According to discussions online and what people have
communicated to me, I’m seeing mostly contented publishers and scattered
reports of recovery. There is also what seems like a link related component to
Google’s Broad Core Update that put the screws on a popular link scheme.
While there were some reports of traffic collapse, the overall narrative in many online discussions was a mix of recoveries and mild
wins and losses on the order of 10 to 20 percent, nothing catastrophic as in
past updates.
September 2019 Google Update Winners
Reaction to Google’s update in the private SEO Signals Lab
Facebook discussion group tended to be positive. A few members
noted they had quality sites that were hit. When others took a look it turned
out that the losers had low-quality content.
One member reported a drop that appears to be attributed
to links. He stated that he had just started building links.
September 2019 Google Update Losers
Black Hat World forum had more members reporting losses.
Nothing specific was said as to ideas of what caused the
ranking declines.
This post was typical of the black hat marketers
reporting losses:
What stood out among the publishers who reported losses
is how many attributed it to links.
A broad core algorithm update focuses on a wide range of
changes. In general, the updates work together to improve relevance.
Although there were many discussing links, links are
likely one part of many changes. Links may simply be the factor that happens to
be the one that stands out.
That said, a week before the algorithm rolled out I was
made aware of a link-based spam network that had collapsed. This involved 301
redirecting expired domains to a website.
Some claimed that this technique exploited a ranking
loophole in Google. I can’t know for certain but the link-based spam network
had been ranking for six months and on Saturday, September 21st they were gone.
That ranking demotion happened a few days before the algorithm was
announced.
What makes that interesting is that members of the Proper PBN
Facebook Group that focuses on aggressive SEO tactics noted a downturn in site employing the 301 redirect trick.
Some members said that sites with irrelevant domain redirects suffered and
that sites with relevant 301 redirects kept ranking.
I would caution to not accept these reports as actual facts. I only bring
this up because the reports matched what I had seen from the week before.
A successful black hat search marketer told me by private message that he
had lost 20% of his traffic. His link profile is diversified and he admitted
that some of his links involved expired domains.
Several publishers related 301 redirect link spamming
casualties that matched what happened to a link spam network the week before.
As previously mentioned, while there are many components
to a broad core update, a notable feature of the September 24, 2019, Broad Core
Algorithm Update appears to be the link component.
Links Appear to be Important in September 2019 Google
Broad Core Update
In my opinion, one part of this update is related to links.
Perhaps coincidentally, September is the month Google announced a change
in how they handle no-follow
links. So it does not seem unreasonable to deduce that Google
has been focusing on links.
