Major Google Update since 1 August?

[Ash Ketchum]

Hi everybody,


I hear and read these days a lot about a possible core update at Google. Some website owners have seen a serious drop in their visitor statistics. (Check for example https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ate-26141.html)


Are there any website owners who noticed something about this update? If so, do you see an increase or decrease in visitor numbers? Can someone tell me maybe more about this or is it all just a storm in a teacup?


Thank you for your insights!

[Roulette Zeitung]

The 3rd core update had priority in health and financial website for the Oscars, category "Your Money Or Your Life" (YMYL websites). There you will find most winners and losers.

Indirectly it is also a sign, that future core updates with high probability focus on quality.

So hopefully, also the lowlife websites in this industry will disappear sooner or later.

Leopold

[Ash Ketchum]

The 3rd core update had priority in health and financial website for the Oscars, category "Your Money Or Your Life" (YMYL websites). There you will find most winners and losers.

Is this the first time Google is specifically targeting a special category of websites? Never heard of that before. I thought that every core update was applicable to every website out there.

[wonderpunter]

Is this the first time Google is specifically targeting a special category of websites? Never heard of that before. I thought that every core update was applicable to every website out there.

It's a theory, however a lot of health sites were hit.. My opinion is perhaps the payday algorithm got a new addition as most of these sites would fit into that group quality wise.. casino, adult, pharma is also included in payday loan algo...

I actually got a huge boost, for some very good keywords... daily i am seeing 2-300 new keywords being added

[Cash Bonus]

Leopold has really hit the nail on the head with his excellent answer regarding the Your Money Or Your Life websites.

[MMM]

One of my websites got hit, strange cause actually improved many parameters. Hope will bounce back after things settle. Actually seeing lots of low quality sites in some of the kw.

[Roulette Zeitung]

The 3rd core update had priority in health and financial website for the Oscars, category "Your Money Or Your Life" (YMYL websites). There you will find most winners and losers.

Indirectly it is also a sign, that future core updates with high probability focus on quality.

So hopefully, also the lowlife websites in this industry will disappear sooner or later.

Is this the first time Google is specifically targeting a special category of websites? Never heard of that before. I thought that every core update was applicable to every website out there.

"Is this the first time Google is specifically targeting a special category of websites?"

No. You had updates for private blog networks, updates, were question and answer websites were beaten down, other updates, were the question and answer pages rises again, a wonderful potpourri of category winners and losers.

But since the Google update in February last year it's clear, that backlinks have no longer that priority as some believe but quality. I care as a friendship service a website, that has very few backlinks, but ranks on several important keywords in the top 10 since years, because it's a small but high quality content website and it's only focused on qualtiy.

Especially in Japan last year in February the Google update was the last warning shot, that in the future quality matters. They have still problem with the hundreds of cheat pages SERP entries from this industry from the losers here, who cannot write good content or can give any value to the readers but spamming the Google index with thousands of cloaking redirects to e.g. Quasar.

This industry unfortunately in major parts, what webmasters are doing to get listed at Google, is nothing better than the old pharma crap wave or Multi Level Marketing scam techniques. Too much losers and deceivers with the character of a marriage impostor, and the honest ones have to suffer under this good-for-nothings.

Leopold

[sweetbet]

I had a nice increase in traffic from google that lasted for a few days only.

[PROFRBcom]

Our traffic is down, but I can not correlate it to this update. The World Series of Poker was going on last month and that leads to a huge boost in traffic every year. Would be impossible to determine how much the traffic dropped post WSOP when at the same time this algo kicked in.

Now, on the other hand, I have seen some of our pages dropped in ranking and others soared recently. So I suppose that will be something to keep an eye out for. But if I had to guess, overall, traffic isn't all that different from before.

[xecutable]

Wasn't seeing anything until yesterday. Still nothing to get excited about, but a movement in the positive direction is always nice to see. If Semrush's sensors can be trusted every day so far has been 9.0+ volatility.

[TheGamblersClub]

Got some nice movements in the right direction. Pick up a few top 10s, and also see a few big jumps from nowhere to page 2.

[MichaelBrooks]

Thanks for explaining the changes on my website! My traffic is down too without any serious reason. How can we prepare for that Google Updates?

[casionmark]

I've seen big volatility in last 7 days - big ups, then pretty big downs. Hoping its going to settle. Is it normal for the roll out to hit some sites later than others?

...

Like some weird google tsunami?!

[Cash Bonus]

Mark, yes, you are correct. I do believe that this is normal as every site is different from the other and Google has different methods of judging sites.

[Azureus]

I noticed a drop in older website(s) where there wasn't any new content for some time.
Dropped on August 1st and didn't recover.

On websites with updated content there was slight increase on Aug 1st and then it returned back to the original positions.

Also I'm pretty sure there is some sort of "manual ban" or "manual penalty" used against certain sites even when they say there is "No penalty" in Search Console (GWT). There are some keywords and sites structure that trigger this and then your site will be penalized (by e.g. 50 positions) but you cannot do anything about it and you will not be notified about it in GWT. I remember maybe few years ago Google notified you about such penalties in GWT and you could know about it and maybe even they wrote what they didn't like. Now it is just penalty against which you cannot do anything.

[Anchovy]

I've noticed a big drop of the organic keywords in my investment/crypto site. Roughly 15% of keywords are gone.

[RichardV]

I noticed a drop in older website(s) where there wasn't any new content for some time.
Dropped on August 1st and didn't recover.

here the opposite. i suddenly am ranking (ok, very low) for keywords that i wasn't ranking for at all anymore for years on some older abandoned sites.

[PromoteCasino]

Anyone else noticing a lot of movement the last couple of days? Certain keywords taking a walk others going up.

Admittedly the ones walking are keywords related to the domain name.

[casionmark]

There was some sort of update on September 11th I think - probably carried over during the week:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-...ate-26359.html

Has been volatile since August for me.

[PromoteCasino]

Has been volatile since August for me.

Me too