Recent Google Update: What's Your Opinion On This?

[KennyH]

Hey, I am glad that I'm not the only one also... I guess. As far as site characteristics, two of my three affiliate sites were slammed while the third has not moved at all. My ecomm site has also not budged. The two that were hit are on different hosts, different WMT accounts, completely isolated from each other.

One of them is a really aged domain with some awesome backlinks (freakonomics, thewirecutter, thesweethome, refinery29, etc). These all point to an inner informational. In the past 2 months I've been building high quality (DA 30+, niche relevant) backlinks with exact match anchor text to buying guides I've written. All of these buying guides have disappeared almost completely, even the ones that hadn't had any links built to them yet. The informational page with awesome links is still mostly #1 or #2 for related terms, but it has slipped slightly (traffic off maybe 15-20%). The reason I'm thinking this is anchor text related is that as of today if you search "best widget X" my page on widget Y comes up at #94 while my page on widget X is nowhere. It's a good page... 2000 words, used to rank #12 or so for "best widget X." The thing is I built PBN link to the widget X page with the anchor "best widget X" and have built no links to the widget Y page. I don't know... maybe it's something. I'm new here and don't know if sharing sites is a thing that's done... I don't mind sharing the URL of this one if that's allowed/reasonable.

The other is maybe 4 years old and has about 12 money pages. All of them used to rank in top 5 for their main keywords and #1 or #2 for "best" and "review" variations. They have completely disappeared for the main keywords and have dropped to #4-#10 for "best." Some of them have held on to page 1-2 for "reviews" but others have disappeared completely for those types of queries.

All of this happened to both sites at exactly the same time on Saturday afternoon.

The affiliate site that didn't get hit is crap and I've been building the exact same sorts of PBN links to that site. Maybe the only difference is that the money page there is the homepage and all the PBN links have been doing to that instead of to inner pages.

Definitely seems like a penalty (no notice in WMT so presumably algorithmic). Particularly irrelevant pages on the site ranking for a keyword while the page specifically about that keyword product is nowhere.

Yeah, dont post your URL or broadcast your niche publicly on this site.

Thanks for sharing. I was thinking age might be an influencer, but it sounds like you've got an old site that got hit that's pretty old. Best of luck. Keep us posted if you figure out anything that helps with recovery.

 

[Brighter Faster]

Yeah, dont post your URL or broadcast your niche publicly on this site.

Thanks for sharing. I was thinking age might be an influencer, but it sounds like you've got an old site that got hit that's pretty old. Best of luck. Keep us posted if you figure out anything that helps with recovery.

Yeah, actually the two sites of mine that were hit were my oldest sites (at 10 years and 4.5 years). The other two are about 2 years old and completely unscathed.

One thing that came up is I found that in a Yoast plugin update media files were changed from noindex to index. Google was actually indexing them... found on one of the sites that indexed pages doubled starting in mid-March. All of these pages are an image and nothing else so could look like thin content. Unfortnately, that only happened on one of the sites, so doesn't really fit. Still changed them all back to noindex of course. Maybe it will help.

 

[cedomir87]

No changes are being made until this settles out. These pages are old, well ranked, proper structure, and money funnel from 3 different areas (ebook, ecommerce, and affiliate). From what I can tell so far, affiliate income is way up, ebook sales are torched to zero, and ecom sales are up. These ebooks are not seasonal, and messaging was not changed in any way during this time. It was selling about $500/mo in ebooks that literally went to zero within a week, so I know it's Google.

Now looking 4 weeks back it's actually a net positive for me revenue wise, which is telling me that although search traffic went DOWN, a different mix of people are now being served my money pages that prior. So it seems to be a really deep change to the way Google works right now.

Just have to keep watching.

I don't have a large sample to test this theory (I only have one money site), but I have the same feeling as you. Though my traffic dropped 15-25%, my income remained largely the same (slightly higher). My "time on site" improved as well. It seems as though Google is being more selective and "choosing" the people it thinks would be more interested in your page.

Of course, this is just a wild guess, I have no idea if this is even possible or what to hell is going on...

 

[Brighter Faster]

Is there anyone out there that took a big hit from this that is not on an affiliate site? Everyone who is seeing these massive drops seems to be affiliate as far as I've seen. Both here and on a few other forums.

Both of my sites that were hit are 100% amazon sites. My ecomm site was not touched. Of course, I also have another amazon affiliate site that wasn't touched.

 

[headphonesguy]

Is there anyone out there that took a big hit from this that is not on an affiliate site? Everyone who is seeing these massive drops seems to be affiliate as far as I've seen. Both here and on a few other forums.

Both of my sites that were hit are 100% amazon sites. My ecomm site was not touched. Of course, I also have another amazon affiliate site that wasn't touched.

THIS is really interesting. The main money engine of one of my sites worst hit is Amazon, pretty much all affiliate links to their platform. I am in a parallel industry and have been reading a lot of trade chatter that Google and Amazon are in the process of a divorce, as Amazon is aggressively attacking search ad revenue as a primary future driver of expansion.

Is Google getting ready to penalize Amazon affiliate sales sites? This would make PERFECT sense, because to the average person who can't tell between legit review content and well-written Amazon affiliate site, there is little value added. Why not just send them to Google products instead, on the grounds that without real reviews from users and mostly thin (let's be honest, a lot of bad affiliate out there) content, it's an overall negative consumer experience. I sort of agree with them and it would be devastating to Amazon to lose that affiliate channel, which has to make up at least 10-20% of their global sales.

 

[bigboss123]

THIS is really interesting. The main money engine of one of my sites worst hit is Amazon, pretty much all affiliate links to their platform. I am in a parallel industry and have been reading a lot of trade chatter that Google and Amazon are in the process of a divorce, as Amazon is aggressively attacking search ad revenue as a primary future driver of expansion.

Is Google getting ready to penalize Amazon affiliate sales sites? This would make PERFECT sense, because to the average person who can't tell between legit review content and well-written Amazon affiliate site, there is little value added. Why not just send them to Google products instead, on the grounds that without real reviews from users and mostly thin (let's be honest, a lot of bad affiliate out there) content, it's an overall negative consumer experience. I sort of agree with them and it would be devastating to Amazon to lose that affiliate channel, which has to make up at least 10-20% of their global sales.

I would be on board this theory if it wasnt for the fact that some amazon affiliate sites seem to not have been affected by the update and, in fact, are thriving. One of my closest competitors who has more more amazon links than I do was not affected at all by the recent updates.

 

[Dreams411]

Is there anyone out there that took a big hit from this that is not on an affiliate site? Everyone who is seeing these massive drops seems to be affiliate as far as I've seen. Both here and on a few other forums.

Both of my sites that were hit are 100% amazon sites. My ecomm site was not touched. Of course, I also have another amazon affiliate site that wasn't touched.

I don't think so. Mine is not an affiliate site but it got toasted as well. My ranking dropped drastically in late April. Up till now it's yet to recover.

 

[fb3003]

Something similar happened to my sites over the weekend. Sites were ranking on page-1 for main and supporting keywords for over a year and had steady traffic and conversion, suddenly they just dropped to page 2 & 3 on Saturday and moved down to page 4 & 5 on Sunday.

Not sure what's happening :/

are your sites mobile friendly? how is their load time? also, are you key high trust backlinks still in place?

 

[napoliten]

My keyword ranking #3 on May 14,
Now ranking #14 by May 17th.

 

[Ozzyzig]

Out of interest, how many people that have had their Amazon sites tanked were using a plugin for the links, tables etc?

A few sites that are utter shite are ranking high and it's just a straight Amazon link, no buy it now button, tables etc.

 

[LinkBuildingServices]

it seems it was a small update as most of the rankings are recovering

 

[datingsitespot]

I have got some drops as well since 10 days ! What this algorithms is all about then ?

 

[pkdrive]

The reason I'm thinking this is anchor text related is that as of today if you search "best widget X" my page on widget Y comes up at #94 while my page on widget X is nowhere. It's a good page... 2000 words, used to rank #12 or so for "best widget X."

Don't know if it is anchor text or not but I have observed the exact same thing with multiple sites, varying ages, and a variety of landing pages.

 

[MikeyMikey13]

THIS is really interesting. The main money engine of one of my sites worst hit is Amazon, pretty much all affiliate links to their platform. I am in a parallel industry and have been reading a lot of trade chatter that Google and Amazon are in the process of a divorce, as Amazon is aggressively attacking search ad revenue as a primary future driver of expansion.

Is Google getting ready to penalize Amazon affiliate sales sites? This would make PERFECT sense, because to the average person who can't tell between legit review content and well-written Amazon affiliate site, there is little value added. Why not just send them to Google products instead, on the grounds that without real reviews from users and mostly thin (let's be honest, a lot of bad affiliate out there) content, it's an overall negative consumer experience. I sort of agree with them and it would be devastating to Amazon to lose that affiliate channel, which has to make up at least 10-20% of their global sales.

My amazon affiliate site is doing better than before any update.

And amz affiliates don't provide value? wtf are you talking about?

 

[zapgoose]

Several of my sites got hit by this.

Most of the sites hit are over 1.5 years old. I don't really try to build backlinks to them, but I do get natural links. They all have affiliate links but I have one site that was NOT hit and it has more affiliate links and is doing fine as well as my competition who have more affiliate links so that is not it.

Was hit by the Yoast issue, nearly tripled on some and more on others on how many pages are indexed by Google in MId March. The one site that was not hit with the May update was hit by the Yoast issue but since it doesn't have many images I'm guessing that is why it didn't lose any traffic.

Was doing great numbers coming up to May and then May 9th everything dropped. Some content stayed strong and others feel down to many pages deep. This has got to be the oddest Google Update I've ever seen.

I did have 2 of these sites hit by the "Maccabees Update" but recovered a month later and I didn't do much of anything except disavow spam links that I did not build. I'm at a loss on what to do?

The only theory I have is the combination of the thin posts created by Yoast and many of my post over 2 years old might have triggered a Panda like update.

 

[pkdrive]

Several of my sites got hit by this.

Most of the sites hit are over 1.5 years old. I don't really try to build backlinks to them, but I do get natural links. They all have affiliate links but I have one site that was NOT hit and it has more affiliate links and is doing fine as well as my competition who have more affiliate links so that is not it.

Was hit by the Yoast issue, nearly tripled on some and more on others on how many pages are indexed by Google in MId March. The one site that was not hit with the May update was hit by the Yoast issue but since it doesn't have many images I'm guessing that is why it didn't lose any traffic.

Was doing great numbers coming up to May and then May 9th everything dropped. Some content stayed strong and others feel down to many pages deep. This has got to be the oddest Google Update I've ever seen.

I did have 2 of these sites hit by the "Maccabees Update" but recovered a month later and I didn't do much of anything except disavow spam links that I did not build. I'm at a loss on what to do?

The only theory I have is the combination of the thin posts created by Yoast and many of my post over 2 years old might have triggered a Panda like update.

My best guesses align with a combination of 2 significant events... mid march yoast issue and may 9ish massive hit on certain sites.

 

[Ozzyzig]

The yoast issue hasn't been an impact in my rankings since I'm running on version 5.3.2

 

[cnetworld]

Could someone please tell me more about this Yoast issue?

What was happening, how can I find if it's the yoast and how can I fix these issues?

Thank you!

Several of my sites got hit by this.

Most of the sites hit are over 1.5 years old. I don't really try to build backlinks to them, but I do get natural links. They all have affiliate links but I have one site that was NOT hit and it has more affiliate links and is doing fine as well as my competition who have more affiliate links so that is not it.

Was hit by the Yoast issue, nearly tripled on some and more on others on how many pages are indexed by Google in MId March. The one site that was not hit with the May update was hit by the Yoast issue but since it doesn't have many images I'm guessing that is why it didn't lose any traffic.

Was doing great numbers coming up to May and then May 9th everything dropped. Some content stayed strong and others feel down to many pages deep. This has got to be the oddest Google Update I've ever seen.

I did have 2 of these sites hit by the "Maccabees Update" but recovered a month later and I didn't do much of anything except disavow spam links that I did not build. I'm at a loss on what to do?

The only theory I have is the combination of the thin posts created by Yoast and many of my post over 2 years old might have triggered a Panda like update.

 

[zapgoose]

Could someone please tell me more about this Yoast issue?

What was happening, how can I find if it's the yoast and how can I fix these issues?

Thank you!

Go to your Google search console and look at the index status. Mid March for some reason Yoast messed up and started to allow Google to index image posts. Since these image posts are only the image this is thin content which Google doesn't like. Combine that with older sites and it might trigger Panda or the version of Panda that lives now.

Edit: To give you an example, I had one site with a Google index of 100 that went to 900 within a week when looking at the Search Console. That is not natural and I don't have 900 posts. Those extra posts were Yoast allowing all the images on the site to get index. WordPress creates a post for all media such as images and since these posts are thin Yoast for years has been making them noindex but Mid-March something messed up and they got indexed. Another way to check is to go to Google and do the "site:YourDomain" search to see how many results you get. If the results you get are 1.5x more then the actual post you normally have then something is wrong. To fix it go into your WordPress, then to the Yoast Plugin, then "search appearance", and under the "media" tab make sure the button "Show Media in search results?" is set to "NO". This will keep Google from indexing your images.

 

[Zbigniew]

Go to your Google search console and look at the index status. Mid March for some reason Yoast messed up and started to allow Google to index image posts. Since these image posts are only the image this is thin content which Google doesn't like. Combine that with older sites and it might trigger Panda or the version of Panda that lives now.

Edit: To give you an example, I had one site with a Google index of 100 that went to 900 within a week when looking at the Search Console. That is not natural and I don't have 900 posts. Those extra posts were Yoast allowing all the images on the site to get index. WordPress creates a post for all media such as images and since these posts are thin Yoast for years has been making them noindex but Mid-March something messed up and they got indexed. Another way to check is to go to Google and do the "site:YourDomain" search to see how many results you get. If the results you get are 1.5x more then the actual post you normally have then something is wrong. To fix it go into your WordPress, then to the Yoast Plugin, then "search appearance", and under the "media" tab make sure the button "Show Media in search results?" is set to "NO". This will keep Google from indexing your images.

Wow, I wonder if this is the issue.

My site, a swedish one with no Amazon links tanked as well. Not even bringing in half the money it used to.

When searching site:domain.com every picture of my site is popping up. So you think this might be the issue? Have you recovered anything by using noindex on pictures again?