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Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Around February 14th

Published

1 year ago

February 15, 2023

Here we go again; yet another Google search ranking algorithm update seems to have touched down on February 14th, maybe as early as February 13th, and seems to be continuing to shake things up throughout today. We previously covered unconfirmed updates on the 8th/9th and also the 4th.

I am seeing an increase in chatter starting on the 13th of February into today as well as some of the Google automated tracking tools are picking up on volatility and fluctuations.

We are due a broad core update soon, so maybe we are all getting that itch?

SEO Chatter

Here is some of the chatter here in the comments and also on WebmasterWorld:

Is it me or has traffic died the last couple of days? Really died!

Today, my traffic showed a steep drop, the worst value I have seen in 2023. How about yours?

No traffic on 14th feb. organic traffic is less than 20% as compared to previous year comparison.

Something is definitely going on, for the first time in years in the last 24 hours I have not received ONE piece of email spam, not one, zero spam … Considering the usual volume of garbage I get this is very significant.

The past week and a bit – nearly 2 weeks we had higher traffic and loads of conversions. We took around 3 weeks worth of orders in this space of time. Then last Tuesday / Wednesday google closed down that traffic and we have not had a single order since.

I’m in a different market, lead generation, but the timeline sounds remarkably similar. For 2-3 weeks we saw higher volume, steady, quality traffic to our services. Around the 4th of Feb it all seemed to have steadied out, but now the quality traffic arrives in short bursts. Meaning, we may be slow for the first 6 hours of our business day, then at some point in the afternoon we’ll see a flurry of lead activity for 1-2 hours, before it all turns back off again. It’s not related to a single service, a single area, or a specific thing. At one point, I thought it was ad-related, but I’m no longer sure since the hour or three of activity might come at 9am today, or 2pm tomorrow.

Definitely not normal traffic trends.

Well, I haven’t see this in quite some time, so far today one visitor 2hrs and 4 mins with 254 page views and still on the site !

Interesting that so many of us have noticed a huge drop in sales recently. My visibility is at a high point going back as far as I can see, but today my search traffic is -25%. USA / Canada are -43% and -40% this morning at 11am. Traffic to my landing pages is down dramatically…almost all of them simultaneously.

My SERPs are all over the place today. If I get the layout with the favicons I am always 1st, if I get the layout without favicons then the top 4 seem to just be shuffling about, I can go from 1st to 3rd to 4th & back to 1st again just by opening new incognito tabs..

Daily, my two websites are shuffling their position front and back, no stability.

Whatever is going on, traffic is very low today…USA is -30% at 4:30pm and most of my major landing pages are way down. Canada is -66%, Australia is at zero today. This is while my visibility is higher than at any time in the last two years according to SEM. I checked and for the first time I am coming in 1st place in searches that I have been at 2 or 3 for years now…but the traffic just isn’t there.

Huge drop the last 3 days, but metrics on website backend are consistent.
More emails from possible customers, maybe the end of my zombie traffic increase I’m having since 2 months..

Glenn Gabe posted another site that is on this rollercoaster:

Remember the 1/26 unconfirmed update I covered, and further impact and reversals on 2/3? Well here we go again. Here’s a product reviews site that surged on 1/26, made it through 2/3, but just tanked again on 2/13. Google is clearly testing or tweaking something… Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/wkRqbRac9t

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 15, 2023

So as you can see, there is a lot of chatter in the past couple of days.

Google Tracking Tools

Some of the tools have picked up on the volatility today and yesterday, some have not picked up on it yet. Here is what I see from the popular tracking tools right now.

Advanced Web Rankings:

Semrush:

Algoroo:

What are you all noticing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: May 13, 2024

Published

12 hours ago

May 13, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google explains the differences between algorithm updates, data refreshes and more – again. Google Search Console doesn’t keep data for de-indexed URLs. Google lifted some of the manual actions over the site reputation abuse policy. Google said the video needs to be super obvious on the page for it to be a video page. Google Ads updated its disclosure policy for event ticket pages. Google I/O is tomorrow – I decided not to attend in person, it is just easier to cover at my desk.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Again On Difference Between Algorithm Updates & Data Refreshes

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, posted on X explaining the differences between algorithm updates, like core updates, and then data refreshes, the data that goes into those ranking systems. This is actually something Matt Cutts, former Googler, did back in 2006, on his blog and now Danny Sullivan did a short version of it on X.

Google Lifts Some Site Reputation Abuse Policy Penalties

About a week ago, we reported that Google began enforcing its new site reputation abuse policy by issuing manual actions and ranking penalties for those sites that violated those policies. Google seems to be now lifting some of those manual actions where the sites took the necessary action and no longer are violating the policy.

Google Search Console Doesn’t Keep Data For Most De-Indexed Pages

Gary Illyes from Google said on LinkedIn that Google Search Console doesn’t “keep (almost) any data for un/de-indexed.”

Google: Video Pages Need To Be Super-Obvious Video Play Pages

In April 2023 and December 2023 Google changed how it classifies what it would consider video pages. In short, the video on the page needs to be the main piece of content for Google to show it a video thumbnail in the search results and to show it in the videos tab in Google Search.

Google Ads Updates Disclosure Policy For Event Ticket Sale

Google Ads will be modifying its disclosure policy for event ticket sale. The update will say that the “disclosures should be easily visible and clearly explained in the top 20% (above the fold) of any destination when reached via an ad.”

Google Gemini Swag: Bag, T-Shirt, Jacket & More

Google has given some folks some new swag for its Gemini AI features, formerly known as Bard. Here are some photos of the Gemini bags, t-shirts and jackets.

Other Great Search Threads:

Missing Google I/O – just so much easier covering it from my desk than at the event. Hope all the SEOs going have a blast!, Barry Schwartz on X

I caught a Google test. Check out the posts on this listing; they’re FB posts, not GBP posts. Can’t see it again. Has anyone seen this?, Amy Mattison Toman on X

Noticed a few changes on Google’s local panel: Reviews now appear in a block card format with filter options. Both image/video and text reviews are displayed in this new format directly on the local panel, visible at the right, Shameem Adhikarath on X

I work for the Google Search teams. Not the PR team. Also, I’ll give you a little background here. Maybe you’ll find it helpful, maybe not., Google SearchLiaison on X

not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we’ve been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me. monday 10am PT., Sam Altman on X

a page cannot both have a noindex robots meta tag and redirect. It can only be one or the other. – a page blocked by robots.txt will not be crawled, so Googleb, John Mueller on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

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Mikhail Parakhin Confirms He Is No Longer Working On Copilot At Microsoft

Published

2 days ago

May 12, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft, confirmed he is no longer working on the Copilot project. He stepped down as the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising weeks ago after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of AI at Microsoft.

We knew Mikhail Parakhin was planning to work on something new but now Mikhail Parakhin confirmed that he is no longer working on Copilot.

He said on X, “Not working on Copilot anymore, onto new things.”

I did follow up and asked if “onto new things” means new things within Microsoft or new things at a new company but I did not hear back on that. His LinkedIn profile still shows he is at Microsoft.

Here are those posts:

I know, those were the best 🙂

— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) May 9, 2024

Not working on Copilot anymore, onto new things.

— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) May 9, 2024

I am super interested in what Mikhail is working on now and I suspect he will tell us soon.

I deeply miss his transparent and frequent posts about what Microsoft is working on with Copilot and Bing Search…

Forum discussion at X.

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Daily Search Forum Recap: May 10, 2024

Published

3 days ago

May 11, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google says site reputation abuse is not about links, it is about content. Google Local Service Ads ranking removed proximity as a ranking signal. Google Shopping may soon tell searchers how many shoppers purchased at your e-commerce site. Google Local panels now can show the owner of the business. Mikhail Parakhin from Microsoft confirmed he is no longer working on Copilot. Plus, I posted the weekly SEO video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google: Site Reputation Abuse Isn’t About Linking

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, made it crystal clear that the site reputation abuse policy has zero to do with linking. This means that who you link to and/or who links to you has no impact on this new policy that Google began enforcing with manual actions earlier this week.

Google May Show How Many Shoppers Purchased On Your E-Commerce Site

Google has sent some Google Merchant Center e-commerce site managers notifications that a new annotation may begin to show up in the search results next to their site’s listing that shows how many searchers purchased on your site. It may read, “1K shopped here recently.”

Google: Proximity Not A Relevancy Factor For Local Service Ads

Google has updated its Local Services Ads help document on ad rankings to remove the line around “proximity to potential customers’ locations” is a ranking factor for those ads. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said the document was updated but there was no recent or “sudden change to ranking considerations” to LSA rankings or positions.

Google Local Panel With Owner Attribute

Google can show the owner of the business in the local panels in the Google search results. I suspect this is not new but I don’t believe I’ve seen this before, where Google will add an “owner” attribute to the local panel.

Mikhail Parakhin No Longer Working On Copilot At Microsoft

Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft, confirmed he is no longer working on the Copilot project. He stepped down as the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising weeks ago after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of AI at Microsoft.

Google Ads Cyclone Money Machine

I found this photo funny. It is one of those cyclone money machines that money flies around in, and a person inside is supposed to try to grab as much money as possible. Well, there is a Google Ads logo on this one. Oh, the irony of this photo…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Ranking Volatility, Site Reputation Abuse Enforcement, Pichai On Search Quality, HCU Recovery & More

Google may have had two search ranking algorithm updates, one around May 9th and one around May 3rd. Google began its site reputation abuse policy enforcement this week with manual actions, and it is not about linking. Google said sites may recover from the helpful content update. Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, responded…