Sudden Ranked Drop? Google Algo Update?

splishsplash said:

From everything I've read here, the thing that's standing out is 301's. They are very often improperly used.

I'm 90% sure this is related to 301's. They are risky at the best of times.

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All the websites i used 301s on are stable/increasing, websites that dropped do not have 301s, also websites with no linkbuilding dropped or increasing, this shit is completely random, there is 0 correlation and the comments here show it to. It feels more like an indexing bug if you see how HARD the websites that got hit get hit, dropping out of Google for relevant terms for authority websites, doesn't make any sense. Also it seems that the irrelevant terms either increase or stay stable, which is weird to. Nobody is going to figure out anything, without a Google statement, i suspect a rollback will happen or they take the bug out of this update.

Also fun to know i also run a network of same topic website, with exact same tactics/linkbuilding on different languages, of the about 15 websites, 4 dropped MASSIVELY, 3 increased and the rest is stable. They are linked together to, a.k.a random.

yesfuture said:

Yeah, but there are websites which have 301 in place and they didn't get hit.. how wouldn't you explain that?

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soa0611 said:

no 301s on all affected sites

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This includes if you are 301'ing old pages to the homepage on an expired domain.

Sizus said:

This update is NOT related to 301 redirect sites only! Some of my sites which got hit didn't have any 301 domain pointing to them, nor were expired domains.

There are multiple factors which affected serp drops, maybe 301 is just one of many. from reading all pages of this thread, no one still knows what exactly caused sites getting penalized.

To me, it looks like Google's algorithm just randomly was choosing sites to penalize. Maybe they think "Oh, there are tons of websites for any kind of topic in the SERPs, let's just randomly remove 50% of them" .

There is no any logical explanations what exactly caused sites to drop. Google own their search pages, they can simply play with it how they like. And it looks just like that, they are playing chess with our websites and we can't do anything about it.
Yes we can, pay to Adwords and it will be on spot 1. And that's what they want probably with this, to make money from us.

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Can we please cut the conspiracy stuff? There is no Google conspiracy. At all. They don't randomly penalize sites. They aren't checking chrome. They aren't trying to force a few SEO's to use google ads. They are not trying to make some extra cash for Christmas as some have said. Google's parent company, Alphabet has $117 billion in cash. Well, sort of. That's what they say on the web for shock value.

They actually have $148 billion in what we call "current assets", which is an asset that can be liquidized in 1 year or less. Actual cash they have $16 billion, so they won't go hungry this week however.

Now, with that in mind..

Does anyone of sane mind really believe a company with that level of assets is instructing the engineers of their core business to make radical changes so they can get a bit of extra cash for Christmas? Or maybe to get a few more businesses to sign up for google ads. It's just utterly ridiculous. Their decisions are made with careful consideration with the goal of improving their core product to maintain their market share. They aren't even attempting to increase their market share. It's not increased for over a decade, and is a little lower than it was 10 years ago. Their sole goal is to maintain the dominant position by making sure people are happy. That is their mission. If they fail in that mission they are done. They would not fuck around with the serps to drum up a little more ads business. Great move. Risk your core product just to get a few more small businesses to buy ads.

Now please, folks. Enough of the conspiracy stuff, it's just embarrassing to read.

We are all just trying to work out what's going on in this update. All my sites and sites I'm responsible for have continued to grow. I've never actually been hit with a google update, but I do try and stay ahead of the curve by understanding each update so I can see the direction they are moving in.

Shopllc said:

Google is the best for ROI.

For example, people coming from Facebook ads, groups or pages don't like to click ads or offers, or buy anything, coz they are either using their mobile app browser or are bots.

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totally agree but big websites can make other websites very rich .

as you study your arse off your see ppl say i gave up on seo and only use landing pages and web 2.0

google been around long but web 2.0 that are like google with indexing links and niche info has effected google being number 1 , google use to rule everythink till web 2.0 got so powefull .

Boy's stop searching for logic. Google on root was a simple engine made on paper, now they want to evolve with AI and other shits, and for this they need beta testers, what can be better than already ranking sites or non ranking sites, they just get this to randomly levels to can make a black whole for us, to can't understand how the engine will work in future.

splishsplash said:

This includes if you are 301'ing old pages to the homepage on an expired domain.





Can we please cut the conspiracy stuff? There is no Google conspiracy. At all. They don't randomly penalize sites. They aren't checking chrome. They aren't trying to force a few SEO's to use google ads. They are not trying to make some extra cash for Christmas as some have said. Google's parent company, Alphabet has $117 billion in cash. Well, sort of. That's what they say on the web for shock value.

They actually have $148 billion in what we call "current assets", which is an asset that can be liquidized in 1 year or less. Actual cash they have $16 billion, so they won't go hungry this week however.

Now, with that in mind..

Does anyone of sane mind really believe a company with that level of assets is instructing the engineers of their core business to make radical changes so they can get a bit of extra cash for Christmas? Or maybe to get a few more businesses to sign up for google ads. It's just utterly ridiculous. Their decisions are made with careful consideration with the goal of improving their core product to maintain their market share. They aren't even attempting to increase their market share. It's not increased for over a decade, and is a little lower than it was 10 years ago. Their sole goal is to maintain the dominant position by making sure people are happy. That is their mission. If they fail in that mission they are done. They would not fuck around with the serps to drum up a little more ads business. Great move. Risk your core product just to get a few more small businesses to buy ads.

Now please, folks. Enough of the conspiracy stuff, it's just embarrassing to read.

We are all just trying to work out what's going on in this update. All my sites and sites I'm responsible for have continued to grow. I've never actually been hit with a google update, but I do try and stay ahead of the curve by understanding each update so I can see the direction they are moving in.

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I call this bullshit!

And you know why?
Since google changed CEO and started to implement AI and trackers on chrome, they have lost all the control of all fucking engine.

They are in a frickin pursuit and hunt for the bugs
They are overwhelmed by them mistakes

And time will show this in the end cause they will not be able to control AI in the matter how they want

How many of you have read on google blog/twitter/forum the news about bot rolling on last update of chromium?

And now, how many of you checked logs to see that in fact bot is still rolling in same frickin 41 chromium version.

So all the news spread by them are bullshit and almost all ppl trust them.

So, logic?

Yeah...nothing logic to us, but this is the best game to them!

My last reply here on forum about google.

Peace and love!

splishsplash said:

This includes if you are 301'ing old pages to the homepage on an expired domain.





Can we please cut the conspiracy stuff? There is no Google conspiracy. At all. They don't randomly penalize sites. They aren't checking chrome. They aren't trying to force a few SEO's to use google ads. They are not trying to make some extra cash for Christmas as some have said. Google's parent company, Alphabet has $117 billion in cash. Well, sort of. That's what they say on the web for shock value.

They actually have $148 billion in what we call "current assets", which is an asset that can be liquidized in 1 year or less. Actual cash they have $16 billion, so they won't go hungry this week however.

Now, with that in mind..

Does anyone of sane mind really believe a company with that level of assets is instructing the engineers of their core business to make radical changes so they can get a bit of extra cash for Christmas? Or maybe to get a few more businesses to sign up for google ads. It's just utterly ridiculous. Their decisions are made with careful consideration with the goal of improving their core product to maintain their market share. They aren't even attempting to increase their market share. It's not increased for over a decade, and is a little lower than it was 10 years ago. Their sole goal is to maintain the dominant position by making sure people are happy. That is their mission. If they fail in that mission they are done. They would not fuck around with the serps to drum up a little more ads business. Great move. Risk your core product just to get a few more small businesses to buy ads.

Now please, folks. Enough of the conspiracy stuff, it's just embarrassing to read.

We are all just trying to work out what's going on in this update. All my sites and sites I'm responsible for have continued to grow. I've never actually been hit with a google update, but I do try and stay ahead of the curve by understanding each update so I can see the direction they are moving in.

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I have a feeling this update has to do with relevance, could you please confirm it? Thanks!

redarrow said:

totally agree but big websites can make other websites very rich .

as you study your arse off your see ppl say i gave up on seo and only use landing pages and web 2.0

google been around long but web 2.0 that are like google with indexing links and niche info has effected google being number 1 , google use to rule everythink till web 2.0 got so powefull .

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Maybe using Web 2.0 as backlinks should still work then?

Man, this update is something else. I don't have any ranking niche sites, but I've been tracking 8 to 10 sites for a while now and 90% of them have lost traffic due to Google's 2019 updates. Loss ranges from 20% to 70%. Here's one example: thebestvpn.com

No one knows what this update targeted, and until it's figured out, I recommend that everyone carries on with life. It's all part of the game - you win some, you lose some.

nakamura said:

Its funny how people are trying to jump into conclusions saying "Oh, it has something to do with expired domains" or "Its because of 301s redirects". No, its not. Stop misleading people. The truth is nobody has a clue what is going on. Only Google themselves know (well, maybe) and they keep silence like always.

I had all kinda websites with expired domains, fresh domains, 301 redirects and without, different niches, on different hosting, with SSL or without, with tons of content and with only 5 pages etc. etc. they randomly got hit. Even two sites I didn't build a single backlink to got hit. There is nothing in common...just read through all the thread and you will find it.

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If there is anyone from google reading this they must be having a good laugh and celebrating a 'mission accomplished'. That's exactly what they want you to think. The thing is that there is nothing random and there is a logic, not as obvious as it used to be in the old days but there is. And only a naive person would complain about google not posting what kind of update they've done. Why the F#$% would they do that, to help you game the system ...

I see many guys talk about downranking started 17 december. This is my main keyword.. Maybe this is not related to the last update? What you think? Still loosing positions hours after hours.. (serp tracker set to 2 hours.. that's why you can see soo many updates on the screenshot)

In my case update started around 15-16. I think it was released in stages, not for all queries/niches.

assaultclass said:

Man, this update is something else. I don't have any ranking niche sites, but I've been tracking 8 to 10 sites for a while now and 90% of them have lost traffic due to Google's 2019 updates. Loss ranges from 20% to 70%. Here's one example: thebestvpn.com

No one knows what this update targeted, and until it's figured out, I recommend that everyone carries on with life. It's all part of the game - you win some, you lose some.

Click to expand...

thebestvpn.com got too much attention and bad publicity for their fake reviews, so it was just a matter of time before they got hit.

bahus said:

thebestvpn.com got too much attention and bad publicity for their fake reviews, so it was just a matter of time before they got hit.

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Yeah, but that's not the reason they got hit. Google doesn't target individual sites unless they are pure spam. Thebestvpn.com got hit at the same time other sites got hit during Google's August 2019 update: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-algorithm-update-august-29th-28145.html

splishsplash said:

This includes if you are 301'ing old pages to the homepage on an expired domain.





Can we please cut the conspiracy stuff? There is no Google conspiracy. At all. They don't randomly penalize sites. They aren't checking chrome. They aren't trying to force a few SEO's to use google ads. They are not trying to make some extra cash for Christmas as some have said. Google's parent company, Alphabet has $117 billion in cash. Well, sort of. That's what they say on the web for shock value.

They actually have $148 billion in what we call "current assets", which is an asset that can be liquidized in 1 year or less. Actual cash they have $16 billion, so they won't go hungry this week however.

Now, with that in mind..

Does anyone of sane mind really believe a company with that level of assets is instructing the engineers of their core business to make radical changes so they can get a bit of extra cash for Christmas? Or maybe to get a few more businesses to sign up for google ads. It's just utterly ridiculous. Their decisions are made with careful consideration with the goal of improving their core product to maintain their market share. They aren't even attempting to increase their market share. It's not increased for over a decade, and is a little lower than it was 10 years ago. Their sole goal is to maintain the dominant position by making sure people are happy. That is their mission. If they fail in that mission they are done. They would not fuck around with the serps to drum up a little more ads business. Great move. Risk your core product just to get a few more small businesses to buy ads.

Now please, folks. Enough of the conspiracy stuff, it's just embarrassing to read.

We are all just trying to work out what's going on in this update. All my sites and sites I'm responsible for have continued to grow. I've never actually been hit with a google update, but I do try and stay ahead of the curve by understanding each update so I can see the direction they are moving in.

Click to expand...

While I agree with a lot of what you're saying here and trust me, over the last 10 years I've heard a lot strange theories. But let's not forget that Google's loyalty is to their shareholders. In order to increase their share price, they need to continue to show growth in revenue. Being that the bulk of their revenue is generated through Adwords, don't put it past them to do all kinds of crazy shit, even at the micro level. Adwords real estate has been taking up more and more space for years, not to mention other tactics they use to increase CTRs. I've also seen them clean out entire SERPs and replace them with authority websites. This pushes the smaller guys to put their budgets into Adwords. Think about it this way, if revenue is stagnant in any particular quarter, what is the fastest way to generate a quick uptick in revenue? You got it, wipe out whole niches in the SERPs (ones with high CPCs) and push them into Adwords.

This isn't conspiracy stuff here, it's simple economics. Follow the money.

Folks, I just want to give some of you a little hope here, 2 of my biggest sites were totally wiped out in November, 1 semi returned last week, the other 1 has arrived back tonight in all its old rankings, it really is a wait and see game this, I thought I had lost that site forever. Hang in there and wait it out i was hit on November 4th so just over 4 weeks and both are back and back to where they ranked before...

tammyblogger said:

Folks, I just want to give some of you a little hope here, 2 of my biggest sites were totally wiped out in November, 1 semi returned last week, the other 1 has arrived back tonight in all its old rankings, it really is a wait and see game this, I thought I had lost that site forever. Hang in there and wait it out i was hit on November 4th so just over 4 weeks and both are back and back to where they ranked before...

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Here's hoping. Did you do anything with the websites between November and now? Or did you just leave them alone?

Nothing really, one thing I did start doing was redirecting some of its inner pages to another site and that other site came out and ranked, it was just a test with a few inner pages to see whether the other site would rank to give me an indication of a temp move until I worked things out. I honestly thought it was gone.

When it fist tanked I did mess about with site speed and changed the theme ( as id always wanted to change it but was scared to) So I took that opportunity to do it other than that I did nothing. I have not touched it in the last 2 weeks really.

OHH One thing that did happen was I had a disavow file on it as I had had 2 negative SEO attacks, and yesterday I removed the disavow file and uploaded a black file and tonight my site is back, so I don't know if anything to do with that as that's a bit quick is it not?



What I have noticed is if you have been hit after waiting it out the redirect option does still work as it did for me so at least perhaps some options going forward even if just for a temp fix

I honestly feel there is either umpteen algorithms penalizing different sites for different things so there is not a one size fits all going on, hence why no one can work it out, or its just testing with other sites and I bet half the folks on here will find their sites back in next week or so...

tammyblogger said:

Nothing really, one thing I did start doing was redirecting some of its inner pages to another site and that other site came out and ranked, it was just a test with a few inner pages to see whether the other site would rank to give me an indication of a temp move until I worked things out. I honestly thought it was gone.

When it fist tanked I did mess about with site speed and changed the theme ( as id always wanted to change it but was scared to) So I took that opportunity to do it other than that I did nothing. I have not touched it in the last 2 weeks really.

OHH One thing that did happen was I had a disavow file on it as I had had 2 negative SEO attacks, and yesterday I removed the disavow file and uploaded a black file and tonight my site is back, so I don't know if anything to do with that as that's a bit quick is it not?



What I have noticed is if you have been hit after waiting it out the redirect option does still work as it did for me so at least perhaps some options going forward even if just for a temp fix

I honestly feel there is either umpteen algorithms penalizing different sites for different things so there is not a one size fits all going on, hence why no one can work it out, or its just testing with other sites and I bet half the folks on here will find their sites back in next week or so...

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I had an overall improvement in the rankings last month after switching my cache plugin and improving the speed.
I wonder why some of my keywords keep dancing like crazy, they are swinging 50 positions up and down.

jyciap11 said:

For my websites the common factor is the hosting, 3 websites that got penalized are under the same hosting, but of course separated

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Are you saying using same hosting is bad? prove it?