<\/span><\/h2>\nA lot of ecommerce SERPs we are familiar with will experience some form of seasonality, and we can usually predict and identify these through experience and common sense.<\/p>\n
But what if you start seeing a change in traffic and rankings for particular URLs? How can you identify whether or not your SERPs are beginning to fall into a seasonality experiment?<\/p>\n
The answer is through data. Understanding what your SERPs look like during “normal times” is important, and comes from:<\/p>\n
Recording and monitoring SERP features.Monitoring the source types (and their positions) within the results page.<\/p>\n
Several third-party tools record this information and retain it historically.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let’s take the search term [beard oil]. It is a query with more than one dominant interpretation, as I could be looking to make a purchase, research different brands, or even research different oils.<\/p>\n
This query has already changed several times over the course of this year. This October, it is beginning to show signs of changing to a seasonal SERP:<\/p>\n
March 2022<\/strong>July 2022<\/strong>October 2022<\/strong>Reviews
People also ask
Video carouselReviews
Sitelinks
Images
People also ask
Video carouselReviews
Shopping ads
Map pack
FAQ
Images
People also ask
Video carousel<\/p>\nAs we get closer to peak ecommerce periods and more users are searching for the term, Google’s SERP features are favoring and introducing commercially focused elements with Shopping Ads and the Map Pack (to cater to those wanting to buy both online and in-person).<\/p>\n
We can also see a change in which source types are being ranked highest for the query.<\/p>\n
So if we look at the top 5 ranking URLs for July 2022:<\/p>\n
Rank \/ Website<\/strong>Source Type<\/strong>#1 Men’s HealthNon-commercial entity, informational#2 CNNNon-commercial entity, informational#3 GQ MagazineNon-commercial entity, informational#4 AmazonCommercial entity, commercial#5 AmazonCommercial entity, commercial<\/p>\nAnd we compare them to October 2022:<\/p>\n
Rank \/ Website<\/strong>Source Type<\/strong>#1 AmazonCommercial entity, commercial#2 Men’s HealthNon-commercial entity, informational#3 Beard BrandCommercial entity, commercial#4 Dr. SquatchCommercial entity, commercial#5 Bad Ass Beard CareCommercial entity, commercial<\/p>\nLooking at third-party metrics, one would argue that websites like Dr. Squatch don’t have the same backlink profile, brand, or content levels as the likes of GQ. But they’re a different source type, so the threshold required to rank is lower.<\/p>\n
As Google is altering the SERP with a heavier commercial focus, the only thing that GQ can do in this scenario is to try dislodging Men’s Health as the second result or wait it out for Google to determine that a different source type is required.<\/p>\n
This, of course, is not taking into account that October 2022 also has a Map Pack and Shopping Ads taking up SERP real estate and clicks.<\/p>\n
Looking at data from 2021, the SERPs followed a similar pattern before reverting back around March.<\/p>\n
If we look at Google Trends data, we can correlate these SERP changes with the peaks and troughs of [beard oil] searches in the United States (outside of an increase around the time of the first pandemic lockdown).<\/p>\n\n