Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2021

[goodroi]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5046713.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 7:12 am on Oct 2, 2021 (utc -5)

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As we reach October we're gearing up sites for the holiday push through to the new year. Most of us have probably had our plans laid out for this coming quarter, and there's always a hope that Google's SERP changes are kind to us all.

Here are a few of the Google changes and threads worth noting in the past month or so that you may have missed.

Firstly, here's last month's Google Updates and SERP Changes - September 2021 [webmasterworld.com]

Brett noticed more exposure for Google making moves into auto industry ecosystem. [webmasterworld.com]

We've got more on Google changing titles in SERPs [webmasterworld.com] with a little clarification from the company, following the earlier confusion. [webmasterworld.com]

Although the search console reports seem to have delays built in as it refreshes, this last month it became a bigger problem, however, it's now fixed. [webmasterworld.com]

Just recently Google made a number of announcements on how MUM AI Model is changing its search. [webmasterworld.com]

Plus lots of other Google search and SEO topics [webmasterworld.com], and recent discussion in other sectors on WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

How's your traffic holding up, and, importantly, your conversions? Let's discuss your observations on the Google algorithm updates and changes to the SERPs?

[sofie77]

I think the update on October 6th and 7th was a very big update. Our lowest traffic level ever was on October 9th. I can only hope that it doesn't stay that way. For some keyword areas, the top 10 have been completely exchanged. We had seen it before in July, when it was taken back after a short time. Google has probably continued to work on it and has now rolled out this update again. I hope google is not happy with that. Whenever things go up, google comes up with the idea of ​​taking a piece of the cake from us...

[ichthyous]

Huge dropoff in USA traffic again today, starting at 9am. It's now 2:30 and traffic has been ridiculously low since 9am. All of my most important landing pages have been hit hard, some with an 60% drop compared to one month ago.

It's very evident that Google is doing something to ensure that it directs traffic to its own ads during prime hours of the day. Is anyone else seeing this?

[frankleeceo]

I don't think it directs traffic during prime hours as a blanket statement.

It directs and controls traffic for more likely buyers. If buyers are more likely to buy during prime hours, well that's what you see.

[ichthyous]

@Franklee Yes, this is happening during working hours every day, circa 9am-6pm...Sunday was an exception. However the drop in traffic is so major it's really catastrophic...I'm seeing -35% USA traffic and -28% UK traffic and this has been dragging on since Mid-Sept. I don't think it's just testing anymore, it's part of the algo now

[aristotle]

Just checked several of my websites in GSC. It looks like google's first page search results have gotten more volatile since about the beginning of July.

[KaseyM]

Highly volatile and noticing my older articles drop off like flies. Feels like I'm on a treadmill at 50 mph.

[yollo03]

Like others suggested, this is the 'improved' version of the update they rolled back not long ago. I don't really see it sticking because too many high ranking websites literally crashed from it. If it does stick a lot of websites will be out of business.

[ichthyous]

I don't really see it sticking because too many high ranking websites literally crashed from it. If it does stick a lot of websites will be out of business.

I don't think Google could care less who goes out of business as long as their quarterly profits increase. The reality is that search is already an old model and Google is losing share to apps / Amazon / and social media. They will continue to squeeze search for every penny of revenue no matter how many sites go bust.

The real question for me is...when are companies going to wake up and realize that Adwords is a terrible expenditure of their marketing budgets? I tried it during the summer and the quality of the referrals they send from ad clicks was less than junk, it was just fraudulent crap...you can spend thousands and it won't convert. I think a lot of these marketing dept. gurus are just spreading the budget to cover their bases and not really concerned with performance at all.

[ichthyous]

Once again today, USA traffic drops like a stone at 9am sharp. Down 39% vs last four Tuesdays at 2pm. European traffic also gone again...France, Germany and almost all other Western Euro countries gone. It's clear as a bell that this is the new ballgame with Google. Expect a lot less traffic during prime sales hours (8-6pm?). I don't see this as a test, it's already baked in.

[edited by: ichthyous at 6:19 pm (utc) on Oct 12, 2021]

[frankleeceo]

@ichthyous

paid really has a similar battle as organic. I have had the opportunity to work with 6 figure monthly ads budget in the past few months. For my B2C work, ROAS is really the most important KPI. Performance definitely matters.

[ichthyous]

paid really has a similar battle as organic. I have had the opportunity to work with 6 figure monthly ads budget in the past few months. For my B2C work, ROAS is really the most important KPI. Performance definitely matters.

@franklee If so, why do these companies continue to dump money into non-performing ads? It's because they just have to cover all their bases across various platforms. Corporate culture is based on a huge amount of waste and CYA. For smaller sized businesses I would agree that they watch every nickel they spend.

If companies really scrutinized they would drop Adwords spends dramatically. It may work better or worse depending on the niche / product of course, but that is not the main complaint I had. I got completely fraudulent visits that hit one page and left in under 10 secs over and over. 65% of the adwords clicks did not look at a single other page on the site. They did not inquire about anything and they never bought anything...not once in five weeks.

I could also clearly see from my own server analytics that some of it was coming from India (excluded from the campaign), while Google was reporting those same clicks as coming from the exact center of a Western USA state over and over (the state was also excluded from campaign). When I questioned why I was getting clicks from excluded locations (at $5 a click) they said they couldn't comment on my own server analytics.

[frankleeceo]

@ichthyous

Honestly, I think it's because of the recent push about "brand recognition", "retail touch points", overall investing. A lot of those companies are just burning through investor money. Which creates hype and brand recognition, which IPO's for more money, and sucks in more investor money to burn.

Those big spenders run for different KPI's, whether or not those are fraudulent is another story though :)

One classic example is TV ads, or even SuperBowl ads, No way anyone can get a ROAS out of that. And it's impossible to attribute the gain.

[frostitomik]

Just imagine that back in 2000s, somebody would have showen people the current state of Google search results. Everyone would have stopped using it and Google would not exist today.

We are all just little frogs being slowly cooked without realizing that it was always their plan since the beginning.

[ichthyous]

We are all just little frogs being slowly cooked without realizing that it was always their plan since the beginning.

Not since the beginning, since the day Google went public. It's the way of capitalism...the shareholders want a return on their investment and no company can refuse to deliver that and survive.

[Broaster]

Ever since Google unleashed the Core update all my traffic vanished, no longer ranking in google news, hard to find my articles unless I put sort by date in google news. No longer showing in top stories when I search my article titles

I have no clue if its a core vitals penalty or a page experience, im scared to even change stuff cause it might hurt me more.

[yollo03]

I discovered something interesting, shocking if it's true. You get different results in google when used in chrome then google in edge. It appears most of the 'manipulation' is happening on chrome. Is it possible different results are providing different set of results are provided for the same search term based on the browser as well?

Can you guys test it out and post your tests here? I only used chrome and edge. I noticed it yesterday and again now.

Edit: To clarify, a site is positioned in the 7 spot in the first page is placed in the 4th spot in edge for the same search term. Basically your ranking is different in google chrome than in edge, google is used for both browsers.

Edit: I used desktop for both tests, chrome and edge.

[jediviper]

@yollo03
Have u used Incognito in both cases and disabled/clear cache between all of your tests?

[yollo03]

I didnt clear the cache, I opened new incognito windows in chrome and edge.

[ichthyous]

Google is definitely rolling out these changes across a broader and broader range of searches in the USA. It has killed off all my most important searches like a cancer. This also explains why each of us is experiencing this at different times as it rolls out, not all at the same time.

Today I investigated why one group of terms that I ranked highly on for 15 years is brining in 30-40% less traffic in the last ten days or so. The page layout was a total mess! Google is opening the page with three ads, then a block of suggested famous people related to the search based on Wikipedia, then local results, then images, one organic result, youtube videos, then another block of four ads on page one! Four ads continued at the top of page two, so then you only got organic results after that. The whole thing was a jumbled confused mess and I can see how advertisers will get little to no real benefit with so many ads on the page either.

My USA traffic continues way down...starting at -66% today and my home page is -35% and main landing pages are down -35% to -60% today. This is just deadly for everyone...I don't even see how large top ranking sites or advertisers with huge budgets would benefit.

[RedBar]

My USA PVs this month, last month and 6 months are all in their new normal range which started during March 2021 plus actual overall traffic levels are very similar but that does mean a 40% drop v pre-April 2021.

Actually I'm surprised these traffic levels have remained after checking a couple of MY popular widget keyword search terms and the page was 80% ads, videos, images and PAA ... I am actually looking at a results page at the moment, not for my widgets but a very popular product and the 3 ads at the bottom of the page before Related Searches are LARGER than all the organics put together!

[ichthyous]

but that does mean a 40% drop v pre-April 2021

Awful...End of March was also when I saw the downward trend starting. The June update made it all much worse. My overall traffic was down about 28% from pre-April 2021. But that was before all these new page layout changes in mid-Sept. These page layout changes are on top of those already low numbers and is specifically hitting my most high volume terms. It really depends on the type of search I suppose, but it is spreading to a wider and wider number of searches.

[SteveWrz]

Wow today is a spectacularly awful day. Declines week over week since the end of September. Very cool. Thanks Google!

[BigKat]

The seismic shift in Google traffic to our product pages from organic to paid is astounding. At this point, we barely get any organic traffic from Google to our product pages. So much so I have been able to secure a dramatic reduction in my Google ad budget to allocate that money elsewhere. That's the good part of this mess as Google made it very easy for me to reduce a good chunk of the waste with Google Ads. I will continue chiseling away at the powers that be to simply shut down Google Ads entirely.

As it pertains to organic traffic, we've lost most of our converting traffic from Google on the weekends. I still believe this, combined with the odd Gbot activity on our product and order confirmation pages, is some attempt by Google to determine when we are actively shipping and our inventory/sales volume. The Gbot activity I speak of is quite intrusive and something I haven't seen in my 20+ years of managing websites/advertising budgets.

[ichthyous]

Yes it's getting worse and worse since mid September for me...today USA traffic is down 52% at 2pm. It has been one month that my traffic started declining in a big way, with a small number of days where it bounced back. I'm afraid this is the new normal, I don't see this as an experiment...

As it pertains to organic traffic, we've lost most of our converting traffic from Google on the weekends.

I'm seeing the opposite...no converting traffic all week long, only weekends.

@BigKat Have you removed GA from your sites completely? I won't allow Google to spy on my site anymore.

[edited by: ichthyous at 6:33 pm (utc) on Oct 13, 2021]

[BigKat]

you're saying that all your traffic has switched from organic to paid ads. Would that not mean you want to increase your ad budget? Why shut it down if the ads are bringing in traffic? My issue with Adwords traffic is that it's pure junk, it never converts and is mostly fake in my experience.

Google's paid traffic is both costly and the quality is horrible. Doing a click audit from our raw logs, most of the paid traffic Google is sending is coming from Google owned IP ranges, and we never get credited for it. For example, I just saw five paid clicks on five different products from an IP that resolved to corp.google.com. There's just too much click fraud on Google, and if the bulk of the paid clicks come from Google owned IP addresses (not fiber either) how can I not blame Google for this?

Have you removed GA from your sites completely? I won't allow Google to spy on my site anymore.

GA is operational on the website, though preventing Google from spying on our data/site would be hard because it's hosted on a Google Cloud server.

[edited by: BigKat at 6:53 pm (utc) on Oct 13, 2021]

[ichthyous]

I will continue chiseling away at the powers that be to simply shut down Google Ads entirely.

@BigKat I'm not following...you're saying that all your traffic has switched from organic to paid ads. Would that not mean you want to increase your ad budget? Why shut it down if the ads are bringing in traffic? My issue with Adwords traffic is that it's pure junk, it never converts and is mostly fake in my experience.

I might remove GA anyway...you would have to explicitly allow Google to have access to your cloud analytics. I doubt they can just spy on it unless it's part of the contract from the beginning that you give them access to all traffic data for their own "research" purposes. Maybe you can opt out of that.

[BigKat]

Why shut it down if the ads are bringing in traffic?

@ichthyous I edited my post above which I think answers your question. Google's paid traffic is simply to costly and unproductive - I can use that money elsewhere outside of Google and produce better results.

I might remove GA anyway...you would have to explicitly allow Google to have access to your cloud analytics. I doubt they can just spy on it unless it's part of the contract from the beginning that you give them access to all traffic data for their own "research" purposes. Maybe you can opt out of that.

If it were up to me, I'd be done with Google completely and move the site to a new host with no GA, Google Fonts or other call homes on the site. I simply don't have that authority, though have planted many seeds. Maybe with frequent watering, those seeds will grow. :)

[ichthyous]

Google's paid traffic is both costly and the quality is horrible. Doing a click audit from our raw logs, most of the paid traffic Google is sending is coming from Google owned IP ranges, and we never get credited for it. For example, I just saw five paid clicks on five different products from an IP that resolved to corp.google.com. There's just too much click fraud on Google, and if the bulk of the paid clicks come from Google owned IP addresses (not fiber either) how can I not blame Google for this?

@BigKat I found a very high amount of click fraud as well, and posted about it here many times. It's easy to spot but they'll never admit it. They gave me a credit for future ads, but I stopped spending anyway...only a fool continues to allow the pickpocket access to their pockets!

But regarding your first statement...are you seeing an increase in traffic from ads as your organic traffic declines? Would that not imply that the traffic is real, and just people clicking ads because they can't find the organic listings anymore?

[Broaster]

I remember my articles appearing in Google DISCOVER, but last summer when Id post an article I stopped appearing it was just random, is it really a computer deciding which websites deserve high ranker or just those with the most quality back links well over 100k giving you higher rank?

[yollo03]

Indented Results Roll Out at 40% of SERPS: [moz.com...]