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.

[yollo03]

I believe new sites have grace period until backinks become more relevant. About the core update, I am not seeing anything major yet but there are movements.

[mzb44]

usa here. rollout day 1 seems fairly slow and uneventful (not complaining). agree or disagree?

This is accurate.

Seems like this one is with a late / slow rollout.

Absolutely nothing of note yet.

I believe the June one was similar, where nothing happened for about 2-3 days and then boom it hit hard on day 4 or so.

[Neohippy]

SEMrush 9.2 in UK today (was only 6.0 yesterday). Brace yourselves!

[engine]

This core update will take a couple of weeks to complete, and it's just getting started.

[MayankParmar]

Slow rollout is normal, no? As far as I can recall, this has been the case for the past core updates as well and we were also posting "no changes" comments when the last core update was released. Deja vu ;)

[mzb44]

Slow rollout is normal, no? As far as I can recall, this has been the case for the past core updates as well and we were also posting "no changes" comments when the last core update was released. Deja vu ;)

It depends.

After some core updates you almost immediately saw a very big change and massive chatter after it was announced. Like literally 1-2 hours after.

Some others it took several days until anyone noticed anything at all.

Seems like this one will be of the latter kind.

[widgetized]

I noticed many weird ups and downs in the last few days, GSC even notified me about coverage issues with my website that have been fixed later without making any changes to it.

Not sure what they're tweaking this time, but I'm a bit disappointed that this update is happening before black friday.

[ChokenBako]

10% down today compared to Last Week...

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today. I can only wait for the progress of this update...

[RedBar]

So far nothing of note for me.

[BigKat]

Outside of the slight uptick in unexpected foreign traffic (Malaysia, Romania, Sweden, etc.), I wouldn't even know an update has started. Sales volume from Google traffic is as flat as it was a week ago, a year ago, three years ago, etc. We're a domestic (American) manufacturer with B2G, B2B and B2C sales on our ecommerce site that serves North America. What we produce are not remotely close to gift items. Once the dust settles from this update I fully expect to see more Amazon pages crowding the top of Google's SERPS if that were even possible.

[RatIkette]

Nothing here for the moment. finger crossed!

[Neohippy]

Real-time's been looking slightly higher than usual today (UK information/entertainment site with lots of UGC), but way too early to draw any firm conclusions.

[MaHi84]

About 30 percent less since 10 AM (Germany). Still moving…

[bebopandrocksteady]

usa traffic sluggish this morning. looking at real-time feels like we're down about 30%. but hey, we shouldn't worry about core algo updates right Danny?

[Neohippy]

Is anyone else noticing that desktop results seem to be much more visual today? Part of the update? *shrug*

[SteveWrz]

Add me to the list of those down 30% as well. Well, at least for my biggest site. My other sites seem relatively unaffected.

Curious how we all tend to fall the same amount...

[Danik]

Disable ad campaigns, don't throw money away

[mehmethasana]

I had a big fall today. I hope this fixes it.

[yollo03]

Nothing major is happening at my end yet. It's quite odd, perhaps today things will move.

[HereWeGo123]

Not that this is an issue, or we can do anything about it -- I just find it interesting, during the past few years, 1 week to a few days prior to a major core update, shuffling already begins, minimal but still noticeable, and then Google announces that they “will be” releasing a broad core update later today. Within the KWs I monitor, I saw the most volatility yesterday within 4 hours of the announcement. It has been quite calm for the rest of the day yesterday and most of today. However, during the past few hours, I noticed some volatility.

[Neohippy]

Up about 10% yesterday vs. other recent Thursdays

[Martin Ice Web]

so far biggest winners are again big resellers and silly online shops ( one view is enough to see its fake or not trustable ), even domains with only IP adress ( no domain name) are now in serps.
Biggest loser in our vertical seems to be ebay.

And the less information is on the page about the item the better it ranks. I think we have to read webmaster guidelines with the pre word " Donīt "
> give a lot of information (EAT). Read: Donīt give a lot of information.
> make a compelling website Read: Donīt make a compelling website

and vice versa DO in case of Donīt
> Donīt be black hat -> be black hat
> donīt do keyword stuffing -> do keyword stuffing

[mzb44]

Unless it changes drastically (which it still can!), seems like this one was a rather mild one?

[semrush.com...]

[yollo03]

@mzb44, I believe they said they break it in parts. So some of the core changes were rolled out and more will follow, probably tomorrow or a in a few days. Unless and this is a big unless due to Thanks giving changed only rolled out a small part.

[bebopandrocksteady]

semrush sensor shows low, but my personal score is 9.0. although, traffic still down about 30%...

is there even realistic hope to at least recover before this update is done? there's nothing wrong with my site, so not like they have a reason to punish.

just hoping for some optimism, but don't want to be unrealistic.

[christianz]

For what its worth... here are my initial observations:

Senior site down 7-10% (15+ years old).
Newest site up 30+% (1 year old)
In-between site flat-ish. (4 years)

All 3 in same vertical with similar keywords.

So looks like December 2020 update but so far not as toxic. May be just the start, unfortunately.

[ichthyous]

Last couple of days have seen higher traffic with zero conversions. Traffic today from hungary, bulgaria, serbia, azerbaijan, Iran...but of course USA is down 47% and dropping like a stone from 9am sharp. Ranking has not budged or improved at all. It improved briefly in September and back down to the lows for the year...this is going on since the update in March.

[yollo03]

I am not affected much by the current update. Sadly, I believe I will get hit when the next part of the core update rolls out. These core updates rarely favorite me since Dec 2020.

[renatovieira]

On my side, this morning everything was kind of warm. After lunch, heavy traffic with high conversion (AdSense). Apparently it will be rollercoaster days :-)