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.

[Jez123]

I see significant drop this morning. Adsense with very low conversion. All very quiet. Every monday is slow, but today is much more.

I'm guessing another or continuing update. It's very slow as you say.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Guys I'm facing with a strange thing. My Semrush sensor showing that I'm facing with a little traffic decline, but actually my traffic increased +15% and keeps increasing. Whom should I believe to? :|

[renatovieira]

@Cyril TechWebsites - Here the same thing. My traffic has increased since christmas. However, semrush falling... look at my print... strange...

[prnt.sc...]

[bebopandrocksteady]

not sure we can rely on semrush stats at the moment. something wacky is going on with it. it's going the opposite way GA is going and semrush position tracking.

[Abaros]

The data generated by semrush are statistical and are obtained indirectly. For example, X visibility corresponds to X visits.

Any change such as one more or less ad, search suggestions, etc. will cause semrush to re-adjust.

On the other hand GSC has had outdated and incorrect data for weeks now.

The conclusion is that the only thing you can rely on is the stats generated by your own server.

[Markedd]

@bebopandrocksteady Unfortunately, in my case, the Semrush pessimistic data is not that far from truth, so at least one website was hit by Google, my own. And Semrush saw it properly. I assume that a lot of other webmasters are seeing it too.

[bebopandrocksteady]

first, sorry to hear you've taken a hit. and strange. for me, for example, semrush shows a high volume keyphrase we rank for has gone from position 5 to 13. however, when i check this via private browser on desktop and mobile, I'm still sitting in pos 5. and week over week stats in general, I'm showing + 6% organic users, meanwhile semrush is showing my organic traffic -6%. is also checked to see if it was a loss of USA traffic, since that's what it shows on the projects page and also up 5%. Pretty weird.

btw, regarding gsc, for me right now, it's on point

[Abaros]

I am seeing in the last few months that bing results are better than google.

It's hard to be objective, so I thought that if this is true, bing searches on google should be reflected, and they are:

[trends.google.com...]

[nitinbaisoya]

I have also been hit and my traffic has gone down 90% ans till don't know the reason. Can anyone help how to recover from this issue and the interesting thing is that still i dont know about the issue.

There is no update on google search console also.

Can anyone help me plzzzzzzzz

[Neohippy]

@Abaros, I agree that searches for bing are up, but there's a better way to check it.... Your link is looking at 'bing' as a search term, which includes partial match. The top queries include 'bing bong' and 'bing crosby' (the latter particularly makes sense of the Dec 25 spike).

However, if you look at the topic 'Microsoft Bing', you get a flatter curve, which makes more sense.

BUT the spike starts in Oct - isn't that about when 'indexnow' was being announced? So that probably accounts for a lot of it?

[Abaros]

@Neohippy

The day that bing will surpass google is far away, it is true...

I use DDG as my personal search engine, when I can't find something I type "google" in fact "google" is the most searched word in bing.

I was wondering if due to the very bad results google is giving, "bing" was starting to be a popular word in google.

The topic "Microsoft Bing" has gone from 60 to 100, which is a significant rise, although you are right that there is a good chance that it is a consequence of indexnow, since the rise is not gradual, but starts on a specific day, September 26th.

What is evident is that google SERPs are getting worse day by day, at the beginning (in general) you could find exactly what you were looking for in google, nowadays you can only find something approximate to what you are looking for, and in some cases unrelated things.

[Neohippy]

Interestingly, it looks like there was a decrease in searches for DDG at exactly the same time as Bing searches increased (particularly noticeable if you look at the 5 year view). Nice to see DDG generally growing overall, though :)

[BushyTop]

Looks like the super positive results we've been enjoying for the whole of January have reverted with this most recent update. Annoying. SERPs seem to have reverted back to brand ranking first, not websites.

[abcdefg]

DDG & Bing are also bad. They're all serving the same interests. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.

[saladtosser]

My traffic has recovered to pre December 2021 core update levels, so i guess they took a year to reverse that update and I haven't made any changes (apart from more pages)

[headspace]

FWIW

Many people on this forum are reporting consistent fluctuations in their keyword rankings and positions in the SERPs. I too have also noticed this. One moment certain keywords are ranking next moment the've dropped or are nowhere to be seen, next week or so they're back again.

I think what is happening is that G is "churning" the SERPs positions and giving more organisations the chance to rank in the higher positions. A democratisation of the SERPs if you like. After all why should an organisation that has held the top spot for the last 3 years contuniue to hold it indefinitely?

Moreover I think part of how G is achieving this is around the meta-descriptions that your pages contain.

What you need to do to maintain your positions today is to implement dynamic meta-descriptions. meta-descriptions that change depending on the query entered in the serps.

For example take these meta descriptions:

1. meta-description="Apples | Pears | Pineapples"
2. meta-description="Pineapples | Apples | Pears "
3. meta-description="Pears | Pineapples | Apples "

If a user searches for "apples" everything else remaining equal the page with meta-description 1 will rank first. If the user searches for "pears" the page with meta-description 3 will rank first. Because the search term is at the start of the meta-description.

This is a simple example. But if G changes the algorithm so that the page that ranks first is now the one with the search term towards the end of the meta-description. You get my drift.

I've found that if I make my meta-descriptions dynamic
e.g. on monday my page has meta-description 1, tuesday meta-description 2, etc I am getting singificantly better results (up to 200% increase in traffic) than just leaving the page with meta-desription 1 all the time.

[renatovieira]

While here, another very slow and quiet morning.

[ichthyous]

I am noticing that traffic is disconnected from ranking these days. I supposedly gained six top 3 terms back today and yet USA traffic is starting down for the first day in a while.

Very interesting to note...I have a partnership with a site that is very costly and has performed poorly. I put them on notice that I was terminating the partnership if some sales didn't materialize soon. They then in turn ratcheted up the Google ads so that if you search for my brand their own ads come up above my site. I complained to them about the terms but they continue to run the ads.

What I am seeing now is that almost all of my serious inquiries at my site are saying "I found you at [Partner Site Name] and was wondering what the price is if I purchase this from you directly". It has happened over and over this month, so no coincidence. My point is that their paid ads seem to be reaching the best customers who have real intent to buy, and the rest of us are left with the low or mismatched intent users. The direct inquiries to my site have been for much lower budget and clueless buyers who have no idea what the items I sell cost in reality. I find this interesting because when I ran Google ads myself I got nothing...no inquiries at all. 2/3 of the clicks would hit my site and leave immediately, and many were just fake clicks.

It could also be that their brand is bigger and more convincing than mine, or that their site convinces buyers to buy more than mine does. Their site shows prices up front...mine does not. Still, all very interesting that Google ads are working in this very roundabout way.

[StupidIntelligent]

Has GSC updated for someone in the past 17 hours?

[BigKat]

I am noticing that traffic is disconnected from ranking these days. I supposedly gained six top 3 terms back today and yet USA traffic is starting down for the first day in a while.

The prevalence of Google's traffic siphoning boxes (Knowledge Panel, People Also Ask, Videos, etc.) is responsible for this. For example, one of the "how to" pages we ranked for has been overtaken by YouTube videos. The first video contains a massive image with a box under it with "six key moments in this video" to allow users to fast forward to defined points. Underneath this are three more videos with thumbnails and a "view all" button. Underneath this is a "People Also Ask" box. Underneath this box is yet another YouTube video with thumbnail. Due to the YouTube spam, and People Also Ask box, being ranked #1 is so far down the page the number of eyeballs viewing it will likely be next to none. This is just one example of an info query being completely overtaken by Google. The same applies to other info queries such as "why does..." and the like. Due to our site having a lot of information, these queries would help introduce consumers to our products. With all the YouTube and info box spam, not anymore.

My point is that their paid ads seem to be reaching the best customers who have real intent to buy,

Might be specific to your industry, but this is not my experience. For us, Google's ads are performing almost as poorly as the organic traffic they send.

[ichthyous]

Might be specific to your industry, but this is not my experience. For us, Google's ads are performing almost as poorly as the organic traffic they send.

@BigKat same here...my own ads performed terribly. Just pure junk really. But I am getting inquiry after inquiry now saying "I found you on [platform name] and want to know if I can purchase this direct from you". I fought with the partner site because they are actually squatting my brand name, but now I don't know what to think as it's providing results in a roundabout way. I know that it's all from Google ads as this partner platform foes nothing for me all year until I threaten to cancel the renewal in March...then they ramp up ads to try to get in a sale or two. Otherwise, nothing

[topaz]

competitor buys expired domain of an author (with links from BBC, CNN, guardian, etc) and redirects to his domain. The author's site wasn't related at all to the niche, but he's now dominating it. So yeah..that still works in 2022.

[RedBar]

At 81.3% yesterday, Tuesday, was my global site's quietest weekday since the first week of January and today has started in a similar vein at a time I would normally expect increasing traffic. Russian traffic has noticeably been reduced!

[samsseo]

I'm seeing organic realtime traffic spikes, which isn't reflected in the 'All traffic' realtime reports. This usually happens when Google is updating something...

[BigKat]

my own ads performed terribly. Just pure junk really. But I am getting inquiry after inquiry now saying "I found you on [platform name]

Could it be your partner site is using placement targeting in their ads whereas you are not? This may explain why inquiries are specifying "I found you on..." and your partner's ads are more effective then yours because they are highly targeted/optimized. The disturbing part is their ads are effective and yours aren't, which leads me to believe further optimization on your part may produce better results for you. By further optimization, I not only am referring to Google ad settings but also landing page optimization.

For us, YouTube is taking over the SERPS in our industry with the offshore sellers on Amazon/Walmart filling in much of the gaps further down the page. Attempting to be as objective as possible, I can see where the economics of YouTube spam make sense to Google. For example: I search for a low priced product, get bombarded with YouTube videos at the top of Google's SERPS and click on a video. In this video I am presented with an unrelated insurance company, auto dealer, drug company, etc. ad. The company who sells the < $20 product I searched for can't afford to bid high on their ads but the insurance companies, auto dealers, pharmaceutical companies, etc. all have deep wallets and are likely bidding high. Bottom line is Google makes more money (likely much, much more) by showing somewhat relevant YouTube videos and injecting them with totally irrelevant but high paying ads. Additionally, easily distracted users likely click on multiple ads once they get sucked into the YouTube spam funnel.

[renatovieira]

@samsseo - I also see some traffic spikes this morning, but they also don't reflect on my adsense earnings... It could be some adsense delay... Wait until the end of the day.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic has been weakening for the last three days. It was running pretty strong but this entire week it's been low all day with a sudden spike in the second half of the day. That was the pattern last year, and it generally results in zero conversions I have noticed. The late day traffic is either poorly targeted or low intent, or fake / bots

Non-Usa traffic going strong. Ranking slightly down today...but it's up and down literally every day now.

[StupidIntelligent]

Below is a page that gets set number of impressions both upper and lower side. This has been happening since one year.
John M should stop lying that Google doesn't restrict impressions. This keywords under this page get 100s of thousands of searches every month.

[i.imgur.com...]

[MayankParmar]

Is Semrush broken? Nearly all sites I checked on Semrush have a decline in their traffic starting January 21.

[renatovieira]

Yesterday I had some traffic spikes in the morning, but today the drop is being very huge. Has anyone else noticed any fluctuation this morning?