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.

[RedBar]

I'm just coming up to 18 hours of my GoogleDay and my global site is down 30% ... Yes, as previous posters have noted, 30%!

[webdev29]

this update is totally paradoxical here. I see a lot of improved positions, a "normal" traffic but on the other hand a ridiculously low conversion rate, so much so that it can be considered a record in this matter ....

[RedBar]

My traffic reduction for Friday continued and ended at -30% for the 24 hours. Today is continuing in the same vein however it is a Saturday therefore ... no conclusions as yet.

[ichthyous]

Huge drop today in both US and UK traffic...traffic to my most important landing pages is down 30%-72%. Overall traffic down 25% for both search and direct at 1pm

[renatovieira]

And as expected, heavy traffic yesterday, and today a huge drop. By my calculations, the drop should be 70% compared to yesterday.

[RedBar]

For me Saturday's traffic ended completely within its normal range, in fact higher than Friday's.

So far on Sunday it seems to be tending the same, traffic sources are very similar with both the US and India up a little, let's see what this week brings however with Thanksgiving this week I have no doubt my global metrics will be all over the place.

[Jori]

what a strange update... still nothing noticeable.

[engine]

Can we report the diffrernces in mobile, and desktop?
I've seen differences over the weekend.

[eugen1u]

Seems that Search Console have new design, does anyone see any new functionalities?

[Jori]

Just new design, nothing else.

[yollo03]

Interesting read on the Nov core update: [sistrix.com...]

Spoiler: Amazon is among the top winners.

[RedBar]

Incredibly quiet so far for me today, after 16 hours at 33% of average traffic.

[whoa182]

Lost about 35% of my traffic from this core update. Previously, the two part core updates months ago gave me a boost. It's the never ending roller coaster haha. Google loves my site, Google hates my site. Repeat... since 2018.

This tends to happen a lot around the holiday season when I'm expecting lots of sales as well, which is unfortunate.

It appears that niche sites that focus on the topic are losing to domains with massive authority even though they are pretty general / broad with their topics (at least the ones I'm tracking).

[longjohnbronze]

Our site lost ca. 20% (comparing Fri-Sun to the previous week).

Here's what I don't get: Looking at GSC data for those days, our total impressions went down by a little over 20% - makes sense. Meanwhile, average CTR and average position did not budge. I would expect this from a widget-pushing update where Google decides to give us all less action; not from a core update that supposedly only moves rankings around.

[Jez123]

Impressions are up from same time last year but conversions through the floor. Any idea what the issie is or is this just Happy Christmas from Google? Who is getting the traffic that converts?

[RedBar]

After a slow start to Monday I ended up within my normal range at 91%, so far today surprisingly I'm at 54% after 11 hours with India leading the way. For those who do not know I am an Anglo-Indian company with a very close affiliation since the 1960s,..

In both cases my visitor to PV ratio is completely normal which is something I always review.

[ichthyous]

Traffic is up one day (yesterday) and down the next. I wouldn't say that I have lost traffic from this update, but it is spotty hour by hour and day by day. It's clear that Google is just experimenting in real time with ways to maximize its profit, and if that means all of your traffic inexplicably vanishing for hours at a stretch so be it.

I have found for the last couple of months that conversions are NIL, even on higher traffic days. Whatever Google has done has killed off my business from organic search...it is no longer viable. Until these algo changes in late March I was on track for the best year of sales ever for my business, that's how drastic the change has been. My ranking languishes at the same lows it was at after the March update. It's partly due to the type of content...Google is now ranking articles and how-to blog posts completely for many topics where it used to rank sites that sold things too. I don't expect it to ever return to what it was.

[edited by: ichthyous at 4:04 pm (utc) on Nov 23, 2021]

[RedBar]

I am sure there is a lot of SME business hesitancy at the moment and especially so for those involved with retail sales and I expect this to continue well into next year.

[ichthyous]

@Jez123 Same for all of us...tmwhonis getting the conversions is the million dollar question. Organic has disappeared and if you pay for Google ads the traffic still doesn't convert

[golderberger]

same thing here, regarding conversions :|

[webdev29]

I agree with you regarding conversions, I have never had such a low rate.We even had to cut all our ads ($100/day)

[RedBar]

Tuesday's traffic was 97% with US PVs significantly lower however I assume this is simply the Thanksgiving holiday plus, as expected, today is even quieter.

For me overall November is tracking to be the lowest month of the year with December always being the quietest.

[BigKat]

Regarding conversions....

This is the time of year Google historically dials up organic rankings for big etailers like Amazon while starving small independent businesses.

if you pay for Google ads the traffic still doesn't convert

Do a click audit to determine where the paid clicks are coming from. I've found some days over half our clicks originate from Google owned IP addresses. Therefore, the true CPC is typically double what Google reports since so many clicks are coming from questionable Google owned IP addresses. Digging deeper into the data, I've found these Google owned IP addresses are not associated with past conversions. Utilizing this data, I have been able to cut our spending with Google in half and hope to gain approval to completely eliminate all of our Google ad budget to be repurposed elsewhere.

[RedBar]

I've found some days over half our clicks originate from Google owned IP addresses.

Can you be more specific?

What kind of "sites" are these or are you suggesting something else?

I'm reasonably sure I know what you are insinuating, I'm not too sure how you can qualify this?

Does this make sense?

[BigKat]

Can you be more specific?

From a post I made a couple months ago:

Click audits reveal most of the paid clicks resolve to Google owned host names such as corp.google, proxy.google, googleusercontent, googlefiber, etc.

[RedBar]

Ah ok, thanks.

[ichthyous]

47% drop in USA traffic today...some of my main landing pages are down 29%-45%. Search is off by 8% in total and direct is off by 17%, while referral traffic is down 75%. If this is just the holiday talking it's a huge drop this year.

[christianz]

It is obvious that this November "update" is complete failure. The question is - will it take them 7 months to reverse it, like it did last time they rolled out this same joke "update" or will they come back to their senses in January/February as soon as the annual Black Friday/Christmas milking is done...

[Jori]

My trafic is completely throttled since october 16th. Since november 13th, it varies just 1 or 2% from the same day of the week vs last month since then (ie : saturday november 13th = saturday october 16). Never saw this in 20 years.

[engine]

I don't know if this is a bug, or part of Google's update, but Google News is rather messed up right now on some specific searches.
Hopefully, the spammy material will be filtered out and the quality material will return.