Google seems to have shut me down?
Discussion
Wonder if anyone else is in the same boat? Right from the start this year has been s
t, utter st. The first change seemed to happen late 2015, September by memory. We used to get hundreds of spam emails, these stopped over night....and so did our sales! Ever since it's been up & down like a tarts knickers. Some weeks normal others what we would expect during the Christmas break. Last week was utter st, this week much the same. I've really given up with it, after 14 years of doing OK it seems we were shut down in weeks. No manual spam actions in search console, no messages at all (I lie, just one from Google Analytics telling me one of our goals hasn't had a conversion in weeks on one of my domains, no st sherlock!)
I've spoken with a few other webmasters who seemed to be suffering the same so I guess Google have done something yet again.
Anyone else seeing anything similar? To be frank I feel like topping myself, I've worked fking hard to get where things are and it seems it's all over, just like that. I've read the bullst about "quality" and "content" yet I see some really stty sites on page 1 for some of the search terms I used to monitor (& it's been like that since their Mayday update in 2010!). Apart from that it's Amazon Amazon & Amazon again (great user experience Google)
I've spent most of today looking at a big fking zero in GA real time, again, not much fun. I could go & spend a few grand (prob. more like 6-8K for what I do starting from scratch) with a web pro and get a new site but is there really any point with Google acting the way it does?
I feel so fking low I could ( & have) cry.
t, utter st. The first change seemed to happen late 2015, September by memory. We used to get hundreds of spam emails, these stopped over night....and so did our sales! Ever since it's been up & down like a tarts knickers. Some weeks normal others what we would expect during the Christmas break. Last week was utter st, this week much the same. I've really given up with it, after 14 years of doing OK it seems we were shut down in weeks. No manual spam actions in search console, no messages at all (I lie, just one from Google Analytics telling me one of our goals hasn't had a conversion in weeks on one of my domains, no st sherlock!)I've spoken with a few other webmasters who seemed to be suffering the same so I guess Google have done something yet again.
Anyone else seeing anything similar? To be frank I feel like topping myself, I've worked f
king hard to get where things are and it seems it's all over, just like that. I've read the bullst about "quality" and "content" yet I see some really stty sites on page 1 for some of the search terms I used to monitor (& it's been like that since their Mayday update in 2010!). Apart from that it's Amazon Amazon & Amazon again (great user experience Google)I've spent most of today looking at a big f
king zero in GA real time, again, not much fun. I could go & spend a few grand (prob. more like 6-8K for what I do starting from scratch) with a web pro and get a new site but is there really any point with Google acting the way it does?I feel so f
king low I could ( & have) cry.Wacky Racer said:
Very VERY important these days to have your website mobile optimised.
That doesn't really explain the wild, & I mean WILD fluctuations? Not to mention only a small % of users are coming from mobile according to GA. I guess what I'm asking (as well as venting) is has anyone spent thousands on a new website and actually seen any reward vs their old site?After spending days searching the closest I've come to a explanation can be found here :-
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4777180.htm
No one seems to have an answer to it though!
One of my sons is a web developer, and two years ago he played around with my website, so that it worked better on mobile phones,...I think they call it "optimised".
Since then, business has increased 500%, I have over 1500 quality hits a day, and am number one in Google rankings in my field.
Might have been a co-incidence, but I don't think so.
Best bottle of whisky I ever bought.
I'm useless with computers...
Since then, business has increased 500%, I have over 1500 quality hits a day, and am number one in Google rankings in my field.
Might have been a co-incidence, but I don't think so.
Best bottle of whisky I ever bought.
I'm useless with computers...
Dave_ST220 said:
Would he be interested in quoting for a new site? Drop me an email if so 
Thanks
Hi Dave, ThanksHe was self employed with some decent clients, but now works for a medium sized company in the North of England, he got fed up with (some) customers pissing him around, so he only did mine because I threatened to withhold his inheritance...
Basically he is not interested in taking any work on, but the point I was trying to make is apparently over 75% of browsing is done on mobile these days, so whatever site you have has to look reasonably professional on them.
Good luck anyway.
Wacky.
You can check the site's ranking here:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insi...
Just type in your URL. Even if you don't understand the detail you'll get a score out of 100. More is better.
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insi...
Just type in your URL. Even if you don't understand the detail you'll get a score out of 100. More is better.
Dave_ST220 said:
That doesn't really explain the wild, & I mean WILD fluctuations? Not to mention only a small % of users are coming from mobile according to GA.
Google is now holding back sites that don't display well on mobile from the results given to mobile users so if your site isn't mobile friendly then it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're seeing mobile/desktop visits generally reaching equilibrium - some markets are still more likely to be PC visits and others mobile but on the whole it's always worth being mobile friendly now regardless of whether there are other factors at play.Amazon/ebay are eating up a lot of consumer sales from independent sites. My own purchasing reflects that and we often encourage our clients to get on both if volume is of importance.
It's not nice on there though as fees take from one end and the race to the bottom on price takes from the other leaving not much margin in the middle. There is a chance to drive repeat custom to your own site though so there is that.
I wouldn't personally be looking to get into web retailing on anything that isn't niche or self produced right now.
On the wild fluctuation, I wonder if google is doing split testing? Mixing up the results displayed and monitoring what people are clicking through to?
One other thing, we're seeing a *lot* of spam via google analytics - are you sure your peaks aren't coming from that?
Edited by rpguk on Wednesday 25th May 19:03
Are you doing any search engine optimisation - either yourself or hiring a company? I've read if Google think you're up to no good trying to game the rankings by building links etc. then they sometimes try have the ranks drop dramatically to see if the webmaster reacts by removing the link or similar (which would indicate dodgy practices as it wouldn't be a natural link if you can control it)
Perhaps they think one of your recent links is dodgy, perhaps do a ahref's search for back links and maybe disavow it.
Perhaps they think one of your recent links is dodgy, perhaps do a ahref's search for back links and maybe disavow it.
We removed the default trasnfer of mobile users to our mobile site as they preferred the desktop one, even though it doesn't comply with Google rules.
The Google test site does have some good recommendations, though.
For us Adwords was money down the drain, and we use Facebook and Instagram advertising instead.
Just so I get my head round this.
In order to keep Google "happy" you have to regularly add content to your site?
This seems very unfair. What if you have a simple consultancy business and just want a "shop window" for your services? Your content may never change for weeks/months.
I've been thinking of a website and I just cant see how I'll regularly update it, I don't sell products as such and don't want to spend hours doing pointless updates to keep the mighty Google empire happy.
Sorry Op for jumping on this, just trying to understand. Hope you get sorted soon
In order to keep Google "happy" you have to regularly add content to your site?
This seems very unfair. What if you have a simple consultancy business and just want a "shop window" for your services? Your content may never change for weeks/months.
I've been thinking of a website and I just cant see how I'll regularly update it, I don't sell products as such and don't want to spend hours doing pointless updates to keep the mighty Google empire happy.
Sorry Op for jumping on this, just trying to understand. Hope you get sorted soon
528Sport said:
Just so I get my head round this.
In order to keep Google "happy" you have to regularly add content to your site?
This seems very unfair. What if you have a simple consultancy business and just want a "shop window" for your services? Your content may never change for weeks/months.
I've been thinking of a website and I just cant see how I'll regularly update it, I don't sell products as such and don't want to spend hours doing pointless updates to keep the mighty Google empire happy.
Sorry Op for jumping on this, just trying to understand. Hope you get sorted soon
What do your competitors do? If their sites are static, I'd imagine you'll be OK. If they are finding vaguely interesting content to post regularly, them you'd better try to do the same. In order to keep Google "happy" you have to regularly add content to your site?
This seems very unfair. What if you have a simple consultancy business and just want a "shop window" for your services? Your content may never change for weeks/months.
I've been thinking of a website and I just cant see how I'll regularly update it, I don't sell products as such and don't want to spend hours doing pointless updates to keep the mighty Google empire happy.
Sorry Op for jumping on this, just trying to understand. Hope you get sorted soon
To answer some of the questions :-
Mobile tool didn't give a great score, 51. However as mentioned most of our users seem to come from desktop, I watch GA real time all day & when a user does hit our site from a mobile device they don't seem to have any trouble buying.
A lot of the products were niche, now copied elsewhere. We also self produce quite a few, again copied elsewhere now.
Spam in analytics? Constantly getting it, filtered out a soon as it hits via GA & also in htaccess file.
SEO-none, never employed a company and never involved in link schemes etc.
I can't see any new competitors, in fact a long standing one disappeared a few weeks ago (online since '99 by memory). I'm guessing in the same boat as us so went under
A fellow PH'er has been in touch & is taking a look, thanks for the idea's guys.
Mobile tool didn't give a great score, 51. However as mentioned most of our users seem to come from desktop, I watch GA real time all day & when a user does hit our site from a mobile device they don't seem to have any trouble buying.
A lot of the products were niche, now copied elsewhere. We also self produce quite a few, again copied elsewhere now.
Spam in analytics? Constantly getting it, filtered out a soon as it hits via GA & also in htaccess file.
SEO-none, never employed a company and never involved in link schemes etc.
I can't see any new competitors, in fact a long standing one disappeared a few weeks ago (online since '99 by memory). I'm guessing in the same boat as us so went under
A fellow PH'er has been in touch & is taking a look, thanks for the idea's guys.
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