There has been yet another unconfirmed Google algorithm update happening over the weekend approximately 07/23-07/24/2021.
Industry chatter is higher, indicating significant ranking and traffic fluctuations.
It’s possible that this update is related to the soft 404 glitch, as others have pointed out, but it’s more likely that this update is related to the link spam update that Google referred to and announced on their blog.
Barry Schwartz has pointed out that it’s most likely to be related to this link spam update:
“Update: Google has announced today a link spam update is being released over the next two weeks. I was going to say the chatter felt like it was more visible in the more black hat areas but maybe this is unrelated since this update reported below was Friday and Saturday and Google said there is a new update today, Monday.”
The following includes the industry chatter over the weekend over at WebmasterWorld:
ichthyous wrote at 4:52 pm on July 24, 2021:
Huge drop in traffic in the first half of the day yesterday…USA, UK and Canada. 2nd half of the day returned to normal. Today a big recovery of top three ranking terms and normal USA, CA, AU traffic, but UK is down by 68%. I am noticing updates almost every Friday, with UK traffic vanishing on weekends and a big dip in “direct” traffic. Also traffic to my home page mysteriously vanishes for half a day on a regular basis. These are all types of traffic throttling, but also there are way more videos and other types of feeds now, so if you aren’t top three you basically get pushed to the end of the page or page two.
In general my traffic is as low now as when I started my website in 2003. The volume is less than half of what it was in 2019. Most of that is Google, but also I think that this summer people are not spending on material goods but on getting out, traveling, eating out etc.
Huge drop in traffic in the first half of the day yesterday…USA, UK and Canada. 2nd half of the day returned to normal. Today a big recovery of top three ranking terms and normal USA, CA, AU traffic, but UK is down by 68%. I am noticing updates almost every Friday, with UK traffic vanishing on weekends and a big dip in “direct” traffic. Also traffic to my home page mysteriously vanishes for half a day on a regular basis. These are all types of traffic throttling, but also there are way more videos and other types of feeds now, so if you aren’t top three you basically get pushed to the end of the page or page two.
In general my traffic is as low now as when I started my website in 2003. The volume is less than half of what it was in 2019. Most of that is Google, but also I think that this summer people are not spending on material goods but on getting out, traveling, eating out etc.
superclown2 wrote at 9:50 am on July 25, 2021
It looks like Google is doing too much too soon, and doing it abysmally. For example this morning, in my UK financial widget vertical, for a popular search term:
Inevitably there are four ads taking up the full screen of my desktop monitor. Fair enough, it is their site. However after that the top space for many financial widget search terms is then a ‘find results on’ bar: this was insisted on by Europe when they last fined Google a few billion euros and is supposed to contain alternative directories but the top spot is nearly always taken by a certain affiliate website. Why this site is there I have no idea but it looks like a clear breach of the EU instruction – accidentally no doubt.
Next there are three local results. The first one I checked linked to a domain which is up for sale. According to archive.org it never was a local business and it was offline by September 2019 anyway.
The second was, eureka, a genuine local business.
The third was again a genuine local business that sold a widget but an entirely different one to the one I specified in my search term.
Next of course there was People Also Ask. Most of the top answers were either from American sites (in other words at best useless, at worst misleading) and those that weren’t were from ‘Authority’ sites rather than specialists. A couple gave incorrect information; not that the information on the sites was incorrect, but the snippet that was displayed was misleading unless the visitor read the full text on that site.
Google is flirting with danger with PAA. In the United Kingdom and throughout Europe (I don’t know about America) it is illegal to offer financial advice unless officially authorised to do so. Giving general advice on questions such as “Which financial widget is the cheapest” or “What is the best way to buy a financial widget” is dangerous since every individual’s circumstances are different. If a company authorised by the FCA was to do that it would face severe penalties, civil action by anyone who lost money as a result of taking that advice, and loss of authorisation to practice.
I have searched the FCA register and Google is not, to the best of my knowledge, registered with the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority and so cannot, again to the best of my knowledge, answer many of the questions in PAA except in the most general terms. They are nevertheless giving direct answers, but those I have seen so far relate to American businesses, not UK ones. Whether or not this is legal is a question a lawyer would be better able to answer.
To sum up: well, I’ll leave that to others.
It looks like Google is doing too much too soon, and doing it abysmally. For example this morning, in my UK financial widget vertical, for a popular search term:
Inevitably there are four ads taking up the full screen of my desktop monitor. Fair enough, it is their site. However after that the top space for many financial widget search terms is then a ‘find results on’ bar: this was insisted on by Europe when they last fined Google a few billion euros and is supposed to contain alternative directories but the top spot is nearly always taken by a certain affiliate website. Why this site is there I have no idea but it looks like a clear breach of the EU instruction – accidentally no doubt.
Next there are three local results. The first one I checked linked to a domain which is up for sale. According to archive.org it never was a local business and it was offline by September 2019 anyway.
The second was, eureka, a genuine local business.
The third was again a genuine local business that sold a widget but an entirely different one to the one I specified in my search term.
Next of course there was People Also Ask. Most of the top answers were either from American sites (in other words at best useless, at worst misleading) and those that weren’t were from ‘Authority’ sites rather than specialists. A couple gave incorrect information; not that the information on the sites was incorrect, but the snippet that was displayed was misleading unless the visitor read the full text on that site.
Google is flirting with danger with PAA. In the United Kingdom and throughout Europe (I don’t know about America) it is illegal to offer financial advice unless officially authorised to do so. Giving general advice on questions such as “Which financial widget is the cheapest” or “What is the best way to buy a financial widget” is dangerous since every individual’s circumstances are different. If a company authorised by the FCA was to do that it would face severe penalties, civil action by anyone who lost money as a result of taking that advice, and loss of authorisation to practice.
I have searched the FCA register and Google is not, to the best of my knowledge, registered with the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority and so cannot, again to the best of my knowledge, answer many of the questions in PAA except in the most general terms. They are nevertheless giving direct answers, but those I have seen so far relate to American businesses, not UK ones. Whether or not this is legal is a question a lawyer would be better able to answer.
To sum up: well, I’ll leave that to others.
RedBar wrote at 2:06 pm on July 25, 2021:
They are nevertheless giving direct answers, but those I have seen so far relate to American businesses, not UK ones.
Yes, PAA answers for my industry can be not only extremely misleading but also very inaccurate.
Most of the PAA answers I have seen have been pulled from USA retail websites, very few wholesalers or producers have within 10% of the tech specs I have, plus that information has mostly obviously been found by the website builder because the same inaccuracies keep appearing on site after site.
Whenever I see these inaccuracies I gently advise the site owner of their inaccurate information, most get it changed however I have had some US site owners call me more than a “liar”, they always back down when I prove to them otherwise.
So yes, IMHO, G is leaving itself wide open to possible UK action but we all know that “money talks” and we wouldn’t want to be seen upsetting a monopoly would we?
They are nevertheless giving direct answers, but those I have seen so far relate to American businesses, not UK ones.
Yes, PAA answers for my industry can be not only extremely misleading but also very inaccurate.
Most of the PAA answers I have seen have been pulled from USA retail websites, very few wholesalers or producers have within 10% of the tech specs I have, plus that information has mostly obviously been found by the website builder because the same inaccuracies keep appearing on site after site.
Whenever I see these inaccuracies I gently advise the site owner of their inaccurate information, most get it changed however I have had some US site owners call me more than a “liar”, they always back down when I prove to them otherwise.
So yes, IMHO, G is leaving itself wide open to possible UK action but we all know that “money talks” and we wouldn’t want to be seen upsetting a monopoly would we?
superclown2 wrote at 6:38 am on July 26, 2021:
I can’t remember the last time I was able to say this but I’ve noticed a definite improvement in Google’s results this morning with less focus on big brand and better relevance. Will it last?
I can’t remember the last time I was able to say this but I’ve noticed a definite improvement in Google’s results this morning with less focus on big brand and better relevance. Will it last?
BushyTop wrote at 7:12 am on July 26, 2021:
@superclown2 where are you based?
@superclown2 where are you based?
superclown2 wrote at 7:20 am on July 26, 2021:
@BushyTop I’m in UK
@BushyTop I’m in UK
BushyTop wrote at 7:33 am on July 26, 2021:
@superclown2 weird… I wish I could say that I am seeing the same.
@superclown2 weird… I wish I could say that I am seeing the same.
ichthyous wrote at 12:51 pm on July 26, 2021:
I’m seeing a steady recovery of top-3 and top-10 terms, although mostly low volume terms, I have returned to the top spot for some very important terms that drive traffic and convert. I am also seeing less referral traffic from Pinterest, so perhaps Pinterest is no longer appearing in every search. I do wish Google would get rid of the multiple listings for the same site in top 10 results though…it’s ridiculous to have two pages from same site back to back, unless it’s from my own site of course 😉
I’m seeing a steady recovery of top-3 and top-10 terms, although mostly low volume terms, I have returned to the top spot for some very important terms that drive traffic and convert. I am also seeing less referral traffic from Pinterest, so perhaps Pinterest is no longer appearing in every search. I do wish Google would get rid of the multiple listings for the same site in top 10 results though…it’s ridiculous to have two pages from same site back to back, unless it’s from my own site of course 😉
Martin Ice Web wrote at 1:10 pm on July 26, 2021:
very, very bad weekend. sales from search traffic dropped like a stone whereas sales on amazon picked up again.
@ichthyous, it is not only multiple listings but also having 5 times the same description even the same site structure because these shops just take the site structure and data from manufactures and make up a silly shop. google seems to love duplicate content over multiple sites.
very, very bad weekend. sales from search traffic dropped like a stone whereas sales on amazon picked up again.
@ichthyous, it is not only multiple listings but also having 5 times the same description even the same site structure because these shops just take the site structure and data from manufactures and make up a silly shop. google seems to love duplicate content over multiple sites.
MayankParmar wrote at 2:00 pm on July 26, 2021:
Google News indexing is delayed by several hours for me. Is anyone having the same issue? It started yesterday.
Google News indexing is delayed by several hours for me. Is anyone having the same issue? It started yesterday.
Sounds Like a Nice Correlation on This Google Algorithm Update
So far, it seems like a nice correlation between Google’s webmaster central blog post and the algorithm update that was just released.
While it’s not entirely conclusive, there is significant correlation. But, as most SEO professionals can attest, correlation is not always causation.
It will be interesting to see how this update continues to affect SEO professionals worldwide.
Either way, we will continue to monitor and report on the latest significant algorithm updates.
