I was the first to write about Google’s April Fools’ joke—or rather, the unannounced update that changed the rules of the game. Surprisingly, people still aren’t talking much about it.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into what the issue is and what has changed.
There are websites that have tons of impressions where nothing has changed.
Here I’m taking the keyword «app»:
Just a fresh EMD domain. Search results also have tons of sites for this keyword.
Launch a fresh domain, and most likely it will hover somewhere in the top 100—you will see impressions showing up.
How do you check in this case whether the TOP remained the same or if SERP follows the new algorithm?
If there are still 100 spots, everything works as before.
Expired domains enter, links rule, promotion works as usual.
Now, what changed since April.
Let’s take a fresh example of SERP changes from July 23.
The search results had a stable TOP 100 for «app»
But starting July 23, the SERP changed, leaving only a TOP 45
There are no more than 45 sites there—actually even fewer, since one takes up 5 positions 😅. How does this affect those that were in the TOP 100? They drop out (including in impressions):
This SERP change happened not for a brand query, but for the generic keyword «app»—meaning Google decided the TOP should look like this now.
Sometimes there’s a harsher SERP shift: it used to be a TOP 100, and now it’s a TOP 30.
Do you know how many affiliate sites remained there? 6 sites. The rest simply vanished)
In the SERP, there are more Facebook and .gov sites—they rank higher than affiliate ones.
This is the reality since April. Put an expired domain on a subfolder—it might hit the TOP, but then something happens and it vanishes again. And so on, over and over.
Where few sites remain in the search results, it becomes critical just to get the site to show up and gain visibility, because an expired domain might be decent, but due to this issue, it might simply fail to show up!
I haven’t figured out a long-term solution to this problem yet.
One thing is clear—Google is striving to move away from single-page sites and hastily cobbled-together websites toward real businesses. If it’s some entity—a bookmaker’s website, an actual company website even if off-topic—Google displays it. A zoo website in Google’s TOP for a gaming keyword? Easy.
This website has social networks, users engage with it, there’s stable branded traffic over many years—these are the sites Google displays.
.gov sites also shoot up on doorways due to trust.
All sorts of subfolder tricks work, but not always. If you hit the TOP and hold—make money while it’s hot, because later the TOP will shift and your site might simply get kicked out.
The reason in this example? There were 25 results in the SERP, and only 12 remained—the site simply vanished) As soon as it disappeared, it triggered a drop across other keywords where the SERP seemed to remain intact. Key word being—FOR NOW 😂
It so happens that the post sounds a bit negative, as if everything is bad. But you’ve known for a long time that SEO is dead. And what is dead may never rise.
Lastly, let’s look at the TOP for the keyword «app»
Do you see affiliate sites? Me neither. I remember the same behavior back in the day in 2020 when affiliate sites for physical products in the US got wiped out. The SERP looked exactly the same.
Maybe something is fundamentally changing in the field right now. Time will tell.