Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2021

[engine]

Well, October was a mixed bag of tweaks from Google in the SERPs, interspersed with a few announcements, and we're hoping November will not be a roller-coaster.

Firstly, here's a quick round-up of news in the past month that you may have missed.

For those tracking the update threads, here's last month's Google Updates and SERP Changes - October 2021 [webmasterworld.com]

Do you use Google Analytics? Google has said its completed rollout of the new Search Analytics API which, in addition to search performance, includes Discover and Google News data, along with Regex support to the query and page dimensions. [webmasterworld.com...]

Google has updated its search quality rater guidelines this 19 October, 2021 [webmasterworld.com...]

Potentially, we can all be on page one of the SERPs as Google in the U.S. has changed the mobile search to continuous scrolling. [webmasterworld.com...]

Had you though whether URL length affects ranking in SEO. Find out more here [webmasterworld.com...]

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

I've long focussed on conversion quality, but, obviously, need traffic in the first place. Let's discuss this, the latest changes, and how we might achieve better results.

[samwest]

All this time, we never left page one, but man, we went from 100k/year to less than 10k. between 2010 and now. The site is so throttled it's not funny. Years ago we all laughed at those who claimed "sandboxing" or "shadow banning" or even "zombie traffic" but it all sure turned out to be true. Remember Google's "Do No Evil" mantra? All I can do is sit here looking at a single live zombie visitor and laugh, while the site is currently sitting at the #2 position. It's been days now without a conversion. Either we are severely shadow banned or nobody uses Google anymore.

[rustybrick]

We got a new confirmed spam update from Google

[twitter.com...]

[bebopandrocksteady]

from twitter:

"When you focus on good on-page SEO and content writing, you don’t need to worry about updates like these.

If anything, your traffic stays flat. Or best case scenario, you get a nice boost.

Quality Content + Patience = Success"

yeah, sure buddy... this is the way it "should" work, however, doesn't.

[SwissSneeze]

Anyone else seeing a spike in Googlebot crawl lately?

[Alex_Wilson]

Yeah.. since 27th Oct, we have seen a major drop in one of our websites traffic and ranking. The majority of the keywords ranking on 1st and 2nd position now ranks above 50th position. Some even got vanished. Not sure what's going on. I hope the rankings settle down when the spam update is fully rolled out. I would be really grateful if anyone can help find the issue with my website. Let me know, I will PM the website URL. Thanks in advance.

[yollo03]

Do not count on this update to reverse ranking drops (if you experienced it like me). I wrote this before, all the top competitors in my niche buy links and use black hat tactics to rank. One of them actually received a massive boost yesterday. Do not expect this update to help you recover. Only a revision to their ridiculous approach that only high authority sites with a huge backlink profile rank well rather than content will do something.

[engine]

Just to confirm the spam update mentioned by rustybrick

As part of our regular work to improve results, we've released a spam update to our systems. This November 2021 spam update should be fully rolled out within a week.

[twitter.com...]

[JesterMagic]

Looking at traffic compared to last year we are down on average 34%. Looking at the keywords and seeing minimal changes between a lot of them It looks like the biggest thing that has effected our traffic levels is the "People also ask" widget. This is the biggest traffic stealer of them all and is Googles attempt to become a knowledge engine on the backs of other businesses and answer all questions right on Google without the visitor ever leaving.

This has got to stop as it will slowly get worse. (especially since Google is a monopoly).

Since Google is already paying News outlets for showing their posts I see no difference here except we are much smaller publishers. Either take down "People also ask" OR start paying publishers for content you use when answering questions like this. (I would rather them take down the widget as we will never be paid fairly for what the info is worth)

[ichthyous]

high authority sites with a huge backlink profile rank well

I am seeing higher traffic in the last two days, but it consists of peaks and valleys...traffic drops to nothing then peaks out of the blue, then back to nothing.

According to SEMrush my top 3/10 ranking is as low as it has been since the March updates began. The same 4-5 mega sites keep climbing and taking over the top spots for every search. For terms where I was #1 for 15 years I am now #8-#12. Whether or not traffic is higher or lower, it doesn't seem to matter...conversions are very few and far between.

[headspace]

We've seen a 75% drop in traffic since March when the updates begun even though our main keyword positions have fluctuated very little. Organic search is being compromised for smaller players. I'm just surprised that the outcry isn't louder as there must be an awful lot of livelihoods and jobs being destroyed by this ad revenue generating activity.
Unlike monopolies of the past, this particular monopoly will be 10x more difficult to tackle as they supply Governments with vital data on our search patterns to counteract malfeasance.

[yollo03]

My competitor received a medal from google today for all his hard balckhat work. He was bumped from position 6 in the first page for a highly converting keyword to position 2. Well done.

[mzb44]

My competitor received a medal from google today for all his hard balckhat work. He was bumped from position 6 in the first page for a highly converting keyword to position 2. Well done.

Well they did call it spam update, meaning that well executed SEO spam got rewarded (like with most of the recent updates). ;)

[ichthyous]

My competitor received a medal from google today for all his hard balckhat work. He was bumped from position 6 in the first page for a highly converting keyword to position 2

Is this a very large corp site with big financial backing? I am seeing the same mega sites climb to the top for everything...their traffic grows and grows. I doubt they are purchasing links, but I could be wrong. How do you identify it really? I checked some of them using SEMrush and the links looked legit. They have so many signed users they are accumulating links naturally, whereas a single site cannot compete.

One thing I have noticed is a huge drop in conversions from USA customers, irregardless of traffic or ranking. Almost all my inquiries these days are from abroad and much harder to make a sale for export than at home. Google has siphoned off good USA traffic and is sending the dregs now.

[bwnbwn]

ichthyous YES YES YES if more webmasters would take this approach you sleep much better.
Two years ago I did put my energy in building my traffic that I KNOW IS A REAL HUMAN . I deleted anything associated with Google and I might check a ranking key phrase once a month.
I sleep well and my REAL traffic continues climbing.

[BigKat]

this particular monopoly will be 10x more difficult to tackle as they supply Governments with vital data on our search patterns to counteract malfeasance.

Reports note Google is bidding on a USA military cloud contract. The USA Government loves Google.

I can hardly notice Google updates anymore because the lack of converting traffic Google sends. Will this spam update send us more conversions so we can pay our employees, utilities and even Google's own ads? I doubt it...

[RedBar]

With just over 3 hours to go of my Googleday, the first 4 days of November are bang on my allocated number of PVs. As expected with the huge increase in seafreight costs general trade enquiries are down and I honestly do not believe this will improve until 2022.

The majority of my global rankings are fine with G having relented and now allowing non-US websites into its SERPs again. There is the odd strange page there but mostly all the players I would expect to see.

[mosxu]

My ads are seriously scammed and no organic traffic

[ichthyous]

My ads are seriously scammed and no organic traffic

@Mosxu I have posted this numerous times since the summer, and many have concurred that Google's adwords traffic is one half notch above fraudulent. I found that 67% clicked one page and left in under 5 seconds without looking at anything else. If you check you'll find that the traffic is coming from all sorts of places you may have excluded from your campaign (India in my case) and Google claims it's coming from another country (USA in my case). It's just pure fraud.

[bwnbwn]

ichthyous it is at least 50% total fraud. I probably spent 20k going to many Google AdWords classes over a 10 year period. I spent so many hours tweeking my campaigns so many calls to my G rep showing him my issues. Yes I got some refunds but the ROI was never there.
This is a post on ranking so I'll shut up

[Martin Ice Web]

I have to say this update has made the serps very clear. It is easier right now.
U donīt have to search good websites between all the BS in the serps anymore , because there are NO good websites in serps right now.
All the small to midrange on topic focused websites are gone.

And once again i donīt want to buy my goods from a craftsman shop because he is seeling it as a besite-item but has no clue what he is selling.

[BigKat]

@mosxu, ichthyous, bwnbwn

IMO, Google first experimented with questionable organic traffic to test the waters to see how webmasters would respond then injected that same model into paid ads to inflate clicks. That's why both Google organic and paid traffic tend to perform so poorly. Doing a click audit, some days over half of our paid clicks are coming from Google owned IP addresses. Comparatively speaking, we get 300% more conversions from Bing -vs- Google despite Google sending about 1,300% more traffic. The data doesn't lie and has been useful in me getting permission to greatly reduce my labor devoted to Google SEO and Google's poor performing ads. I have more productive things to do with my time then chase some Google manufactured mirage.

Also the updates Google announces tend to be followed with some new feature that diminishes organic visibility. This, IMO, is purely psychological and designed to make us believe we've been harmed by an algorithm update when all Google has done is changed the SERP layout to dig deeper into our wallets.

[mosxu]

This is not a game I am being blackmailed I get very inconsistent return on ads for brand name. We get always same number of clicks but the revenue varies like 100% one day next day is 10% and with same number of clicks.
All I can see is they removed first my organic comfort next is sending zombies on my brand name to force me to advertise on junk…

[BigKat]

@mosxu

At least you are getting clicks for your brand name, even if it varies greatly from day to day. Google gives us very limited visibility for both our brand name and product part numbers all the time. In our case, Google demotes us and instead ranks out of stock Amazon product pages and other old top ten/best product affiliate websites that merely mention our brand name or part numbers. I believe this to add to the undeniable proof Google's SERPS are not displaying what is best for the user/consumer but what is most profitable for Google.

Admittedly, the Amazon problem is partially my company's fault for having listed products for sale on Amazon in the first place. Adding insult to injury, Amazon allows manufacturers no way to remove the product pages so we are stuck with them unless we use some blackhat tactics to change the product pages so they violate Amazon's guidelines. Unless we are willing to go to the "dark side," I fear we will be stuck being outranked by some of our very own out of stock product pages and those affiliate marketers who link to those out of stock product pages in their top ten/best of microsites. For those who say just wait cause Google will eventually demote the long-term out of stock product pages, my response is how many YEARS will it take Google to do this? Over the last five years, we've gradually quit selling our products on Amazon due to their pro-China return/warehousing policies imposed on American manufacturers. The last product we pulled from Amazon was over 6 months ago yet this page still ranks in Google along with those products that have been out of stock for over five years. As I said before, Google is not doing what is best for the user/consumer and clearly does what is in Google's best interest - which is attempting to force us to spend big to be seen for our own brand and the part numbers we manufacture. It's sickening...

[mosxu]

@BigKat

Correct the consumer is clearly affected personalisation is not competition having 3 advertisers always to grow even if they do not have the best prices or sell genuine products.

All this is happening at the expense of the rest of advertisers or quality content creators.

[ichthyous]

Since this last "spam update" my traffic has been higher across the board, albeit starting from a much lower level compared to pre-March 2021. The mystery is...how is that possible when my search visibility / ranking is at a low point for the year? Also, how is it that with such higher traffic there are still no conversions at all...from anywhere in the world.

[ichthyous]

Ouch...a 50% drop in USA and 80% drop in UK traffic this morning by 9:15am. Search is down 40%, Direct traffic is down 80% compared to the last 4 Saturdays. Clearly traffic was turned off overnight. Let's see if it's just a blip and a surge later in the day compensates.

[RedBar]

Mid-afternoon for me with traffic looking "normal'ish" so far ... At the risk of repeating myself, without doubt the single biggest conversation within my industry are seafreight rates and the availabilty of containers to load and the inability of ports to discharge those vessels.

This "may be" a blessing in disguise though, whereas many importers only used to buy on product price alone some are now seriously considering better quality products simply because of the increased overall freight cost element.

2022 is going to be very interesting!

[MayankParmar]

Discover traffic, which has been stable for months disappeared yesterday. Hopefully it's temporary and not related to the update.

[ichthyous]

Huge loss of USA traffic and return of traffic from irrelevant places. In reality, the traffic isn't higher from these places, it just vanishes completely from the normal sources...i.e. West Europe. How can it be that I get nothing from Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Poland, Portugal, Austria or Spain the entire day, but Belarus and Azerbaijan aplenty? Pure manipulation and traffic throttling!

The United States
-30%
The United Kingdom
-13%
Australia
+4%
Canada
+4%
Singapore
+247%
The Philippines
0%
Italy
+247%
Belarus
+74%
Romania
Azerbaijan

[samwest]

Just worse and worse. Never thought it could go this low. One sale every two days won't keep the lights on. This has got to be shadow banning of some sort. No way traffic is this low on page one, #2. I'm seeing a funny repeat of history. LGB!