Sept 20th Algorithm Update

[JoshuaMackens]

I saw a significant drop in 3 clients (chiropractor, psychiatrist, insurance) on Sept 20th. This would a web results/organic drop, not a GMB drop per say.

They are YMYL industries.

Two clients saw a GMB drop along with their web results/organic drop. One client saw just an web results/organic drop.

Also, interestingly, the insurance clients has two locations. One location page dropped hard website results/organically. The other did not. Very similar content (not copied, just similar).

Did anyone else see something similar?

 

[CarrieHill]

I've seen a bit of up and a bit of down.

Vacation Rental client is up a tad

PI Lawyer client is down a tad

Pest Control client is about even...

 

[JoyHawkins]

Here are some responses I got on Twitter:

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

@JoshuaMackens

Hi Joshua, I'm curious if your clients have been affected by a recent change we've seen in Google's SERPs. I made a post about it: Google showing indented results

The change doesn't seem to be global yet. Rather than retype the entire post, if you have time, please read the thread. It would be interesting to know if you are seeing indented organic results for the search terms for your clients. It may explain the drop. For some of our clients it has been great for certain search terms, as they obtained two or more of the ten organic spots. But other clients got pushed down two, three, or even four positions due to competitors receiving an additional one or two indented results for some search terms.

You'll need to use a desktop browser to see what I'm referring to, because you won't see the indenting on mobile, however the SERP impact is still the same. But then again, you might not see the indention at all.

 

[cfazio]

I saw a significant drop in 3 clients (chiropractor, psychiatrist, insurance) on Sept 20th. This would a web results/organic drop, not a GMB drop per say.

They are YMYL industries.

Two clients saw a GMB drop along with their web results/organic drop. One client saw just an web results/organic drop.

Also, interestingly, the insurance clients has two locations. One location page dropped hard website results/organically. The other did not. Very similar content (not copied, just similar).

Did anyone else see something similar?

I have a business that is a chiropractor ... for "chiropractor" went from ~12 organic to not ranked. For "chiropractor + city" went from #3 organic to ~#60 organic. This happened starting just before Sept 20th, and around 25th is when rankings plummeted.

Also on a primary care clinic alot of medical based keywords just completely lost rank.

Local map rank seems to be stable - ish but organic just disappeared overnight ... def concerned.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Thanks Joy! I probably need to be more active on Twitter.

@JoshuaMackens

Hi Joshua, I'm curious if your clients have been affected by a recent change we've seen in Google's SERPs. I made a post about it: Google showing indented results

The change doesn't seem to be global yet. Rather than retype the entire post, if you have time, please read the thread. It would be interesting to know if you are seeing indented organic results for the search terms for your clients. It may explain the drop. For some of our clients it has been great for certain search terms, as they obtained two or more of the ten organic spots. But other clients got pushed down two, three, or even four positions due to competitors receiving an additional one or two indented results for some search terms.

You'll need to use a desktop browser to see what I'm referring to, because you won't see the indenting on mobile, however the SERP impact is still the same. But then again, you might not see the indention at all.

Hey Jeff, I actually saw this the other day myself. But it didn't impact the ranking drops I saw. The ranking drops I saw were significant, 10-15 spots or more.

I have a business that is a chiropractor ... for "chiropractor" went from ~12 organic to not ranked. For "chiropractor + city" went from #3 organic to ~#60 organic. This happened starting just before Sept 20th, and around 25th is when rankings plummeted.

Also on a primary care clinic alot of medical based keywords just completely lost rank.

Local map rank seems to be stable - ish but organic just disappeared overnight ... def concerned.

Bingo. Exact same behavior I've been seeing. I'll report back if I find anything I can share.

It is interesting your examples were medical. I think that was a YMYL thing.

 

[cfazio]

@JoshuaMackens

Member of another SEO group seeing similar behavior starting around Sept 20th, except for this one had loss of maps ranking not organic. Keyword is "osteopath ontario".

 

[JoyHawkins]

I've seen a few minor changes - nothing super drastic.

 

[dave101]

I haven't seen a drop in rankings, I have seen the opposite but I noticed all my local service area pages are now displaying a difference in results. Seems like Google is pulling each page's H1 tag VS the page's actual title as set in RankMath. However, I am doing some testing now with changes to tags and titles to see if it makes a difference. I Will report back once Google re-fetches my pages.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Update:

Two of those clients (chiropractor, mental health) rebounded on Oct 2nd back to their original position (maybe slightly higher even).

The insurance client dropped further and for both locations this time, not just one.

Did anyone else see a recovery for clients impacted?

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Another update: both clients dropped again on Oct 12th to just a little lower than on the initial drop on Sept 20th. It's like Google reversed the change, maybe made some tweaks, and put it right back in. Incredibly frustrating.

Anyone else see anything?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'll check with my team and let you know if anyone sees anything.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I'll check with my team and let you know if anyone sees anything.

Thanks, Joy!

 

[Alan D]

Hi Joy-
Yes we saw declines. We did a deep dive and found the following;

-organic keywords with location in them did fine and held their positions
-organic keywords with just the product and no location attached to them plummeted.

For example='custom tuxedos nyc' is rock solid but 'custom tuxedos' is not.

It appears that google is starting to rank non location keywords as they would rank 'online' keywords. We saw that the competitors that took our place were nowhere near our geo location. It shows that google is adjusting to things being able to be bought online and is de emphasizing the location unless it is specifically in the keyword. We have 20 pages of data on this if you want to discuss Joy

Hope this helps.

Alan

 

[Fred Hofstetter]

Echoing Alan's findings.

September 20th doesn't perfectly denote the date of change for all search phrases - but seeing this same development starting in mid-to-late Sept through October. Reflected both in GMB position and organic rank.