Google Updates and SERP Changes - April 2022

[goodroi]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5058707.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 5:58 am on Apr 1, 2022 (utc -5)

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It's time for our April 2022 Google SEO discussion.

March SERPs changes appeared smaller, with no significant algorithm changes, and the fluctuations were noticed more locally by individual webmasters. Of course, Google continued to test and experiment throughout the month, with some announcements: See below.

For those of you that may have missed some of the announcements and changes, here are some of the stories from March.

Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2022 [webmasterworld.com]

Google confirmed the Page Experience update for Desktop [webmasterworld.com] was completed in March.
Google has released a Product Review in Search Update [webmasterworld.com]
Short video on Requesting Removal of Content Under "Right To Be Forgotten" [webmasterworld.com]
Learning learning how to connect, visualize, and analyze Search Console Data using Google Data Studio [webmasterworld.com]
Google's Android Rolls Out Deletion of Last 15 Minutes of Your Search [webmasterworld.com]
Google's John Mueller confirms it doesn't use the keywords meta tag for ranking. This is old news, of course, but it goes on to indicate what contributes to ranking. [webmasterworld.com]
An interesting discussion on SEO Tools for Web Developers [webmasterworld.com]
Google says, "we’ve decreased the number of irrelevant results by over 50pct" [webmasterworld.com]
There's now more context to Structured Data issues now in Search Console [webmasterworld.com]
Google Adds "Highly Cited" Labels for News Sources [webmasterworld.com]

Enough catching up, so let's get on with the latest SERPs observations for April.

[longjohnbronze]

I think the current understanding is that there is some kind of algorithmic "penalty" for sites with overwhelmingly terrible backlink profile / substantial amount of bad links. Which also opens door to negative SEO, intentional or unintentional.

There's another hypothesis worth thinking about. If I'm Greedy Google and want to save on resources spent on crawling & assesing sites, and possibly I'm aware of spammy domains, then why bother with some algorithmic penalties against websites? A "positive reinforcement only" approach is probably cheaper. And at the same time, it would be relatively cheap to penalise anyone frequently using disavow because those webmasters are suspiciously concerned with how their backlink profile looks.

[Samsam1978]

It's a bug got to be, there is no way that these SPAM and new sites large publisher websites should be outranking everyone. I wish they will fix it.

[javelin]

Volatility is very high for May 1. Massive jump from yesterday. This not being a gradual increase from tweaking different levers means they decided to roll out something bigger.

Today could be a rough ride that continues for a few days. Much slower start to the morning for me but its early and no way to tell how things will shape up.

[ichthyous]

@javelin I also see a big jump today, after a big drop yesterday. These swings are not unusual these days, I am seeing days with very large drops in traffic on a regular basis

[samwest]

Now under 100 visits per day, yet still ranking on page one across a wide range of terms...yet long periods of zero traffic. This summer will be dismal. You can only come to two conclusions, 1. The top-loading AI has totally taken over organics. 2. Nobody uses Google anymore. Which one makes more sense... :?/

[javelin]

@ichthyous Yes indeed. Saturday and Sunday are historically my worst days give or take depending on a holiday tossed in. I have always seen Google lead me forward in the past, but now I am seeing Bing performing well for me. I know it is a smaller market share but... if they can give me what I need then why not give them more focus?

No matter where we all are in the Google mix I believe everyone can agree that there are serious issues there that need to be dealt with. The traffic swings are clear indication of throttling. Page 1 of Google is a complete mess. Next to samwest and that issue.

Sam this is just my opinion but if you see that happen they are treating you like a new website. I think... and I state again that I think sites can pages can rank for keywords in any top position but in the end it doesnt matter. I believe the system is a tier where groups of sites or pages compete at that same level.

I believe you are allowed to have chances at impressions in that bracket until you graduate to the next and find tougher competitors. Think of it like baseball with minor and major leagues. Ranking above position 5 is not always equal to everyone depending on overall site rank and competitive bracket.... if all that makes sense.

[System]

The following message was cut out to new thread by goodroi. New thread at: google/5063031.htm [webmasterworld.com]
3:51 pm on May 1, 2022 (utc -5)