Google Algorithm Updates - 2021 Ongoing Discussion

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No changes in traffic here.

AhFreshMeat said:
Saw a -25%-30% decrease in traffic in google analytics today and last night, all my site is quality, cant tell which keywords are dropped even though im using ahrefsz ahrefs says 39 positions increased and 19 positions decreased. Im a noob at tracking the rankings of keywords
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Wait a few days for Search Console data to update, then use the compare feature. Compare the day your traffic dropped with the previous day and you will be able to see what pages/queries got hit.
 
Darth said:
My main site seems fine for now. All my other smaller site (say half a doz) feel down maybe 30% - definitely affected in some way. Early days, let's see.
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Two sites have more or less recovered back to normal levels, but two others still down majorly. SE visibility seems the same for them, strange. Still waiting.
 
Just checked my sites on average im down about 15% across the board. One site I bought a few months back is down 40% leading the losses. One experimental site I had been trying to build with zero linkbuilding is the only one in my portfolio up significantly its up 45%. still a long way for this rollout to go, I remember last update most my losses recovered within a week.

I feel like for smaller sites the first few days they see large drops while google starts reindexing larger sites pop up first then slowly the smaller ones begin to make their way back up as they get crawled because their deeper.
 
DanielS said:
dropped from #11 to #43
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Big drops like that usually never stick.

It's either they changed the intent completely or they just get some kind of flag for your url for whatever reason and it might bounce in and out for a while.
 
Huge spike in impressions and rankings on day one, now falling to pre-update levels.
 
Update: 12/1/21
December 2021 Product Reviews Update

Source:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/12/product-reviews-update-and-your-site

The Important Part:
Therefore we are introducing two new best practices for product reviews, to take effect in a future update.
  • Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
  • Include links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.
These best practices, combined with the best practices shared back in April, have now been merged into a single documentation page, Write high quality product reviews.

The Best Practices:
Here are all of the best practices from the "high quality product reviews" page linked just above.
  • Evaluate the product from a user's perspective.
  • Demonstrate that you are knowledgeable about the products reviewed – show you are an expert.
  • Provide evidence such visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
  • Share quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance.
  • Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors.
  • Cover comparable products to consider, or explain which products might be best for certain uses or circumstances.
  • Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product, based on your own original research.
  • Describe how a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision.
  • Identify key decision-making factors for the product's category and how the product performs in those areas (for example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors and rate performance in those areas).
  • Describe key choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says.
  • Include links to other useful resources (your own or from other sites) to help a reader make a decision.
  • Consider including links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.
Phew, these reviews are starting to sound like a pain in the ass to develop!
 
  • Provide evidence such visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
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Pretty big point IMO
 
  • Include links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.
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Can see this impacting Amazon affiliate sites.
 
Anyone else get hit this morning. This update has been the biggest for me all year. Semrushsensor has it rated pretty high
 
I've been seeing some stuff happening, up, down, mostly up, but overall nothing major.

I've seen consistent upswings the last month across my sites, so I figure Google might be tweaking down the importance of links maybe and up on relevance.
 
bernard said:
I've been seeing some stuff happening, up, down, mostly up, but overall nothing major.

I've seen consistent upswings the last month across my sites, so I figure Google might be tweaking down the importance of links maybe and up on relevance.
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complete opposite from what I have seen. I have seen almost all my best x articles drop and the actual brand rise in there like searching for best toothpaste and now crest and colgate buy pages would be the top results.
 
I'm seeing similar results to what happened during the April product review update. Affiliate sites that were ranking for broad ecommerce terms like 'dog crate' got pummeled. They still rank well for review stuff like 'best dog crate' and 'dog crate reviews', but not the broad ecommerce terms. This is across several evergreen niches. Also sites that got hit in April don't seem to be affected by this update. It's only sites that flew under the radar or were too new in April to be noticed.
 
JamaicanMoose said:
I'm seeing similar results to what happened during the April product review update. Affiliate sites that were ranking for broad ecommerce terms like 'dog crate' got pummeled. They still rank well for review stuff like 'best dog crate' and 'dog crate reviews', but not the broad ecommerce terms. This is across several evergreen niches. Also sites that got hit in April don't seem to be affected by this update. It's only sites that flew under the radar or were too new in April to be noticed.
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I'm seeing the opposite, I'm mostly not moving much, but I've jumped quite a few keywords for broad intent searches.

I've gone up on all sites, no big drops on any site. I assume this will even out, but it is interesting. Will have to do some more checks on who lost.
 
the main thing i have noticed so far is that the category pages for our products we were ranking for are now gone and a single product ranks there instead in its place. example, category page blue widgets used to rank for blue widgets, now product page "thin 4inch blue widgets" page ranks in its place for blue widgets. I do ecommerce sites(not sure if that matters) and this newer one is doing this the past 2 or 3 days since the update.
 
Update: 11/30/21 through 12/8/21
November 2021 Local Search Update
The Vicinity Update

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The details from the community say this was mainly about the proximity of your business location to the search location and increasing the weight of that signal. Being in the vicinity is one thing, being closer to the searcher and the location in the query is another. Businesses that were dominating entire vicinities due to the strength of other signals are now losing visibility.

Keywords in the business name seem to matter less. Businesses like "Phoenix Plumbers" as a crappy example, may have received boosts beyond what they were qualified for previously, or "Prescott & Bain Saginaw Personal Injury Lawyers" as another example. Better locations saw significant rises.

SterlingSky provided these examples:

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This company was dominating an area that covered around a 2 hour drive time, which is obviously absurd. Now this is what it looks like:

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At the outer stretches they barely show at all. In the 1 hour drive time their rankings dropped out of the top 5. And they show like they should within their reachable distances, but less well than they did before.
 
Ryuzaki said:
PRFw1KV.png

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This company was dominating an area that covered around a 2 hour drive time, which is obviously absurd. Now this is what it looks like:

QywzZR3.png

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At the outer stretches they barely show at all. In the 1 hour drive time their rankings dropped out of the top 5. And they show like they should within their reachable distances, but less well than they did before.
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Unrelated but these example images make me laugh because the town I live in isn't even on this map it's so far away but people commute to Toronto on a daily basis from here.
 
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