Google Updates and SERP Changes - July 2022

[RedBar]

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System: Continued from: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5066671.htm [webmasterworld.com]

I am well-aware that it is a US holiday weekend however 20.00 hrs Friday UK time and my global site went into hibernation ... and I mean a traffic level whereby I could completely remove the site since it would be utterly pointless it being there.

As such I shall let it run until Wednesday to see if traffic does return by Tuesday evening US time.

[RedBar]

If there are very few non-US businesses in those SERPs shall I be forced to conclude this is not only an algo update but a major shift in USA SERPs ranking policy?

i've spent the past couple of hours having an in-depth of my widget US SERPs, and bearing in mind that my non-US company competitors have also been hit, one specific sector of my global site has been hit badly and that is India. In fact all my Indian competitors have been hit too.

In my widget sector India's other biggest global top 10 competitors are Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Italy, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Turkey.

For all these countries my widgets are doing extremely well along with the competitors I expect to see there but for India it would appear than we have all been penalised solely in favour of US companies.

Is this simply a massive "mistake"?

[ichthyous]

From the massive drops in traffic to specific landing pages it's very clear when Google is updating the layouts and changing adding more ads and widgets to the page. This seems to be most of the week now...you only get decent traffic maybe 1-3 days a week if you are lucky. Google is also giving some sites huge organic listings with multiple images and multiple sitelinks. Even if your site ranks above those, I suspect they are sucking up all the traffic.

[RedBar]

So far this month my page views average per visitor has dropped 18% v 2022 average, my July PVs vs 2022 average is now -32.5%.

Google is also giving some sites huge organic listings

I saw the biggest image ad block I've ever seen yesterday in the middle of the SERPs, forget the top and bottom ad blocks, this had a 4 column wide, 6 columns deep image ad block.

That alone is 24 sales ads and obviously taking up more space than 2+ old full pages of the original SERPs ... There is absolutely no need to query why we have less traffic, Google's conversion to a classifieds ad site is almost complete.

[EditorialGuy]

That alone is 24 sales ads and obviously taking up more space than 2+ old full pages of the original SERPs ... There is absolutely no need to query why we have less traffic, Google's conversion to a classifieds ad site is almost complete.

Maybe for commercial searches. Certainly not for informational searches.

I've always suspected that Google doesn't agonize too much about commercial search results, since they can be filler for ads (not unlike an old-school Yellow Pages directory, a weekly shopper newspaper, or a magazine like COMPUTER SHOPPER, which many people here will remember). Before lamenting this, it's worth asking yourself if users (meaning searchers) really mind. A number of years ago, I heard a talk by the CEO of a trade and special-interest magazine empire, and he commented that (according to his company's market research) many customers read the magazines (at least in part) "for the ads." It may well be that the average shopper doesn't mind if Amazon, Walmart, etc. have the top commercial searches sewn up and commercial SERPs are splattered with ads.

[Dooku]

it would appear than we have all been penalised solely in favour of US companies. Is this simply a massive "mistake"?

NO, no mistake at all. I have seen this for different industries already for a longer time now.
The data is there, however, its very hard to prove unless someone would undertake an experiment on the scale like Rand Fishkin did.

This is actually economical protectionism at it's worst. And I wonder if it has anything to do with many countries in the EU and other regions now demanding that google finally pays taxes on their earnings within those countries?
I have now seen far too many things were reality is more weird than fiction, especially with google, to disregard this as just paranoia.

[RedBar]

@EG

Maybe for commercial searches. Certainly not for informational searches.

Whilst I semi-agree with your comment you are forgetting many of those sites that are informational but are also commercial. All the international sites in my industry are informational with the intent of promoting them commercially. They are not sites where one can actually buy the products online but are where the sales promotion of their product is pursued.

Not all informational commercial sites are overtly ecommerce selling box loads of whatever the lastest fad may be for delivery tomorrow. My average length of time from enquiry to commencement of supply to its finish can be anywhere from 1-3 years, the longest duration I ever had was from an exhibition enquiry in Italy in 1988 with the actual order being placed and supplied in 2003. Yes, 15 years.

many customers read the magazines (at least in part) "for the ads."

I completely agree, I've done that myself many times and I believe this is still so in certain sectors.

Insofar as I am concerned I feel that the mixture of ads and organic is far too blurred and especially so when the organics are of such poor quality in many sectors. A SERPs trial with two options "Ads" and "Organic" could be a fair trial for both users and advertisers.

Whatever G does, IMHO, it needs to clean-up the horrible mess it is right now.

[javelin]

I heard a talk by the CEO of a trade and special-interest magazine empire, and he commented that (according to his company's market research) many customers read the magazines (at least in part) "for the ads."

My spouse was a marketing director for a major media organization. They lived and died by ads. The only issue I have with the old school copy mentality is that now it is not only a different generation, but very different attention spans.

People do not "read" Google serps and socials have trained the brains of the masses to give you about 3 to 10 seconds to grab the attention. Its a whole new ballgame today.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

My websites are killed with this update by around -20%. I was updating content all the time, trying not to leave any old articles and info on the websites. Was actually hoping for a great increase because of that. But Google, as almost all the time, decided differently... Just don't know how to react, those updates since 2018 became absolutely crap and illogical. So tired of that. How can we plan at least something in such circumstances?

[RedBar]

Google serps and socials have trained the brains of the masses to give you about 3 to 10 seconds to grab the attention.

Absolutely, hence the prevalence of look-a-like template sites with a couple of poor images, pretty graphics and lack of real information.

But, realistically, is this anything new? The transfer of corporate print brochures to websites has seen some disasters but also some brilliant results. I have been exhibiting at internation trade fairs for 50+ years and my 1993 lauch of my first website and the ability to constantly change / update it as and when I wanted to was liberating, I'm sure there are several here who recognise this.

Does this mean I now need two websites? One for Joe Public to scan the essential information with a couple of images and another site with all the meaty stuff and in-depth images that my industry requires?

I shall know soon since I am constructing a 50 page Joe Public site.

[shadowlight]

And I wonder if it has anything to do with many countries in the EU and other regions now demanding that google finally pays taxes on their earnings within those countries?

I think it does have something to do with the fact G are having to pay more tax. IMO the ultra aggressive engineering of the SERP's to push ads and lower organic traffic began around 2019-2020 & during covid. The same year when the tax loopholes that allowed G and others to avoid paying billions in taxes were closed and making G's tax bills larger, there is new legislation coming in 2023 that will no doubt increase the taxes they pay further.

Also G really does need to be regulated, imo it is a financial institution and one of if not the largest in the world yet it operates with practical impunity apart from paying the the odd fine here & there and only after many appeals to try and get out of paying them.

[ichthyous]

IMO the ultra aggressive engineering of the SERP's to push ads and lower organic traffic began around 2019-2020 & during covid.

Absolutely...Google took off the gloves in 2019.

- 2020 was even worse, and people speculated that Google was using the pandemic to make major changes to organic search so that people would blame the drops in traffic on the pandemic (which did have a major impact on traffic patterns). Google was turning up the water to full boil and the frogs were starting to cook.

- 2021 they rolled out all the changes to user intent...everything that could be interpreted as either commercial or informational intent switched to returning only to informational results (how to articles, listicles, etc)....that destroyed my ranking and I had much lower traffic from April-December.

- 2022 is the proliferation of ads and widgets blitz. Google is determined to squeeze every last drop of revenue from search without concern for how it looks, the quality of the results or the user. The transition to the dark side is complete.

We can all speculate about why, but I think that this is mostly due to legislation in Australia and the EU, and perhaps Britain as well...where Google has to share revenue with publishers. In the USA new legislation primarily revolves around Google's position in the ad marketplace and introducing competition there. That won't help any of us, and as far as I know the legislation doesn't touch on Google's massive manipulation of organic search in any way. The number of ads will not reduce, just perhaps Google's profit margin. The US will not tackle the monopoly position of Google anytime soon. Anyone who has watched a congressional hearing can see plain as day that those geniuses in Congress don't have even a remote notion of the scale and types of manipulation going on.

[ichthyous]

Traffic is perpetually bad since the update, and even worse since ~June 17th. All of these huge drops in traffic from region to region are not helping. UK traffic is down 68% today for no apparent reason. I also think that there are other factors at play that explain the low traffic:

- Literally everyone is traveling this summer...except for us, we are sitting worrying about our websites
- COVID and the pandemic relief may have pulled demand forward...people aren't spending
- Inflation, stock market and crypto decline, higher interest rates, Ukraine war, looming recession...people have stopped spending for two quarters now

I have not seen such a slow 1st half ever...not even after the crash in 2008, not during the pandemic. So all these factors, plus Google killing off organic has destroyed business completely.

[RedBar]

UK traffic is down 68% today for no apparent reason.

'Tis glorious weather across the entire UK today, all my UK sites are way down today except the hotel site where we've had a Fleetwood Mac tribute band on and it was very busy ... those high street shops open all reported footfall down drastically.

[longjohnbronze]

'Tis glorious weather across the entire UK today, all my UK sites are way down

Yes, don't ignore these factors. For a domestic e-commerce site I'm involved with it's the same: Periods of extremely good weather often coincide with slower sales. Would love to blame Google for it but haven't heard rumours they're manipulating the weather (yet).

[BushyTop]

Saw changes in the UK on Saturday.

[Brett_Tabke]

> Thanks for the laugh...

Still waiting for someone to list anything anywhere ... even a nibble about 'traffic throttling'. It's not a thing unless you do.

[RedBar]

Saw changes in the UK on Saturday.

I have, at long last, seen some downgrading of US sites that are unable to supply the UK & EU markets, I need to investigate further.

[ichthyous]

@RedBar I suspect that Google is downgrading US sites across the board in UK and especially CA and AU SERPS. My traffic from AU and CA has declined dramatically since the May update. UK is up and down...mostly holding up, with days of inexplicable very large drops. By the way, maybe you were right about the weather because my UK traffic ended up only down about 5% by end of day yesterday...they all showed up at the later part of the day.

Keep in mind...the USD is so strong now that it could be having an effect. Buyers in CA, AU and UK are looking closer to home. The UK and EU in particular are used to seeing USA products are being affordable, but not with the dollar at parity.

[shadowlight]

Yes, don't ignore these factors. For a domestic e-commerce site I'm involved with it's the same: Periods of extremely good weather often coincide with slower sales. Would love to blame Google for it but haven't heard rumours they're manipulating the weather (yet).

Yes weather, holidays, wars etc etc can have an impact on traffic and sales but not for 365 days a year.

I have also noticed a traffic drop due to the weather, hopefully things will get back to ‘normal’ once it settles.

[samwest]

Still waiting for someone to list anything anywhere ... even a nibble about 'traffic throttling'. It's not a thing unless you do.

That ship has sailed...
It's now a foregone conclusion.

[RedBar]

For me my Monday traffic was completely normal at 87.3% until about 22.00 UK time when it came to a crawl until 08.00 this morning resulting so far in13 hours only a 20% level. These troughs and peaks are utterly ridiculous and even moreso when some of my lowest traffic levels are at USA peak usage hours.

[ichthyous]

@RedBar I've been saying that all year, and I think I'm not alone. Is this the first time you are seeing this or simply restating it?

This is where the notion of throttling comes in...for me it means the completely manipulated pattern of googles referred traffic. We have all had websites for years...in my case two decades. USA falls through the floor many days during prime business hours, and I am starting to see signs that this has rolled out to all the English language markets. USA seems to be the testing ground since there is effectively no legislation and no will to stop Google from doing what it wants. It has to tread a bit more lightly in other markets which have governments that are gunning for US tech monopolies.

It most likely boils down to the fact that Google employs every tactic it can during prime business hours to ensure that it keeps all of the traffic with commercial intent. My guess is that it switches ad layouts to show far more ads and higher up the page. More widgets as well, and changing the placement of the serps.

I have been wondering why Google so prominently features Twitter carousels for searches now...is it out of some feeling of affection for Twitter's mission? There is some other motive, and perhaps it's just to squash all of the commercial serps any way it can. Bury the links between so many blocks of content that nobody will click on it. Drive revenue to Google ads through causing desperation on the part of businesses. I could be wrong, they may just include such a large Twitter carousel because they think it's relevant, but how many people actually use Twitter or care about extraneous third party tweets when they are searching for something?

In any case, the current traffic patterns are clearly just wrong and it's completely intentional. Whether or not actual caps on a domain's traffic flow are in place is another matter entirely. If I had a similar amount of traffic each day and to each section of my site I might be suspicious, but it's the opposite...traffic is varying wildly from day to day and secrion to section. Lately it's been a massive drop in Direct traffic (again) and a massive decline in visits to my home page (again). Instead the traffic is hitting lower level pages and out. That is what's causing conversions to vanish this entire year...they don't even circulate around the site. In my case they hit the page, save the main image and leave. I have an image based site so many are just stealing the images and that's it, not any real interest in anything.

[shadowlight]

This is where the notion of throttling comes in...for me it means the completely manipulated pattern of googles referred traffic. We have all had websites for years...in my case two decades. USA falls through the floor many days during prime business hours, and I am starting to see signs that this has rolled out to all the English language markets. USA seems to be the testing ground since there is effectively no legislation and no will to stop Google from doing what it wants. It has to tread a bit more lightly in other markets which have governments that are gunning for US tech monopolies.

It most likely boils down to the fact that Google employs every tactic it can during prime business hours to ensure that it keeps all of the traffic with commercial intent. My guess is that it switches ad layouts to show far more ads and higher up the page. More widgets as well, and changing the placement of the serps.

I have been wondering why Google so prominently features Twitter carousels for searches now...is it out of some feeling of affection for Twitter's mission? There is some other motive, and perhaps it's just to squash all of the commercial serps any way it can. Bury the links between so many blocks of content that nobody will click on it. Drive revenue to Google ads through causing desperation on the part of businesses. I could be wrong, they may just include such a large Twitter carousel because they think it's relevant, but how many people actually use Twitter or care about extraneous third party tweets when they are searching for something?

In any case, the current traffic patterns are clearly just wrong and it's completely intentional. Whether or not actual caps on a domain's traffic flow are in place is another matter entirely. If I had a similar amount of traffic each day and to each section of my site I might be suspicious, but it's the opposite...traffic is varying wildly from day to day and secrion to section. Lately it's been a massive drop in Direct traffic (again) and a massive decline in visits to my home page (again). Instead the traffic is hitting lower level pages and out. That is what's causing conversions to vanish this entire year...they don't even circulate around the site. In my case they hit the page, save the main image and leave. I have an image based site so many are just stealing the images and that's it, not any real interest in anything.

I agree I don't think its throttling directly, it just appears that way due to the reasons you stated above & that's why some people describe it as such.

I also agree about twitter carousels, if I wanted to see twitter posts.........well.........I would look on twitter. Same goes for image blocks, if I wanted to view a load of images, I would click on the images tab. For some search terms it may be useful for a few images to appear, if I searched for 'what does x look like' for example, but for a lot of others it just isn't relevant.

[Brett_Tabke]

> USA falls through the floor many days during prime business hours

Yep, it is all about the ads - not about the organic.

Day-parting is huge by advertisers. If they push 8 ads at you during work or drive time hours, that is going to - and does - impact organic results. They also manipulate answer boxes, map/shop/image includes in relation to ads.

For example, if an ad block generates X clicks in relation to X includes, they will mix up those includes (answer boxes, etc), so that it generates the highest click on ads. That results in a plummeting of organic click through rates as now organic can be actually on mobile page two for many people.

[RedBar]

Is this the first time you are seeing this or simply restating it?

Just restating it owing to the huge disparity, today after 19 hours I'm at 46.3%, barmy!

[javelin]

Google is doing its usual dance this week for me.... but its Bing that is pulling ahead winning every day. Here is whats interesting in the comparison.

Google will seem to have its favorite keyword sets, then after a couple weeks it will shift and I will see others tossed in and a few tossed out of what it prefers. Bing on the other hand is using a much wider spectrum from my site at the same time. There is less playing around and impressions / traffic is more consistent day over day. Why do I bring that up?

Back to the throttling issues. I know these are two different companies but anyone who has been around for any amount of time knows Google was not always like this. Rather than saying "where is the proof", note how many experienced SEO's are out there complaining about it. Something is off.

As I have stated before, obtaining the proof to this would require more information than we mere mortals can get our hands on. It would require a large group of sites collaborating data and having enough of it across years to show. Without that it will always sound like a conspiracy, or seem like, or be assumed. Its easy to blame the customer when the product is broken, in this case especially easy when its for monopolizing the serps.

[jimji]

Okey-dokey, I'd like to ask a favor, please. I decided to see what was the fuss by some folks in another thread having issues with sort of nothing but bad news style stuff being posted and so I started with the May Update double thread and am now here and I do tend to see a heavy dose of anti-Google sort of posts, but that is fine by me. I've actually gone head-to-head with Google employees and management, but that was a fair number of years ago and I do still sort of belong to an odd group of Google volunteers that have formed a sort of Outside Google meeting thingy. (Really don't know what to call it.)

You see, I am trying to indicate I have an open mind about all these giants in this industry, BUT what I can't seem to find in all these posts is some sort of chart style something that can graphically show ups-and-downs that could be better tools for educating people outside of all you professional types.

My view is the most important law of the land and the most important court of the land is the court of public opinion. You get the public into the fray and don't fret that governments or judicial folks might not be doing their best to thwart possible bad stuff by the giants in this industry. The public is the power. One million little people can sit on top of one fat cat and hold it down. But you've got to get that one million group and that can only be done if they understand the key points and this sort of business seems to require graphics that are easy to understand to educate those one million little people.

I'd bet the bank that some hotshot site out there has those graphics, but who can point me to that hotshot site? It is all well and good that you folks are letting off steam here with each other, but if you really want to get some change [IF change is necessary] then we have to educate those one million folks first. They will get the next one million and then it becomes a train that can't be stopped.

Then that court of public opinion goes into action and suddenly the fat cats have to pay attention, IF they are out of line.

I mean, isn't this about somebody is out of line? Well, let's prove it to that first cluster of one million little folks and we don't have to worry about the lawmakers or them judges.

Or am I just way too far into some dreamland and making no sense at all? I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case.

Oh yes, and I bow and apologize if that hotshot graphics chart I am hoping to see and understand is already somewhere around this site. That would mean I haven't done my homework and some of you teachers are worse than any I ever had at them regular schools. By the way, "worse" means you are good; not bad. Well, one of you did hit me over the head with a pillow, but the sting disappeared quickly.

Maybe some of you folks should start a 'Little People' school right here to help educate the masses. You've got to have the masses, or the money wins every time. Learn how to educate the 'Little People' and then you can create change.

[RedBar]

This subject is going off-topic and deserves a new thread IMHO.

Or am I just way too far into some dreamland and making no sense at all?

As admirable as your dreams are unfortunately that is all they will remain. These days even elections are open to fraud and I am not solely referring to the USA, it can and does happen everywhere.

So long as there is an open business market the dog with the loudest growl, the biggest bite and the deepest bowl will invariably win until they are caught out. The public are not given a plebiscite between Google, Bing, DDG and Yahoo, the public usually chooses the FREE option and if that means giving-up some of their information they invariably accept that.

I am a massive critic of Google but at the same time it has done an incredible job this past 24 years even though I may not like some of it. I feel sure that even the founders never expected its power and influence to be so huge, I was there at the beginning and I can assure you no one's dreams were this huge and wide-ranging.

We all see the G algo failings from completely different perspectives whether one is a corner shop owner, a distributor, a wholesaler, a manufacturer, a global business, a writer or a publisher, we all view the search engines in different ways however the biggest problem for the past 20 years have been the bad actors, the cloners, the thieves, the scrapers ... Those who steal and make money from other people's efforts.

Do we need all search engines to create an "original / first" system of verification or has that one disappeared?

[BigKat]

the biggest problem for the past 20 years have been the bad actors, the cloners, the thieves, the scrapers ... Those who steal and make money from other people's efforts.

These bad actors are only enabled by Google who uses them to displace/demote original authors/businesses in the SERPS. I look at Google as the ringleader of these bad actors since bad actors are used (ranked) in such a way to drive advertising revenue. In my eyes, Google is the one receiving, ranking and profiting from stolen intellectual property.

From a user's perspective, there are so many ads that ranking organic trash will produce more ad clicks without turning off searchers. Original authors/businesses, competing against their own stolen content that Google is ranking, will either pay to be seen or fall by the wayside. There's no financial incentive for Google to create the original/first system you speak of since it would add additional burden on them while also taking away one of the tools/techniques they use to drive profits from ads.

In my industry, stolen content does not impact us nearly as much as domain crowding and the excessive ads/YouTube videos that also drive buyer traffic to big brands. By reducing/eliminating choice in the SERPS, Google has trained consumers that shopping online at Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. are the only options available. This has benefited both Google and those big box retailers greatly, at the cost of smaller retailers and manufacturers. Consumer spending is largely contained within this group which keeps the money flowing between these select companies who also feed Google with large advertising budgets.

[samwest]

Record spell of zero sales...the web has been going downhill for the past decade... I don't expect it to ever return. Other than dumping a truckload of cash into ads with little to no ROI, it's all an exercise in diminishing returns...now no returns.