Google Updates and SERP Changes - January 2022

[goodroi]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5053055.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 8:36 am on Jan 4, 2022 (utc -5)

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Well, December seems to have been a mixed month of fluctuations, along with the month Google ran a Product Reviews Update. In addition, November's Core Update probably hit site traffic and conversions over the weeks in December.

Where does this leave us in January? Probably in a bit of a flux as the month can often start off quiet after the many holidays in December, and the ongoing fluctuations with the impact of the pandemic. Thanks in advance for your reports.

In the meantime, a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone!

To business, and to keep you updated, here's a quick round-up of some of the Google news.

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

Google December Product Reviews Update rolls Out : "December 1 2021" [webmasterworld.com]

It's not specifically Google; Apache Log4j Zero-Day Exploit, "Log4Shell" [webmasterworld.com]
The exploit even has a mention by John Mueller [webmasterworld.com ]

Google also said the Google November 2021 Local Search Update was concluded. [webmasterworld.com]

Google Announces New Features and Tools For Local News [webmasterworld.com]

Let's look at the latest SERPs observations for January's Google SERPs Changes.

[RedBar]

I seem to be stuck in the 80+% at the moment, 84.7% yesterday however significantly more trade action happening.

I still feel that many bulk purchasers have not fully absorbed the huge seafreight price hikes but I do know of some who intend disposing of slower moving items and not replacing them simply because of the extra costs. As an example the buying cost of one item costing USD 100.00 wil now cost USD 145.00 !

[not2easy]

Mod's Note: The OT discussion about Google and others' efforts to sidestep or soften any new antitrust legislation in the US have been moved to a thread in the Google, Alphabet Inc., Finance, Govt, Policy and Business Issues Forum: [webmasterworld.com...]

[renatovieira]

After several days of intense traffic and access records, yesterday there was a big drop and today the drop is even bigger. There was certainly something big around the turn of the year and Christmas. Follow the game...

[yollo03]

Unfortunately traffic spikes are almost always short-lived. It's as if you are awarded with more impressions and better positioning the algorithms treat you differently. Anything minor out of place and you will be penalized.

[renatovieira]

@yollo03 - I always get these traffic spikes periodically for some period during one day only.

This time I had it for over 10 days. Counting before Christmas until yesterday.

I thought that I had finally gained positions in the SERP's, but I was wrong.

[Neohippy]

Our gains from 12 Dec seem to be holding nicely (though our Discover spike was brief!)

*touches all the wood*

[ichthyous]

Huge decline in traffic from Dec 13th onward...biggest I have ever seen. A brief three day respite from the 31st-2nd and a big drop again on the 3rd. Yesterday and today all traffic is up, except for USA which starts the day far lower than normal and struggles to catch up. My ranking continues to decline...slowly deflating and losing top 3/10 rank terms one a day since mid December.

Today I uploaded a new disavow file...Google is reporting a ton of spammy backlinks so cant hurt. I also wonder if my huge number of 301 redirects in place for years is hurting me now. Does anyone have any insight into that? Maybe better to trim the overall number and let them go 404? When I tried that several years ago it didn't work out too well, but I suspect google is penalizing sites with too high a number of redirects.

[Neohippy]

We have a LOT of legacy redirects as well. I've long shared your suspicion that they're not doing us any favours, but given that we've been doing better since around the time you've been doing worse, it may not be the deciding factor in your latest slam? Who knows, though! (apart from anything else, we focus mostly on UK traffic, so could be a whole other ball game there)

[samwest]

I got my seasonal bump, it lasted three whole days and is now back to zero.

[Alex_1729]

My organic traffic has almost entirely returned to its normal state for my informational site (about 90%). My best list-posts are also ranking nicely, both for Amazon ones, and others. Traffic seems regular. My SERPs seem to be improving. A few of my longer posts where I did a thorough (almost scientific) analysis and comparison have also improved. I am glad for these, as I outdid myself there, yet they never ranked well. Could be that site just gained in authority a bit, it's a fairly new site.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic is back to being extremely throttled...it's -40% today at 1:30pm. Every other country is much higher today. It's insane that I am back to getting more traffic from the UK than I am from my own country, with 5X the population.

[NickMNS]

I'm seeing big increase in traffic today, as of 8am EST, I'm seeing increase in the range of +30% to +100% , not sure if this will be sustained.

[saladtosser]

Interesting story on SER [seroundtable.com...] PAA soon to become a complete answer widget rather than a partial answer leading to website full answer? This will take PAA to a new level, good for users but very bad for websites, esp as its above most websites!

Surprised no ones covered the testing of organic commercial queries being reduced to 5 organic results on mobile yet, seeing it daily now rather than weekly before xmasl!

[Markedd]

@saladtosser And what's the incentive to create content from Google? I thought smart people are hired at Google, but to me it seems all have gotten utterly stupid. Just block these dumbasses, if I'm not making money, neither are you, Google, you parasite.

[saladtosser]

Markedd that's capitalism for you, Google employees HAVE to increase profits from the previous quarter so they have to squeeze someone somewhere, ultimately they only have so much organic real estate to cannibalise so at some point they will have to perfect Google AI generated content to fill the gap so google becomes the internet as such!

[Martin Ice Web]

we have an big drop and it is very big ( -75% right now). And it is going simultaneous with Core Vitals in GSC. We saw a decline in FID from 100% good pages to 2,2% good and 97,8% bad pages now. All your pages are loading very fast and the have a lighthouse score about 95 and above.
I can only think of google has a problem with measuring FiD correctly.

[BigKat]

The best way to describe the hourly/daily ups and downs with Google is like they are applying their foot to our necks. Just when we're ready to choke out, they release their foot for a few hours or a day then quickly reapply pressure. These traffic patterns are totally inorganic as compared to other search engines that deliver stable traffic. Whether Google's intent is to create this volatility to rotate traffic or for profit is anyone's guess. And that's one of the big problems with allowing big tech to control information/consumer choice with impunity. Google offers little to no transparency and their use of a liaison is underutilized to put it in the kindest of terms.

[Markedd]

@saladtosser It's simply impossible in my niche, so I am not afraid of some Google AI (there are basically two people in the entire world that bother creating proper English-written content in my niche because it's difficult and costly). I've had great success with Reddit and with other social media websites, so I hope people will explore alternatives to Google as well. People should also just gather together and file class action lawsuits on their ass again and again and again. Until they learn.

[samwest]

Maybe the best thing to do at this point is to back away from all Google services. We complain, yet we keep doing the same thing. Didn't Einstein say that was the definition of insanity?

[Markedd]

@samwest I am not sure about the others, but I am actively working towards a complete break from Google, which is incredibly hard (borderline impossible in some niches) when we're dealing with a monopoly. Additionally, I have taken steps towards retiring from the online business altogether, too much energy for too little reward. More than ten years ago, with a bit of passion, some tech talent and a lot of time (student days), you could make a fortune online. Nowadays, the money you can make is even better, just that it doesn't go to your wallet, but to the big tech cartel.

[mrkhalilaslam]

There is continuous shuffling in google SERP every day, every hour, every minute. Either this is their policy to get more revenue or the one possible reason google is fighting ai generated sites and content. I have witnessed 5/6 different sites were ranked within 2/3 month to a million traffic and after this continues shuffling all sites come back to zero within a month. What do you guys think?

[ichthyous]

The wild swings from day to day and hour to hour are by design I'm sure. My site was in the doghouse for the entire month of December from the 3rd onward, but last couple of days non-USA traffic has seen very odd 200%-500% increases. Meanwhile, USA flat or only slightly up by 10%.

These surges do not help me in any way...actual inquiries from real customers don't increase during these times. Google has very effectively skimmed off most of the customers based on intent and kept those for itself. My sales derived from organic search dropped 75% from the 1st quarter of 2021 to the 4th quarter of 2021. In that same time period I lost 52% of my top 3 ranking terms...sales deflated like a balloon all year as the loss continued.

Meanwhile I see two brand new sites ranking at the top...one wasn't even online before July of 2021. Now they have gobbled up many top ranking spots and one is placing TV commercials too. Care to wager how many links they purchased to get started, and how much their Google ad spend is?

[mzb44]

they will have to perfect Google AI generated content to fill the gap

Eventually this is going to happen whether people like it or not.

Sure, might still be 10 years away but it will happen.

Just look at what is already available today when it comes to AI generated text. Sure, it's far from good but think back that just 5 or so years ago the best anyone could do was trashy content mixers.

[samwest]

Either this is their policy to get more revenue or the one possible reason google is fighting ai generated sites and content.

I think it's Google who is employing AI. They started in 2010...they just keep getting better at it.
I have yet to see AI-generated content in my niche, other than the PAA widget.

Their revenue increases will come from constantly improved SERP AI and the recent massive ad expansion to "super spam" levels on YT videos and preferred partner sites. One site in my niche still gets away with over a dozen G Ads on every page. Oh the irony of having a webspam team. lol

[abcdefg]

I've been following discussions on this forum for a few months. Just registered to say make a comment on the current topic:

The site that @samwest mentioned does not "get away with" over a dozen GAs; rather, its ranks thanks to the GAs.

[JesterMagic]

Our website has been around for almost 20 years. For the first 16 or so years our traffic in December would be our lowest month of the year (in total), maybe dropping 15% compared to the previous months. Starting Dec 26 to the beginning week of January our traffic would jump about 250-300% and then slowly trickle back to normal around the middle of February. In the last 2-3 years this had not been the case anymore. We still see the December fall in visits but In January we are lucky to see 110% of what a normal month in traffic has. This is with our niche actually becoming more popular.

A lot of this traffic we have seen disappear is the result of Google shoving more ads and their own widgets (which are just designed to keep traffic on Google properties) in front of the organic results.

[shadowlight]

A lot of this traffic we have seen disappear is the result of Google shoving more ads and their own widgets (which are just designed to keep traffic on Google properties) in front of the organic results.

For a keyword in my niche the SERPS currently look like this:

1: AD (spans the entire screen on mobile device)
2: AD
3: AD
4: AD
5: Dictionary Definition (which once clicked doesent actually take you to the dictionary definition but a new SERP page with the usual 4 ads on top followed by expanded dictionary definition on the page itself and a small grey link attributing the source)
6: TOP STORIES: News about 'related keyword'
7: News about 'another related keyword'
8: Also in the news
9: People also ask
This is then followed by 9 organics with a refine search G widget amongst them.

I've seen an uptick in traffic & conversions in January compared to the previous few months, however December was terrible (it is usually a slow month for me anyway but never this slow) and on the whole both traffic and conversions continue to decline compared to previous years, meanwhile G's revenue & profits continue to hit record numbers.

They should practice what they preach in regards to excessive above the fold ads, auto generated content and making it hard to find the actual original content.

[Abaros]

A lot of this traffic we have seen disappear is the result of Google shoving more ads and their own widgets (which are just designed to keep traffic on Google properties) in front of the organic results.

For one of my sites searching by "brand".

1 Google Ad
2 Google Ad
3 Google Ad
5 My brand
6 People also...
7 Site related to my brand

The "brand" is not a generic name, it is a unique word that is also a registered trademark.

Surely this is because Google does what's best for the user, in this order... best for Google... best for the advertiser... best for the user... and worst for the content creators.

[ichthyous]

I am also seeing much stronger traffic again for the last few days. Finally USA traffic has caught up as well. In December I was seeing -60% to my home page daily and USA traffic was abysmal. All I can say is that I did get a lot of unique links from high DA sites in November and early December. It seems to have pushed my site way down...the pages with the most new links got hit the hardest. Recently I have had good press and was interviewed by some authoritative news and culture sites. These now appear in news searches for my name (my name is my brand) and that seems to have helped to flip the switch again. I'm climbing somewhat on a few more important terms, but my ranking for the most part is much lower than one year ago...less than half the top 3/10 ranking terms compared to Jan 2021.

So, if I'm still not ranking well then where is all this traffic coming from? And despite Google's vaunted tech, it really does just seem to be a popularity contest. Get people talking about your brand and it will recover somewhat...it takes more than just new links now I think. Having said that, none of us are ever going to see the traffic we used to get because of the on page changes and the ad stuffing on the organic results. I am spending less time on search and forging new sales partnerships instead.