Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2022

[RedBar]

I am still seeing substantial movements in my widget SERPs, substantial equates to several pages for me.

Some pages, all of them big money keywords, are still MIA or so low they'll never see traffic BUT I have also seen some good money keywords returning to the first two pages in the past 48 hours however they have not driven any traffic whatsoever. Not only have I seen my pages returning I am also seeing other non-US business ones.

My new traffic levels are averaging even lower than expected and are now at 50% of just over a year ago.

Much of this I put down to G ads and type of device usage. Mobile users invariably view one page and gone and sometimes it amazes me they ever get to me even when on the first page with the huge volume of ads.

Fortunately my global site still has 50% desktop usage and this is because many trade industry users are desk-based and need lots more information and images than Joe Public does, in general these are my multiple page viewers.

[RedBar]

So creating new posts for different topics rather than all being mingled-up? Not a problem for me.

Since 09.00 UK time this morning my traffic has been low and flat, I had more traffic between 00.00 and 09.00 than the last 13 hours which is a first for me and, of course, all single page views.

It will be interesting to see how low my weekend traffic is.

[topaz]

So is anyone seeing anything other than high authority sites in Discover/News? Everything lower than DA50 seems locked out for the last week or so.

[javelin]

Before I get into my traffic has anyone noticed semrush sensor has been adjusted? Is that a correction and if so from where to what? In other words has the old volatility become the new normal and now very high is the old extreme volatility? Weird... anyway

Ive been watching Google close and it appears a major shift with the update. My site has gone to the lower end of its baseline averages. After more than a week of watching data roll by this update did some big moving. I suspect a lot more people got hit than the sampling we see here on the forum.

[Broaster]

My Traffic has been completely obliterated, Since the update has finished I receive 5 to 15 total daily views smh

Whats going on? What is the algorithm core update about, they wont even tell us

[Broaster]

The only websites that appear in top stories are the typical established media or mega corp backed media, no more independent sources which is what made it nice, many of us like to read from independent balanced news sources but those are gone or knocked back to the 10th page onward.

[ichthyous]

Ive been watching Google close and it appears a major shift with the update. My site has gone to the lower end of its baseline averages

I'm seeing the same thing...traffic has shifted to the lower end now, but it's heavily skewed by a bigger drop in USA traffic. My USA traffic has developed a very distinct rotation pattern since the 25th.

I can't say that this is only the recent update...the economy has slowed down a lot, people are not online as much, schools are out, and in my case I used to get a ton of traffic from Google images, but now only very high ranking (mostly media) sites are ranking well in GI. Also, I used to get a ton of traffic from Pinterest posts that ranked highly in google...that has also declined considerably since late 2021. Not great for visually heavy sites

Right now the only thing that seems to be getting it at Google are informational articles. They are taking up more and more of the page on mobile serps and crowding out site listings...at least for the searches I am performing

[RedBar]

Very low traffic on my global site, sub-Xmas Day level! The longer this continues the more I am tending towards global business confidenc, but our UK hotel / pub site is performing normally.

As a small aside note I have two websites closing shortly since their owners are retiring and no one wants to take-over their businesses which are both very profitable ... However widget experience is required for both of them.

[Broaster]

Has anyone found out what the recent Core Update is actually about? its very strange. This is the lowest traffic I have ever received daily, yesterday I only had 15 total visits today im at 20 visits. this is so frustrating.

[mosxu]

Billions out of clicks? What ? Who knows who clicked?

[Broaster]

Okay so I just put up 5 different news articles, I spent several hours writing them to the point. I attended the local event here in my city its a major city. Not one visit from google news, and now I have a grand total of 30 visits to my website :(

This core update screwed me bad, my site is 10 years old too.

I guess its over for me, why even bother trying

[morpheus83]

Since the May update, we have seen a steady and painful decline in our direct and search traffic. We are down close to 80% from our May levels. It just seems as if Google has distrusted the entire website. We have seen such instances in the past but it was a rapid decline and then a bounce back, but this time its just a steady decline and that is very worrying.

[RedBar]

Oh, 10+ hours into a Sunday and my traffic so far is 10% of a "normal" weekend day which used to average a minimum 66% of a weekday!

I guess its over for me, why even bother trying

I have to admit that I'm looking and wondering WOE (What On Earth) is going on? The most-viewed pages I had yesterday and so far today has completely changed although that's hardly surprising with such low levels of traffic.

Something drastic has to have changed for so many experiencing catastrophic reductions, yes I do know one or two are not seeing this however it is plainly obvious they are in the very small minority who post here.

Are blackhatters being hit too? I don't frequent those forums where that is discussed?

[StupidIntelligent]

For Barry and others on this forum.

Here are some real charts from a sample of websites in various niches.

These sites have few things in common:

1. Not made in any CMS. Pure HTML Coding.
2. Zero Links. Basically a few links that are generated over time by seo audits, ssl checkers, domain registration registries etc. Basically zero value domain mentions.
3. Content hand-written. Few of these have hundreds of pages.

[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]

What this means is that once a fundamental change has been made in the Core Code, you're done.

The sites fully recovering in another core update are in a minority, mostly perhaps happens only for those who are in the news niche, but that's also not a given.

[samwest]

Worst week in 22 years. Under $100 in sales. Traffic non-existent.

[Broaster]

@Redbar

yeah its strange, I run a blog and post on a niche that is in google news, Ive look at different niche blogs as well and type in title search in google news and strange stuff is happening, it will show a single website multiple times with articles that have nothing to do with the long tail keywords or question, Like Ill type what is the make of a Mustang car? and it will show one website multiple times with different articles which have nothing to do with the topic, and then some old articles and this is Google NEWS search

Also Tops stories only has major million dollar corps, has anyone found out the details of this core update yet? this has to be the most secretive update ever and very confusing. I saw some SEO chatter online on social and they said not to try anything drastic or panic but a lot of people rely on traffic to make money either on adsense or advertising or affiliates and they are taking a huge blow now.

I was told this update was already finished, I checked my traffic again this morning and I only have 7 visits for the past several hours, I don't link build, I just blog, I don't do anything other than blog about and write about my niche so im not doing any sneaky crap just following the rules of google saying content is king

one last thing is I notice websites with massive amounts of backlinks and no author bios no contact info ranking in top stories or high in search and some of their articles just have 3 sentences and filled with advertisements and a embedded tweet, this is super thin content and shouldnt that be an ad penalty with 9 ads on page with little content? But they are out ranking me. I only have Adsense on nothing else.

[javelin]

Something drastic has to have changed for so many experiencing catastrophic reductions, yes I do know one or two are not seeing this however it is plainly obvious they are in the very small minority who post here.

Redbar or others chime in as well, is there any indication as to what may have caused the impact? For example has anyone gone into GSC and looked to see if a major reduction of links counted by Google to your site has been lost or gained? In the overview section do you see a sudden drop in mobile visibility or page experience?

In that data, other than rank positions or impression rates, is there something that has shifted with any volume?

[Brett_Tabke]

> is there any indication as to what may have caused the impact?

Site Dwell Time.

You know how merchants are saying that Amazon figures out what products sell, and then clones them under their own brand?

Lets talk Google:

Google has continually taken 'share' from their own serps. More and more links to Google properties and services. They increased pretty much every link on the page that leads to a Google property over the last 10 years - Especially since the Black and White updates - Panda/Penguin. We started calling them Clickless SERPs because answers from websites are served up by Google without a need to visit the site.

Google clearly understands that what we are now calling "dwell time" is a critical metric for increasing success of a site. When Forrester Research put out there "On Site Time" research report 1998 or 1999 (looking for a copy - it was paywalled), it was clear that Dwell Time was a major metric to site success. After that report, everyone went on massive bursts to increase user "on site time". Big sites started adding games and such. We were not immune
to this push and we were the first forum in 1999 to feature private messaging in a effort to keep users on site longer (psst: it was hugely successful... - still here).

It doesn't matter if a user ends up buying anything or performing some action that ends up in a site making money - simply being on site with the domain name in the URL is a major metric. Dwell Time.

(Pure Conjecture time): I've believed for years that the black & white updates were about what Google knew about Dwell Time. All the sites I knew that took huge hits, had high engagements and moderate authority. All the major forums and private social sites took major hits (150k a day down to 15k a day here...and later more). Only those that had domain authority (now calling it EAT), such as Reddit and StackOverflow kept their traffic. Just like Amazon leveraging it's data on products to launch it's own brands, Google leveraged analytics to take "dwell time" away from sites and keep it for its own.

What have the results been? [macrotrends.net...]

Good articles on Dwell Time:
[blog.hubspot.com...]
[searchenginejournal.com...]
[engineering.linkedin.com...]

[ichthyous]

For example has anyone gone into GSC and looked to see if a major reduction of links counted by Google to your site has been lost or gained? In the overview section do you see a sudden drop in mobile visibility or page experience?

In that data, other than rank positions or impression rates, is there something that has shifted with any volume?

I've posted my recent analysis of GSC...until very recently impressions were going higher from January to June, but a much lower CTR. Impressions have since leveled off, but it's also summer and school is out. My link count has dropped somewhat, but not drastically...it seems that Google is not counting older pages with links and ends up dropping them.

Traffic is being throttled in the extreme...especially usa traffic. Yesterday my traffic was lethargic, today its zooming. Since the update on the 25th this is the new normal...a wide swing day to day. I think it mostly has to do with the page layout and number of items Google is dumping on the page.

[javelin]

(Pure Conjecture time): I've believed for years that the black & white updates were about what Google knew about Dwell Time. All the site I knew that took huge hits, had high engagements and moderate authority. All the major forums and private social sites took major hits (150k a day down to 15k a day here...and later more). Only those that had domain authority (now calling it EAT), such as Reddit and StackOverflow kept their traffic. Just like Amazon leveraging it's data on products to launch it's own brands, Google leveraged analytics to take "dwell time" away from sites and keep it for its own.

@Brett or others with knowledge
I would like to toss something out there theoretically. Lets assume a site has google tracking implemented and naturally google will measure where traffic comes from, page, and of course dwell time.

Now for the theory. If this site is not performing well in google directly, but the site owner has a way to increase traffic/dwell time from an alternative source would these metrics being captured by analytics indirectly improve ranking in google?

This may be worth experimenting with.

[ichthyous]

Is anyone else seeing a big drop in international traffic today? I'm seeing USA traffic up for the first time in a week, UK is also normal...but Australia is -70% for two days now...Canada -40%, UAE is also -40%. Germany is -20%, France and most of the rest of W. Europe is at 0 visits today...not one visit. Perhaps we are seeing the rollout of new serp layouts to a wide market?

[morpheus83]

I am not sure if this has been shared before. But this article puts forward some data on the May 2022 Updated -
https://www.sistrix.com/blog/google-core-update-may-2022/

[RedBar]

That's just 1/2 of a Googleday completed for me and traffic at 20% of expected levels. Proportionately the visitor demographics has not changed which is a surprise therefore where has the "volume" gone IF that still exists or is it mostly Google ads now meaning unless you are #1 then you will have to pay for traffic?

IMHO I had better add that being #1 now seems to mean absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Most of my global industry gave-up updating their websites around 2016, some earlier, will I be able to justify my 30th anniversary year in 2023?

[Brett_Tabke]

> captured by analytics

Not sure this is related to this thread yet, but I do know of several tests in that area. People have tried running up to dozens of Google analytics code on the same page. Some had the same account other with different accounts via subdomains (and other nefarious games to get G to recognize it as a unique domain). Then they played with which code carried over from page-to-page with different approaches (variations on back button breakers, framing each other pages - js page inclusions). About 8yrs ago (a guesstimate), they had much success with those games. To the point it clearly indicated G was using analytics log data to tweak the algo. Since G went to the newer version of Chrome for the rendering engine, all that went away.
I really don't think there are any loop holes left in that regard.

[BigKat]

But this article puts forward some data on the May 2022 Update

@morpheus83

Thanks for posting this, which coincides with gains Google gave Amazon within in our USA based industry. Even products which Amazon does not offer, Google is ranking them for category pages. Meanwhile, the unique products we manufacture and sell on our own store (can't purchase anywhere else) are buried by Google. I don't want to go off the rails too far with a company that claims equity is an important core company value, but obviously what some of these big tech companies say (including Google) is the complete opposite in how they operate. The SERPS don't lie.

In the USA Amazon is looking to sub-lease some space at select facilities because of reduced consumer demand. I suspect Google is trying to prop up Amazon sales, with increased visibility in search, since both businesses feed each other. As far as Google goes, there's little room in their search results for smaller businesses except to take their money for poorly performing ads.

[christianz]

@abcdefg +

Bing is much worse than DDG. They are religiously copying all the worst googlespam features that Google rolls out in their SERPs. Google obviously still leads as the worst search engine in the world (if you can even call it that).

DDG at least has normal list of web pages in most scenarios, with less googlespam in between (YouTube results etc). DDG does, however, have more pure AI generated and auto-translated spam.

[ichthyous]

@redbar Check your top volume terms. Google has rolled out a new block of 8 links to articles and some sites...they seem unrelated to who is ranking on top, although sometimes articles are shown from sites that also get an organic link on the page.

What you are experiencing is the cumulative effect of all of these blocks being added to the page. It first started with some of my high volume terms, but now seems to have rolled out across all of them. GSC is now reporting 25% minimum loss in traffic from those searches...sometimes half or more. This is fine for info sites, but for commerce sites it's killing off traffic in a huge way. Now Google seems to be adding blocks of recommended books to purchase right at the top as well...

Add in the fact that some sites get large very prominent image carousels with their organic listings while others get a small image, and the other blocks of paid ads, local, related searches, Twitter, Google images...is it any wonder that people are no longer clicking on organic links?

[RedBar]

What a mix-up, out of my top 20 most viewed widget pages so far today only 4 of them are in my long-term average. This is highly unusual and even more so when I look at the widgets being viewed, they are extremely specialised and normally not even in my top 100. I need to check who's been looking at these and from where.

Is this a stupid question, is the update finished but the churn / implementation / fallout, still going on?

I ask this since I seem to remember this happening before a few years ago.

[christianz]

Is this a stupid question, is the update finished but the churn / implementation / fallout, still going on?

Nothing is finished, as far as I can tell.

[Brett_Tabke]

>Is this a stupid question, is the update finished but the churn

According to Google is is fully baked.