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

[zapgoose]

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?

I can't be 100% positive this is the problem but it's one of those things that it doesn't hurt to get fixed anyways. Its the classic definition of thin content and we know Google does not like that.

What I don't get is that it happened Mid-March and why now in May do I see the effects overnight? Maybe Panda rolls around monthly?

Several of us did make the changes days ago but we did it to where it would redirect but I don't think that fixed it. The posts were always noindex for years so I did the noindex route today to see how it goes. The problem is that Google is slow to reindex so it could be days or even weeks before we see the changes. I do have one site that is showing promise as the results number dropped by 50 and the today's views to the site are a little higher but I can't give a for sure on it.

Even if this is not affecting our rankings something like this should have never happened and I'm wondering why Yoast allowed this to happen for months and not notice themselves or send out a patch.

 

[MRM94]

It is rather weird that all of us seem to be having the same problem. Ironically a site that was hurt by the first update in March is now doing incredibly good compared to the last few months. The sites that have always done incredibly well in my niche are just now slowly starting to come back. I'm confused by this update mostly because these are the same type of sites, coded the same for the most part, and the same type of content formats but completely unique. Mostly organic traffic and all natural links as well so I'm sort of lost on this one.

 

[Zbigniew]

I can't be 100% positive this is the problem but it's one of those things that it doesn't hurt to get fixed anyways. Its the classic definition of thin content and we know Google does not like that.

What I don't get is that it happened Mid-March and why now in May do I see the effects overnight? Maybe Panda rolls around monthly?

Several of us did make the changes days ago but we did it to where it would redirect but I don't think that fixed it. The posts were always noindex for years so I did the noindex route today to see how it goes. The problem is that Google is slow to reindex so it could be days or even weeks before we see the changes. I do have one site that is showing promise as the results number dropped by 50 and the today's views to the site are a little higher but I can't give a for sure on it.

Even if this is not affecting our rankings something like this should have never happened and I'm wondering why Yoast allowed this to happen for months and not notice themselves or send out a patch.

Good info, much appreciated!

I switched to "NO" on one of my sites. But on my other site yoast only shows one option under Search appearance > Media. It shows "Web addresses to media". No other options. Any idea on why it doesn't show? I have been looking through my settings and can't find anything that would give me these other settings. I thought it would be some "show advanced settings" feature, but find nothing of the type.

 

[zapgoose]

Good info, much appreciated!

I switched to "NO" on one of my sites. But on my other site yoast only shows one option under Search appearance > Media. It shows "Web addresses to media". No other options. Any idea on why it doesn't show? I have been looking through my settings and can't find anything that would give me these other settings. I thought it would be some "show advanced settings" feature, but find nothing of the type.

Maybe you need to update Yoast? I'm not sure.

 

[pkdrive]

Zapgoose explanation covers the Yoast issue, but I am setting the Yoast Media setting 'Redirect attachment URLs to the attachment itself?' to 'Yes' ... which should have the same index effect?

As to whether this is the reason for my traffic loss... *shrug* for me it definitely is not the only reason but I think it is involved. All of my sites are amazon affiliate sites that ultimately target people search for 'Best of' type searches. Consequently, I think I have an ugly combo of unaffected, hit, and double hit... without anything concrete to feel good about.

 

[zapgoose]

Zapgoose explanation covers the Yoast issue, but I am setting the Yoast Media setting 'Redirect attachment URLs to the attachment itself?' to 'Yes' ... which should have the same index effect?

As to whether this is the reason for my traffic loss... *shrug* for me it definitely is not the only reason but I think it is involved. All of my sites are amazon affiliate sites that ultimately target people search for 'Best of' type searches. Consequently, I think I have an ugly combo of unaffected, hit, and double hit... without anything concrete to feel good about.

It should be the same thing but its hard to tell since Google takes forever to reindex.

It's for sure not the only reason but as to what the real reasons are it's hard to figure out. There is no smoking gun.

What is odd for me is that not all posts were affected, I still have some that rank very well like they always have. Then I have other posts that for some reason have fallen so it's not a site-wide punishment. I even have competition that has fewer words, more affiliate links, badly written posts that are beating me and I don't know why? They even have fewer backlinks while I have many more from respected sites in the niche (all legit and organic).

I have a couple of other sites that were not hit and I consider them bad. They're the very definition of Affiliate Spam site but they did not budge. The only thing of note was that these sites did not have many images so the Yoast thing did not affect them that much.

I'm at a loss as to why things are the way they are.

 

[SEOWorlock]

Im so sorry because I was off in last 3 weeks and little time pass here to see how is goind on.
This so called update is just pure commercial move from google.
Why?
Because Google Adwords started to sucks and a lot of us IM and Agencies turn to work with FB ads promotions.

We forgot one thing.Google is alpha and omega not FB.
We must rank our wesbites on Google not on FB.

They force us to use Google Adwords in any way and no one can stop them.
So all are hit from this update especially those websites who have very good conversion and steady incomes in last 2 years.
Because I looked all over whole network of over 200+ websites which I'm working maybe 90% of them are hit but this.
I see on some websites to start increasing rankings in last week slowly but steady.
My advise will be to be calm.
Don't do anything until settle down.

There is another "malicious" intent of this update and that is the fact as i see in last 20 days Semrush is totally useless and huge dancing of keywords even if you add just 1 link-this is for Google Rank Tracking Script.
They I mean Google intend to ruin Semrush and Ahrefs as businesses and for that reason Moz as third option launched in the exact moment new features.
This is not coincidence.
In near future guys I will highly suggest that as many mentioned here "don't rely any more on metrics as are DA,PA,TC ,CF,Topical and so on."
Use it as guide but don't rely for your business model.
Also I'm aware that Google started to fight with us not using conventional weapons.
So we as SEO Lords must take adequate measures to protect our assets.
I know that maybe 40-50% of Marketing Community will Drop.Quit because of incoming events but that will be hard truth.

Note:Because we can't rely on any metrics any more,until we finally find a way to calculate PR on google and on that way more easier to work against Google and earn money we must seek some untapped source of traffic which will be convertible.For God sake this is insane.Unique design ,high quality website with excellent content rankings are down and traffic,and one small website read this with some different design -own made and just one image on homepage and barely text,i say you know on page text "On this page will be this ....or that" and On page SEO just little meta data starting to increase rankings and start to get traffic.Totally insane.
Cheers until next update.

 

[pkdrive]

It should be the same thing but its hard to tell since Google takes forever to reindex.

It's for sure not the only reason but as to what the real reasons are it's hard to figure out. There is no smoking gun.

What is odd for me is that not all posts were affected, I still have some that rank very well like they always have. Then I have other posts that for some reason have fallen so it's not a site-wide punishment. I even have competition that has fewer words, more affiliate links, badly written posts that are beating me and I don't know why? They even have fewer backlinks while I have many more from respected sites in the niche (all legit and organic).

I have a couple of other sites that were not hit and I consider them bad. They're the very definition of Affiliate Spam site but they did not budge. The only thing of note was that these sites did not have many images so the Yoast thing did not affect them that much.

I'm at a loss as to why things are the way they are.

Well, zapgoose are situations sound so very similar... the only other note I can share at the moment...

I too, have the scenario where some pages are unaffected... but I can say for the most part... if a site is affected, all of the high volume searches have been affected by now. So, I fear the others may just be a matter of time.

Also, frustratingly many of these pages are high quality (mixed with lower quality)... whatever the mechanism is, it does not seem to be the particluar page's quality... so, I am thinking there is another footprint that is triggering.

 

[yungmadhatter]

It should be the same thing but its hard to tell since Google takes forever to reindex.

It's for sure not the only reason but as to what the real reasons are it's hard to figure out. There is no smoking gun.

What is odd for me is that not all posts were affected, I still have some that rank very well like they always have. Then I have other posts that for some reason have fallen so it's not a site-wide punishment. I even have competition that has fewer words, more affiliate links, badly written posts that are beating me and I don't know why? They even have fewer backlinks while I have many more from respected sites in the niche (all legit and organic).

I have a couple of other sites that were not hit and I consider them bad. They're the very definition of Affiliate Spam site but they did not budge. The only thing of note was that these sites did not have many images so the Yoast thing did not affect them that much.

I'm at a loss as to why things are the way they are.

You just described my exact situation and thoughts - it's the same for my sites and niches.
This really bugs me atm, because it seems like there is nothing we can do, but wait it out.

 

[zobban]

I've had the same issue since 10th may. things started to drop slowly on all keywords. some dropped more dramatically than others. But then just BAM! first site went down a lot, Bam second site went down a lot. Been in SEO-panic for a few days now as one site just started to make some serious bucks and the other has always done good for the past 3+ years.

Today I woke up and got a bit of a breather. It might just be for today, but at least I get to lower my pulse and stop hyper ventilating for a change.

It's still not looking good or even close to where I was on one of the sites. But at least it is a little bit better and hopefully I'll get back some of the traffic in a few days. Lost around 50% on both sites.

 

[fb3003]

I've had the same issue since 10th may. things started to drop slowly on all keywords. some dropped more dramatically than others. But then just BAM! first site went down a lot, Bam second site went down a lot. Been in SEO-panic for a few days now as one site just started to make some serious bucks and the other has always done good for the past 3+ years.

Today I woke up and got a bit of a breather. It might just be for today, but at least I get to lower my pulse and stop hyper ventilating for a change.



It's still not looking good or even close to where I was on one of the sites. But at least it is a little bit better and hopefully I'll get back some of the traffic in a few days. Lost around 50% on both sites.

thanks for sharing. out of curiosity are your websites based on wordpress? if so, are you using yoast seo plugin?

also, have you done anything on your sites over the last 10 days or so?

 

[TheSphinx]

Well, I have two Amazon affiliate sites.

I lost several positions for the main money articles with the new update.

I'm quite sure it's not from the link profile, the keywords are extremely easy and I didn't build any strong links for those articles.

I checked the Yoast thing, and Yes.. hunderds of pages are indexed with only an image and wierd title!!

I fixed the option in Yoast plugin and will wait to see how it goes when Google deindex those pages.

Also, I decreased number of affiliate links on the main money articles.

I will put the updates if anything good happens.

 

[zapgoose]

The more I look into the Yoast issue the more I realize that it might be the answer why rankings dropped.

I just wish we could tell Google about this issue as it's out our hands so they could make changes the Algo for a few months to fix this issue. Yoast should have never allowed this to happen and they should have fixed it no matter what. I found out this happens in Version 7.0 of Yoast but yet we're on Version 7.5 and the problem was still around, so why did they not fix such a simple problem they caused by version 7.1?

Maybe Barry at the SEroundtable could nudge someone or let someone at Google know about this issue so it won't hit us so hard?

 

[Ozzyzig]

The more I look into the Yoast issue the more I realize that it might be the answer why rankings dropped.

I just wish we could tell Google about this issue as it's out our hands so they could make changes the Algo for a few months to fix this issue. Yoast should have never allowed this to happen and they should have fixed it no matter what. I found out this happens in Version 7.0 of Yoast but yet we're on Version 7.5 and the problem was still around, so why did they not fix such a simple problem they caused by version 7.1?

Maybe Barry at the SEroundtable could nudge someone or let someone at Google know about this issue so it won't hit us so hard?

I personally don't think it is solely due to the Yoast issue. As mentioned elsewhere, I was running on a much older version of it that didn't automatically index images and I've still had a drop in rankings.

 

[mixery]

It has nothing to do with Yoast,
I do not use it and I am devastated.

 

[zapgoose]

It has nothing to do with Yoast,
I do not use it and I am devastated.

What do you use instead, how old is your site, and how many posts?

 

[fb3003]

guys - i raised this few days ago, but did not get much response on it. don't you think it has to do with mobile first search concept?

are your sites mobile friendly? how is the load speed compared to your competition?

 

[TheSphinx]

I personally don't think it is solely due to the Yoast issue. As mentioned elsewhere, I was running on a much older version of it that didn't automatically index images and I've still had a drop in rankings.

Yes I believe it's not only Yoast plugin problem,
But I do believe it's something matched the update in the algorithm with the thing that Yoast has done then it caused this fall.

 

[queenjude]

I've read it's related to content. April was particularly hard as I switched to https (maybe this is main driver of ranking/traffic drop). This affiliate site was top 5 then dropped to 2nd page. I wrote 20K worth of new content in the last month, and now adding more links. It has reached the top of 1st page again but traffic still down. Site speed won't be an issue as it's VPS on DO.

On the other hand, my passion site which is on shared hosting, is making new highs in traffic every week. Granted, it's older and has more content and has more powerful links in the right places.

I'm just going to grind it out, and keep making content. Adapt. Learn and push forward.

 

[zapgoose]

I've read it's related to content. April was particularly hard as I switched to (maybe this is main driver of ranking/traffic drop). This affiliate site was top 5 then dropped to 2nd page. I wrote 20K worth of new content in the last month, and now adding more links. It has reached the top of 1st page again but traffic still down. Site speed won't be an issue as it's VPS on DO.

On the other hand, my passion site which is on shared hosting, is making new highs in traffic every week. Granted, it's older and has more content and has more powerful links in the right places.

I'm just going to grind it out, and keep making content. Adapt. Learn and push forward.

My passion site which is completely white hat took the biggest hit of all my sites. It could simply mean Google's AI found something that we don't see and Google could be testing it out to see if that should be a ranking factor? My passion site also took a hit during the Maccabees update but I guarantee it was not a doorway site or whatever everyone was saying and a month later it recovered on its own and was doing great before May hit.