Google update again?!
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Veil123
Elite Member
- Jun 13, 2012
- 1,839
- 3,357
I don't want to say this but... I completely agree with you.
In the last few months, google is getting worse and worse at any possible point. It is like they are starting from the beginning (well, they actually do, since their implementation of RankBrain is pretty new and it needs time and a lot of FIXES until it become the "real deal")
Remorse
Power Member
- Apr 7, 2013
- 653
- 347
Well it seems like their rankbrain doesn't understand content at all at this moment, that's why serps are moving so crazy right now, and only high authority sites like amazon is ranking, but im sure they are trying to fix this, meanwhile we can make a bank ranking parasites with keyword stuffing
kaban
Junior Member
- Oct 1, 2016
- 105
- 46
It seems their RenkBrain is pretty drunk right now =)
I don't think they are going to make SERP better. When they rank huge websites on TOP they make mid and small size businesses pay for Adsence. This is the easiest way for them to make more and more money. They don't care about SERP anymore, Google is MONOPOLY and they can do whatever they want...
I don't think they are going to make SERP better. When they rank huge websites on TOP they make mid and small size businesses pay for Adsence. This is the easiest way for them to make more and more money. They don't care about SERP anymore, Google is MONOPOLY and they can do whatever they want...
mtj85
Regular Member
- May 7, 2014
- 464
- 170
I think we're in the same boat here. My site also lost about 40-60% of traffic and a lot of keywords totally disappeared from search (not in top100 anymore).
I mean, I get it - the update shakes the SERPs and I accept some flux. But some of the keywords totally disappearing? First time that I see this. OK, maybe my site did not deserve top3 position, fine, but how broken can my site be that after the update I am now below top100 in ranking? What I am trying to say is this - it seems that even google doesn't know what they're doing --> for example: correcting a ranking for a keyword from position 3 to position let's say 14 seems normal to me. Have seen it in the past. But correcting the ranking from position 3 to position let's say 148? How wrong could the algo be prior to the update then? And given the fact that the keyword's long tails are still ranking in top10 for a very similar version of the keyword? What exactly is going on here? I checked position 99 for this keyword and result is horrible (who even checks page 10 after all? I only did it to see which sites "beat me" for this keyword -> very poor sites, barely related to the keyword). But my position is even lower than 100? Penalty? Why? For this keyword only?!? Long tails still rank, and some related keywords still rank too. It just doesn't make sense. On the other hand some similar keywords are recovering. Main content relevancy is the same for these keywords as they all have same root keyword, so don't give me that. I don't believe in EAT either. Too easily manipulated. I think google is just experimenting at our costs.
And the above happened for many different keywords - they just don't appear in SERPs anymore. Not deranked, but removed from SERPs, even though my site is vastly better than sites sitting on page 10 (the sites outranking my website). What's up google??
I don't think this is true and here is why. Why deranking small fish? To make them pay for adsense (you probably mean adwords, right?). If google was really after this then it would make more sense to derank big brands and force them to use Adwords. Because big brands can throw millions to adwords per month for rank #1, while YOU* (the small fish), can't.
*you as all the small players, and not particularly you.
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Have you seen any recovery today? Bcoz one of my site showing recovery from august 1st update (From 4-5000 per day in last 2 months to 12-13000 visitors today from google and its a general niche site, prior to august 1st it was getting over 20K per pay)
Wooten
Regular Member
- Oct 4, 2015
- 478
- 529
While I do not disagree with your statement, the way people talk about this update sounds like it's an armageddon and frankly, it scares the shit out of me considering my lack of knowledge on the subject. Now, saying that there's no secret or blueprint to this is kinda fair, because for different people different techniques work ( as far as I've seen on this forum ), but the fact that those same different people got hit anyway raises a question: how does one approach this SEO route? Do you still follow good practices and these awesome guides of this forum or what the hell do you do? It seems that people have very little clue of what is happening and how to rank at this point.
Not that setbacks themselves worry me, but going completely blindfolded and to a different direction doesn't seem so appealing if you know what I mean. Any thoughts?
Zbigniew
Senior Member
- Mar 10, 2017
- 800
- 1,729
Yeah man, this is really, really odd.
One morning one keyword went -85. Then poff, the next day it was n/a again.
It gets even worse when I compare my sites that aim for the same keywords. The worst website of them all is ranking, the good sites are tanking.
The most extreme example is one commercial keyword that I was ranking on first page with two websites. Let's say the keyword is "Men's costumes".
Site 1 lost the keyword, it's now n/a. Site 2 kept ranking for it, around 5th place.
Site 2 has a heavy picture load (not optimized, at all). It has an outdated theme. The articles are extremely poorly written, both the information and how the articles are designed. The bounce rate is very high. The site has a poor and spammy link profile.
Site 1 is optimized and very fast. Articles are well-written and the bounce rate is low. The link profile is very good and relevant to the keyword.
It's like a comparring a Ferrari to a go-cart. Yet, site 2 is ranking on "Men's costumes" and site 1 tanked it. In fact, site 2 is ranking very high for a lot of keywords - while site 2 is tanking.
Makes no sense at all, neither for my SEO brain nor as a consumer. Nobody wants to read site 2. Site 1 is better in every kind of way. The only reason to I could see it ranking higher is because site 1 is older, nothing else.
The Curator
Elite Member
- Dec 27, 2013
- 1,512
- 761
I can't wait till this company gets regulated and broken up...
SeoWrecker
Elite Member
- Jul 16, 2012
- 2,708
- 2,192
An update again? Or it's just me
- Apr 15, 2017
- 2,314
- 3,081
I think there's something
My Pbn is ranked above my main site right now.
1 pbn site took #4 position for a medium competition. Which is just weird for me
Overall the sites have improved though.
Robert7002
BANNED
- Sep 26, 2018
- 17
- 2
Been gone from SEO for 8yrs man these conversations are always the same.
mcshammer
Junior Member
- Mar 27, 2018
- 110
- 61
Hey Cory, let me know if it becomes a recurring trend for you, it's become daily for my site now, I can delete a link/product today and it'll show up as a crawl error tomorrow where normally it would be a few weeks.
Not a bad thing if it means the googlebot is crawling more actively as theoretically it should be picking up fresher pages quickly too, will have to wait and see.
Robert7002
BANNED
- Sep 26, 2018
- 17
- 2
Also seeing my target keywords jumping around in serps more then usual
Sudarshan Kar
Power Member
- Apr 27, 2017
- 674
- 350
Yep, some keywords doing a bit of dancing. Nothing drastic though.
mtj85
Regular Member
- May 7, 2014
- 464
- 170
Yeah. I'll give you my example.
There's 3 keywords.
1) Blood pressure A B
2) Blood pressure A B C
3) A blood pressure B C
keyword 1 prior to update: 5, then moved to 10, then to 80, then to 100+ (disappearing), as of today it is still out of top100.
keyword 2 prior to update: 3, then 10, then 16, now recovering and climbing to rank 3 again.
keyword 3 prior to update: 2, then 15, then 40, now recovering to top10.
The thing that haunts me here is what the heck is wrong with keyword 1? It is closely related to keyword 2 and 3. Why removing this one from serps and leaving 2 other very similar keywords? I checked, and I am not even on page 18 (results end there). And I don't need to tell you what kind of results are there from page 10 - 17. If those sites are deemed more suitable for Keyword1 than my website (which is in fact directly related to main keyword and has some nice links), then google is broken. Of course my content is well written and in fact it is also fact-checked (I do have morals and I don't want to give out bad advice).
Sure, I accept that algorithm is prone to error and anomalies can happen. But going from 3 to 199 position? To be that much way off? How wrong could the algo be before the update then that it misfired so much?
The only difference is that keyword 1 has 10,000 monthly searches, keyword 2 has 600 and keyword 3 has 300. It's similar with other keywords. So what I believe it might happen is the following. Google took a closer look at health (and other niche) related keywords with noticeable traffic per month and sort of rearranged them in a way that only high authority websites can be displayed in top 10 (and top 100, too). And here's your EAT thing right there. Nicely masked. But the authority of those sites is still determined by links, mostly. Its either that, or they're manually setting the SERPs for high traffic, profitable keywords. These are keywords that, if wrong advice is given, can cause harm to people, and I understand that the results must be filtered well. But then again how can google distinguished that the given advice from a site that sits, lets say, on position 8, is still not giving wrong advice? Only by manual review.
If they really care about people, that is. Probably they're more concerned with people suing them after "reading ILL advice on google".
These fluxes doesn't make sense to me otherwise, and being in SEO for almost 10 years I've seen some serious updates and fluxes. But never that severe and I never saw a site only be "partially hit" in a sense that long tail keywords of a main keyword still rank, while their high traffic main keywords drop out of top 100?!!