Nov 15-16 Google layout shuffle

Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

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Nov 15-16 Google layout shuffle

Sgt_Kickaxe

6:00 pm on Nov 20, 2012 (gmt 0)

My image traffic has taken a bit of a dip since nov 16th(late 15th) and while trying to find a possible cause there doesn't seem to be one in my rankings/average positions of images etc.

In looking up each of the images that lost the most traffic I find that the images don't appear until below the first group of sites which is often the same site taking up all positions (e.g. youtube etc). The thing is that it's fluctuating a great deal between images being shown BELOW the first 8 results and ABOVE the first 8 results.

Obviously my images do well when they are at the top of the results. Is this a change in Google layout that isn't done propagating or are fluctuations the new norm? Was there an announcement from Google on the 15th or 16th?

cabbie

5:06 am on Nov 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

One of my sites has had most of it's positions in google image traffic hijacked by different blogspots.
My images are there, only credited to obscure blogs.:(

tigger

7:30 am on Nov 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

I presume this is the new layout displayed on Chrome your talking about ? least on IE its still the same and the way I prefer it - I really don't like this left aline that G is using on Chrome ...plus whats gone wrong with local search! If I tick UK only ( thats now buried ) thats not the old UK search that you can access via doing the same search on IE G

claaarky

9:07 am on Nov 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

Moving the organic results to the left does of course position Adwords more centrally on the screen (on my laptop, bang in the middle).

Christmas season, searches ramp up massively from mid November onwards. Coincidence?

Only in Chrome as well. Could be an experiment, or based on user behaviour in different browsers. etc.

If they stick with it, that might be the signal to do likewise with your website if it displays ads on the right hand side. Just a thought.

Sgt_Kickaxe

1:50 pm on Nov 24, 2012 (gmt 0)

*update* This isn't related to image hotlinking, it's about search results showing ANY image and LOCATION of image.

- With a weeks worth of data to use as comparison I was able to hone in on "affected" images and search for clues. It seems that images based on a brand, or on a page discussing that brand, are the affected subset and as mentioned in the opening post the position of these types of images has been shuffling from top to bottom of Google's search results.

New(to me at least) - no images results fitting the criteria are shown at all in natural search. That's no images at all as in Google doesn't display a few image results along with the text.

I was trying to figure out what it was about the images but it turns out that it's about the keywords, e.g. images don't return for "brand name product name" searches nearly as often right now (on my site at least) for SOME brand/product combinations, but not all.

It also started changing as early as Nov 2nd, after years of being stable. Something to think about when taking pictures of your xmas presents to post online! (unless of course it's just something affecting my site alone, or is purely cosmetic by Google, or this is a change caused by the intent algorithms or... just a layout change).

triggerfinger

4:11 pm on Jan 2, 2013 (gmt 0)

Just wanted to bump this a bit. I recently got crushed, losing nearly 100% of image search referrals.
I was pulling product images from across the web, and I was getting tons of image search traffic, even when I was hotlinking, I would outrank the original image. Apparently, that party is over.
I've switched over to a CDN and stopped hotlinking to other domains, but I've yet to see a bounce back.
Curious if anyone else got crushed on or around Nov. 16th.