Google releasing a large update today

[bartosimpsonio]

I totally disagree with your theory. One of my sites that got destroyed had a bounce rate of 82% at the time, and all its contents are between 300-400 words, but it still got destroyed. It lost 95% traffic, and it is still losing keywords by the day. Nobody knows for sure what this update is about. People keep coming up with various theories that do not hold water. My guesses are:
1. Maybe Google mistakenly broke something and trying to fix it
2. Maybe this update has something to do with Trump's campaign
3. Or maybe Google intentionally designed the new algorithm to push down relevant sites in order for them to sell more ad spaces.

It's not a matter of agreeing with me.

Anyone can check the SERPs and see that they're shit.

 

[Dreams411]

It's not a matter of agreeing with me.

Anyone can check the SERPs and see that they're shit.

Nobody is saying that the SERPs are not full of shitty sites. I just don't think it has anything to do with high bounce rate and short contents. Like I said above, one of my sites meet these criteria but it is still being destroyed.

 

[sumitgupta1992]

That is so wrong on every level.

Please prove how is it wrong? Apart from genuine news sites or research based sites, how many sites are producing unpublished information?

Amazon Review sites, niche sites , affiliate sites all take information from a credible source, regurgitate it , combine information and present it to us in a well formatted manner. Now prove how I am wrong in saying what I said?

 

[gwarftron]

The majority of the content is user generated in the form of comments. The actual posts are quite thin.

I don't care how 'thin' they are, because of most of them are very valuable and useful. Much better than the majority of SEO experts.

Thin, long, whatever really.

 

[gwarftron]

Nobody is saying that the SERPs are not full of shitty sites. I just don't think it has anything to do with high bounce rate and short contents. Like I said above, one of my sites meet these criteria but it is still being destroyed.

It doesn't have to do with this. There is rhyme or reason to what is happening. Google just a couple of times per year presses a big randomiser button and then call it a core update.
And then John Mueller says don't do this, don't do that. But truth is that the people who seems to be doing exactly that is winning big time.

JM likes to confuse people.

 

[Dreams411]

It doesn't have to do with this. There is rhyme or reason to what is happening. Google just a couple of times per year presses a big randomiser button and then call it a core update.
And then John Mueller says don't do this, don't do that. But truth is that the people who seems to be doing exactly that is winning big time.

JM likes to confuse people.

Yeah, JM is full of shit.

 

[Seraphiel]

Please prove how is it wrong? Apart from genuine news sites or research based sites, how many sites are producing unpublished information?

Amazon Review sites, niche sites , affiliate sites all take information from a credible source, regurgitate it , combine information and present it to us in a well formatted manner. Now prove how I am wrong in saying what I said?

I happen to pitch in on this myself.
One of my bigger sites where we actually test the product ourself ( and I dare anyone in this niche to come close to our testing on the matter) got hit.

Another site of mine whom I barely even proof read the articles without posting didn't get hit.

 

[fb3003]

I think Google uses opposing paramters from update to update, to cause maximum harm against SEOs.

Last update they rewarded long posts + long time on sites.

Now they destroy sites with long content + long times.

If you rush out and fix the pages to join several articles into one, the next update destroys you again.

Their strategy is to destroy SEO so you must buy ads. It's been the case for a long time now, but now they've adopted this opposing update strategy.

So if you change your entire site now, the next update will waste you again.

There's no way to counter this. It's time to get lawmakers to break Google up. We need competition.

a suggestion: since it seems we cannot fight it, we should loosen up a little bit, and enjoy it up our asses!!! in parallel, go buy google stock, so at least you get some benefits from those ad revenues! what do you think?!

all joking aside, it is very apparent now, that based on the last few updates, google has an anit-seo algorithm. if you keep changing your page seo elements, you will get penalized. those pages that have been left alone, seem to do better.

 

[fb3003]

I happen to pitch in on this myself.
One of my bigger sites where we actually test the product ourself ( and I dare anyone in this niche to come close to our testing on the matter) got hit.

Another site of mine whom I barely even proof read the articles without posting didn't get hit.

the page that got hit: how often you fine tuned the seo elements of the page? description tag? H tags? title? etc...

 

[fb3003]

It's not a matter of agreeing with me.

Anyone can check the SERPs and see that they're shit.

you mean when you google "how to babysit a toddler when your wife is at work" and you get a book.google.com as the top search result?!

 

[Escehas]

I happen to pitch in on this myself.
One of my bigger sites where we actually test the product ourself ( and I dare anyone in this niche to come close to our testing on the matter) got hit.

Another site of mine whom I barely even proof read the articles without posting didn't get hit.

The fact that he has this opinion shows which websites are at the top. I have articles filled with detailed benchmarks on products that I test (and retest) and they're now on the second page or at the bottom of the first. And indeed, above me there are either articles with thin content copied from Amazon or parts of my content. If you want to read proper articles, then visit the second page.

 

[Paul Ant]

Since the morning, I get barely any traffic so I guess it's time to go from 50-60 to 70 % loss. Cool.
What I tried the last two months:
1. Updating the content: there has been some temporary traffic gain, but the days (up to a week) after the ranking has gone up, it went back down where it previously was.
2. Changing the schema.org - no effect.
3. Optimizing the site for some speed increase - no effect.
4. Removing Adsense for a better ad program - totally unrelated, but I did see a significant financial gain, which is nice.
5. Started removing some Amazon links - went from 4 links on a 3000 words content to 2 links - no effect.
6. Wanted to disavow some links, but after I checked better, it seems that a lot of competitors have a similar set of backlinks and they weren't affected by the update, so I left them alone, for now.

Lol. Thanks. This is helpful. If we all do this, we can see what action will actually help.
I talked to a few reputable agencies, including Marie Haynes, SureOaks. They are honest, they not sure what is happening with the new update.
They didn't hard-sell me and asked me to wait. They told me to improve with EAT
Contacted FiliW. Fishy, before anything already quoted EUR15k


1. Updating one of my blog posts with more words. No effect so far. Have to wait
2. Updating sitemap.xml - no effect
3. Optimized speed, from 40 to 90 - no effect. COmpetitors on the first page only 15-35
4. Reduce the bounce rate to 10% - no effect

5. Disavowed 50 domains. I got 2 domains, flooded me with 45k link. I think someone attacked my site with negative SEO.
I waited for a week, no effect. Ranking still jumping around, 40-55.
I exported the links from Google Search console, I still found all the disavowed domains in the list. Should it be there?

I'm started to think if my site got marked and reduced by Google

 

[Paul Ant]

The subscription-based business not gonna work, people rather seeing ads than pay 10$ a month just for search engine subscription.

I think the only way to compete with google is by creating a non profit community based search engine, such as wordpress.

https://duckduckgo.com/

 

[Escehas]

Lol. Thanks. This is helpful. If we all do this, we can see what action will actually help.
I talked to a few reputable agencies, including Marie Haynes, SureOaks. They are honest, they not sure what is happening with the new update.
They didn't hard-sell me and asked me to wait. They told me to improve with EAT
Contacted FiliW. Fishy, before anything already quoted EUR15k


1. Updating one of my blog posts with more words. No effect so far. Have to wait
2. Updating sitemap.xml - no effect
3. Optimized speed, from 40 to 90 - no effect. COmpetitors on the first page only 15-35

4. Disavowed 50 domains. I got 2 domains, flooded me with 45k link. I think someone attacked my site with negative SEO.
I waited for a week, no effect. Ranking still jumping around, 40-55.
I exported the links from Google Search console, I still found all the disavowed domains in the list. Should it be there?

From what I know, Google really takes its time and you may not see any changes for months or even years (and in the meantime, you get other 40k+ backlinks from various websites, which is why Google should be the one to sanitize the links, not us). Also, even if you disavow links, Google may still consider them valid.

 

[Paul Ant]

Webmasters can stop relying on google as a traffic source.

Build up a large email list and you will never have to worry about these algorithm updates ever again!

Also, diversify your traffic sources.

It's been nearly 2 months now and not only has google not reversed the update, they have tweaked it and made it even worse! I can't see how relying on them as a traffic source can be sustainable for a business.
.

If you are not in the first page, getting an email list is hard or expensive.
I"m afraid they are not going to reverse the update. Because they have pushed some small updates. If they realize it's a mistake, they would fix it faster.

 

[Paul Ant]

1. Some look like spun text or written by non-English speakers with very bad English skills
2. Lots of noise on pages that rank high. Look like geocities shit.

I'm from California. I search for a product type and the search result returns me foreign e-commerce sites from Indonesia, China, Malaysia, India, etc on page 2 onwards.
Page 1 filled with Amazon, big media articles
This is so wrong.

 

[Paul Ant]

"Disillusionment lead to departure.
Is there a correlation between what this guy is saying and what we are currently experiencing right now with google and the messed up serps?

Google spammed the search result with big companies that are wont buy google Adwords.
If anyone asks why they did that, Google already covered its ass. Google can say the first page filled with very high authority sites, like Amazon. Ebay. Aliexpress,
to make BHW argument useless.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Nobody is saying that the SERPs are not full of shitty sites. I just don't think it has anything to do with high bounce rate and short contents. Like I said above, one of my sites meet these criteria but it is still being destroyed.

A sample size of n=1 does not give us enough data to conclude that. Your site could indicate something, but it could be any of 100's of factors.

I'm looking at several niches where the top ranked sites are thin, short and shallow content surrounded by ads and junk. This sample is larger than 1.

Please prove how is it wrong? Apart from genuine news sites or research based sites, how many sites are producing unpublished information?

Amazon Review sites, niche sites , affiliate sites all take information from a credible source, regurgitate it , combine information and present it to us in a well formatted manner. Now prove how I am wrong in saying what I said?

You're right.

a suggestion: since it seems we cannot fight it, we should loosen up a little bit, and enjoy it up our asses!!! in parallel, go buy google stock, so at least you get some benefits from those ad revenues! what do you think?!

all joking aside, it is very apparent now, that based on the last few updates, google has an anit-seo algorithm. if you keep changing your page seo elements, you will get penalized. those pages that have been left alone, seem to do better.

That'd be the end tho. Now you can no longer change anything on your site. Google's controlling everything.

We're better off getting rid of Google. Everyone is.

you mean when you google "how to babysit a toddler when your wife is at work" and you get a book.google.com as the top search result?!

Or when you search for "how to babysit a toddler when your wife is at work" and you get a youtube video showing how to make sushi.

I'm from California. I search for a product type and the search result returns me foreign e-commerce sites from Indonesia, China, Malaysia, India, etc on page 2 onwards.
Page 1 filled with Amazon, big media articles
This is so wrong.

If you steer off mainstream searches just a bit their results go CUIL

Their AI is incorrectly linking concepts.

 

[Seraphiel]

the page that got hit: how often you fine tuned the seo elements of the page? description tag? H tags? title? etc...

We don't fine tune anything on the page, the site has been ranking great for over 4 years now. We only come back to certain pages to update the test because... well we redo the tests around once a year.

 

[Seraphiel]

The fact that he has this opinion shows which websites are at the top. I have articles filled with detailed benchmarks on products that I test (and retest) and they're now on the second page or at the bottom of the first. And indeed, above me there are either articles with thin content copied from Amazon or parts of my content. If you want to read proper articles, then visit the second page.

Mate it's funnier then that. I have a how to guide where I made a mistake and added some wrong information.
The current number one has an article repeating all the information I researched + the mistake.

As a person who "thankfully" has a couple of dozen sites running that are churning I am not hit as hard as I should be. Some sites got a boost and some got a drop. But I can assure you, being that these are my own sites. Shitty once got a boost, good ones dropped. There is no logic this update.

1. I have seen some sites/terms outrank others because of short and to the point content.
2. I have seen some sites/terms outrank others because the domain was clearly older.
   
3. I have seen content from 2017 out rank websites with current information.

My thoughts on the whole situation are as follows:

1. If you had a site that got a boost from this update, and you think this has anything to do with your content or approach being "better". You are an idiot.
2. Personally Google messing up stuff like this doesn't bother me much. What does bother me is there goddamn smug tone the last 2 years. Ever since around that BERT update, SEO feels like a random number generator.
3. Diversify, diversify, diversify! Make sure you start using the money you are making with SEO on other more stable sources of income so you are a bit more prepared for this type op nonsense.