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.

[Neohippy]

Feels to me like things are still rolling out? Weird traffic patterns today in real-time.

[christianz]

Obviously rolling out. There was second wave, started exactly 7 days after first wave. And its effect is more of the same.

[JesterMagic]

Our traffic is down slightly yesterday compared to the previous weeks but that is not surprising as it always is (along with today) since it is the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.

Still this past year we have lost about 35% of our traffic which I was hoping would be fixed with this core update.

[Jori]

Could it be that Google is delaying the core update because of Black Friday finally? Does Google have a heart?

It's incredibly low for a core update...

[christianz]

There is no delaying. Update was huge on 18th, 19th and is rolling out full gas yesterday and today 24th, 25th.

[Jori]

"it depends", the seo favorite answer of all times... :) nothing on my part of the world (France)

[RedBar]

Wednesday I ended with a 69% day which I was expecting, today I'm already at 63% with US traffic way down as to be expected.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of today pans out with it being Thanksgiving but still only 14+ hours into my Googleday. Visitors from various Eastern European countries are well up today but nothings untowards, normal PV / Visitor ratio.

[Markedd]

I thought I have seen them all, but I was checking an old article to see how it was doing and I have no words to the state Google it's currently in. The entire first page is filled with websites that didn't even bother to rewrite my article in a proper way. Let me paint you this picture: besides the second place (my own article), all other articles are copies of my article. With the same images and all. It's like a weird fever dream.

[christianz]

Let me paint you this picture: besides the second place (my own article), all other articles are copies of my article. With the same images and all. It's like a weird fever dream.

They can't distinguish fake websites from real websites. Not at the niche level. They can tell a cnn.com from a fake auto generated site, but can't many small websites.

For my website 17 of 20k backlinking domains are fake websites, created in past ~3 years. How can Google tell my website is not a fake website when vast majority of backlinks are from autogenerated spam?

I will note that they seem to have cleaned up majority of largest spam autogenerated sites from Search Console Links section. That is good to see. But tons of them still get through, appear in GSC and, no doubt, contribute to ranking. Perhaps in a negative SEO way.

[samwest]

Trying to pump content, and while we see momentary small bursts of traffic, Gorg is right there to grab you by the hair and push your head back underwater. Happy Thanksgiving...for the tiny crumbs they allow us.

[Markedd]

@christianz I do agree that this is how things are right now. But I have been in this game for a bit over 6 years (not that long, but not really a youngster either) and I have never seen this level of shamelessness. Sure, people would be 'inspired' by my website all the time, newcomers would sometimes even copy a few things here and there, but never the entire thing and just leave it there on display like a bare bottom. While Google gleefully cheers. Something did change in the last few years, because somehow Google could tell better when a website was utter garbage. Or maybe the blackhat webmasters outdid Google completely.

[JesterMagic]

@christianz

They can't distinguish fake websites from real websites.

Not in a lot of cases. You would think the website which posted the content first (or version of content as spun content falls under the same category IMO) would get the credit and rank for it. It's not rocket science but Google seems to have a problem figuring it out.

[JasonBlaze]

My google news site was fixed on the 18th when core update came, and now on 25th it is shadowbanned again, and top stories are gone too. Any idea what is going on?

[bebopandrocksteady]

It's Thanksgiving holiday in the USA - that's what is likely going on....

[Jerry_Patel]

I'm tracking my sites since the update is released on 17th November. Till yesterday, there were no changes in the traffic flow for any of the sites.

But today, I can see almost a 10-15% sudden drop in the organic results for all sites. I hope, it'll recover soon!

[dolcevita]

Yesterday, USA traffic was 20% lower, but I attribute this decrease to Thanksgiving Day, as USA keyword positions are stable. At the same time, yesterday was the best day in terms of earnings in the last 6 months, despite less traffic, statistically speaking from the USA.

About a month and a half ago, in early October, by the first search ranking algorithm update in October (around 7-8 October), I noticed increasing in SERP on all the websites I own by about 25% -30% (i do daily testing of positions for a hundred words I control via Rank Tracker and they are a mirror of traffic increases or decreases), so I am now convinced that there is no need to wait at all for core update for a change to occur, either positive or negative. Artificial intelligence with possible small update allows this to happen at any time, and it does in practice.

[RatIkette]

I can see noticeable changes in ranking on 25th on some of my websites and competitors

[samwest]

Rank up, traffic down. Doesn't match historical data. More AI manipulation for maximum Gorg profits. Nothing to see here.

[Neohippy]

Initially looked positive for us, but since the turnaround on the 25th it's looking kind of dire :(

[RedBar]

Forgot to mention, Friday traffic at 75% with USA traffic 50% of average.

Today flatlining ... almost!

[not2easy]

;) Mods Note - The discussion on WP fake sites gaming the serps - it was moved to its own thread here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[ichthyous]

Big surge in traffic today...search up 33% so far today starting at 8am sharp. USA/UK/CA/AU and EU all up...anyone else seeing this? Only a minor improvement in ranking though.

[christianz]

No improvement. It has been consistent throughout this rollout that my sites are doing inversely proportional to number of backlinks and age. The older the site with more backlinks the more it gets demoted, the newer the site with least backlinks, the more it gets boosted.

Like Google has forgotten how to rank websites. (Hint: Backlinks and age usually mean something about the usefulness and quality of the site).

[yollo03]

I think there are higher expectations from older sites than new sites. About my site, I was limited to US for a number of years although I am targeting multiple countries. Thank to the core update I finally broke out the US and I am ranking in multiple regions. The bad news is that I lost a bunch of keywords in the process. The personal semrush score is still high for me (8.9) today. I can see some recovery form the keywords I lost, the real question is whether this will continue.

[KaseyM]

Seen a big boost since Thursday - guessing it's because everyone is off and bored though.

[Boblily]

This recent change looks to lean to the profit of Google. I can see a site even listing 5 pages under the same keyword!

[BushyTop]

Seeing a huge amount of changes over the weekend, despite the sensors showing nothing. At one point our site saw a huge drop on Sunday. Seems to be back though now. Fingers crossed that's just a blip and nothing that's due to come.

[shadowlight]

This recent change looks to lean to the profit of Google.

Same old story then, nothing new. Most of the changes they have made in the past few years have been to increase clicks on ads & decrease the visibility of organic content. Their revenue and profit has almost doubled in the last few years. They are not doing what is best for the user, the ecosystem or whatever other BS they continue to preach, they are doing what is best for their own revenue and profit.

Seeing a huge amount of changes over the weekend, despite the sensors showing nothing. At one point our site saw a huge drop on Sunday. Seems to be back though now. Fingers crossed that's just a blip and nothing that's due to come.

I also seen a huge drop over the weekend.

[RedBar]

Taking the average of the last 5 days, Wednesday thru Sunday, traffic for my global site has been 78.7% therefore I'm quite pleased considering recent updates etc.

My SERPs rankings seem to be mostly fine with realworld enquiries actually up, I wasn't expecting this.

Overall my .com widget SERPs is mostly looking ok however G.uk still needs some work!

[Jez123]

I don't get how I seem to have a similar amount of traffic to this period last year (slightly lower but not significantly so) but no orders are coming in. Ranking seems the same and people hitting the site but nobody ordering. This close to Christmas for my site to be this quiet is shocking.

I have seen it before with some google updates but the orders usually come back but they aren't this time.

Is this what everyone affected is seeing?