th 2021 there is so much fluctuations, some days it will be in between 45 to 50 and another day 37 to 40.

[yollo03]

I am continuing to regain lost keywords on a daily basis, it seems to be firm trend for now. It is still slow compared to the speed it stripped me off thousands of keywords. No change in traffic. generally low.

[RedBar]

Some very easy to understand numbers here from the last 7 days compared to long-term averages:

Monday to Friday 66.6% that's an interesting number!

Long-term weekends are usually 60-80% of weekday

Saturday 44.2%
Sunday 37.0%

There we go, one week and down 33.33% across the board for my global site.

Absolutely nothing's been changed has it G?

[saladtosser]

Whys google displaying my images with featured snippets from other sites, their own images should be displayed not another sites surely?!

[samwest]

I am continuing to regain lost keywords on a daily basis, it seems to be firm trend for now. It is still slow compared to the speed it stripped me off thousands of keywords. No change in traffic. generally low.

It's a tried and true tactic big the big tech gorilla. Slam your site, then slowly trickle return to less than you had previously. It works better for them to hit you hard in the face than to slowly kill your site by a "death of a thousand knives".

Here it's not "slow traffic" it's now NO traffic. This is with #2 organic main KW, but nearly no longtail. The top is piled high with ads. Going for 60 billion next quarter.

[superclown2]

I've been doing some research into why some of my sites, and those of my competitors, have risen for certain search terms but not others. My conclusion is that the domain name and back link anchor text are really important again in my niche.

Wow this is how we used to optimise sites 20 years ago. This Google algo is primitive, looking for the easiest signals and ignoring the ones that really matter.

I was reading that Google has more staff selling ads than looking after search. It figures.

[RedBar]

Wowser, 14 hours into my Googleday and the USA is no longer my most PVs country. It used to be:

1. USA
2. India
3. UK

So far today it's:

1. India
2. Germany
3. USA - now down by 55%

Sure G, all is complely normal ... for you :-$$$

[mzb44]

I would very strongly recommend everyone to check out this thread and associated article: [twitter.com...]

Also very interesting image: [twitter.com...]

Yes, this does seem to be the end goal.

Yes, we are probably still far away from this, but all these recent changes clearly move into this direction.

All the recent changes make perfect sense in light of this. Forcing search features everywhere; soon, these will be core search itself, there won't be any links to other sites in most cases. Answers will be auto-generated by AI.

In some cases they may display links to third party sites but only to a select few extremely authoritative ones. Now it makes sense why root authority seems to become update by update more important and why so many lesser authoritative sites seem to get purged after every core update.

The end game is when Google will provide direct answers in most cases while perhaps linking (or better said cited below the direct answer) to a very few extremely authoritative sites in some cases. Everyone else will be completely purged.

We are still far away from this but this will inevitably happen. The technology to do this is already here, it exists today.

[yollo03]

Sounds like a model for voice search. Very interesting though. No authority = no traffic, this is already happening. You need a really high domain authority to rank in popular keywords.

I think the reason I am receiving old keywords back is because I increased the domain authority by +2, which I think is the real reason for recovery but I am guessing really, could be anything

[RedBar]

Before I read your links can I be the Devil's Advocate and ask three very pertinent questions?

Is this current flux we are seeing only in the US G.com SERPs?

Is anyone experiencing any massive drops in their country?

Are those non-USA SERPs still experiencing high-ranking USA results unchanged no matter if they are relevant / irrelevant?