"Update" in Search Console is NOT an Algo Update
-
We've had a few questions about the line labeled "Update" in Google Search Console on the Search Analytics timeline graph (see attached image). Asking around the industry, there seems to be a fair amount of confusion about whether this indicates a Google algorithm update.
This is not an algorithm update - it indicates an internal update in how Google is measuring search traffic. Your numbers before and after the update may look different, but this is because Google has essentially changed how they calculate your search traffic for reporting purposes. Your actual ranking and traffic have not changed due to these updates.
The latest updated happened on April 27th and is described by Google on this page:
Data anomalies in Search Console
Given the historical connotations of "update" in reference to Google search, this is a poor choice of words and I've contacted the Webmaster Team about it.
-
Search Console is improved very well now, compared to old one. As most of the things are automated in new update. I also faced some errors while processing one of my Saudi Arabia Expats website.
-
Great explanation about search console error. I had faced the same issue in the search console with some my of keywords related to Check Iqama Expiry. But now, it's working fine.
-
Well, there was that whole delay a while back (late March, early April?) whilst they filtered the referral spam. Predictably, the referral spam came back. There was yet another delay, in the last week.
Perhaps it's not the entire story, but it would seem to be a part of it.
-
Given that the word "update" is such a specific word, they should probably use another term such as "data adjustment" or "data change" or ... something. Pretty much ANY word other than "update" would be a good option.
-
Hi Cosi, welcome to the Q&A forum! As your question about Google Search Console is, as you admit, not directly related to the topic of this discussion thread, please consider posting it as in a new thread at https://moz.com/community/q/ask. (This will not only help the discussion in this thread on-topic, but will significantly increase your chances of receiving helpful responses to your question.)
Thanks so much for your understanding!
Christy
PS - I will keep an eye out for your new discussion thread.
-
Hi
Loosely related but I am having trouble with my search console in that I verified both the www and non www versions of my domain to search console but it is returning 0 pages as being indexed in the index status and its saying no data is available under search appearance?
But I can see in google that is indexing at least 116 pages (site:notebusters.net)
Its a site built on wordpress. Do you know why this might be?
Thanks
-
Fantastic, thanks for clarifying and confirming the intenal update
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
New Featured Links in Organic Search Results?
Hi guys, I just performed a search and came across something that looks like "featured links" under a regular organic search result (see screenshot). This is the first time I'm seeing this. It looks like a combination of callout and sitelink ad extensions for Google ads. Basically, linked callouts. I went to the landing page to check out the source code and it seems like they are calling it "featured link" in their code. I tried to find more info online but wasn't able to find anything. (I might not be using the correct search terms.) Does anyone know how to take advantage of this? Thanks a lot for your feedback. dJ9dmTr
Algorithm Updates | | HinterP0 -
Still no good search results after 2 months of indexation
Hi guys, One of our website (https://www.residentiebosrand.be/) has been online for about two months. It's indexed and Google shows search results. But the website is not ranking on the keywords it's supposed to be ranking: 'residentie bosrand'. How come we still don't find the website on the first pages in the search results, while these are the main keywords on the website's URL, page, ... ? Best regards,
Algorithm Updates | | conversal0 -
Hotel SEO, 3-pack & Search Console: How to get the right data and how to improve CTR?
Hey guys, I've been working with some hotels and I feel like there are some specific issues which need special solutions.
Algorithm Updates | | Maggiathor
Maybe some of you also work for hotels and face similar problems. Question 1: Google "forces" 3-packs impressions to OTAs like booking.com via Hotel Ads. You basically have a big blue "book now" button and a small little website button. This ends up basically leading to CTRs below 1% despite a 1-3 Position. Is there any way to improve the organic CTR? Of course we use hotel ads, but they offer bad analytics AND we basically pay for our SEO-Performance. Question 2: Search console doesn't specify wether or not a impression comes from 3-Pack or the rest of the organic results, which basically leads to a average position which says nothing. It's hard to evaluate the performance of meta-titles and texts, because the ctr is also mixed. What would be a better way to get this data or do you think google will change this in some time (new search console doesn't offer this). Question 3: Hotel Rankings are dominated by OTAs, Meta-Searchers and BIg Chains. Has anyone experience in SEO for smaller, family owned Hotels? Any tricks how to get a steady traffic source outside of brand results? Hope there are some travel experts in here 🙂0 -
Google Update August 2016
Hi Has anyone noticed anything strange with their rankings? I've had a few drops out of the blue at the start of August. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Recent Algorithm Update Impact on Rankings
I've read that the most recent algorithm update by Google is targeting dodgy links. I have a client's website who within the last few days has been smashed out of of top positions for the most competitive keywords (and many others). I'm worried that the site has been penalised, however I can't understand why it would be. The site only has 11 domains linking to it (65 links total) and a lot of these links are coming from the same websites that link to all of our other web clients and none of them have experienced this sudden and significant drop in rankings. Does anyone know if Google is targeting a specific type of site, or how I can determine if my client's website has been penalised? I've not made any significant changes recently to the site's content or meta data, however rankings have remained steady for months now. It just seemed to happen overnight that they dropped off everything (eg. middle of page 2 to page 8 of search results for some of the better keywords) Thank you in advance for any assistance!
Algorithm Updates | | JuiceBoxOM0 -
If our link profile is too "blog link" heavy, will that be all that bad?
We own a site that lends itself extremely well to getting boat loads of links, only down side is that those on the boat are all bloggers. We are selling a product that retails for $6.89 per unit. They are for women. Our target market is any woman/girl who is between 14 and 50. Even better, our cost per unit is only about $0.40. So what we've been doing is sending them out by the hundreds to legit fashion blogs all the way down to blogspot mommy bloggers and the reviews have poured in, literally all of them positive. Moral of the story, we have a good product, and no shortage of bloggers that would be willing to write us up a legit, human written (by a red-blooded American none-the-less) on almost exclusively legit blogs. We're not trying to manipulate what they say, how they link to us, what anchor text they use or anything. We're just sending them product, asking that they do a review and give us a link and that's it. Our worry is that given the nature of the site and the product offering, it's going to be easy to get these legit blog links, but more difficult to get links that "aren't on blogs". Is this going to hurt us, or will Big Google be kind and realize this isn't shady manipulation. It's legit part of our ongoing effort to get the word out. Further evidence that our campaign isn't to manipulate (although we all know we're in it for the links) is that so far 75% of our sales have been driven by these reviews. A few of the bigger sites that have done reviews have each directly resulted in 10+ sales from that single review. So what are all ya'll's thoughts? I suspect we'll be OK, but wanted some others to provide their views.
Algorithm Updates | | AarcMediaGroup0 -
What determines rankings in a site: search?
When I perform a "site:" search on my domains (without specifying a keyword) the top ranked results seem to be a mixture of sensible top-level index pages plus some very random articles. Is there any significance to what Google ranks highly in a site: search? There is some really unrepresentative content returned on page 1, including articles that get virtually no traffic. Is this seriously what Google considers our best or most typical content?
Algorithm Updates | | Dennis-529610 -
Today all of our internal pages all but completely disappeared from google search results. Many of them, which had been optimized for specific keywords, had high rankings. Did google change something?
We had optimized internal pages, targeting specific geographic markets. The pages used the keywords in the url title, the h1 tag, and within the content. They scored well using the SEOmoz tool and were increasing in rank every week. Then all of a sudden today, they disappeared. We had added a few links from textlink.com to test them out, but that's about the only change we made. The pages had a dynamic url, "?page=" that we were about to redirect to a static url but hadn't done it yet. The static url was redirecting to the dynamic url. Does anyone have any idea what happened? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | h3counsel0