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We reported about a possible Google update around February 13th and I do believe there was something rather large on that date - but now there is more chatter about a possible update early this week, this past Sunday and Monday at Google.
The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of discussion from webmasters about a possible update. Here are some recent comments:
Has anybody noticed a drop in their rankings yesterday or today specifically?
Yes, but could just be the continual state of flux I see. Though Mozcast reports activity, so you may be on to something.
Another update happened 100%. Expect a bumpy few days. If you recover, great. If not nothing you can do. Check your money terms, see if the organics have all but disappeared below ads & image results. My money is they have used Google Shopping data to spot the money terms. If your site relies on that term kiss goodbye to organic traffic.
Now, some of the tracking tools show higher than normal activity on those days including Mozcast and Algoroo but SERPs.com and SERP Metrics seem pretty flat.
Did you notice ranking changes and referral changes from Google earlier this week?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Josh Zehtabchi
02/19/2014 01:54 pm
All is normal on the eastern front for me.
Attila Szuhi
02/19/2014 02:14 pm
My site jumped up to 40 position from 90 to 45 for phrase search engine optimization [in hungarian]. The site is relatively new, but have a lot rather much natural link from biggest hungarian new sites
Simon
02/19/2014 02:15 pm
So just a post about a "possible algorithm" shift with no detail into what could be entailed? Thanks for the twitter post I guess lol.
Stuart David
02/19/2014 03:02 pm
I look how for these posts of your's as they are a good gage of the landscape and I'd say whenever you post one of these, your 999/1000 times correct. Keep it up!
Jason White
02/19/2014 03:09 pm
I'm seeing big changes in three accounts; two were hit with Penguin and are climbing, the third is a clean site that was just migrated...
hostcabi
02/19/2014 04:31 pm
Yep, we lost 60% on hostcabi.net
mason
02/19/2014 04:55 pm
my website lost 90% traffic ebookgoogle.com
Durant Imboden
02/19/2014 05:40 pm
No big changes for us in the last few days. Google referrals are up considerably from a couple of months ago, and they continue to climb, but that's to be expected at this time of year for our topic. (Bing referrals are up even more.)
Brian McCullough
02/19/2014 08:58 pm
Wild, wild flux from various traffic sources. Yesterday, a long dormant source was up 400%. Today a solid partner is up 100% and yesterday's high flyer is no where to be seen. Dunno what it will settle on, but the last 3 days have been wild. Every day has a radically different profile.
Adam
02/19/2014 10:21 pm
Across 100 or so sites I own or manage none have seen anything unusual lately, although there were some weird fluctuations in January. Whisper quiet since then!
Dan
02/19/2014 11:06 pm
Well were about 2 months away from penguin 3. Get ready for the full implementation of g+.
josh bachynski (SEO)
02/20/2014 12:32 am
that is complete speculation above . It is likely just panda. It is in the right time. It has the right roll out period. I have seen more than two pandas sites pop out recently
barbua
02/20/2014 12:43 am
greedy google need more money.
John
02/20/2014 05:02 am
See SEMrush. Much more data tracking than those mentioned for tracking SERP changes.
Vic Holtreman
02/20/2014 06:52 am
It's not speculation. One of my sites, which has been a top ranker for YEARS, and a number of other similar sites in my particular niche were all hammered right around Valentines Day.
osman musa
02/20/2014 09:40 am
Yeah it is the beginning of the end. I have just compared previous days visitors and it keeps declining, like I thought the punishment was done and over but not it is a slow and on going punishment so what is a person to do? They are only harming themselves as I have all Adsense ads on my site which earns Google money. This really sucks.
The Link Auditors
02/20/2014 10:20 am
These constant updates are landing companies in trouble with new rules and regulations to a 'healthy site'. At The Link Auditors, we have calls everyday from clients claiming they have lost rankings and even they are not found for very specific search terms. We suggest to keep a close watch on your backlink profile, so you know where you stand and to remove any links that may cause you harm, before Google cathes you!
Mobile Pundits
02/20/2014 11:48 am
ya i have lost some ranking. Now m feeling like not to become happy and not to become sad with this new update of Google. But it definitely cause some harm.
rnatt_cutts
02/20/2014 12:10 pm
Work on your site quality and post quality and unique stuffs .. (Typical Google Dialog)
Patti Paz
02/20/2014 12:18 pm
Yea, but I wouldn't call it, 'dialog'. I'd call it same ole sh.t!
nigcworld
02/20/2014 03:35 pm
Yes. My site lost ranking. Till now, I don't know why. I think it is not due to backlinks. I didn't build links.
Guest
02/20/2014 05:23 pm
O Google what you done to me
androidurdu
02/20/2014 05:26 pm
Hey Google what to done to me ...... why you want to kill me androidurdu.com
josh bachynski (SEO)
02/20/2014 06:05 pm
your noticing the event is not speculation. It may be mistaken, but it is not speculation. I posit the diagnosis is.
Bader
02/20/2014 07:25 pm
Same here, although this started a little earlier (3rd Feb.) :
osman musa
02/20/2014 08:13 pm
Yeah Mr Cutts guest tell me something I don't know already. I have high quality content and actually care about my visitors and how do I know your the real Cutts? I can actually show you our writers and my articles and you will be surprised to see crappy sites with horrible content rank higher than my site. One example of a site that ranks higher than me is of a writer that wrote about the Pros and Cons of HTC One, and if you were to read his article you would come to the conclusion that he doesn't even know the definition of the words PRO/CONS. Look for yourself, go Google HTC One Pros and Cons and one of those authors on first page will surprise you.
Timmy
02/20/2014 09:36 pm
This is Panda, my friend! Your site has no real content, ton of links and ads. A simple html/content ratio killed you!
Educrib
02/21/2014 04:17 am
Thanks for sharing this topic ,easy to understand and learn
osman musa
02/21/2014 05:28 am
It's not just you they kill man they kill everyone.
androidurdu
02/21/2014 08:12 am
ohhh! suggestions?
Andy
02/21/2014 12:34 pm
tell me more please!
Andy
02/21/2014 12:41 pm
didn't google release this already? do you mean P4 maybe? Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012
emilygibson111
02/23/2014 05:21 am
They want everybody to turn to Adwords if they want traffic. Too bad!
Andy Lighter
02/28/2014 05:25 am
One thing we have notice for sure is internal linking. Since Feb 2013 when most of us "little guys" saw our ranking tank, we started testing internal linking. We left some sites with the same internal linking, and changed others to see what happens. The changes were simple.....vary the anchor text of all links on some tests, and leave simple (SAME ON ALL) anchor texts the same. The sites that we changed all internal link anchor text to highly variable had 30% increase in traffic. The ones we left kept tanking in Google. So we changed all internal link anchor texts on the tanking site to highly variable and they all increased in traffic. Google claims their algo is SOOOOO sophisticated, but in reality it's not. You can see this by the amount of spam still ranking high in their index. Go LOCAL and go LONGTAIL, and GO LARGE - Google is currently favoring large index sites. We need to roll with punches and watch to see what is winning at the time. In all of our 10 years experience, one thing still rings true. SOMEBODY has to win!!! In other words some site types are always going to be winning - we need be aware of that and join the party. To sit still flogging a dead horse (domain) is not the way to go in my opinion. Start a new domain in a new way with a different kind of content. Spending stupid hours in Google webmaster tools disavowing links may regain some of your ranking, but I wouldn't waste too much time on it. Once G has "poo-pooed" a domain good luck coming back. Unless you well established of course. What's really disgusting is watching some domains take a tank in the rankings, and because they are "big enough" they make some noise in threads like this, and then Google decides to flip the switch and give them back their rankings. Total bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think there is A LOT more manual judgements from 20 something Google employees on our sites. If you have ever had a site ranking really high in a highly competitive market you may agree with me. When you are above the radar their staff WILL notice you, and they will take manual action against you if the random Google employees "decides" your site is not worthy - case in point being "AskTheBuilder.com". Google is arrogant and arbitrary - so instead of keeping white hat publishers in their fold, they will unleash spam hell. Judging by their search results now, and how they have destroyed SO MANY great sites who played by the rules, they have set themselves up for MORE SPAM in their indexes coming. I for one no longer care about keeping their index clean - I will use my coding and my employees to create massive sites to fill their index with pages. Fuck em!!
CustomerDisservice
03/07/2014 12:34 am
If our ranking dropped.. how do we tell "WHAT" on our site caused it???