Are You Seeing THIS in Google Search Console?
Obviously, none of you have checked your Google Search Console since I asked you not to in March at the start of the core update.
Oh look, a FLYING PIG!!!
Hahahahahahahhahahaha!!!
Okay, clearly most of you have been checking stats quite regularly during the core update.
Okay, what follows is pure supposition, guess work on my part.
And this is a little COMPLICATED, but is specifically aimed at anyone who saw “death of a website” (for want of a better phrase, LOL) around March 5th 2024 and the initial aftermath.
Okay, I’ve personally looked at 18 different websites in various Google Search Console’s (thank you!!) over the last 24 hours.
All of these websites saw impressions and clicks dramatically drop in GSC at the beginning of March.
Btw, I’ve said this in passing, once more, purely guesswork, but is it at all possible that Google placed “sitewide classifiers” on a huge number of websites at the beginning of March (I have no idea what the criteria was to choose which websites), hence the dramatic drop in impressions and clicks?
They then manually reviewed, deindexed, and placed manual actions on a number of sites (which the internet seems to be blaming on SEOs who were “public” about certain “site reputation abuse” factors they had used in their SEO tactics over the years).
Then, the “real” “site reputation abuse” “update” happens in 2 weeks.
Then the “sitewide classifiers” would be removed from all the sites “hit” at the beginning of March, and their articles will be ranked on a “page-by-page” basis (your “helpful” articles will remain indexed and perhaps start ranking well, depending on your keyword research, and your “unhelpful” articles will either be deindexed and end up in “crawled - not yet indexed” in GSC, or will simply remain in the index, but be dropped to page 100… however, with all the index issues that Google has had over the past 3 years, and the “whispers” in the SEO community that Google will index far fewer articles moving forward, it seems more likely that content that is deemed “unhelpful” will be deindexed).
Jeeeez!!! That was a mouthful
Right, you still with me?
Anyway, from the GSC’s I’ve seen, 16 out of the 18 seemed to show the same pattern.
NOW!!!
I have said that this is PURE SUPPOSITION on my part.
HOWEVER
What I have noticed is that when you do an individual day-to-day check, there are minimal impressions, and very few clicks, often single digits.
However, when checking the keywords (QUERIES) that are receiving the impressions, these appear to change on a daily basis.
Sure, some keywords (QUERIES) remain consistent, even if it is only 1-2 impressions per day, and you can find these articles ranking in the SERPs, but the majority of keywords CHANGE on a daily basis.
Furthermore, if you check GSC for say yesterday, 20th April 2024, and you see a keyword has received 3 impressions and it shows that you were “ranked” in position 8 (“average position” for that ONE keyword, so NOT the “average position” in the box above the graph).
But, when you go and check with your own eyes in Google you can’t find that article anywhere.
Here’s the theory.
As we approach the end of what seems like the longest core update in the history of mankind, hahahaha!! Google is now attempting to “straighten out” their index.
So, could this constant changing ON A DAILY BASIS of which keywords are receiving impressions mean that Google is “testing” your articles ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS (page-by-page) against the “competition”?
They are doing all their “individual page tests” as we come to the end of the update, and then once May 5th (and the aftermath) is finally over, the “machine-learning algorithm” will have an idea of where to place your articles in the SERPs.
So, they are “testing” now, so they know what to do when this is all over in a few weeks.
And don’t forget, they are potentially doing this “individual page-by-page testing” for BILLIONS and BILLIONS of articles on hundreds of millions of blogs and websites.
This would also explain why this update is taking so long.
Anyway, go and check my theory for YOURSELF.
So, go to Google Search Console, and choose SEARCH RESULTS in the left-hand side menu.
Next, above the graph it defaults to last 3 months, click on that and scroll down to the bottom where you can change to a CUSTOM DATE RANGE.
Next, check on a DAY BY DAY basis for the last one week.
So, change the custom date range to - from 13/4/2024 - 13/04/2024 (you do the month and day the other way around on the other side of the Atlantic, don’t ya? LOL)
And then go to QUERIES for that day and see which articles were getting impressions, check the INDIVIDUAL “average position” of each keyword (query).
Next, pick one that has a decent “average position” and go and check Google for yourself.
Is it there?
Has it disappeared?
Next, do the custom date thing again for 14/4/24 - 14/4/24, so again checking ONE DAY at a time.
Go to QUERIES.
Are they different from the day before?
Yes, obviously some may be the same, but are you seeing different keywords from the day before?
When you check ONE of those keywords in Google, has it now disappeared?
Do the same for the 15th April, then the 16th, 17th, etc.
Check your QUERIES and see if they seem to be changing on a day-to-day basis.
Do the individual Google check for ONE keyword from each day and see if it’s there or if it’s “disappeared”.
As I say, this is total guesswork on my part, but if you are someone who took a hit on March 5th 2024 or just after, but you're still getting minimal impressions and clicks, you’ll want to check this out for yourself.
This could be a clue that Google is “testing” all of your articles on an INDIVIDUAL BASIS as we finally approach the later stages of the Core Update.
Now, could you please close your mouth and stop dribbling, unglaze your eyes, go back up top, read it again at least twice.
And then go and check your GSC for whether you have the “mysteriously changing” keywords that receive impressions on a daily basis.
Join me in next week’s episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents… more Tales of the Unexpected!!
Hahahaha!!
Okay, I'm not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing for YOU (I don't know, no-one does), but if the "theory" is correct I'm viewing it in a positive light.
Thank You For Reading (and anyone who FULLY understood that on their first read, I LOVE YOU!!! Hahahaha!!)
Partha
Recent Comments
35
Interesting and is something I will need to think about and digest.
Strangely, my site traffic took a big drop in January when Google did a slight adjustment on 4th January.
One website dropped from 4 ranking to 47
The other website dropped from 8 to 73
However, I've benefitted from the March updates with site one up from 47 - 25 and the other website up from 73 - 50
Traffic is still at same levels after January drop off.
A long way from single digits last year but slowly making progress. Keeping fingers and everything else crossed (not a pretty sight - lol) that May will also be beneficial.
Hi Partha!
will def look into it. I have been so depressed lately because of the drastic drop in clicks. Since March 5, it's been getting even worse, and from April 14 to the 19th, I've had 0 clicks... It goes from 0 to 2 at most. I have been trying to fix errors etc... I don't have many articles, just 62, but was growing steadily and surely, writing quality content, I thought. A few of my articles were ranking 1 and I thought it could only get better as I was gaining more and more experience, traffic, clicks, and income. But now it's all close to 0. I don't want to give up but I hope it will all get better after the update etc...
Thanks for your encouragement, this is great info as always!!
Well yeah, you are definitely right about the Keywords my best performers (I use that term very loosely ATM) are changing day by day. There are a few that seem steady, which I guess are the remenants of my rankings from September, but the rest change completely over the days.
I am not as convinced as you as to what that means and your logical conclusion, but my skepticism is probably more based on not wanting to get my hopes up, rather than any real reasoning.
I just fear the Classifiers are a Death Knell for a site and Google is not ever going to lift them...but that may just be me being pessimistic.
Good Sleuthing regardless!
Yeah, I won't repeat myself, LOL, but as in my replies to Lizzy, Frank, Nat, and even Jonathan, BELOW, even if it is Google testing on a "page-by-page basis" this can still go one of three ways at the end of the Core update.
Everything indexed, ranking, and bringing in traffic (almost back to the same stage, or even better than the MONTH BEFORE HCU, i.e. August 2023/November 2022/July 2022 depending on which HCU people were "hit" under).
Some articles "recover" and start ranking and bringing in traffic, some articles deemed as "unhelpful" are deindexed (time to completely rewrite or delete)
EVERYTHING deindexed (time to either purchase a new domain and start over or "give up" totally on that website)
Or the 4th option...No Real Change, and this testing is just the usual shuffle but it is just more noticeable as there is such low traffic!
Honestly, apart from my doom-monger option, I would welcome ANY of the above. It really is the lack of clarity that's killing me. If Google just stuck a HUGE red cross on my site and confirmed it's dead and done, I can look to the Future, but this uncertainty is a nightmare.
The Site is 100% white hat so doing Grey hat stuff while there is still a chance of recovery (in theory) still seems risky, if it gets de-indexed then fine, I know what I can do. If some articles recover, but most don't... Fine, I can work on the "unhelpful" stuff and create new helpful content.
But as it is all options seem pointless, at least from a long-term perspective.
Which again, is fine, as I am just pushing Social and YouTube, if SEO is DEAD fine, let's find the NEW Revenue, I know people want my stuff, it is just they can't find me.
I even opened up the Google Ads Site today to have a little tinker there...I am sure I can make that work with a little more Tweeking...
There is definitely truth in all of this you said. I checked it and it really is like you said lmao.
Really crazy stuff. I will be happy that moment when Google ''fixes'' the first page results we get in SERPs. I don't want only forums and business portals on page 1, and I also don't want 6 ads on the first page when I search for something.
Google is focusing its whole life on QUALITY and HELPFUL and we never had WORST quality and WORST help than now... Their run for money one day will be their downfall
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Hey Partha,
I've been doing the same thing for a while now, but to make it easy, I download the data into a Google sheet. This way I can have each day as a sheet and tab over to see the fluctuation of impressions, clicks etc.
See the attached and notice each day has its own tab.