Google Update - May 27th 2022 - What I Have Noticed

[k2h2]

So what matters at the end of the day is content only. This we should spend money on good content.

 

[Alf85]

Some time ago a site started to compete with me, its content is either artificial intelligence or it is very bad at writing..... It has much less authority than my site and nevertheless it starts to beat me in several KW.

 

[blackbeans]

Thanks for sharing this update.

I believe that this has a lot to do with user experience.

Because Google is pouring billions into artificial intelligence and machine learning not because it just wants to burn money.

It's definitely not doing it because it has nothing else better to do.

Machine learning, for instance, can figure out search context and how to gauge people's experiences based on data.

And your emphasis on "best quality content" is crucial because it speaks to user experience.

Previously, scraped content and all that other stuff can rank really well.

Now, it's a numbers game.

Somebody else on this forum posted a thread showing that spam sites can still be successful.

The issue with that is that yeah, you can find one successful site out of millions of failed attempts.

This is called the survivor bias.

But if we want to stop playing games and just want to achieve some steady growth and steady success when it comes to online publishing, we need to go back to basics.

The basics are simple: deliver the best experience to the user.

Now, the question that first comes to mind is "How do they do that?"

Well, this is simple.

Load the keywords that you're targeting into Google.

Ask yourself, "If I am a member of my target audience, would I find this content useful? What's in it for me?"

By focusing on user experience, you increase your chances of not only ranking better on Google but keeping your rankings.

And this puts you on a totally different trajectory.

Sure, it's going to take longer especially given the fact that this strategy is less backlink-dependent.

I understand a lot of people have put a lot of emphasis on backlink building because it gives them a sense of control.

They assume that if they buy the right links, it doesn't really matter what the quality of the content their overall site has, their site will get a lot of traffic.

That's control.

But that is short-sighted.

Because Google is catching up.

Why not focus on what you can truly control, which is the user experience of people visiting your site.

Congratulations on your second site and I hope that things improve for your first site.

 

[El Flaco]

In my portfolio of websites, my main Amazon affiliate website is suprisingly resisting very well and is pretty stable after each update.
2 important things I noticed on this particular website compared to my Made for Amazon competitors who got badly hit :
- I put Amazon links only on a minority of pages. I have some informational content on other pages.
- I don't use any Amazon affiliate plugin on this website. I just use a custom button or good old links for Amazon links.
On some quite competitve keywords, I am the last SEO guy still alive in first page. There were many but now the other spots are taken by Amazon itself, other big ecommerces and big newspapers. I have some good backlinks and the domain is 10 years old ; I think it helps too.

I have another Amazon affiliate website I bought 2 years ago with affiliate links everywhere and Amazon affiliate plugins using the API, it has been a rollercoaster all the time in the last 3 months.

Stop talking about that "make good content and you will automatically rank" BS. Google didn't trash AI sites because it is still a bot at the end of the day.

But it is really easy for Google to see a website is only made to send visitors to Amazon or other affiliates.
You have to be a bit more subtle in the way you are presenting your content and not thinking you have to sell something on every page of your website.

 

[AuraMarketing]

@Mxty @El Flaco

I use AAWP to show product descriptions on nearly all review posts. The site has tanked 95% yesterday.

Has anyone tried removing the plugin if that's the cause of the hit?

 

[Alf85]

I don't think it's a problem with AAWP, all my sites have that plugin but none of them is a review site... maybe the problem is the review sites.

 

[AuraMarketing]

I use the product boxes shortcode on the list page [amazon box="ASIN"]

Example - Top 10 External HDD
Along with a review of each product, I add the amazon box shortcode which shows bullet points from amazon directly like the image below.

This might be a thing as Google looks at all this duplicate text used on many sites.

 

[Sanctioned]

This clearly looks like an unoriginal review of the product. This is exactly the type of content that Google planned to punish in the update.

 

[Dark Hat 007]

This might be a thing as Amazon looks at all this duplicate text used on many sites.

Did you mean to say "Google?"

 

[Dark Hat 007]

@Mxty @El Flaco

I use AAWP to show product descriptions on nearly all review posts. The site has tanked 95% yesterday.

Has anyone tried removing the plugin if that's the cause of the hit?

I thought we are done with this so called updates!!!!

 

[Mxty]

@Mxty @El Flaco

I use AAWP to show product descriptions on nearly all review posts. The site has tanked 95% yesterday.

Has anyone tried removing the plugin if that's the cause of the hit?

I use AAWP as well, but I've not tried removing it.

I typically put a lot more content in than you have though, probably about 300 words a product to take a guess.

 

[AuraMarketing]

Did you mean to say "Google?"

Yes, and I've corrected it. Thanks.

I use AAWP as well, but I've not tried removing it.

I typically put a lot more content in than you have though, probably about 300 words a product to take a guess.

I do have some other websites where I use the same plugin. However, it has not been affected by the update (maybe because the ratio of informative articles to review articles is 8:1).

The site that is affected has 90% review articles only.

This clearly looks like an unoriginal review of the product. This is exactly the type of content that Google planned to punish in the update.

In a 5k-word original article, I put 10-15 of these boxes.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

@AuraMarketing, I use AAWP but never use Amazon descriptions, instead writing my own bullet points + 200-300 descriptions of the product in my own words.

More than 50% of my keywords disappeared from TOP 100 on Sunday but I had the exact same issue in June and they returned to their normal positions after 2 weeks.

By tanked do you mean what I described above?

 

[Ozzyzig]

@AuraMarketing My sites have a heavy focus on reviews and best of pages. My main site pulling in the largest amount from Amazon hasn't tanked at all, and they're all using AAWP. What I would say though is that I never liked how many bullet points AAWP put into the product box. I felt that it could look a bit spammy/duplicate content since it's pulling it from Amazon. I only have one bullet point on display and make sure that what's written in the bullet point isn't written in the review without being expanded upon.

Also, I've mentioned elsewhere on BHW that other sites in the same niche as me have been slapped hard because there's not enough informative, unique information in the reviews and best of articles. This is also true of the newspaper sites which are in the same niche as me.

For a 5k article, I would say that putting in 15 of the boxes would also look overly promotional which may be the trigger as well for the rankings to take a tanking.

 

[AuraMarketing]

@AuraMarketing, I use AAWP but never use Amazon descriptions, instead writing my own bullet points + 200-300 descriptions of the product in my own words.

More than 50% of my keywords disappeared from TOP 100 on Sunday but I had the exact same issue in June and they returned to their normal positions after 2 weeks.

By tanked do you mean what I described above?

Yes, this is exactly what's happening. I lost half of the impressions on Sunday. I've already started removing the automatic amazon descriptions by AAWP. Keeping the plugin though.

Anything you did in particular that helped with the positions in June?

@AuraMarketing My sites have a heavy focus on reviews and best of pages. My main site pulling in the largest amount from Amazon hasn't tanked at all, and they're all using AAWP. What I would say though is that I never liked how many bullet points AAWP put into the product box. I felt that it could look a bit spammy/duplicate content since it's pulling it from Amazon. I only have one bullet point on display and make sure that what's written in the bullet point isn't written in the review without being expanded upon.

Also, I've mentioned elsewhere on BHW that other sites in the same niche as me have been slapped hard because there's not enough informative, unique information in the reviews and best of articles. This is also true of the newspaper sites which are in the same niche as me.

For a 5k article, I would say that putting in 15 of the boxes would also look overly promotional which may be the trigger as well for the rankings to take a tanking.

This looks promising. However, I am going to either remove or rewrite all the bullet points to be on the safer side.

I agree with the second thing. I do not have first-hand experience with the products I review so there will be many others who'll be reviewing the product in the same way which leads to the point you mentioned.

 

[jmbjlg]

Interesting

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Yes, this is exactly what's happening. I lost half of the impressions on Sunday. I've already started removing the automatic amazon descriptions by AAWP. Keeping the plugin though.

Anything you did in particular that helped with the positions in June?



This looks promising. However, I am going to either remove or rewrite all the bullet points to be on the safer side.

I agree with the second thing. I do not have first-hand experience with the products I review so there will be many others who'll be reviewing the product in the same way which leads to the point you mentioned.

All I did was stay patient and believe that my site is better than some of the crap ranking well and it must have been some kind of a fluke on Google's side. During that period many people on BHW had the exact same issue and most of them recovered in around the same space.

Yesterday some of the keywords that disappeared already got back which was exactly what was happening back in June too.

I will start getting depressed if the situation won't get back to normal by the half of October. Till then, I work on other stuff.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

Yes, this is exactly what's happening. I lost half of the impressions on Sunday. I've already started removing the automatic amazon descriptions by AAWP. Keeping the plugin though.

Anything you did in particular that helped with the positions in June?



This looks promising. However, I am going to either remove or rewrite all the bullet points to be on the safer side.

I agree with the second thing. I do not have first-hand experience with the products I review so there will be many others who'll be reviewing the product in the same way which leads to the point you mentioned.

How fucking cool this looks btw.

 

[Dark Hat 007]

How fucking cool this looks btw.

View attachment 227179

I always feel bad when I see these types of graph.... Mehn!!! You going to be alright bro.

 

[ThaiDreamer]

I always feel bad when I see these types of graph.... Mehn!!! You going to be alright bro.

At least it looks symmetric.