Google Updates and SERP Changes - December 2021

[goodroi]

What has December got to offer us, I wonder. In an unusual move, Google announced a broad core update in November, just before Black Friday was due to hit. Many questioned this move, just before the start of a big online shopping season. Our November thread monitoring the reports indicated a mixed bag of results. As of this moment, the broad core update is almost complete.

In case you missed it, here's a quick round-up of some of the Google news.

Google Updates and SERP Changes - November 2021 [webmasterworld.com]

Google Broad Core Update Released: "November 2021 Core Update" [webmasterworld.com]

SEO video about targeting by Intent [webmasterworld.com]

Google has announced some new features for local publishers, and tools for reporters. [webmasterworld.com]

Podcast: Google Talks About The Future of SEO [webmasterworld.com]

Best ways to hide a site or pages from search engines. [webmasterworld.com]

Take a look at the other Google search and SEO topics [webmasterworld.com], and recent discussion in other sectors on WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

Let's start the conversation and observations for December's Google SERPs Changes.

[samwest]

Not to be off-topic, but has anyone noticed that Youtube is showing ads on non monetized account videos? They apparently take ALL the proceeds. I just posted a video two days ago, it saw a nice one-day surge, then dropped like a rock. Same thing they do with web pages. Now when I pull up my video, I am presented with ads, yet I'm about 2000 viewing hours away from monetization (I WAS monetized for 10 years before they started the villainous sub & view limits). What a scam.

[Abaros]

Not to be off-topic, but has anyone noticed that Youtube is showing ads on non monetized account videos?

"YouTube to begin putting ads on non-monetized channels but won’t pay creators"
[9to5google.com...]

[RedBar]

I am really surprised ... It is 2 days before Xmas ?

75% of my Googleday and 65.3% of my average PVs and it's been similar all week, so far at 86.4%, I've never seen this in the 4/5 days prior to Xmas.

[KaseyM]

Is anyone doing well out of the recent updates? We should be flying high this time of year but are down. January and February gonna sting.

[ichthyous]

I'm seeing a stunning decline in traffic...UK is down 83% today at 3:30pm. USA -40%, Canada -49%, Germany -23%. Search is down -48%, direct -42%. I have never seen drops like this ever in 17 years. Holidays normally result in -15%, not these numbers. What I am seeing is my competitors also losing ranking tremendously just like me, with only two of them...the two largest that have not been hit all year, now owning it all. All of the ranking has gone to those two and everyone else has declined a lot. I have even been removed from some local searches now, which was stable all year.

This is not a normal holiday pattern at all...is anyone else seeing this large a drop? It's been getting worse and worse since ~ December 13th and I am wondering if this is some sort of penalty?

[ibb.co ]

[samwest]

No improvements here, traffic never exceeds 2 visitors - drip/zombie traffic again. Like I said, even the video algo is doing the same clamping. The first day, straight up, next day, straight down. Thanks Abaros for that, I figured as much. They are billionaire content thieves, while we starve, literally. Scroogle says - "Christmas is a humbug!"

[christianz]

"YouTube to begin putting ads on non-monetized channels but won’t pay creators"

Good!. Let them make the platform as insufferable as possible. So that normies finally start look for alternatives. The dislike counter removal is another step in this glorious direction.

Now lets see how many not-for-profit creators/organizations leave YouTube because of this.

I do understand that Google have rights to extract some value from this because it costs ton of money to stream videos. But still.... they could have covered these not-for-profit account losses with for-profit account gains.

[yollo03]

Although they said they finished rolling out the core update (thats what I call it) I am still seeing big movements in my niche. I assume minor updates are being rolled out.

[System]

The following 3 messages were cut out to new thread by engine. New thread at: goog/5054522.htm [webmasterworld.com]
12:54 pm on Dec 24, 2021 (utc 0)

[ichthyous]

Google has given me a nice Christmas gift. I am continuing to drop ranking like a stone...as of this morning I have lost 51% of my top 3 ranking terms, 27% of my top 10 terms, and 37% of my top 30 terms compared to one year ago. I am now at an all time low...I haven't had such a low visibility since my site was much smaller many years ago.

There is no apparent reason for this that I can see, but I am seeing many of my smaller competitors also losing ground while a couple of competitors are now ranking for all the terms. I checked one and it had zero presence until July of this year, when it suddenly skyrocketed and took over all the placement. It has been gaining ever since. The other one is a major corporate owned site that has been around for years and rarely ever declines. They are both big spenders on adwords.

[engine]

Could there be something related to local listings that are contributing to performance?

[samwest]

@engine - not in my vertical, evergreen, global content. Performance is down, down, down...zero right now actually.
I find it virtually impossible to be at position #2 on page one and still experience hours of drip traffic or less.
If it was an unknown, unresearched niche, but I've been here for twenty-plus years.
I have actually contacted my hosting service to see if the network cable fell out.
They say I'm online, but I might as well be on Mars.

[Alex_1729]

Not for my informational site either. It's evergreen, global, US targeted.

Traffic today seems like it's going to be even lower than yesterday. Overall, it seems to be stabilizing at a very low level, as it was a month and a half ago, but keep in mind I'm constantly publishing and some of my content from the past few months is going viral. 4 of the top 10 pages for the past 7 days have been from relatively new content, but overall the site seems to be dropping. If Google hadn't done this and my site continued to grow, I would have been at 30-40% more traffic right now. Both direct and organic traffic have been dropping.

[ichthyous]

My traffic is down exactly 59% for USA, UK and Canada today at noon. Australia, NZ and all of Europe are at 0-1 visits today...that is impossible unless your site has been severely penalized or removed from the SERPS globally.

My search traffic is down 60% and direct is down 37% today so far. Google has declared war on all of us it would seem. This has been getting worse since the 13th, and the entire month of December since the 3rd has been very low. This may be temporary but it looks like not after so many weeks.

@engine I ran a quick search and I am still in the same #1 spot for local search listings, but I have dropped in the organic SERPS...so if I was top of local and then #2 or #2 further down the page, I am now #4-#5. I have never found that local search brought in much traffic to my site.

[RedBar]

As expected my traffic is well down however I love these Xmas holidays since I can get so much work done without interruptions, classic rock on loud, pain au chocolate and real coffee all day long ... Xmas is here :-))) Beer in 3 hours !

[samwest]

Cheers Redbar & Merry Christmas to all! regardless of the situation.

[elos42]

Sorry to say this amid all the gloom and doom, but I think this update was good for me [drive.google.com...]

[Markedd]

Another interesting read: [vice.com...] This is how big tech and especially Google keeps itself from being properly put into place, by lobbying, hiring (ex) government officials and moaning against antitrust committee members. It's on topic considering that these updates have gotten more shameless and we all are wondering how are they avoiding the eye of the law.

[Markedd]

@elos42 It's great that you got a boost and there's nothing to be sorry about. I saw a positive increase as well the last few months, although in terms of conversions it fluctuated like crazy.

[Alex_1729]

@elos42 That's great, and that's to be expected. Some sites lost, some won. However, I'm still hoping to bounce back in January/February, because I don't see a reason why a quality informational site that I invested a lot in, would be on the losing side when I enjoyed so much trust from Google thus far. I ranked above Wikipedia, and many high DA financial sites, so I can't yet accept that the algorithm will damage me so much.

If you aren't negatively affected by these Google updates, and there are many more sites that aren't (for now), then why should my site be? I followed the webmaster guidelines to the best of my abilities. Clearly, there are those who are doing well after the update, which means, you will either lose it just like us, or you will remain which actually gives me hope that I will bounce back as well. I may be inexperienced and an idealist, but I don't see how I can conclude otherwise.

[Alex_1729]

However, if they did it precisely because they can squeeze some good traffic from me and tap into my customers' pockets, we will be very very angry with them. AND, we will write them a letter, telling them how angry we are. In all seriousness, I don't see anything I can do about it. As a small fish blogger, I can only accept it and support the online anti-trust and anti-monopolistic movements, and conversations such as these [webmasterworld.com], and if I can legally challenge Google I will join the fight.

[Abaros]

Actually in the updates there are more losers than winners, Google has been throttling organic traffic for the last few years.

You might think that when a site loses 100kw those 100 go to another site, but no, those 100 are distributed between X sites, so the decrease is important for the site that loses them and the increase is irrelevant for the one that gains them.

But it is much more complex, those 100kw are not distributed among the organic traffic, if Google places one more ad, bigger ads or with more links, part of those 100kw will be kept by Google.

Another part is kept by Google properties or by the different widgets, for example simply by adding Youtube videos or making them bigger.

At this point I guess that of those 100kw that the site has lost only a few are left to distribute between sites in organic traffic, and most will go to big brands.

[JesterMagic]

Googles updates are mainly about getting traffic to either click on an ad, stay on Google or go to another Google property.. It's an endless circle on Google while they take snippets of your own content to show at visitors so they don't even have to leave.

Once way to break this cycle eventually is to require OS software creators to give users options when they boot up the device for the first time. Require users to pick what default search engine they want, browser, etc....

[samwest]

@Arbaros - Throttling since exactly May 2010. Schmidt said they will get so good at this that it will become "spooky"...and it's way beyond spooky. It's creepy and it's ookie.

[RedBar]

The surprises keep emerging, global site Xmas Eve 37% BUT today with 5+ hours to go ... 50% and all but a handful on mobile!

[samwest]

@elos42 - how is that good? You appear to have the same symptoms. You are getting a lot more impressions, but you are getting the same or fewer clicks. Notice how impressions and clicks were intermingled pre-May? That was what I would call a "natural" response pattern. Now you appear to have been widget spammed like the rest of us. Hilariously ironic that Google even had a webspam team when that's all they do now to grab it all.

It's the day after Christmas, historically a gangbuster day for my niche, but nothing...not even a blip.
Apparently, moving forward, a machine will fully control the lives and livelihoods of human beings, and the machine will always win. Let's go Google AI.

[ichthyous]

Ok freaky weird...today traffic is completely back to normal from USA, UK and everywhere else it seems. After almost two weeks of dismally low traffic, and 23 days of low traffic. I won't get my hopes up that it will last long.

[Alex_1729]

That's great to hear, ichthyous. My traffic is still pretty terrible, maybe only slightly better than yesterday. And yesterday was abysmal, but I guess that's to be expected for yesterday.

[EditorialGuy]

Our Google traffic and overall numbers have increased noticeably in the past couple of days, which frankly comes as a surprise for an international travel-planning site. The growth is in line with our standard pre-COVID traffic pattern: a low for the year before Christmas, followed by a slow but steady climb toward our annual summer peak starting around Christmas or New Year's.

In any other year, I'd say "It's business as usual," but I'm almost shocked that people are researching international leisure trips in the current "If it's Tuesday, it must be a new COVID variant" climate.

[RedBar]

@EG ... I'm pleasantly surprised too, Xmas / New Year has always been our websites' quietest time of year but the last 3 days have been 37.0%, 54.7% and 63.3% yesterday.

What's even more surprising is that I have even received some genuine business enquiries however none from "Western" economies.

Loads of work caught-up plus all Jan 1st site updates and re-designs completed ahead of schedule.

The beer will taste extra good tonight:-)

[elos42]

@samwest I don't really care much about impressions. My story is like this -- before this latest update, I have been on a losing spree for the last three years. From around 2000 users via organic search per day, it gradually wound down to around 250 as of late October of this year. From around early November of this year, it has again started going up, and doubled to around 500 per day.

[ichthyous]

@Alex I spoke too soon...traffic was normal until noon, at which point it dropped off a cliff for the rest of the day...UK ended up -40% by end of the day. I am seeing these precipitous drops almost every day now. Traffic will seem normal until it just drops to 0-1 per hour for hours on end. This is what my UK traffic looks like this month:
[ibb.co ]

My ranking is at a new all time low now, having lost over 50% of my top 3 ranking terms and 37% of my top 10 ranking terms in the last year. Of course, this month of December has been a writeoff for new business.

Meanwhile the biggest competitor in this space (which spends hundreds of thousands or millions on adwords a year) is now taking it all...it has skyrocketed to the top position for everything and even local search in markets where it isn't even physically located. Interestingly, another site that was skyrocketing along with it at the top for months has just dropped far down below the rest of us. I suspect it's a temporary blip.

[renatovieira]

I'm getting a very huge amount of traffic coming in from all over the world right now. It's been happening since morning.

I don't know if my G Real-Time has gone crazy or if it's actually happening.

I'm having an increase of over 5,000%.

Is anyone else seeing something bizarre today?

[mosxu]

Is it the time of the year for zombies?

[samwest]

Always zombie time mos! Happy New Year!

[samwest]

@ rena - it that still happening, I had a brief surge this morning, after zero sales in three days, had three sales in fifteen minutes. Looks to be shut down again. Must have rebooted or reset the AI again. We all know this thing is evolving, right? When does it stop?

[ichthyous]

Not me...a 79% drop in home page traffic today...search is down 51%. Both USA and UK down 45-48% at 1pm, Canada down 67%, Australia not one visit yet, Western Europe almost nothing. I have never seen anything like it before in my 17 years. All I can think is it must be a penalty of some sort as my ranking has been dropping and dropping this month...soon nothing left.

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous
@samwest

So something big is happening. My main site is 9 years old and I have never seen a massive flow of traffic for several hours and it continues...

They're not zombies, as AdSense conversions are pretty high.

I don't believe in penalty or recovery right now. But something new and big is happening.

Look at my cloudflare...

[pasteboard.co...]

[ichthyous]

No surge here at all...is it broad ranging traffic, or only from one country? I get huge spikes from China where IPs from all over CHina hit my site for hours...they look like legit visitors and all from different IP addresses. I have to block all visits from China during those spikes.

[BigKat]

Relatively flat day, which follows another flat day and flat weeks. Conversions from Google are few and far between with most converting search traffic coming from Bing.

@renatovieira

You may want to check which page(s) are seeing a burst in traffic and physically check your keywords in the SERPS. With spikes like you are describing, often it's the result of an absence of Google's clutter boxes which temporarily allows a #1-#3 to actually appear above the fold and get traffic like it used to years ago. In my experience this is very short lived, but hoping for the best for you. Would be a great way to start the New Year!

[Alex_1729]

I'm seeing some increase in organic traffic today as well, and expect about a 10% total increase compared to yesterday by the end of the day. Traffic seems regular. Since the majority of this site is informational, there aren't any direct conversions, but we'll see what affiliates have to say in the next few days or weeks.

This is still far from what it should be. Until I see a huge increase lasting for a couple of weeks at least, I'll remain reserved of this returned traffic. I published a lot of quality content, so I'm hopeful of a lot of quality traffic, including the traffic that I lost this month which I'm hoping will come back.

[edited by: Alex_1729 at 8:21 pm (utc) on Dec 27, 2021]

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - Legitimate traffic. AdSense with high conversion. USA and Europe is the majority. This started this morning. As usual, it never lasts longer than 1 hour. Today it's been going on for the whole day. I hope it stays that way.

[renatovieira]

@BigKat - Yes, I won top positions on several terms. This usually appears for 1 hour when it happens. Today it spans all day. I hope this is permanent. If it wasn't an update, my site finally surpassed my competitors...

[samwest]

Just wanted to share some hope, however short-lived it may be.. after days of zip, this morning, pretty solid traffic, between 5 and 10 concurrent, which is low, but enough to produce sales, with regular conversions through the day, spaced nearly every hour. This is exactly how every day was for 10 years. Typically see this go right up to April 1st, where they will drop another April Fools joke on us. It's a Google tradition.

[mosxu]

@samwest

Happy New Year!

Today I see so much junk traffic it feels like buyers forgot Google exits all started they shopping at Amazon or something!

[yollo03]

sensors are up again, something new is being rolled out...

[engine]

Oh dear, Google: Scammer redirect appears in top ten SERPs.
I'd like to think this is just an aberration.

[mzb44]

Oh dear, Google: Scammer redirect appears in top ten SERPs.

They never really went away.

Amazing G still has so many problems detecting these.

Put every other algo/update's accuracy intro question.

[RedBar]

I continue to be surprised this Xmas / NYE with Monday's traffic at 95% and all seemingly genuine regular visitor viewing patterns and locations.

But what is different this year is that so far I have had several business enquiries and that is most unusual for this holiday period and 90% of those have come via WhatsApp.

[engine]

They never really went away.

That's true, but I hadn't seen one of these in such a prominent position.

Thinking back, this was some kind of cloaking, and it caught me out. I'm usually very careful so I would not have clicked if the SERPs were not genuine. BTW, it was nothing particularly strange, and was simply a search for information about a journalist.