Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2022 - Google Search and SEO forum at WebmasterWorld

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Google Updates and SERP Changes - June 2022

RedBar

12:25 pm on Jun 17, 2022 (gmt 0)

I am still seeing substantial movements in my widget SERPs, substantial equates to several pages for me.

Some pages, all of them big money keywords, are still MIA or so low they'll never see traffic BUT I have also seen some good money keywords returning to the first two pages in the past 48 hours however they have not driven any traffic whatsoever. Not only have I seen my pages returning I am also seeing other non-US business ones.

My new traffic levels are averaging even lower than expected and are now at 50% of just over a year ago.

Much of this I put down to G ads and type of device usage. Mobile users invariably view one page and gone and sometimes it amazes me they ever get to me even when on the first page with the huge volume of ads.

Fortunately my global site still has 50% desktop usage and this is because many trade industry users are desk-based and need lots more information and images than Joe Public does, in general these are my multiple page viewers.

RedBar

8:43 pm on Jun 20, 2022 (gmt 0)

According to Google is is fully baked.

Yep, fully baked however not yet fully delivered?

If this is the completed recipe then either IT seems over-baked for many OR something else is happening in the real world?

javelin

10:15 pm on Jun 20, 2022 (gmt 0)

Is this a stupid question, is the update finished but the churn / implementation / fallout, still going on?

I ask this since I seem to remember this happening before a few years ago.

Yes the official update is completed.... but... as we all know tweaks will still happen to the algo they say nothing about.
I am seeing some of the same that you are Redbar in that pages that were normally in the back of the pack now making it up front. To me it feels as if the algo is reassessing the overall content and with that some wonky things happen.

Traffic here has been steady over the past couple of days but its an interesting mix.

ichthyous

12:18 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Very low USA traffic today...the day peaked at 6am and declined in a stairstep pattern until 1pm, where it flatlined until 6pm. Interesting how traffic is now performing the opposite of the last 20 years, with traffic highest at midday and lowest at night and early mornings. Google is clearly ratcheting up the ads, or dumping more items on the page on the fly to ensure that all the traffic is skimmed during the best hours:

[ibb.co ]

RedBar

10:25 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Monday's traffic was very low for a weekday at 56% however, at the moment, it is looking more normal and already at 33% and roughly where I'd expect it to be.

Although traffic is down my USA traffic is remaining consistent at its usual proportionate average therefore, for me, it is not the lack of any specific country but the overall volume of traffic which keeps telling me it is something else that is affecting my traffic levels plus it is now very noticeable our lack of incoming realworld business enquiries, which in itself is very unusual at this time of year, suggesting a lack of intended / possible / proposed large national / international projects.

.

Neohippy

10:27 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Looks like SEMrush have definitely changed their thresholds. I took a screenshot 2 weeks ago, and it showed 'high' or 'very high' for UK from 24 May - 7 Jun ... now those same dates are mostly showing as 'normal', with just a couple of 'high' days.

renatovieira

10:36 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Big drop yesterday, and today seems to keep that big drop trend.

engine

11:12 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Google is no longer indexing a complete page, even from a high profile site.

I've tried searching for specifics and, although it's on the page, it's not indexed.

The result is it makes it harder to find stuff, so Google search is failing. What Google did do was to deliver other pages, but they didn't have the specifics.

RedBar

11:40 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Google is no longer indexing a complete page, even from a high profile site.

To be honest I've been waiting to see if anyone else had noticed this, I actually saw for a very recently updated site of mine Google displaying the keyword link from my sitemap!

I've never seen that before plus trying to get anything new spidered, unless it's a substantial news site, is becoming very slow, not hours, not weeks, but months, and I'm also seeing even more older, 7-10 years, double Pinterest links in the top 20.

JesterMagic

11:49 am on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

FYI There was some outages this morning around 3AM EST I believe. Cloudflare and other major services where affected.

[thousandeyes.com...]

Over this past year we have lost 50% of our traffic. Most of it was a slow trickle but the loss seem to accelerate right when the Ukraine war started.

Initially a lot of the blame for our lost traffic stems from widgets like People also Liked/Searched etc. appearing before the organic results. Our rankings didn't drop but the organics was pushed down even more. These type of widgets pushing visitors to do other searches before even seeing the organic results should be a huge red flag to webmasters (and law makers) that Google could care less about what visitors wants and it is all about Google keeping the visitor on their own properties or clicking on the useless ads.

ichthyous

4:42 pm on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Like @RedBar and @RenatoVieira I'm seeing a huge drop yesterday and even worse today. My USA traffic is -72% at noon EST. Yesterday traffic ended down between 25% and 55% for English language countries. One day USA gets whacked, then either UK or Australia, and Canada is perpetually low. W. Europe is all over the place. One day direct traffic vanishes completely, next day recovers. If you add up the cumulative effect since the update on May 25th it's been just deadly.

My ranking took a hit yesterday, but is higher today and much higher than 6 months ago...but no traffic.

RedBar

4:58 pm on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

Wowser, I've just done a SERPs check for one of my top keyword phrases and got:

Top - 2 x 4 block of image ads
RHS - 1 x 4 block image ads
1 Organic
PAA
1 Organic
2 x 4 Image ads
7 Organic
4 x 4 Image ads
Related
What om earth is going on, 36 image ads on one page?

The next page started with another 4 x 4 block of image ads!

engine

6:36 pm on Jun 21, 2022 (gmt 0)

I've been waiting to see if anyone else had noticed this,

It's been happening for smaller sites, but not for significant sites. Perhaps I've just come across it and its been going on a while.

This is not a good sign, and I'm hoping it's just an aberration and will be keeping an eye on this.

RedBar

9:48 am on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

Tuesday's traffic was 105% for me with a substanital increase in USA visitors however as soon as it went towards the end of my day, say 19.00 EST, it almost ground to a halt and just coming up to 11 hours this morning I am on 14% of average, yes 14.

This is utterly bizarre, I can't call these traffic flows, they are controlled surges, on / off and completely unnatural by my historical standards.

morpheus83

10:04 am on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

I have not seen such surges and dips in earlier core updates. Is this normal?

RedBar

10:57 am on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

Is this normal?

Personally I have seen this in the past BUT it usually smoothes out a few days after the update is supposedly complete and traffic, for me, has always returned to previous levels or better.

What is confusing this time is that although I have hundreds of keyword page rankings, many of them are not driving hardly any traffic whatsoever whereas for years there were consistent levels of traffic to those widget pages, therefore does this mean:

1. The update has changed something that has affectred this traffic?
2. Has there been a sudden downturn in the global and national economies?
3. Have all those ads simply drowned my / your SERPs?

I could go into more micro levels but is seems to be something bigger that affected so many.

What do you think?

samsseo

12:07 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

Anyone else noticing a recent drop in Video clicks/impressions in GSC? I've been checking through and the videos didn't change position, so wondering if it's a reporting issue...

BigKat

1:29 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

Anyone else noticing a recent drop in Video clicks/impressions in GSC? I've been checking through and the videos didn't change position

In our ecommerce industry, the video block has been pushed further down the page (viewing mobile) because of the large Amazon ad block Google is displaying on more buyer intent queries. The Amazon block is so large it requires a small amount of scrolling on an iPhone to see the entire ad. This explains why we are also experiencing fewer video views, and organic traffic, as the Amazon ad block has pushed everything down the page. However, this may not apply to you. Have you noticed any layout changes in Google that may be responsible for what you are seeing?

ichthyous

3:30 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

@RedBar I've been posting about the extreme volatility every day on here since this latest update. We went from seeing huge swings from day to day, to now seeing surges and cut-offs of the flow of traffic by the hour. You can see it plain as day in real time.

Much of this is due to the new page layouts I think...Google is altering them on the fly and loads the page with the most ads and Google widgets during prime business hours. The level of traffic we are seeing at off hours is most likely the 'real' level of traffic we would all be getting if Google weren't manipulating the hell out of the traffic flow.

ichthyous

3:39 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

@samsseao and @BigKat As an aside, I was looking at impressions for search and images yesterday. The graph tells the story plain as day:
[ibb.co ]

The diverging impressions and clicks are widening month by month. This graphs implies that clicks are remaining stable, despite a major increase in impressions. But I am certainly not seeing the clicks reflected in either traffic or conversions, both of which have dropped. Conversions are effectively at zero on my site since the last update on 5/25.

The new Google page designs have been rolled out since early 2021 in reality, they are just getting a lot more crowded now, and affecting a wider swath of terms.

BigKat

5:02 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

they are just getting a lot more crowded now, and affecting a wider swath of terms.

Exactly. The percentage of buyer intent keywords impacted by these layout changes has substantially expanded, which is why I believe sales from Google have evaporated. Taking up our lost real estate is Amazon, Walmart and all the marketplaces that exist to peddle Chinese goods.

All of the items we sell we also produce. They are certainly unique, though Chinese alternatives do exist for some of what we manufacture/sell. However, even our most unique products are next to impossible to find by doing a Google search. Head over to Bing or Yahoo and our products are easy to find. It's my hope that flustered Google users make an effort to break out of Google's prison and use a different search engine.

RedBar

5:27 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

@ichthyous - I've just been checking the SERPs for a dozen widget keywords for which I no longer rank #1-3 and there is definitely a common template theme running though at least 75% of these sites.

They are all very thin sites with nearly always a poor image with a magnifier.
Actual widget information is restricted to 4-6 lines of very generic text containing the widget keyword.
Some actually have zero on-page widget text.
ALL of them have at the bottom of the page an image carousel with "you may also like".
They are ALL sales sites with pricing info however no shopping carts.
They are 95% USA sites which does give credibility to the US-only sales push.

Of course the only way to see all these sites properly is on desktop since they are otherwise buried on mobile.

All-in-all if anyone were to be searching for genuine and relevant information about my industry widgets you'd have an extremely difficult time unless you'd already bookmarked my site!

RedBar

5:28 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

RedBar

6:32 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

javelin

10:00 pm on Jun 22, 2022 (gmt 0)

Much of this is due to the new page layouts I think...Google is altering them on the fly and loads the page with the most ads and Google widgets during prime business hours. The level of traffic we are seeing at off hours is most likely the 'real' level of traffic we would all be getting if Google weren't manipulating the hell out of the traffic flow.

I believe its worse than this really. I know you believe the same as its been discussed before. When sites get jerked around and funneled garbage traffic the whole "we care about search" reminds me of "we are here to help you" slogan lol.

Its not just ecommerce that has been hit but also the blogging world. Ive been publishing for a while and its amazing to see the favor some get over others. I began to see why when xyz blog was tied to xyz company albeit appearing as two different entities online.

There are ways to fight back with a blog, but its a lot harder with ecommerce. The most successful ones I see are those who have layers of sites built ie ecommerce / blog / affiliates ect... It takes a big team and a pocket full of cash to hit back hard enough directly.

ne0h

4:26 am on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

What I believe this update did is directly hit the "Authority" of the sites. And there is no legitimate explanation for how you increase or decrease authority.

See the below image. After long hours of digging what I found is my organics are down a little. But major hit in Google News and Discover - which is close to none. And that caused the problem. Now, there is no core change on the site I did, articles are being published with the same tone, intent and frequency.

[imgur.com ]

No one knows why Google is not favouring you anymore suddenly one fine morning. I guess we are at mercy of AI and algorithm at this stage. Lost all hope from this and perhaps, I need to find out alternatives. Because the time and effort spent on an article are not returning much due to this ever-changing SEO. It's better to learn tech and apply for a high-paying job at that same time and effort.

Really heartbreaking. :(

morpheus83

5:17 am on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

@ne0h thats a very accurate analysis. With authority down your direct traffic will go down the drain swiftly.

christianz

7:55 am on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

Big drop few hours ago. Obviously there is no recovery any time soon (or ever).

I also noticed for one of my top keyword phrases which is 100% informational / non-commercial, Google showed large mobile Ad, which looked like organic listing with sitelinks. This top-ad was very large, about 40% of phone screen size. Only reasons why I could tell its not real search result was tiny black "Ad" label in corner, and, of course, the glaring irrelevance.

It was like searching "tallest buildings" and getting "PremiumXYZTapeMeasures.com" as first result with sitelinks. No, Google, I am not going to tape measure skyscrapers. Someone needs to tell Google AI that people don't always want to buy things when they look up facts.

I don't recall ever seeing any top ads (even regular size) for this phrase.

RedBar

10:31 am on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

Extraordinary ... I've already exceeded my weekday average with less than half my day gone. Multiple visitors looking at multiple pages from multiple global locations ... How long will this last, not long I bet ?

BigKat

1:37 pm on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

Big drop few hours ago.

Us as well. Traffic/conversions had fallen off a cliff from the core update but it appears to be worsening this morning. Positions are bouncing around, so one can hope when this round of updates is done some/all of the damage from the core update will be resolved. Still, with many businesses reeling from other problems (material/supply shortages, worker shortages, inflation, etc.), the harm inflicted from the core update may be the final nail in the coffin for some.

RedBar

1:44 pm on Jun 23, 2022 (gmt 0)

so one can hope when this round of updates is done some/all of the damage from the core update will be resolved.

If there is anything we have all learnt about Google is that once a major update has been released then that's it ... However I do seem to recollect one "kind of reversal" but I don't remember for what and why?

And after a great morning I've come to a grinding halt ... again!

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