Google Core Update May 23 - June 3, 2021

Google *finally* confirms 11 days later.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Yower, SEMRush is freaking out. A few of the other sensors seem to be spiking too.
This is hell. Never know what to do anymore, where to look...or what is actually evening happening.

[ichthyous]

If there is an algorithm penalty google should be transparent and show there is a penalty of some sort.

Why should they start now? Google has never been transparent about that since the beginning.

[MayankParmar]

It is depressing when their biased algorithm deliberately favour top publishers even when you're the source of the news and those top publishers have linked back to you.

[Martin Ice Web]

Big drop for us so far.
But this time we got hit with updated rolling out. With prior we got a boost while updated started and got demoted some days later. Hope this time is different.

Our current vertical looks like we are back to 1995. Very old outdated looking domains. With lots of repeated keywords, old html, very long menue listings, no mobile pages.... all that i personally would say is NOT user friendly.

You have to got to page 2 and 3 to have a good choice of actually good and trustworth domains.

Main winner is amazon again even if the item doens´t match the query ( multiple entries 2 to 3 ), followed by ebay and conrad

[Neohippy]

Large site with some good content and a lot of UGC. Think we were hit by the little updates some time towards end of March and again towards end of May. Things seem to have turned around a bit yesterday, and today's looking much better than last week, too. But not counting any chickens...

[ichthyous]

Continuing to lose ranking this morning, and it appears to be getting worse as I have dropped 30-40 places for some terms. Traffic to my homepage is down 73%, and my most popular landing pages have zero visits. This has been going on for three weeks so I don't see much hope in this reversing now, and I can only assume that this is a demotion or penalty in action. It is definitely affecting some pages and not others.

[Martin Ice Web]

@ichthyous, we see the same. All main traffic site got hit while low volume selling items got one hit upgrades.
Maybe the update is starting with high volume traffic sites of a domain and will dig to bottom. So that in time things will change.

[yollo03]

My analytics went haywire, I received 1k organic traffic in about 15 minutes. Did anyone see something strange with analytics? its over now.

Edit: Maybe it was a glitch in the matrix :) I think July's core update is will be the last ticket to survive in all this.

[christianz]

My analytics went haywire, I received 1k organic traffic in about 15 minutes. Did anyone see something strange with analytics? its over now.

I saw abnormal spike in one of my sites too. But it could be just a random bot, not related to Google.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Very unusual patterns all day, one hour of decreasing piece of traffic follows another hour when it's increasing, and repeating. But overally I see some small boost at +5-7%/

[Dooku]

@Mzb44, first let me say I feel your pain and situation, I know.....I have been there.

"The backhatters were right all along. All of us buying into the google guidelines and blog posts are dumbfkcs. "

Please allow me to use some of your terminology :-) .....and expand on your post.
Besides my money websites I have several test websites , either setup as new or old previous websites I no longer use but are valuable for their log data.

With each and every core (and in between algo updates) I see one CLEAR trend in that data:
- best revenue generating pages are killed off one by one.
- best revenue generating keywords impressions are killed.
- rankings mostly stay the same and so does the average traffic*
- but increasingly that traffic is replaced with lower quality and incorrect (commercial) intent.
- conversions therefore for the best keywords are dropping with EACH algo update
(Note: that traffic is not disappearing into thin air, it just goes elsewhere......in G's pocket).
- All of the above is NOT happening with traffic from other search engines, and conversions are stellar compared to traffic from G.

The main problem is actually that the huge majority of webmasters, website owners, small publishers or whatever you call them follow the guidelines from the infamous G webmaster Guidelines PDF, either from that pdf directly, but mostly from the online "guru's" parroting the same info as if it's the holy gospel.

This way a huge majority of websites will fall into a "template" that G can manipulate easily. And when a huge number of dumbfcks also use G analytics and Chrome, providing idiotically detailed data for G than it's absolutely no problem for G to devise new "search engine enhancements user experience improvements" to squeeze the lemon some more with each algo update. Best examples are all the new "trinkets" from G that have appeared on the first page.

It's not about creating great content or whatever G and dumbfcks guru's are toting, it's about fine tuning that data and finding more and more options by G to squeeze some more with each algo update.

I have enough friends using blackhat methods and each and everyone of them is laughing all the way to the bank! Everyone in that group has switched to BH in the last 5 years or so.........and in their eyes I am the dumbfck! :-) And I can't blame them!

For example they are all using PBN's and anyone thinking a PBN does not work any more......your wrong. G did not know about PBN's at the time they first appeared......they were made aware of it by people complaining about "unfair" seo practices. As if creating "white hat" backlinks is not BH? A well taken care of PBN will work great and there are many out there that G can NEVER EVER find out about unless someone goes out of their way to let them know (and even then you need many complaints filed). And this is just ONE example of MANY other BH methods.

People forget that G can NEVER know about all those BH methods if they are well implemented, it's just plain impossible. This is according to my friends that use those BH tactics the sole reason they work so well. You simply can NOT fine tune an algo to punish a website for something you do NOT know about. You can however fine tune an algo according to ALL the data you gather from GA, Chrome and many other API's and services that G has implemented over the years and which many dumbfcks use because they are "free".
And still people say "we can not just expect G to give us traffic"..........

[yollo03]

I want to add to the above, the highest keywords that generated income were lost in the current update. I know one website owner that uses a PBN with over 100,000 websites. I agree that it is no longer about content or thinking broad. Everyone should find their own path in this. I spy on my competitors and it reveals a bit on what they are doing.

[RedBar]

I know one website owner that uses a PBN with over 100,000 websites. I

If true then it's no wonder so many distrust The Net and throw their money a Amazon / EBay / Brands?

[yollo03]

Well this is large company with over 80k customers. They acquired 2 other companies in the meantime. The company is legit, this is the SEO tactic they chose.

[RedBar]

However they are trying to "lever" their position aren't they?

Honestly, I'm simply fed-up of these businesses with zero ethics ... they remind me of ... Google!

[superclown2]

a PBN with over 100,000 websites? Really? Have you any idea what that would cost? Even after the domains have been bought - very, very difficult to get hold of a handful never mind 100,000, and some would cost megabucks - you would be looking at millions of dollars a year for hosting plus around another million for domain renewals. They have that much money to spend but use BH tactics? Perhaps I'm missing something here.

[westcoast]

One trend that I am noticing in the entertainment vertical is that mid-sized expert / portal / niche players are getting squeezed out of the rankings in favor of somewhat random single page instances of the searched-for content.

So, in Bing, the top 5 results for (completely hypothetically speaking - this phrase doesn't show what I am illustrating properly, but analogous instances can be found all over the place) "spooky stories" will be 4 or 5 larger spooky-story specific websites. These sites contain a lot of spooky stories, and a user going to one of these sites can browse lots and lots of spooky stories. This is the way Google used to work -- they would provide links to the best websites to go to.

Google didn't like that. They realized that delivering users to a one-stop-shop for a niche kept those searchers off Google. So now the top 5 results are NOT those "portal" type websites, but rather individual articles related to the query. In shorty, Google is trying to replace those portal / content-keepers with links to specific instances of a type of content.

So whereas the top 3 results were once:

1. Spook Story Central
2. Spook-tastic.com
3. One Million Spooky Stories

Now the top 3 are:

1. A Great Spooky Story
2. The 7 Best Spooky Stories!
3. Google Play: Spooky Adventure

I see this trend on Google queries *everywhere*. What Google is doing is trying to circumvent niche leaders by directly (a) scraping and serving the content itself, (b) linking deeper down to actual instances of the content, forcing the user to search more on Google and click around on more google ads and properties, (c) burying websites that may become go-to locations for users to search for that specific content, so that they come to google instead.

At least, that's my perspective. Compare results to Bing and it is shocking how much manipulation of results Google is doing to get people to interact more on Google properties.

[edited by: westcoast at 6:36 pm (utc) on Jun 7, 2021]

[yollo03]

@Superclown, they have money. The company has 6 angel investors, one of them is bigger than the rest. On top of that they also spend money on google ads every month. The rich gets richer as they say. Just to be clear, it wasn't founded in 2020. The company started in 2010.

[christianz]

By tracking the referrer domains for my images I am seeing bunch of blogsport subdomains with super specific names like:

***-***-images.blogspot.com

still ranking and actually getting hits from Google. Also lots and lots of random, possibly previously used blogspot subdomains hotlinking and getting traffic also.

All hotlinked images plus auto generated text.

This is the state of Google. The most glaring spam issues that existed in December 2020, they didn't fix in these 6 months, instead they focused on how to further demote real niche leaders that have existed for 10+ years and transfer that traffic to Googles own platforms or priority publishers.

It seems that in Googles eyes whether you are 10, 15 year old niche leader with constantly updated valuable data, or you are auto generated spam site with hotlinked images, doesn't matter - they put it in the same category. It is either priority publishers or the rest.

[superclown2]

For example they are all using PBN's and anyone thinking a PBN does not work any more......your wrong.

Last December one of my competitors rose right to the top for a reasonable search term on the back of a pile of high authority PBNs and now after this update the site has fallen to the bottom of page one. My site used to be top so I know how much the owner probably made and I've a rough idea how much a PBN cost. I reckon they'll have done well to break even.

The only ones making money right now (apart from Google's favoured high ad spending few) are the ultra black hatters or those selling links IMO.

[superclown2]

@Yollo Another competitor who has been getting lot of top spots in my niche for the last couple of years has several thousand links from hacked Wordpress sites. The turnover is huge as site owners find out what has happened and delete the links but there are new ones being added all the time. As far as I can see they spend little or nothing on Google ads.

I wonder if this is how the site you noticed gets it's links, rather than by running an incredibly expensive PBN? It may be interesting to see whether their links are mainly on WP or similar sites.

Is it so difficult for an algo to detect a huge links turnover like this? My competitor's site is nowhere in DDG or Bing so it must be possible for a proper search engine to weed out obvious manipulation like this.

[ichthyous]

@superclown A constant churn of new links won't get you anywhere with Google, and in fact it might suppress traffic if too many new links come in at the same time. Links only start to count once they have aged, and from domains with some authority. I don't think Google can be that easily tricked by a constant supply of brand new links that quickly fade.

[superclown2]

A constant churn of new links won't get you anywhere with Google, and in fact it might suppress traffic if too many new links come in at the same time

Absolutely. It will produce short term gains only. We can always produce unique content of course! That will work until our months of work will be trumped by some lowly paid employees of megacorps writing a few words about it though. Churn and burn sites? Maybe, but what sort of Internet will we end up with?

In the meanwhile producing top quality websites that are absolutely focussed on what a searcher is looking for is pointless. I've been in this business for more than 20 years and I struggle to find them so goodness knows how the average searcher gets on.

The old Internet was an exciting environment full of innovation. Now no matter what search term I put in I can predict six of the top ten sites, none of which are experts in the subject but all of which spend heavily on ads.

If the last few Google updates are an indication of the future then the Internet will become just like a soulless shopping mall full of the same chains, the only ones able to afford the huge rents the mall owners (in this case Google) squeeze out of them, as the whole environment slowly decays around them and the shoppers drift away.

In the meanwhile; when this latest update hit I actually saw a few specialist sites start to rise! This only lasted a few days though. Looking through Google results this morning on mobile it is several full scrolls before I reach the organic results and page two or three before I reach anything like the sites I am looking for. In the meanwhile I am plagued by multiple googlespam popups which try to take me back to their favoured megasites. I really don't know if it is possible for Google to sink lower.

[christianz]

full of the same chains, the only ones able to afford the huge rents the mall owners (in this case Google) squeeze out of them

But but... Google tells me they are all about diversity and inclusion?

Why are the results getting less diverse and organic publishers like me feeling more excluded with each update?

[BushyTop]

After months of steady growth, we've been hit by this. Most frustratingly, we've developed intensely for web core vitals, which despite the lack of announcement at the time, I had put down to our growth. Now we've lost around 40% of traffic. I know this has been said 1000 times before, but its warranted. Totally insane, unjust and demoralising.

[BushyTop]

After months of steady growth, we've been hit by this. Most frustratingly, we've developed intensely for web core vitals, which despite the lack of announcement at the time, I had put down to our growth. Now we've lost around 40% of traffic. I know this has been said 1000 times before, but its warranted. Totally insane, unjust and demoralising.

[LynMan]

My site (eCommerce) got +50% in traffic (lost 20% in December update)

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld LynMan

Therefore you are now at 120% v pre-December?

Any adjustments / modifications made to your site?

Not seasonal?

In which country are you? Most traffic hits I have seen seem to be from USA, my non-USA sites are varying between 100-130%.

[RedBar]

My global site seems to be consistent at its new lower traffic level with USA traffic easily down the most, -56.1% May v February, before decline started in mid-March!

Last week's traffic was its lowest-ever since being launched, even lower than weeks 51 and 52 2020, pre-Xmas / Xmas / New Year.

[yollo03]

@Superclown, I worked for that company for a short while, that's how I know.

[mzb44]

A few months ago I mentioned the press release newswire parasite spam caused by the May and December 2020 core updates.

"best online <snip1>"
"best online <snip2>"

Also same in many other niches. Many "legit" niches as well. These aren't nearly all the examples.

Those pure-spam (as well as scam) press releases continue to happily rank #1 just fine, outranking legitimate and relevant non-spam industry publications & behemoths.

As such - as expected, really - it seems they did not reverse one bit the "root domain authority" (google's definition, not the moz metric!) > all thing.

I am not surprised in the slightest.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 12:00 pm (utc) on Jun 10, 2021]
[edit reason] No specific keywords, per forum Charter [/edit]