Scott Services: More Google Algorithm & Search Results Shuffling

Wednesday, 27 September 2017

More Google Algorithm & Search Results Shuffling

Yea, yea, yea, more of the same. Google is updating their search results, it is in flux, search results are shuffling around. But I only try to report it when the signals all seem to be higher than the normal day to day shuffles. I always see people complaining about changes in Google but when it reaches certain levels, that is when I decide to cover it.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a spike in complaints from webmasters and SEOs about ranking shuffles and the automated tracking tools also show huge changes. Here are some comments from the threads:

This week was the worst week we have seen from google since panda 4. With all other updates we gained traffic but this one hit us with >50%. Sales form google organics, adwords and Shopping ads are off by 95%.

We have seen the same. We’ve grown massively over the past few months and this week we have lost ranking from positions 2/3 to 5/6. Its impacted us dramatically.

I’ve noted some interesting changes in the SERPs this week. Too early to say what’s up, and it’ll have to settle before making a better assessment.

For info sites, I’ve seen recent good results by moving away from keyword structured pages to answer based content. Those pages got a jump in SERP inclusion.

I know a lot of people take these types of tools with a pinch of salt, but Algoroo and moz and showing big movements today in the US. In my experience, the UK usually follows. Hopefully its a reversal of what happened last week – because we’ve definitely been hit with something.

It is hard to say if this is related to the September 20th update or another Google update or unrelated at all. Google has not commented on anything this week, of course.

Here are some charts from the automated tools.

SERPMetrics: