Latest Google Update

[AidanLCFC]

Anyone who keeps an eye on these things will have known google released a core update om May 4th, more here - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2020-core-update-live-29403.html

How has it effected you and your sites? I won't lie, it hasn't been great for me. 1 pocket money site that was keeping me ticking over was pushed off page 1. Another site I had been working hard on also took a hit, dropping 2-3 pages for most keywords, some completely vanishing and with only a small amount either on par or very slight declines.
One other site is a very strange one and took a geo slap. Beginning of March time there was a weird google update of some sort and it looked like a lot of GEO targeting got messed up and a .com UK facing site started to drop out of all uk SERPS. Strange was it stayed where it was in other GEO's, so 'blue widgets UK' vanished in google uk but could be found in other searches exactly the same place in say Ireland and Canada. Strangely in WMT the geo targeting had been reset to default US. I hadn't done it and went through the emails to find that, yes, I had changed it to UK facing as I should and no I hadn't reset it or changed it, it was some bug. No signs of that coming back anytime soon and one of it's side GEO's got pushed down as well in this latest update.
So as you can see, not great for me, in fact one of them felt like a kick in the guts as I was making gains and assuming I was doing what google wanted. No point in pretending I'm some super affiliate and this update was brilliant for me. The days of me being a big fish in this industry are long gone. Worse thing about this is that I can't seem to see any trends and nor can the 'experts' from what I'm seeing, and yes I know it hasn't fully rolled out yet but still, bad signs are bad signs.
So what are everyone's experiences with this? Good or bad share your thoughts, and remember, be honest

 

[bettingappguide]

I think it's taken its toll on a lot of sites. Some of ours have gone up, some down, some hardly any change. I am not reading too much in to it for a few weeks as serps are still dancing. Not sure what the reasons are being it. Content, links, anchor text, schema, site set up etc

 

[Conft]

No real movement on my older sites, but some of the new ones I had been building links to took a hit, but its early days I would say. I probably had a bit too much in the way of exact match anchor text, so could be the reason. One thing I have noticed is that for the sites that took a hit, some of the keywords have moved up ~ 20 spots since this started, while others have seen the same kind of decline, so that's why I think its too early to start changing anything.

Looking at the SERPs for the sites that got hit I can see the first 5/6 pages contain only older sites, and sites that have been hit like mine all tend to be either newer sites or older sites that restarted their link building recently. Anyway im going to wait and keep going as I was for another week or two and then see where things stand, bound to be a few case studies appear around that time from some of the search engine news websites.

 

[BetOnlineUK]

Got hit too and still dropping by the looks of it. So I think it is still rolling out.
You told me once to be patient when I was worried about a drop in rankings so like Conft I will see where we are at in a couple of weeks.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Yeah all we can do is wait and see how the dust settles, I've completely stopped working on any of them so we can see what has happened more clearly once it's finished. One thing I noticed was a lot of sites already dominating the SERPS for what I follow hardly budged at all

 

[AidanLCFC]

I forgot to add for one site it was really frustrating. I hadn't seen the update on Monday, Tuesday morning the SERPS seemed the same and it wasn't until late Tuesday afternoon I saw on SERoundTable there had been and update so checked my rankings again and noticed nice gains for a fair few SERPS. Checked about 3-4 hours later and the slide started, talk about the rollercoaster of highs and lows

 

[BetOnlineUK]

Exactly what happened to me saw an initial increase for my main site, should of known then what was about to happen. Then saw the thread over at GPWA mentioning what was going on.

 

[MartinCalvert]

Important to let the dust settle before taking any drastic action - also worth thinking about whether any ranking dips are caused by the update, or if something just happened to take effect at the same time. From what we've seen YMML sites have had most volatility - good article from Sistrix is floating around that has a list of winners and losers - worth a look.

 

[BetOnlineUK]

You gotta laugh a site that promotes the Grand National ranks no.1 for cheltenham betting offers

 

[Casinobonushunter]

Can you share the article Martin? Some of my sites are hit badly, so try to learn more about this.

 

[MartinCalvert]

You gotta laugh a site that promotes the Grand National ranks no.1 for cheltenham betting offers

Funny old world. In a previous role we ranked in position 12 I think for the the job site 'Indeed' based on one blog post. Almost tempting to just become a job portal

 

[MartinCalvert]

Can you share the article Martin? Some of my sites are hit badly, so try to learn more about this.

I tried but it seems I'm not allowed to post links - if you search for 'Path Interactive May 2020' you should find it. I should also say that I don't work for Sistrix or Path Interactive.

 

[bettingappguide]

This the one?

https://www.pathinteractive.com/blo...rs-of-googles-may-2020-core-algorithm-update/

 

[MartinCalvert]

This the one?

Yup!

 

[Conft]

Still seeing my effected sites moving up slowly, one thing I have noticed is that some sites are getting irrelevant traffic from Google in different GEOs, for example a UK site getting traffic because it now ranks in Asian countries. I have also noticed for some search terms Google has boosted sites that are out of date/ contain nothing other than a wall of text, so once again I can't see things remaining as they are. Might take up painting while I wait

 

[BetOnlineUK]

No recovery my end

 

[bettingappguide]

Still seeing my effected sites moving up slowly, one thing I have noticed is that some sites are getting irrelevant traffic from Google in different GEOs, for example a UK site getting traffic because it now ranks in Asian countries. I have also noticed for some search terms Google has boosted sites that are out of date/ contain nothing other than a wall of text, so once again I can't see things remaining as they are. Might take up painting while I wait

Serps seem very messed up at the min. Noticed a few massive sites have taken big hits over last week or so too.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Serps seem very messed up at the min. Noticed a few massive sites have taken big hits over last week or so too.

any specific sites?

 

[Jambo]

This update hit us really so hard.....

 

[AidanLCFC]

This update hit us really so hard.....

want to go into any details mate? you think you can spot any early reasons? hoping you spring back soon though