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I am using https://web.dev/measure/ to help understand what improvements I can make to make my site load faster and rank higher. From my audit result I got the suggestion to:

  • Eliminate render-blocking resources
  • Reduce unused JavaScript

This past weekend I made an attempt to improve my site according to the suggestions. BUT my SEO has been totally ruined from the changes! Lost half of my organic clicks and impressions are down and falling...

I have asked other dev-friends to look through the PRs I made to make sure I made no unintended changes. Nothing like that has been found. The two changes I made was:

Change no.1

I am using both paypal and Stripe on my site and loads their SDK's in a <script>-tag. I read about the option of adding async to the script-tag to prevent render blocking. Like this (plz note the async): <script src="https://js.stripe.com/v3" async></script> and <script src="https://www.paypal.com/sdk/js?client-id=my_id&funding=credit,card" async>

Change no.2

Removal of jQuery. I wanted to remove jQuery. I hade some DOM-manipulating jQuery stuff. mainly some showing, color and opacity changes on hover. I translated all to vanilla js and it all works as intended. I then removed jQuery successfully.

After doing both changes my speed score on https://web.dev/measure got better! I was so happy. Then the day after (or maybe two days after) I started to notice the drop that is still on going. So my question to you now is: Do you know of any changed mentioned above could be the cause? Does google not like async loading of external scripts? Does google not like DOM-manipulation? If so I hade that before but it was jQuery doing it. Does jQuery do something that google likes? I am very confused and all help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Brainmaniac
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  • Did your listing before the update have rich content snippets ... and do your listing still have them or have they been removed? at this time. ... https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2012/10/rich-snippets-guidelines ... People who lost traffic are saying they lost their snippets. – Wayne Smith Jun 03 '22 at 01:50
  • No, I did not have rich snippets (AFAIK) before nor after... Since my site is a vector library (stock library) I sometimes get an image shown in the web search result. Is that considered a rich snippet? – Brainmaniac Jun 03 '22 at 07:32

1 Answers1

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This weekend corresponds with the google may 2022 core update. There is a lot of volatility and you are not alone in seeing a massive change in traffic and seo rankings.

There is chatter all over the internet ... https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-broad-core-update-seo-impact-33512.html has a summary.

What we know is this is not an update to apply any penalties. and the update is still rolling out ... after the update what is not yet known, if the site is not doing well after the update? The investigation of what corrections need to be done post update. Don't assume your site will not bounce back.

Post Update Suggestions from Google

Its is not unheard of that Google will provide information for sites that are not doing well after an update as to what they should do.

I'll update this answer as soon as I here something useful.

Your Questions about async and jquery specifically

Increase speed etc are good changes. It is just the timing that is messing with your thoughts. Google seems to think Memorial Day Weekend is a good time to rebuild their core database.

Wayne Smith
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