Question

Hmmmm.  OK so.Hmmmm. OK so. This wasn't a huge volume keyword but it was a "nice to have". I've had the featured snippet for months and position 1. Apparently now Google is pushing the organic listings to page 2 if you have the snippet. That sucks. But wait, there's more! Checking in multiple rank trackers it shows that keyword having position 1. So are trackers now counting what we all call "position zero" as position 1? WTAF is happening here?  

Answer 1

Suumit Shah You were talking about the same, isn't it?  

Answer 2

Welcome to Cannibalization lol

Answer 3

Dunno about other trackers, but STAT tracks ranking that count and discount SERP features, so you can see the difference

Answer 4

Wow that’s really messed up. Confirmed with my own featured snippets.  

Answer 5

The question is whether the snippet has the same click thru power as rank 2. I rarely click rich snippets, but I may not be the normal searcher. ‍♂️

Comments

@witha sounds like it's time for SEDO Search Engine De-Optimisation

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@witha I just looked at a clients site - we've been having good seo success in the past 90 days and I see their featured snippets and their organic serp now on top of page 2. In search console impressions are way up clicks are up but not what I would expect. Can we just get 1 fucken week of no updates. Maybe it's google's end game to force us all to be committed.  

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@witha it's all good, tbh my client asked for those so here you go. Im kinda of mixed about that. It's great when your the featured snippet followed by position 1 or whatever the fuck it is now but it's a little more fair for the real estate on page 1. If you play your cards right you can pop a press release in that mix.  

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@witha could be but back in 2012 when I was taking seo classes. lol yes there was such a thing a study back then suggested that 40% of searchers had no idea what an add listing vs organic listing was--- with 30% knowing what an ad vs organic is and the last 30% not caring but knowing the difference. It's 100 years later now but I feel that with a huge box of knowledge like that sticking out, it's got to attract clicks

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@witha I had a great conversation in person years ago with some of the Google people. In the end, I was not impressed with their methodologies or their overall intelligence level. It’s the Wild Wild West over in Google land, where a 20 nothing college grad gets to make algorithm change recommendations, which is floated by the powers that are, then a revenue model is generated to determine if the end result will cause more ad buys. ‍♂️ Google isn’t very “smirt”, in the fact that they fail to realize or care how their pipe dream changes could potentially negatively impact the small business owner. Nor do they care. Food for thought. ‍♂️

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@bangka I always had that impression so the confirmation is just that but greatly appreciated :) it's still unfortunate but it's good to know. Reminds me a lot of an extremely large hosting company in Scottsdale.  

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@keitloa I have a hard time not liking GoDaddy. I’ve met their CEO Scott, and he is both admirable, and one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met. Just like with most of the hosting companies, they start off strong out of the gate, then a bean counter strips away the “extra bodies”, and lowers the hourly wage of the employees. I had a serious problem that went on for about 90 days a few years ago, and Scott stepped in personally to resolve the issue. The question is whether he has enough mojo to get them back on their rails as a company. ‍♂️

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I had an email issue that never got resolved with a client so I ended up personally putting way more time into it than I should have on my own time plus I had to take the steps to resolve it when it was their issue 100%. The 20-something wanna-be tech is the norm there. Yes they have to start somewhere and I get that, but it's more the attitude that I take issue with.  

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@keitloa it’s typical 20 year old arrogance. I think they sweat testosterone. I totally agree. ‍♂️

Answer 6

I almost had a heart attack yesterday. The main kwd for our aff site #1 - > #11 but we kept the snippet. "Glad" to see its not update related in terms of sth being wrong, but still sucks ass if its here to stay. Especially since the snippet is on/off every couple of days aka the content inside changes. will our rankings change as well?  

Comments

@witha I dont see major movements anywhere else, just the snippet infused ones went from 1 to 11. But serpbook was showing the snippet sign next to it so I was all WTF?!? Eagerly awaiting to check todays analytics and compare.  

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Danny Sullivan announced yesterday that from now on if a page is in the snippet, it will no longer be repeated on the first page. The update is global from my understanding.  

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@writhe Pretty much the news of the day. Waitung on impact on traffic and aff sales  

Answer 7

Google did something with the knowledge graph in the past week. I've seen a few "flips in meaning" play out that likely affect relevancy, combining two similar sounding searches with very different intent.  

Comments

@witha this one was weird; for once it was in our favor, driving a 5X lift in traffic to one of our mid-sized sites with admittedly questionable relevancy. I added content to address the new intent and am waiting to see if we can hold the new slot.  

Answer 8

I remember Ted Kubaitis mentioning something on IMG (internet marketing gold) about a Google HTML algo update and he was saying that when that happens, tracking tools will be all messed up and give weird data. And that will happen until the tools adjust to the HTML algo update. Maybe that's the reason to what you're seeing in your tracking tool.  

Comments

@cornute9 he was talking about product SERP

Answer 9

I’d like to know this . when you lose ur snippet does your #11 spot in the serps return you back to the number it previously was at. Or do you have to fight ur way back up the ladder all the time.  

Answer 10

What if the site is on the second page , can you get the feature snippet and thats it? If earlier the site was not on page #1. just being stuck on the second one and optimize for the snippet?  

Answer 11

Hugo Torres Itzel Domínguez González