Google Core Update September 2022

[ne0h]

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System: The following 11 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5071217.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 10:24 am on Sep 13, 2022 (utc +1)

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Another sudden update started rolling out for September core update.

[developers.google.com...]

Seriously...one after another...

developers.google.com Google Search Ranking Updates Google Search Central     What's new     Google Developers Learn about the latest and most recent ranking updates to Google Search.

[sk7411]

Looks like a May core update reversal lol . These Core updates makes no sense at all because the site that surged in some update goes down with the release of a new one and vice versa without making any changes at all.

[RedBar]

Looks like a May core update reversal lol

That's what my traffic numbers seem to suggest too!

Monday to Wednesday all three days above May average and way up on June and July with Thursday at 191% going back to PVs of more than a year ago, in fact my busiest day since 30th Augusr 2021

I suppose G will pull the rug again at some point!

[Martin Ice Web]

Since yesterday we have +35% traffic. And it seems to be engaging traffic. Conversions seems to run in the right direction.
This is a on focus site. The other site with plain item description has a hughe drop.
Finally it seems that good work will be rewarded.
I hope this sticks.

[BushyTop]

Nice work @MartinIceWeb

We've seen some growth too... although we haven't had the conversions that you're talking about... fingers crossed were slightly behind and were due.

[RedBar]

And it seems to be engaging traffic.

@MIW - Yes, this has been very noticeable for us, genuine business enquiries plus the ever-consistent USA retail enquirers of "Where can I buy this?" when this supply link is provided for them exactly above the enquiry form!

[EditorialGuy]

So far, both the HCU and the September core update have been uneventful for our editorial travel site.

Our Google traffic has been held steady or increased on most days since the HCU was rolled out (which is a pleasant surprise at a time of year when we're usually sliding gradually toward the pre-Christmas doldrums), but the overall picture hasn't changed much. I have noticed more volatility than usual for individual top-performing pages in the last few days, though.

[Martin Ice Web]

@BushyTop, still There a Short times of very low traffic every few Hours. But overall traffic is up.
Conversions changed from single item sales to bigger Shopping carts. And commercial purchases/inquiries are back. They were vanished with HCU.

@redbar, we have done some serious quality Updates to our shop. Honestly i have to admit that we had some old „Styles“ online.

[mac09]

Bi G claims that they will showing only 2 results from one domain I can call this "shrinking".

Older websites who have good ranking, get organic traffic drops but nobody can explain it.......neither John Mueller or Mad Cutts....or you will get the answer from MOZ Rand Fishkin- nope....they telling you having one domain and subfolders and it's normal that google now showing only 2 results form your domain in the serps...

Some websites using multiple subdomains - can not say if this method is working today in 2022.

But I see some websites getting multiple serp listings from their one domain site.
Check Tiffany rings, first google page full with different rings pages (Tiffany ecommerce site) = categories/ category pages.
Check danklok media; multiple topics pages coming up on first page I think they are category pages too, check danlok; he comes up with different domains and his social media profiles. You se eon this example how google is showing you different serp results.

Big site (one of the wefd members) = byrdie, please read seo studies, they dominate organic traffic in the beauty/cosmetic niche, they have enough capital to paying expert journalists who write for them, but you can learn from such sites how they achieve user experience.

Why google is ranking category pages multiple times in serps and higher , but normal pages not (max. 2 results in seeps) it's not logical for me.
It's a good opportunity making category page seo or with multiple similar domains claiming multiple seeps estates, like this example:

podcasts+ videos= mynamemedia
guides= mynameguides
blogs (multiple topics) = mynameblogs

But I can not say if you need different social media profiles for each of the domains? Some websites have multiple domains but one social media profile for their main page, then you must posting from your other domains to your social media profile too.
Multiple domains is more to work, multiple wordpress setup and customizing, more costs on web hosts (different and fast web host each with minimum of $9 monthly billing):

When you can do this method with one domain it's much easier to handle and more cost effective.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

When you can do this method with one domain it's much easier to handle and more cost effective.

and more risky. All your eggs are in one basket leaving you vulnerable to the whims of the search gods.

A friend of mine just watched the site he worked hardest on, was most active with and was most proud of get smacked HARD with this update while two smaller sites he built but largely left untouched got through the update unscathed.

He's disillusioned about it too.

[mac09]

Sgt_Kickaxe:

yes this is an interesting point of view. Not having all eggs in one basket is a good idea.

But you see sites like Tiffany, danlok, byrdie (ok, they are wef members) not get hit by google. Ok danlok has multiple domains...

It is so when I start with my online business, my main domain hast multiple topics -I doing content curation (category pages)
Then another similar name domain for guides (as example, articles), another for media (videos and podcast).

The catch with the guides and media domain is at the beginning they have thin content like 5-6 articles on the guides domain and 4-5 podcasts and 4-5 videos on the media domain I be afraid that it will looking too "thin" in google eyes, it's a lot of work for me.
Dictation not works well, it produces to many confused alien words, so I must complete write the script myself for video and podcasts.

It's a double time consuming work, write the script then record it, with this you can produce 1 podcast and 1 video a day + content curation on the multi topics blog.

I have a very tight budget and not know how I can make this work more flow more easy and effective using ai writer? It I too risky that this will in google eyes low quality and I not get much traffic.

But hire writer to write for me 3-4 articles each week for $9 that I be over $100 month -way too much for me.
So I'm looking for a solution to fix this - a twist.....or using only content curation...

Then I have twitter Facebook and Instagram too, posting 2 times a day. All this is a lot of work.
I think content creators who have success have money to outsource these tasks- I can not.
Do you have a tip for me to make all that more easy and effective to work ?

Happy weekend to all here !

[longjohnbronze]

In the HCU we gained about 15% traffic which I'm told we can attribute to our content being helpful and high-quality.

In the September 2022 core update we lost about 15% traffic and I'm sure that's because we need to focus more on publishing helpful, high-quality content.

[RedBar]

Global site very quiet today, I suspect that tomorrow will be quiet owing to the Q's funeral.

Local hotel website busy all weekend and extra busy for the live bands. Tomorrow will be interesting, we're gearing-up for a busy day since we've had so many requests to do so.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm seeing major feature changes. ie: the feature Google displayed ahead of position 1 is often replaced with a different feature.

Keywords showing a featured snippet first seem down by 30-40% and videos are up in my corner of the net.

[RedBar]

At this very moment with the Q's funeral my UK sites are extremely quiet however my global site has been almost normal so far today but is anywhere else having a public holiday apart from the UK?

[swright]

Some query results from a niche I'm following:
- Top page with content of reasonable quality overtaken for #1 spot by a hastily put together wall of text with no formatting and of questionable quality.
- #1 spot goes to a site that when clicked gets blocked by Chrome with a message that there's malware on it - page overtaken by that result is an old, reputable site.

[mzb44]

September Product Review Update is out.

[twitter.com...]

They launched this while the core update is not even finished rolling out.

Danny Sullivan said a few days ago that they will intentionally try to avoid situations exactly like this and they schedule things accordingly.

It kinda amused me when he made that statement; now it's just ridiculous.

[sk7411]

September Product Review Update is out.

[twitter.com...]

They launched this while the core update is not even finished rolling out.

Danny Sullivan said a few days ago that they will intentionally try to avoid situations exactly like this and they schedule things accordingly.

It kinda amused me when he made that statement; now it's just ridiculous.

Well , that's kind of true ! They are just doing opposite of what they say on twitter .

[Atomic]

Danny Sullivan said a few days ago that they will intentionally try to avoid situations exactly like this and they schedule things accordingly.

Did anyone that's been around a while really believe this statement? I kind of chuckled when I read it a couple days ago. Pretty hilarious.

[RedBar]

One thing's fairly certain, I haven't a clue whay's going on! Yesterday I was expecting a much lower traffic day and ended with 101%, today with 5 hours to go I'm already at 166.7% with a good cross-section of countries and PVs.

[mzb44]

Did anyone that's been around a while really believe this statement? I kind of chuckled when I read it a couple days ago. Pretty hilarious.

Many actually did lol.

Like I said, I was amused when he posted that, as it was literally a day after they did what he said they aren't actually doing.

What makes it even more hilarious is that they did it AGAIN, straight just a couple of days after he made that statement.

Either he sucks at PR or just trolling everyone for lolz.

[Atomic]

Either he sucks at PR or just trolling everyone for lolz.

Could also be both. Or both and even more bad things. They're really hanging Danny out to dry. Much more of that and his statements will carry all the gravity of a Bagdad Bob press conference.

[EditorialGuy]

After experiencing little or no impact (or perhaps a very slight positive impact) from the Helpful Content and September Core Updates, our travel information site was down about 25% for Google traffic, users, and page views today compared to the same day last week.

There's no obvious pattern: Some pages are up a bit, but most are down to one degree or another. The impact is spread over our main bread-and-butter topics and our lesser topics. Geography doesn't appear to be a factor, and the drop is almost identical for desktop, mobile, and tablet.

This isn't a new site: It's been around for 20+ years and is well established in its niche.

We don't have a lot of product reviews, so it's hard to see why the new Product Review Update would be affecting us, but who knows?

[Atomic]

We don't have a lot of product reviews, so it's hard to see why the new Product Review Update would be affecting us, but who knows?

A travel site without reviews? How would that work?

[Martin Ice Web]

Also we are not having an english site, with pushing out September Product Review Update we saw a dip in conversions. Traffic is steady but it seems not engaging any more.
Poeple searching unrelated items on our site , like i would look for a bicycle chain on a site for clothings.

[Jori]

After a big up with the september core update, a big down with the product review update. At the end, results : zero, no gains.
I don't do products review, so maybe it has nothing to do with the product review update.

[RedBar]

My Tuesdat traffic kept increasing and it eventually finished at 210%. I did have more PVs than average from Slovakia however not enough to influence the stats that much.

Today has started off ok to and I am wondering this.

The last week of Sept or beinning October my industry has its 2nd largest trade fair in Italy. The largest is in China however attendance by foreigners was down by 90%. Tnis Italian trade fair is usuallly very well attended however lockdowns seem to have knocked it sideways too since 25+ years of traffic figures indicate to me that from mid-September onwards my PVs fall.

Therefore are companies not travelling so much, have they found the last couple of years or so that they don't need to do so, costing-cutting with the energy situation, confused masking and vaxxing requirements, all kinds of questions come into my head?

Personally I have been going to this fair since 1976, my parents went to the original in 1966, apart from the lockdowns this will be my first-ever non-attendance and to add to this I did not attend the 3rd largest trade fair in Germany recently which I had not missed since its first in 1980. That fair's exhibitors were down 75% and again, foreigners down by 90%.

Any thoughts, site seemngly doing ok with realworld business ok?

[mac09]

Hi today !

people like you doesn't recognize that big sites who dominate organic traffic like site byrdie (example) a big wef member, are not affected on these google updates, they ranking multiple times in the serps spots, like site Tiffany check it (type in rings in google) Isn't it?
These are category pages who google prefer over "normal pages" , but you not see it.

Category pages seo is some like "Silo" but for me it's not logical why google prefers category pages in seo rankings.
But it is the same as ten years before, you not really understand and see what google is telling you on every new update nor will John Mueller or Mad Cutts telling you the truth behind it, it's a big bubble of dystopian words. They (google- big wef member) are not here to help you or make your life more easy. that you not see it after ten years speaks a lot.....

But we must live and deal with google the best way we can. For me it looks like seo ranking in Bing (Gates wef member too) I more easy than in google.

Have a nice day !

[RedBar]

@mac09

But we must live and deal with google the best way we can.

Precisely, I gave up the Google koolaid 100% in 2010 however did realise that even though if I did not use its products I would have to "work" around its sphere of domination. The most annoying thing for me is having to use an Android operating system since Windows mobile was dropped by WhatsApp and never used by Signal.

We try not to get involved with politics here therefore the less said about the WEF the better.

My simple observations for the past 6-10 years, 1998 to 2009 had its ups and downs as G learned stuff, are that ranking localised sites has been a relatively easy thing to do for an experienced SEO within each tagetted country and without any Google ads expenditure however trying to rank sites at national and international level is altogether a different matter. As a generalisation within the USA G prefers US business sites and quite deliberately pushes down international suppliers and competitors. Consequently this can often mean that an international site can actually suffer in its OWN country SERPs.

Of course the one solution to this is ... Classified ads brought to you by Google!

Overall G's algo is not that bad, it does much of its job reasonably well however its one-size-fits-all clearly does not work as intended and as for all the spam sites that seem to infest some sectors, well, it's utterly ridiculous.

[saladtosser]

Has google been hacked? My malwarebytes is going INSANE in the last 10 mins with google ad warnings and webmaster tool/analytics are showing "The connection for this site is not secure" browser messages. Only on PC! Tried multiple PC's. Works fine on my mobile!

Seems to be a widespread problem looking at the comments here [downdetector.com...]

[samwest]

It took a dozen years, but most people have finally figured out what's been going on with Goog and FB, and Twit. It's not a level playing field at all. They moved your cheese starting in 2010, and it's been all downhill since, but hey, look at me preaching to the choir. I believe this problem is widespread and even involves operating systems. I was more productive using Windows 95 than I am using the latest incarnation. The whole web is a mess. Pages half load, long delays, etc. Imagine the man hours wasted. As the story unfolds, it all makes sense...and it's not good sense.

[EditorialGuy]

A travel site without reviews? How would that work?

Without (many) product reviews. I don't see destinations as a product, but YMMV. :-)

[RedBar]

I don't see destinations as a product, but YMMV. :-)

Oh, I do and probably every "visitwherever" site does too ... however YMMV :-)

[EditorialGuy]

Oh, I do and probably every "visitwherever" site does too ..

Sure, because they're marketing sites (hence the term "DMO" for "Destination Marketing Organization"), not editorial sites. But even DMO sites aren't "product review sites" in most cases.

[RedBar]

But even DMO sites aren't "product review sites" in most cases.

Surely by their very narrative they are promoting / reviewing their product?

Sure, I know your site v visitwherever are not the same but, at the end of the day, you monetise your site with advertising on your pages therefore with that connectionn you are an in-depth review site? I appreciate it's a fine line :-)

[EditorialGuy]

Sure, I know your site v visitwherever are not the same but, at the end of the day, you monetise your site with advertising on your pages therefore with that connectionn you are an in-depth review site?

For the most part, no. We deal primarily in how-do advice, with reviews representing a very small percentage of our content. Sure, you could stretch your definition of any editorial site to a "review site" (or even a "product review site") if you wanted to be clever: e.g., by suggesting that a NEW YORK TIMES article on the U.S. Senatorial race in Ohio is a "product review" of the candidates or the election itself. But I doubt if Google has general editorial content in mind when it uses the term "product review."

[Martin Ice Web]

Very, very big drop this night -50% (germany). It is hard to say which alog update caused this.
Maybe it is a glitch....

[oldog]

@Mac09.....Mad Cutts ....LMFAOL....Man you made my day ! Mad Cats...He newest article BTW is about his partner...How the heck you remembered him..lol..

[engine]

I've been looking at this latest additional Product Reviews update, and so far, I haven't seen too much. I wonder if Google is treading very carefully with these latest two updates.

[Jori]

@Martin Ice : it seems that our sites are correlated, at least those days. When i go up, you go up the day after, when i go down, you go down the day after.

I hope I can give you (us) good news next days :)

(french finance niche)

[Martin Ice Web]

@Jori, I hope that u have good news for me tomorrow.
We are not in finance niche but computer & cable accessories.

[RedBar]

Fingers crossed all seemingly still going ok for me, yesterday was a 97.3% day with today looking even better. Interestingly a lot of single page views today which is usually a bot sign however these are almost all to a dedicated widget page from many different countries over many hours which usually denotes people researching their chosen widget selection in their country and checking-out information about it.

[sofie77]

Something big happend on tuesday. Non english websites and no product reviews.

There was no change in the course of the core update so far, but there is a big dump on tuesday. I hope it doesn't stay that way but the core update is almost done?

[malkhaldi]

something is going on but i can't get it
let us see

[ChokenBako]

@Sofie

Can confirm that too. - 15% drop.
Hopefully it will not stay like this.

[RedBar]

I do not know why however my Thursday ended at 133.33% with an exact round number of PVs nnn,000 !

No one knows what's happening with traffic, the west is a "mess" yet real stuff is happening on a global basis, anyone posting their opinions are simply that, their view(s), including me. Together we may try and string some things together however my feelings are that a few months down the line we'll be able to see what has happened but at the moment we haven't a clue how to connect it.

Honestly, YMWV, and for anyone getting any pressure from ^^^above^^^, tell them to do their own analysis etc. Do not feel obligated to give answers to stuff you have no solution nor answers to.

Yep, I'll come and back you up at any board meeting!

[javelin]

No one knows what's happening with traffic, the west is a "mess" yet real stuff is happening on a global basis, anyone posting their opinions are simply that, their view(s), including me.

Yep the whole thing is a mess. Im not sure if they know what they are doing LOL! Someone let the monkeys loose in the control room and Mr Ed is giving orders.

[Martin Ice Web]

Im not sure if they know what they are doing LOL!

Wait for the third quater revenue report. Then you know that they know what they are doing.

[marcus94]

You guys saying traffic is down 15% etc, how exactly are you looking at this? Are you looking hour by hour compared to yesterday?

Today in Nordic countries we are seeing a huge drop.

[MayankParmar]

Nasty update. I'm significantly down and I continue to have serious indexing issues since August (when they acknowledged and allegedly fixed it)

[Bright Ahead]

The update that is happening for last 3 days will be reverted. In my niche most of the SERPs occupying the first page for a year now got relegated to 2nd page.