Was *just* coming here to note that @neohippy.

Also, indexing issues (or just general weird bugginess?) with a combination of search console saying "not indexed" [though it is] or "indexed" [when it is not]. This is kinda one of those things that happens form time to time... but anyone else noticing similar things?

Discover is down since 1st Feb (70% drop). Top Stories presence has also reduced. I started to appear in Top Stories after December core update and it's slowly going away, thanks to this new update.

@MayankParmar

Same problem for me (european news websites)

@TalkativeEditorial - looks like we're living in the same world! Indexed a new page through SC earlier today; it's saying indexed fine, but exact title site: search isn't bringing it up...

It's the opposite for me with a url right now - the url is indexed, but GSC says it is not there. Concerning because of previous issues with canonical urls on Google's side.

For me the Discover curve is the opposite. Had a decent little uptick since the start of Feb, but nosediving since yesterday.

Massive drop today! Rollercoaster active again... :-|

So what are u guys hearing about the High SERP volatility of the last hours?
Semsrush Sensor is capturing something for most countries.

@RedBar Same thing in Manhattan...permanently closed businesses and lots of empty apartments. There has been a flight out of all the "superstar" cities like NYC, San Francisco, DC, and into lower priced markets and the interior of the country. These people were trapped in high priced cities and can now work from anywhere...I know a few that went home to live with parents to save money but kept their jobs. In the longer term it's healthy...NYC was like a perpetual Disneyland with hordes of tourists, massive overcrowding, noise and overpriced everything. Now it's just the hard core locals and I'm rather enjoying the less frenetic city. They will return eventually, but those who left and can work from less expensive places are never coming back.

@renatovieira My big drop started on Monday...yesterday overall traffic was up except for USA, which was down 17%. Today starting the day again with a 58% drop in USA traffic and a 37% drop in searches. It's early yet, that will improve by EOD but I have lost a big number top 3/10/20 terms in the last three days so who knows if those will bounce back so quickly.

Feb 7 had the lowest organic traffic, ever.

So what is this February 8 thing? Another traffic cut for independent/organic/small publishers in favor of corpo sites?

It is change in traffic all because this?

[support.google.com ]

or is some new google algorithm in process last days?

Good catch @universenet...I wonder how this will all affect us. By the way, GOOG had blowout revenue numbers and the stock popped 8% the other day. Youtube is producing huge profits for them too. Gosh, I wonder why? Each page has a ridiculous number of ads and Youtube vids now.

I sincerely hope that all these publishers turn the tables on Google and start a big trend...Google will have to pay for content!

I didn't think Google's search results could get worse but over the last couple of days they have become diabolical. All attempts at relevancy seem to have been abandoned and authority seems to be the only ranking criteria. For instance I entered a search term only vaguely related to the police and the first three pages are filled with different UK police forces giving virtually the same answer to a question I did not ask! Other search terms are bringing up pages of newspaper sites also saying the same thing as each other despite the fact that they are only vaguely relevant to my search term. I won't even mention pinterest. These are the sort of results I got used to in 1995.

Each page has a ridiculous number of ads and Youtube vids now.

Ha ha. I have noticed the same. They are squeezing ad revenue like a lemon right now. YouTube videos are almost unwatchable due to endless ad irruptions (worse than TV used to be).

However, it is still possible to use YouTube as music or background audio streaming service on desktop, if you keep the YouTube tabs in background - backgrounded tab = no video ads.

Business model of all these "free platforms" is bait-and-switch. YouTube has baited creators and audience for many years and now it looks like they are switching. Effectively cashing out on their monopoly status.

For those who are unaware it is Chinese New Year this Friday 12th February ... Many of my widget industry factories are already closed and not open until Monday 1st March.

Inevitably my traffic will be down.

Traffic is down 33% for both USA and Canada at 7:30pm. I haven't seen such a huge drop in a long long time. I am wondering if people are enthralled by the impeachment coverage in USA as social media is also very quiet today and yesterday

Why complain about the number of ads? That’s how we get paid, or at least those of us who do not sell a product.

Still plunging here. Went to check to see when last the dip was this dramatic (in terms of a straight fall off a cliff)....only the indexing/canonical issues from September last year compares....

As an individual, I just cannot compete with these global brands worth billions.

Google is going through a paradigm shift at the moment. It's very obvious if you pay attention.

In my opinion the days where one-man-show / marketer-run / smalltime sites rank will soon be over and the only way to meaningfully rank will be to actually become a real and known brand or organisation.

Google clearly wants to push sites that are owned and operated by known and reputable entities that have an actual purpose other than made for web marketing, traffic generation or affiliate marketing.

In my opinion, in a few years it will be impossible to rank sites created by marketers-only and made for ads or affiliate offers (and a lot of smaller and relatively unknown but legit sites will unfortunately also be caught in the crossfire). The only sites that will rank will be the ones created by professional teams and experts in their field who are capable of producing content that attracts genuine and organic following leading to brand recognition (i.e. becoming a household name).

--

Let me give you one example in a niche we are all familiar with:

- Neil Patel. (yes, really.)

Why is Neil Patel a known brand?

- everybody knows him by name and reputation in his niche (SEO)
- he is constantly being mentioned and discussed in relevant niche media
- other big name authorities in his niche constantly mention and talk about him (positively or negatively)
- constant organic social media coverage by niche experts and authorities (love him or hate him - people talk about him)
- he is constantly mentioned organically on niche expert forums (like this very post, lol)
- he is constantly and organically mentioned and discussed in niche expert websites and blogs
- there is a genuine and organic following around him
- has real media presence

In other words, he is a name that everyone in his niche knows. This generates specific signals that Google may be able to detect algorithmically.

He is a known brand in the SEO niche.

My theory is that if you take his site and another unknown site that has the exact same kind of content and same kinds of links, NP's site will outrank it into orbit because of all the "brand buzz" signals he generates while the other one does not, even though everything else is the same.

* I don't personally like NP at all. I just thought it's a good example in this case.

** I am not suggesting that the above is a bad thing. I'm merely making an observation.

You're probably right in part @mzb44.
My pet peeve about this is approach is that it actually opens the door for charlatans to prosper even more. Act confident and no one will question you, kinda thing.

Seems the sensors are stablising again - including in the US. Waiting patiently to see if traffic returns to 'somewhat' normal.

@mzb44
I have an authority site, micro niche, 1000 visitors per day.

My site is 10 years old with helpful articles and I was the first one to every write about this subject. I am mentioned on forums every single day and I am getting organic backlinks. My site has 0 spam and 0 blackhat stuff.

I was getting stable traffic until December, spam sites overtook my niche, sited with billion articles and 5000 spam backlinks and 1 yo domains came to the 1st serp.

How is that so?

Even some spam auto generated video blog sited are ranking above my site.

My site is secure, fast, light theme, huge articles, great SEO, Google is ranking spam sites right now.

I created a new site in a mid size niche 3 months ago, I wrote 3 articles, and I am getting more visitors than my 10yo site, lol.

I am running niche sited since 2009 and trust me, something big will happen in the next few weeks because Google will realise its all spam, no relevant results at all. There has to be some update in the next 1 2 months.

...in a few years it will be impossible to rank sites created by marketers-only and made for ads or affiliate offers (and a lot of smaller and relatively unknown but legit sites will unfortunately also be caught in the crossfire). The only sites that will rank will be the ones created by professional teams and experts in their field who are capable of producing content that attracts genuine and organic following leading to brand recognition (i.e. becoming a household name).

This is a good thing, who wants to visit a website whose sole intent is to grab us through misleading marketing and no real content? I am fortunate that in my field if I do not build a brand I simply won't earn anything...there is no faking it or just putting shallow fluff out there, you'll be ignored and your reputation will suffer. My brand has taken eighteen years of visual content building, late nights working, awards, interviews, press and treating my customers like the precious commodity that they are. They leave excellent reviews, return to buy more and send others. And yet my site still gets hammered from time to time by Google and my niche is mostly dominated by very large corporations too. The secret is to offer what they cannot. If you are trying to compete head to head with large corporations by offering the same thing they offer then you do not stand a chance.

One thing everyone must consider is that the number of sites just keeps multiplying...the competition keeps multiplying...it will be impossible to rank across the board for many terms now. Also people have migrated to other platforms and apps on their phones....they simply aren't using google search like they used to.

My site is 10 years old with helpful articles and I was the first one to every write about this subject. I am mentioned on forums every single day and I am getting organic backlinks. My site has 0 spam and 0 blackhat stuff.

I was getting stable traffic until December, spam sites overtook my niche, sited with billion articles and 5000 spam backlinks and 1 yo domains came to the 1st serp.

How is that so?

The core update may have classified your site as a non-brand site ranking for stuff only known brand sites should rank and it got demoted.

The spam sites that rank may use spam methods such as 301 expired domain redirects from domains that had some brand signals. Also they could be new sites that haven't yet been classified by a core update.

It's not perfect, I know. Never will be.

something big will happen in the next few weeks because Google will realise its all spam, no relevant results at all. There has to be some update in the next 1 2 months.

I have seen this comment every single time no exception after every single core update. Literally.

And every single time the exact absolute opposite happened. Google doubled down every single time.

February is still a SPAM season. Full of spam, non-active, and stuffed-keyword websites keep ranking in first page. Good job Google.

Still seeing some really strange things in Search Console.
Index Coverage shows url "crawled not indexed".
But inspecting the url shows it is indexed.
Page is in the SERPs when using some phrases for it.

Lots of these weird contradictions.

Anyone notice any shifts over past 24 hours?

@AdrianRozic

I am in exactly the same boat as you, but even older site and much higher traffic. Precisely like @mzb44 is saying, Google is demoting me because I am not a corporation and neither I am tailoring my site 100% to be keywordstuffed, overtargeted and over SEO optimized, like spammers do. I actually want it to be usable for visitors, not just please Google algo to have any chance to compete with corpos.

If Google wanted to fix this, they could have done it since December. But in February it looks like they doubled down again.

No improvement here after the sensors reverted to 'normal'. Lots of weird things on GSC. Looks far too much like some of the glitches from last year. Very concerning.

Edit: And some serious indexing issues which is highly unusual for us.