Sudden Ranked Drop? Google Algo Update?
- Thread starter wawangjan
- Start date
Did you try to remove and add again your sitemap? Or index a post?
Someone got this too?
I did actually change sitemaps and then this happens.
bagle
Registered Member
- Nov 7, 2019
- 55
- 5
Sometimes...
Someone got this too?
agree. I don't think sitemap priority is the problem here.
I can index my sites (the new sites) thru the GSC. I made 2 trials.
1 with GSC
1 without GSC
Both of them are indexed well. Specially one with GSC.
Although.. this keyword is very low comp, and the index is found on google command site, but the ranks is...the problem.
All of them didn't rank well.. so I guess this is another problem lol
I tried now and work for me
Nope. I changed sitemap, content posts, restyling completely my websites but nothing it seems to be working at the moment.
Hi guys,
in this thread I read there is quite some consensus around "high DA sites" and "spammy sites - parasites" that are ranking well now.
Here is my take for the Amazon affiliate sector, which I belong to. I don't have other things around at the moment, so I can't speak for the other niches.
If you searched for any product on sale on Amazon, until some months ago, you saw a lot of affiliate websites, content rich, and almost no shop, apart for Amazon, which was often outranked by the best affiliates.
Now, instead, you see manufacturer's website (in the home niche where I belong: big brands like iRobot, Philips, Dyson etc) that often have their own official shop, plus Amazon, other online shops and, maybe, one or two affiliate websites.
So yes, at first sight, DA wins over content, it seems. Because online shops won't tell you much about the product, apart for the specifications, but they have a big DA because of backlinks.
I'm not sure, though, if this is due to high DA or if it's coincidental, and the real reason is the fact most of the product reviews on affiliate websites are fake. I mean, not all the affiliate websites are like Thewirecutter. They don't actually buy and test items. They take data from the web: from manufacturer's website, and from other review websites like Thewirecutter, they shuffle things around and create their own review. The typical affiliate website owner will outsource content or write himself, and in both cases who writes will do what I described, exactly, without mentioning sources.
The result is many similar reviews describing the same product, all "stealing" content from each other, although each of them is "original" if you check it against a plagiarism tool like Copyscape.
Seems like Google spotted this and decided to return more varied results: yes, one review or two (the best ones, according to Google), and then shops, price comparators and manufacturer's websites.
If you look at Thewirecutter.com (US) and which.co.uk (UK), that are probably the best in their respective markets, you will notice that they didn't lose any traffic in the recent updates. They are the ones still showing up on page 1.
At the same time: I cannot see any parasites ranking in this sector. If they did, this would confirm I'm wrong, and DA theory is right. I have seen many posts in this thread saying some parasites now rank well, but no real example of this - that would be useful. I haven't seen any myself, not in the Amazon affiliate niche.
So I'm asking you (Amazon affiliates) if, honestly: could it be that Google is right, there is no bug, and we are complaining just because our "method" isn't working anymore?
Like many others here, I didn't build links, but my site lost about 2/3 of the traffic from November, being hit by all of the recent updates (November and January in particular). Is it maybe because our copywriters just copy stuff around and we offer no value, having just put together things that others had already written?
in this thread I read there is quite some consensus around "high DA sites" and "spammy sites - parasites" that are ranking well now.
Here is my take for the Amazon affiliate sector, which I belong to. I don't have other things around at the moment, so I can't speak for the other niches.
If you searched for any product on sale on Amazon, until some months ago, you saw a lot of affiliate websites, content rich, and almost no shop, apart for Amazon, which was often outranked by the best affiliates.
Now, instead, you see manufacturer's website (in the home niche where I belong: big brands like iRobot, Philips, Dyson etc) that often have their own official shop, plus Amazon, other online shops and, maybe, one or two affiliate websites.
So yes, at first sight, DA wins over content, it seems. Because online shops won't tell you much about the product, apart for the specifications, but they have a big DA because of backlinks.
I'm not sure, though, if this is due to high DA or if it's coincidental, and the real reason is the fact most of the product reviews on affiliate websites are fake. I mean, not all the affiliate websites are like Thewirecutter. They don't actually buy and test items. They take data from the web: from manufacturer's website, and from other review websites like Thewirecutter, they shuffle things around and create their own review. The typical affiliate website owner will outsource content or write himself, and in both cases who writes will do what I described, exactly, without mentioning sources.
The result is many similar reviews describing the same product, all "stealing" content from each other, although each of them is "original" if you check it against a plagiarism tool like Copyscape.
Seems like Google spotted this and decided to return more varied results: yes, one review or two (the best ones, according to Google), and then shops, price comparators and manufacturer's websites.
If you look at Thewirecutter.com (US) and which.co.uk (UK), that are probably the best in their respective markets, you will notice that they didn't lose any traffic in the recent updates. They are the ones still showing up on page 1.
At the same time: I cannot see any parasites ranking in this sector. If they did, this would confirm I'm wrong, and DA theory is right. I have seen many posts in this thread saying some parasites now rank well, but no real example of this - that would be useful. I haven't seen any myself, not in the Amazon affiliate niche.
So I'm asking you (Amazon affiliates) if, honestly: could it be that Google is right, there is no bug, and we are complaining just because our "method" isn't working anymore?
Like many others here, I didn't build links, but my site lost about 2/3 of the traffic from November, being hit by all of the recent updates (November and January in particular). Is it maybe because our copywriters just copy stuff around and we offer no value, having just put together things that others had already written?
Ely
Regular Member
- May 19, 2019
- 288
- 175
You have a big site (i mean with a lot of traffic) or small sites ?
Rafiki59
Junior Member
- Jan 14, 2019
- 190
- 94
It's not just Amazon-affiliated sites that are affected; I don't think we need to question the methods that work. Car blogs, travel blogs and web agency sites have been affected.
So no, I still don't think Google's right on this one.
I have a big site in the macro niche "Home", with almost 1000 reviews. Each product type has a buying guide and several reviews of single products. The total number of pages is about 1200. About 150 product categories.
I used to have between 2 and 3000 organic sessions/day, now down to 800-1000.
First big hit in November update (around Nov 9th), second on January 13th, which was not all in one day, but still affecting me on a daily basis (i.e. it doesn't seem to be over yet). Maybe I was also hit in December, but it was less evident because of seasonality.
YujinTan
BANNED
- Jan 7, 2018
- 4,975
- 969
I think perhaps those big sites you claim they more towards marketing, they spend tons of money on ads , online and offline .
so perhaps they maintain well ? People always see their ads will kinda naturally go their site check around thus the number of search for their sites always appear on search engine
and this is how they can maintain their rank ?
YujinTan
BANNED
- Jan 7, 2018
- 4,975
- 969
3000 organic search? wow actually not bad but how your site age? I mean new site or already for years? or you got tons of quality backlinks?
Last edited:
SimonBC
Junior Member
- Sep 18, 2019
- 161
- 107
Not sure if it was a coincidence but I was having problems getting my posts indexed (prior to this they would be added in minutes) and Google was refusing to index them all of a sudden. I also could not get them indexed in BulkaddURL. When I checked the sitemap in GSC it showed the new posts were on there but when i checked the GSC output after it processed the sitemap it was as if they were never submitted. they were not rejected but nor where they flagged as ok. GSC just ignored them and when i checked had ignored all new posts since the start of Feb.
I then added the sitemap url to my Robots.txt file and since then all my posts have been indexed and were indexed within an hour of me adding the URL to the robots.txt file. I cannot explain it hence my saying at the start it must be a coincidence (Or it reset something on Googles side because I did have old versions of sitemaps from different plugins listed in the GSC sitemap history)
I cannot explain it and just offering it up as a faint possibility but might be worth someone trying if they have switched xml sitemap plugins and had problems
Not sure if it was a coincidence but I was having problems getting my posts indexed (prior to this they would be added in minutes) and Google was refusing to index them all of a sudden. I also could not get them indexed in BulkaddURL. When I checked the sitemap in GSC it showed the new posts were on there but when i checked the GSC output after it processed the sitemap it was as if they were never submitted. they were not rejected but nor where they flagged as ok. GSC just ignored them and when i checked had ignored all new posts since the start of Feb.
I then added the sitemap url to my Robots.txt file and since then all my posts have been indexed and were indexed within an hour of me adding the URL to the robots.txt file. I cannot explain it hence my saying at the start it must be a coincidence (Or it reset something on Googles side because I did have old versions of sitemaps from different plugins listed in the GSC sitemap history)
I cannot explain it and just offering it up as a faint possibility but might be worth someone trying if they have switched xml sitemap plugins and had problems
There is a limit on how many URLs one can index using GSC (don't know the exact number), if you hit the limit, GSC will stop indexing new posts.
It's interesting to see people posting that BulkaddURL no longer works for them, it could have something to do with a limit how many URLs a website can index within a time frame, or maybe google people are reading this forum and seeing that BulkaddURL works well have done something to stop it indexing new links. I remember Matt Cutts saying a few years ago that they follow some BH forums to get ideas what people are up to.
Yeah, my site is 95% money content. I like to think it's well done/impartial (we include products without affiliate programs) and often mark them as "best", even though we don't get a commission... but maybe it's a bad signal.
Some other things I'm thinking:
- keyword density might be too high.. it's lots lower than it used to be but nowadays even if i see 3 exact match long tails it looks out of place, so maybe that is an issue
- "best" is in many of the permalinks and page titles... might be a bad signal
- some list based pages are very long and have over 100 links (both internal and external). Google has said things in the past about that possibly being bad.. it's never been a negative for me in the past but maybe now it is a thing
I am not convinced that there is no issue at all - there's still some weird stuff going on with the index. Maybe it's just to mess with us. For me mobile friendly issues persist even when every other tool/bot finds my site fine. If it's not a "bug" then it may be reduced crawl budget due to algorithmic penalty?