Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2021

[goodroi]

As usual, it's both entertaining and frustrating when monitoring Google's SERPs, and the performance of our sites. Google's core algorithm updates have proved interesting, to say the least.

First we had Google Core Update May 23 - June 3, 2021 [webmasterworld.com] referenced in Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2021 [webmasterworld.com]

Before long, in July, we see a Google Core Update July 1, 2021 [webmasterworld.com] which created much more frustration and angst, with some successes, which we referenced in theGoogle Updates and SERP Changes - July 2021 [webmasterworld.com]

Without much delay we heard of a Google and Link Spam: Qualify Links for Affiliate Links or Sponsored Guest Posts Update [webmasterworld.com].

And during July we had an interesting question How long for Google to Index a New Website [webmasterworld.com]
Did you see the news that we might get a sneak look at Google's ranking algorithm. Google "About This Result" in SERPs Indicates Ranking Info [webmasterworld.com]
Most of us know about the Google search operators, and here's an overview of SEO search operators [webmasterworld.com]
Plus lots of other Google search and SEO topics [webmasterworld.com].

What are your observations on the algorithm updates/changes to the SERPs?

[superclown2]

In my experience, that's still the case (for general search, though probably not for Google News search).

With the greatest respect: I don't think you live in the same world as the rest of us. Do you really believe that nearly every other webmaster is wrong, and you are right?

"there are none so blind as those who will not see"

[mzb44]

SEOs have been complaining about this since 2005 or so. I am not sure if this is new.

Trust me, I get it, I am a publisher, I have websites. I get it. I've written about this topic before, I can write about it again. I just need more examples and generally WebmasterWorld doesn't allow specific examples...

Yeah, agreed. I've been doing this for 15 years, so I know very well.

But clearly things drastically changed with the start of the core updates.

Now this is amplified way more than it ever was before.

A very good example for this is the PR Newswire and Globe Newswire examples cited above and in that Twitter thread that rank for online casinos (this is not just something that affects gambling, casinos just so happen to be the particular example here).

Those two press releases outrank legitimate and relevant casino niche sites (again, strong emphasis on high-quality, legit and relevant) simply because the domains those pages are hosted on are just so super massively authoritative in comparison to anything any niche site can achieve by design, regardless of what they'll ever do.

In other words, you can be the master of a particular subject, the number one most distinguished authority in that niche, but your overall or broad authority will always pale in comparison to, say, a major international news sites. And so if the big news sites start producing content in your field, even in a very shallow way (as it's often the case), you're in for a very bad time.

In yet other words, Google seems to have dialled up broad domain authority (not the moz metric) at the expense of topical authority (probably not a Google term either, but you know what I mean).

I can confirm from blackhat circles that strategies such as expired domains, parasite spam involvong high "authority domains" etc. are in 2020 and 2021 working better than ever before.

[golderberger]

I don't think this is something we can fix or solve on our own. I think the main conclusion here should be is WE DID NOTHING WRONG, G just screwed us and that's all. Even if some of us will get back they previous positions - good luck with the next update and one after that.

[mzb44]

One of the theories is to fight spam they credit high authority websites so spam get pushed down the search.

I can kinda see where Google is coming from, honestly. I still disagree with the approach but I can see the reasoning.

Instead of fighting a never ending battle against spam and low quality content, seems like Google decided that the solution to eliminate all of this with single swoop is to push mainstream authoritative sites everywhere where possible.

The reasoning would be that those sites - by virtue of being mainstream and trusted sites - will not produce low quality, spammy and potentially deceptive content.

So, you just solved all the spam, misinformation and garbage on the web, right?

Well, maybe in some cases but at what cost? - Now you essentially eliminated hoards of entirely and completely legitimate businesses because you bundled them together with spammers/scammers simply because their "authority" measured probably in links pales in comparison to the big broadly authoritative sites.

Also, seems like this was shortsighted because now this enabled abuses such as expired domain spam, parasite spam and all the "legit and trusted" newspapers selling blog posts with affiliate links to shady affiliate sites.

Yes, you've read it right. Most of the affiliate pages on many of these major news sites aren't even created by the news sites themselves but paid for by the same affiliates Google now demoted. I unfortunately can't show examples on this forum but generally they cost $5,000 or so per post. Also, these get posted as being created and produced by an in-house staff and not as guest posts, so it's completely impossible to algorithmically distinguish and demote them.

So, as a conclusion, it seems Google's theory that by pushing big and trusted mainstream authority sites everywhere will solve spam because these sites will never commit any abuse, is blatantly false.

Perhaps Google should instead have directed resources towards distinguishing the genuinely useful and legitimate niche sites from the spam/scam sites, rather than choosing the easy way out of just blanket demoting any lower authority niche site and boosting big broadly authoritative mainstream sites.

I know this approach would be much harder to implement but certainly it would result in a better web ecosystem and much better user experience compared to what we have now.

And to illustrate all the above, consider JM's reply here: [twitter.com...]

This is a very good example that solidifies the points above.

JM implies that ranking a mainstream generalist authoritative site above a niche affiliate site is a good thing. The sarcastic way he expressed himself shows that this is something John and Google consider to be so obvious and normal that it doesn't even warrant a serious answer.

Now, I could say something about the particular site in the OP that JM replies to, but I wont. Hint: read 7 paragraphs above. ;-)

So, John, yes. Perhaps Google should indeed just rank the "random affiliate site" instead, provided the "random affiliate site" did not violate Google's webmaster guidelines, and is of high quality, good user experience and all the hundreds of different signals other than just "broad link authority".

[mzb44]

it's not new, why is it resurfacing now? I think because they are starting to get hit now so they make some noise. When lower authority sites were hit since December, as long as it wasn't them they didn't care. Everyone is taking care of themselves.

You will see much more of these discussions very soon, even in mainstream Twitter SEO circles.

This is why:

Recently someone noticed that nearly ALL the major SEO blogs experienced either big drops after core updates or gradual declines: [twitter.com...]

Good quality, low quality, amazing quality. None of that matters.

So, who won?

You can see the winner here: [ibb.co...]

;-)

Contrary to many others, I don't think Google did this intentionally and on purpose.

I just think this is yet another example where "broad domain authority" (not the moz metric) is simply overriding everything else because the google.com domain name (and google subdomains) is just so much more authoritative in comparison to any SEO blog it's not even in the same playing field.

So, now all the Twitter SEOs who previously liked and approved of all these updates got hit too! They will start to feel cheated as they always had Google's back in the past always approving of any update or change. Now, Google backstabbed all of them in a single swoop.

Expect to see this subject coming up much more frequently in the future in mainstream SEO circles.

[rustybrick]

Yea, the examples are still coming in, ill try to write something early next week, thanks aall!

[yollo03]

Like I wrote before, this started with December core update, where were all the SEO guys then? Google is unlikely to change it soon as there is no competition. With 94% market share they can do whatever they want. They don't care if thousands of businesses will drown, they will be replaced by others (new businesses). Once they will have some competition things will change very quickly.

[mzb44]

Like I wrote before, this started with December core update, where were all the SEO guys then?

You may have noticed it only in December because you were affected by it then, but it started before.

You could already clearly see this in 2018/2019 when the first few official core updates were rolled out.

re: your question. Those SEO guys were there and have seen this happening, but since it didn't affect them the narrative was "well obviously authoritative sites ranking is a good thing" or "well obviously if you were demoted then clearly your content was not good and/or you are a spammer so you deserved it" or "if you create high-quality content, you will never be affected by core updates". Now many are in shock that this happened to them as well.

Now all of the above narratives and mainstream SEO memes (I'd call it misinformation even) are finally dying.

"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the... [...]"

... you know how it goes on.

[ichthyous]

One of the theories is to fight spam they credit high authority websites so spam get pushed down the search. The problem it creates is that other legitimate sites get pushed down as well. Do they care? Not really and why should they? From their perspective they are defending the 'quality' of the search, if you have low authority they don't need you. This is what has been happening since December core update. Some websites did recover in July but high authority sites dominate any keywords they want.

I agree with this...they won't change this because it's the easiest fix to combat spam. The largest sites will get larger and are encouraged to write more shallow, junk articles on every topic under the sun that they have zero expertise in just to bring in clicks.

[mzb44]

I agree with this...they won't change this because it's the easiest fix to combat spam.

Yeah. They are doing this because this is the simplest solution.

Has A LOT of collateral damage but who cares right? Google surely doesn't.

In this context any advice to "just produce high-quality and useful content" is deceptive.

They should just come out and say that they'd rather rank mainstream brands if available regardless of content depth, expertise etc. And in situations where mainstream brands produce content about your expertise then as an smaller publisher you shouldn't even bother.

[ichthyous]

I am seeing a reversal of the reversal...yesterday's traffic was normal, both search and direct. UK traffic has been at 50% or less for days, but so far is normal today. Pinterest and double listings in the SERPS still going strong...

It's frightening to see your direct traffic decline in a straight line down day after day until it has decreased 90+%....then suddenly snap into place a week later. How's this for a curve?

[ibb.co ]

[saladtosser]

>>>>They should just come out and say that they'd rather rank mainstream brands if available regardless of content depth, expertise etc. And in situations where mainstream brands produce content about your expertise then as an smaller publisher you shouldn't even bother.<<<<

That would be a better coming from them, I agree. False hope is not better than no hope, it would save a lot of startups a lot of time, money and effort they could direct to other areas!

[RedBar]

Page Views per visitor have halved today, it sticks out like a sore thumb on my graph charts!

[StupidIntelligent]

It's all give and take.

Google is giving all the big news media an opportunity to double or triple their revenues. This means big bonuses for Journalists, Chief Editors, CEOs etc.

In return, the same news media will not bash Google on its legal wars with the US government, and instead lower its coverage of such events to just a ceremonial level.

To me it looks like the rot starts from the top. Has to be the idea of Sergey, Larry or Sundar. No way, the doofuses at the bottom of the corporate ladder would do this without authorization.

For people reading this, who are in their early 20s; this is how the "real world" behaves, and not what you study in school or university classes.

[Edge]

My perspective...

This thread and twitter examples of “What’s the best ….” This is not a practical and useful example of SEO recovery in this current G index.
The question “What’s the best …: is most always going to get a subjective answer. The next logical answer is promoting oneself or product. Seriously, the context of the question and the answer is unchanged in my long lifetime. Moreover, searching for “What’s the best ….” has returned nonsensical promotional sites since forever..

Do a test and ask friends and family “What’s the best casino” and see what you get. Personally, I like the Bellagio in Las Vegas but my brother-in-law likes Treasure Island. Who’s right and who’s wrong?
Nobody.

Ask a Chevrolet dealer what the best car is - everyone knows roughly what the answer is.

I have no idea on who G should position above the fold for “Subjective” search questions other than a site that does not display tendencies of spam, nonsense or dishonesty.
If you want to compete in the subjective question arena – have at it other than that do what G suggests on unique, etc..

Hey Barry! What’s the best SEO/SEM blog?

[saladtosser]

>>>>Hey Barry! What's the best SEO/SEM blog?<<<<

I can answer that and give my reasoning behind it :)

SER is the best; why? Because SEJ & SEL publish several long-winded "fluff" articles per day that manage to waffle on forever but skillfully find a way to say barely anything at the same time...(90% of the time)

With SER, you can read everything that was important on SER, SEJ, and SEW combined in a quarter of the time, without the fluff, saving me time as a user :)

[EditorialGuy]

I think people are too quick to think "authority" just means "big."

There was a time when Wikipedia ranked #1 for vast numbers of informational searchers. In my niche, travel, TripAdvisor played much the same role: Nowadays, the pool of top-ranked results for informational searches is much more diverse than it was in those days. That's as true for "answer boxes" and the like as it is for the "10 blue links."

I do think that authority for a general topic may carry quite a bit of weight. Take a query like "Widgetonia whatsit." If you've got an established 500-page site about Widgetonia, you might get extra credit when it comes time for Google to rank pages about "whatsits" in Widgetonia. And in some cases, a lightweight whatsit page from Widgetonia dot whatever might get ranked higher than a heavyweight whatsit page from noname dot com. Whether that's fair or unfair, good or bad, evil or virtuous is a judgment call. But in the final analysis, the search engine is the entity that has the right and responsibility to make that judgment call.

[StupidIntelligent]

"Hey Barry! What’s the best SEO/SEM blog?"

Seroundtable. Others are just repeating the same sentence over and over again to make 10 paragraphs out of something that can be written in 1.

That Monty guy is particularly horrendous. His Excellency Supreme Leader John Mueller taps in a two-liner commandment-tweet about something, and it's his job to turn that into a 1000-word mumbo jumbo, basically repeating everything over and over again one paragraph after another, using slightly different words.

Most objective and to the point SEO blog right now is Seroundtable, but Google refuses to upgrade its authority, because Barry keeps challenging them e.g., like his nofollow-link battle with Google in Feb 2011, that lasted several years.

[rustybrick]

To be fair, I do not think Google does anything manual to my site. I think the algorithms prefer the longer content.

I've said this before. Most people like to read short content. People are busier than ever these days. So I think hard how to write things with the fewest words. I respect people's time because I hate reading long articles that repeat the same message over and over again, just like I hate hearing a speech that can be given in 5 minutes but is given in 45 minutes.

We have less time now and we are being pushed more and more stuff than ever...

That being said, Google ranks the longer content (which is fine, their call) but then they know people won't read it, so they show the two or three lines people care about at the top of the search results as a featured snippet. Google isn't dumb, they know people want the shorter version but yet...

[superclown2]

But in the final analysis, the search engine is the entity that has the right and responsibility to make that judgment call.

If you're thinking of a search engine dedicated to giving unbiased search results then I agree. Unfortunately the monopolistic Google Advertising Company stopped qualifying for that description ages ago.

[superclown2]

I've said this before. Most people like to read short content

This is my objection to Youtube videos in the SERPs. I want answers not a lot of chatter that may turn out to be useless to me so I skip past them. On the very few occasions when I want to see a video, such as a product review, there has always been a handy link for them.

[azlinda]

@Ichthyous My direct traffic has remained steady.

[saladtosser]

>>This is my objection to Youtube videos in the SERPs.<<<

@superclown2 I kinda like youtube, like if I'm looking for a new pet or something and want to see some footage , but I would always click the video tab if I wanted to see a video, I don't think they need to be mixed into the serps as its only a tab or site away. Youtube videos have a place but under videos! As a youtuber now with 1+k subs, I still say the belong under the video tab!

[superclown2]

Google isn't dumb, they know people want the shorter version but yet...

A few months ago I shortened a page dramatically by putting the text in drop-down boxes under main headings, and the headings were accessed from a menu for those who didn't want to scroll up and down. Much easier for visitors!

Time on site increased but the page dropped like a stone in the SERPs; and only recovered when it was reverted it to it's original format. Time on site decreased again.

So who do I please? Google or the visitor? it feels like Catch 22.

[bwnbwn]

Maybe a little off topic.
3 or 4 years ago maybe longer i forgot all about Google Bing Yahoo deleted all the code that verified site to the them.
Their like a cancer just can't find a cure. I spent my time driving REAL traffic to my ecommerce website.
Outcome I never check my rankings I could care less. F them and our sales are outstanding. No PPC no OH #*$! update no checking the different rank checkers I have eliminated search engines as my traffic provider.
I suggest you do the same.
Do I care if we rank YES do I lose sleep NO Your never ever going to please them. Google has been dividing traffic to websites for over 10 years your always just going to get a small fraction of the pie.

[marcus528]

Is it just my site or did google dialed down on authority this morning? In my niche sites with good authority and strong back links got pushed down….

Anyone else experiencing this?

[EditorialGuy]

I've said this before. Most people like to read short content.

Even if that were true, so what? Different topics and different audiences have different preferences and needs. Somebody who's searching on information about a serious disease may be willing (and even eager) to read at length than someone who wants to know who's dating a B-list Hollywood celebrity these days.

If everyone had the attention span of a New York Post or Daily Mirror reader, all Wikipedia articles would be 300 words long.

[Cryogen]

My July organic traffic seemed somewhat optimistic and had been increasing until a few days ago. Sales were not amazing in July but they weren't terrible either. Then traffic started to fall slowly since Aug 3rd. However, sales completely vanished since Aug 2nd and I haven't seen any new since then..

Was there any big update around Aug 1st perhaps? And if yes, what was it about?

[golderberger]

sales went to #*$! again, correlating with the semrush sensor spike - again. It seems they are messing with the results every other day, extremely frustrating

[StupidIntelligent]

[twitter.com...] This tweet shows us the reality of this dirty game.

And John Mueller has the audacity to endorse it, just to save his job. I don't blame him. Who will hire him at his age, if he's let go from Google for being a hero, for saying the right thing.

It's every man for himself. More so for people working at Google.