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'm getting some straggly crappy old traffic but it's not converting at all. 2 days now. Last week and the week before were considerably better. When will the turbulance settle down?
I smell an update too.

[BigKat]

Google is dead today except for their store bot which seems to be wasting a ton of bandwidth on our checkout page:

74.125.151.56
Storebot-Google/1.0

And let me guess... Our ad spend will be depleted from Google visiting gclid paid ad product links, adding them to the cart and hitting the checkout page to produce freight costs. I just wish I was allowed to cancel these ads already! What a waste of money! Looking at our orders, many have hotmail, live, yahoo, etc. email addresses which is a telltale sign that Google DID NOT have anything to do with producing these sales.

[RedBar]

Not a concern for most people...for most of us our local and domestic market is the most important one.

Then it darned well ought to be a concern since every single thing that is imported or exported worldwide is being affected. For products where there are thousands of items per container load it is not so much of an issue however those who ship bulky, heavy items, it is crucial and an enormous inflation buster that will affect everyone massively not solely my industry.

[samwest]

When will the turbulence settle down?

Wait, I thought updates were supposed to be rolling and seamless?
This ON/OFF behavior is more like the Google dance of old.
Why should there even be turbulence? Especially systemic turbulence?
We always see these drops in lockstep. Funny they are never lockstep boosts in traffic of sales.
The empirical evidence is clear.
If Google gains this much YOY, someone has to be losing...guess who?
Compare this income curve to any other "business" on the planet.
We know who runs the roost...and rules the web.

[statista.com...]

Apparently, Google sees fit to control our incomes lest we become competitors. Their cloak and dagger AI censors and controls all. They must simply own and sell all our data and monetize every remaining crumb. What happened to live and let live? Perhaps it's finally time to split up this monopoly. People are waking up...and it's too late to go back to sleep.

[samwest]

Does anyone else notice that you can no longer reach GA when using a VPN?
If your VPN is on you get a blank page.

[saladtosser]

Id like to see that graph as in percentage of all advertising budget spent online! Obviously they are swallowing more and more each quarter but whats the end game, 100% of all online adverting's? Then what?

[yollo03]

@Samwest, yes, it has been like this for quite some time now. It wont load with a VPN. At lease for several months now if not more.

[BushyTop]

I'm seeing a downturn in traffic these past few days. There doesn't seem to be a significant change in my SERPs to warrant such a significant change.

[ichthyous]

@BushyTop Same here...USA traffic is slowly falling off even though ranking is not changing much. Today UK has also joined the downward trend. I have noticed absolutely insane mid-day turnarounds are becoming more frequent...so the traffic is hard clamped all morning and then suddenly shoots up in late afteroon or early eve to a more normal level for the rest of the day. Totally unnatural and I can only assume it's due to Google skimming off the cream by loading the page with more ads and "Google stuff"

[engine]

Continued here Google Updates and SERP Changes - February 2022 [webmasterworld.com]