Google SERP Changes?

[PROFRBcom]

Prnewswire with its press releases been taking top positions for the last 3 months. Even looks like the same guys are publishing their stuff through other similar sites as well, like the ones you mentioned above. I think it's a matter of time and they will fly off the top positions...

I saw this and it was incredibly annoying! In all sorts of categories and for TONS of high volume keywords with each ****** article.

I have no idea how it was so successful.

I have noticed that it fell out of most of the SERPS I was looking at, but I bet they had HUGE ROI for the time they held #1 spots for 5k+/month volume money keywords.

I presume the tactic does not work anymore/has been devalued or else I would expect to see more of these and I have not.

I am hoping it was in fact, a fluke.

I have found a few other people with similar problems and it appears it is to do with not loading under 2.5 seconds!

I have NEVER had a page take 2.5 seconds to load. It isn't that.

Page speed is but one of hundreds of metrics, and, IMHO, it is not one of the strong ones. Top 50% of ranking factors sure, top 20%... maybe.

The difference between ranking a website and not ranking a website? NOPE

[gm2891]

I saw this and it was incredibly annoying! In all sorts of categories and for TONS of high volume keywords with each ****** article.

I have no idea how it was so successful.

I have noticed that it fell out of most of the SERPS I was looking at, but I bet they had HUGE ROI for the time they held #1 spots for 5k+/month volume money keywords.

I presume the tactic does not work anymore/has been devalued or else I would expect to see more of these and I have not.

I am hoping it was in fact, a fluke.

Those people made crazy amount of money, i guess. If to believe SEO traffic tools, PRNewswire gets around 6 mil monthly visitors <lol..>

However, that casino information is written in a kind of news format like; hey this site decided to collect on their page the best 25 online casinos [country].

Google shouldn't treat it as static/permanent information, and I assume soon they will disappear. Actually they are already disappearing from some GEOs.

[Scorebetting]

This morning i have resurfaced on mobile (but not desktop) for a couple of search terms. I think we will slowly start returning to normal now.

The theory (from SEO forums) is that it won't affect sites with a high DA but new ones with low DA it will have a much bigger effect as page experience and speed is one of few things they have going for it.

Fact is these three things happened at the same time:
- Google Update
- GSC showed warnings for LCP over 2.5 seconds
- Disappeared from SERP's

[nwalker]

I find it difficult to believe that Google would demote sites with great content over sites that have great core vitals. Giving the customer the best information is what google is trying to achieve. I guess if two sites are battling it out and a decision is made on which one to rank higher, Google may choose the one with better core vitals.
I'm certainly hoping this is the case, because I have worked on my Core Vitals and I can't improve them much more without re-doing my whole site. I am still failing page experience etc, and i'm still holding onto my rankings for both desktop and mobile. Hopefully it will remain that way.

[newcustomeroffer]

I guess if two sites are battling it out and a decision is made on which one to rank higher, Google may choose the one with better core vitals.

Yes, potential for that to be a virtual tie-breaker I guess - similar comments on this thread on Webmaster World

[chaumi]

We all 'knew' months ago that the most likely outcome was going to be that pages went down (or indeed up) as the page speed differences were 'recognized'....

...over time....

The question was always 'how quickly, and to what extent?'


In the case of OP's site and targets, there are some fairly significant reasons other than page speed which might be causing downward fluctuations.


To OP....even if you do come back....it will likely pay to take notice of gm2891's comments

[Scorebetting]

To OP....even if you do come back....it will likely pay to take notice of gm2891's comments

-----

What that my site does not provide betting tips which is quite frankly a stupid comment?

[chaumi]

For next time, if there is one....no one was trying to attack you or maliciously disparage the site....the comments were all designed to be of help

The response might have been better put as....

I don't see/understand what's being said, can you explain a little better?
Thx but I'm happy with how I've constructed the page/site and don't think it could be any better

Delete as applicable.

At least 2 of us think you have some content presentation challenges. We may be wrong (but pretty sure right)...or we may be right.

No one questioned whether there were any actual tips on it...the point was you may not be presenting them or your intent (speaking from a home page perspective only because that's the only example given) in the best way possible for Google to acknowledge.

[Scorebetting]

You are a million miles off topic and running down an odd alley anyway.

The point of this thread believe it or not is to see if any other new websites have noticed any SERP changes since the recent update.
If you have nothing relevant to add to the topic please refrain from posting for the sake of it.

[chaumi]

Now I just could not resist this.....

Re the recent supposed implementation of the supposed first part of the CWV update, and it's potential impact on new sites..

Yeah I've noticed that some newish sites that appear to think they got rankings because they were great/bombproof...were questionably not in fact bombproof and might be improved...but in a potentially blinkered fashion they seem to be blaming it all on a speed 'issue' when their site tanks...when in fact there are reasons (other than they are great and/or have good backlinks) why a new site could get rankings then see them dissipate over time...as there are a number of reasons why they might bounce back and then either stay or disappear later.


Summary...if you post a thread that says "have you noticed that xxxxxxx"....and expect a series of answers that says 'yes' or 'no' or 'maybe'...then it was a pretty pointless thread to start off and maybe should have been a poll with the statement ' please don't comment, just affirm or deny'

It's entirely reasonable for someone to comment along the lines of 'this is why xxxxx might have happened' in the hope that might help you explore other possibilities about why it did.

Personally I will not comment again as requested, this one was just an errant (and maybe misguided) mischievous poke. But I hope any comments made off topic do help somewhere in the long run....as I hope also that the site does well whatever happens.

[Scorebetting]

I'm a bit too old for playground games.

[CHIC21]

So far we have small variations, but we are still watching.

[Andyku]

Not major changes, a few increases and decreases

[gambman1]

Well i hope someone reports it to google, as so many of these news sites showing up on all keywords

[iso2009]

OP, there were 2 google core updates (June and July). July just started and it will roll out in the following days. You said your site is young (I guess started in Jan-March 2021?).

It will take around 2 years to get good traffic if you play it right. And this "if" means a lot. Right now, you have very weak backlinks (close to zero good ones) and to be honest, your traffic is amazing for the given data. Expect it to fall.

At the beginning (and depending on the keywords) you'll have a little boost from Google and then you will slowly sink, no matter what you do... unless you're backed by BBC and CNN together.

You need to think at these facts:

1. Is my site unique in any way? Not in content, but in the way I provide the content. Is my content better than the competition, in the eyes of the user? Not you, the user. If yes, then you might get some good backlinks overtime. But people are linking a lot less now. Gathering true links is much, much harder these days.

2. Do I provide content (or a product, a service) that people are looking for because it's in short supply? For example, think about a movie site that provides the latest blockbusters for free, very fast. This is something people are looking for and also in short supply on the net.

Of course, in your case you can provide a service or a product. If you can identify the demand and supply the "goods", then you'll also get links, branded searches and your traffic will increase and remain pretty steady.

For example, if you look in Ahrefs at the sports streaming sites (all illegal), they grow very quick and are more stable. They supply something according to what I said above.

Well, if NOT, then you need to have deep pockets. Very deep pockets for a huge budget and results, of course, are not certain. SEO is not a game of knowledge anymore (to some extent) but more about $$,$$$.

[Fortune Palace]

Spent the last 6 months getting ready for the Page Experience update - moving the site on to a VPS, using Cloudflare CDN, fixing every broken link, removing unnecessary scripts, checking every page for CLS and load time.

GTmetrix now shows Grade A with a score of 94%, LCP 1.2s, TBT 0ms, CLS 0
GSC report no issues in either Page experience, Core web vitals, Mobile usability.
AHrefs shows a score of 97%
Ubersuggest shows a score of 96%

And yet(!) on June 6 / 7, traffic just collapsed. Some pages went from position 2, 3 down to 30, 40.

Keeping Google happy has always been a Dark Art, but this year just seems to have no logic behind it. Hopefully it's just a glitch caused by the update that they'll notice and fix quickly.

Be interested to hear others' tales of woe. Or maybe someone benefitted?!

[iso2009]

My traffic is slowly improving but this is due to backlinks or branding.

On Core Vitals I am between yellow and red on mobile, and in a steady yellow on desktop (probably closer to green). Since we are running a live site on WP, I guess we did everything possible to make it load fast. There are still some improvements that can be done, but probably I'll need to migrate to a JS framework.

So my Core Vitals are failing at the moment, yet I see improvements in rankings. For me, the biggest enemy is the spam, not Google. Or Google's lack of action or vision for dealing with spam.

As a side note, I am monitoring some big sites for a while now. Their Core Vitals are bad (Origin or Lab data) but seems to not matter to Google as they are going up always.

[ddm]

Since we are running a live site on WP, I guess we did everything possible to make it load fast. There are still some improvements that can be done, but probably I'll need to migrate to a JS framework.

uh no.
just hire a web developer with a clue. 100% is easy.

[magnusbrand]

Affiliate marketing forums are the first to have a big discussion whenever any big Google update happens. Whenever you feel like the rankings have fluctuated suddenly, head over to any big IM forum to see the possible common ground which may have led to this problem.

[iso2009]

100% doable and will be done in the upcoming months. I gotta say WP was my mistake and at the time being, it was the quickest option for deployment.