Google update again?!

I also doubt it's EMD and lean towards links. From what I've gathered this past week.

1) Links - This explains why so many spam sites popup from nowhere and why authority sites, especially news and magazines are gaining the upper hand with thin articles that doesn't even answer some search queries (slightly related at best). Not sure about outgoing as I only link out to good sites, but backlink is definitely an area I lack and have neglected.

2) Authorship - Although I'm seeing mixed results here...but if true, i think we'll see tons of new experts with fake reviews and mentions in coming months.

3) Long form articles - After losing lots of long tail keywords, I'm suspecting google now prefers short content that directly answers the user's search instead of them reading a 2-3k word article (which I understand). This way, user finishes reading and heads back to google quickly...meaning more revenue for them.

4) Rank Brain - Google might have shut down Rank Brain for this update, because the current serp doesn't seem to have a brain!

Personal opinions only, but would love to see other's observations.
 
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I don't think EMD is an issue. I see competitors of mine with regionkeyword.com all ranking in top 10.

I do have a gaming site that is EMD related to a popular game. I'm not trying to rank for that game but I was ranking top 10 for that game because of domain name. Now this domain has dropped for the keyword to page 5+.

Still I don't think G is targeting EMD. Someone mentioned it's related to E-A-T which makes sense if a lot of health niches are being affected. I'd be curious to know if any legal sites or educational sites are affected as I assume those would require Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness.
 
timetostartwork said:
.....

3) Long form articles - After losing lots of long tail keywords, I'm suspecting google now prefers short content that directly answers the user's search instead of them reading a 2-3k word article (which I understand). This way, user finishes reading and heads back to google quickly...meaning more revenue for them.
...
Click to expand...

i think google wants to see your number of words on page matches the average of your competitors.

mtj85 said:
.....

I am starting to think that the problem could be "outgoing" links from the site. Example: having a health site and linking to some "male enchancement" sites should give a red flag, wouldn't it?
What do you think?
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Click to expand...
linking to wikipedia is now negative. linking to related, authoritative site is a big plus. a "male enhancement" site is not authoritative!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
fb3003 said:
linking to wikipedia is now negative. linking to related, authoritative site is a big plus. a "male enhancement" site is not authoritative!!
Click to expand...
Well, this is new, although totally make sense. I've seen this for a few moments, so the site (site A) have tons of outbound links to same niche sites (sites B), directly to pages that targeting similar keyword, basically to rival sites, but site A rank well. The article isn't spun, but normal unique good content, so I believe this isn't a fluke.

Rival sites won't get big link power from this maybe because site A giving tons of links rather than just 1 or 2.
 
Just like the last core algo update, I'm getting mixed rankings for my sites.

Experience has taught me not to panic since some have mentioned that it will take weeks for the dust to settle and see the impact of the change.

Just carry on your usual SEO strategy and not fiddle with your backend too much.
 
I my case in one website a major keyword is down and from my findings the specific URL was indexed but did not return in search results even with site:domain OR the exact title search.
So all these days the specific keyword was about 4rth page with a different url of just a Tag article... Today i searched again with the title and i saw the specific URL is returned once again (though not back in search results). Plus in that search results i also see a page of the OLD domain (all 301 redirects) that has the exact same title (that is not possible from 7 years old site) that actually links to the same URL (old type or URL via redirect).
Lets hope it will normalize the next days and settle because some results do not make any sense to me.
 
Yes, There is a major Google update "Broad Search Algorithm Update" rolled in from last week of July to 10th of August 2018. Various websites have gain or lose rank in the search engine result page.
 
It looks to me like they have improved the way they view synonyms - so just having an exact match in your article title, means even less. There will be more competitors now who have used broader synonyms in their pages. Which makes sense from a searcher's POV, as you want results that give the same information, just put across using non-exact words.

I know Google have done this for a while, but it seems like that's just improved/got bigger. So yeah, I think keyword research + content will still work, it'll just be harder to rank in the top 10, due to more other webpages now competing, whereas before, they weren't awarded as much.
 
Nothing is clear so far what this update has targeted that dropped the rankings.

HowToGeek : 779K Down
CNET.com: 15M Down
WindowsCentral: 927K Down
WhatsAByte: 75K UP
TechCrises: 13K UP

Conclusions can't really be drawn at this point.
 
gummybearsecks said:
Nothing is clear so far what this update has targeted that dropped the rankings.

HowToGeek : 779K Down
CNET.com: 15M Down
WindowsCentral: 927K Down
WhatsAByte: 75K UP
TechCrises: 13K UP

Conclusions can't really be drawn at this point.
Click to expand...

What's this - last 7 days traffic according to Ahrefs?
 
gummybearsecks said:
Nothing is clear so far what this update has targeted that dropped the rankings.

HowToGeek : 779K Down
CNET.com: 15M Down
WindowsCentral: 927K Down
WhatsAByte: 75K UP
TechCrises: 13K UP

Conclusions can't really be drawn at this point.
Click to expand...
Sooo... authority sites also demoted? Pretty random then..
 
stefan779 said:
draxe : 3 mil
livestrong : 1 mil
Click to expand...

Is that up or down?

I'm curious if anyone who was hit hard (I'm down 73% since the 3rd) saw an uptick yesterday, the 7th? I was up almost 40% compared to the 3rd and it was all on pages I previously ranked well for. It looks like today is off to a good start as well.
 
Lol funny to see you're so surprised theres another google update
I hope you don't freak out every morning when the sun rises as well...

Jokes aside, I had a 50% increase since the update so thats perfect

Blackhatters dropped down in rankings = we (people with long-term thinking) get better rankings.
 
zionbar said:
Lol funny to see you're so surprised theres another google update
I hope you don't freak out every morning when the sun rises as well...

Jokes aside, I had a 50% increase since the update so thats perfect

Blackhatters dropped down in rankings = we (people with long-term thinking) get better rankings.
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. Some black hat sites or low quality sites have topped my rankings. Also, as you can see few posts back some very well respected sites took a hit too.
With that being said, all updates so far from google have only been positive for me (always got an uptick of traffic), so it buggers me even more what is going on this week.

My traffic has recovered about 10% so far, but I really can't tell if it is recovering. Probably need another 7 days of data on google analytics to compare it to this week...
 
mtj85 said:
That's not entirely true. Some black hat sites or low quality sites have topped my rankings. Also, as you can see few posts back some very well respected sites took a hit too.
With that being said, all updates so far from google have only been positive for me (always got an uptick of traffic), so it buggers me even more what is going on this week.

My traffic has recovered about 10% so far, but I really can't tell if it is recovering. Probably need another 7 days of data on google analytics to compare it to this week...
Click to expand...
Nothing in life is entirely true mate ;) its true in my case so im happy
google got too smart to have sites with barely any content and 1,000 backlinks ranked first.. these days will be over very soon
 
zionbar said:
Nothing in life is entirely true mate ;) its true in my case so im happy
google got too smart to have sites with barely any content and 1,000 backlinks ranked first.. these days will be over very soon
Click to expand...

You're saying a simple question cannot be answered accurately in 300 words (considered thin content)? A website that offers such answer can organically obtain 1000 backlinks for providing good information. Not all websites with little content per page and lots of links are blackhat.
Google certainly is improving and I'm sure that with AI the SERPs will be even better, but it is a fact that sometimes they do some mistakes too. To me it seems that this update is doing harm. I am outranked by joke sites. Did manual checks of some keywords and its bad. While I am being topped by joke sites, I still rank above webmb.com and similar (high authority) sites. It doesn't seem right to me.
 
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