Google Chat Thread

[RedBar]

Is everyone on holiday?

[Wilburforce]

I wish I was.

[zerocj]

what time it will update.

[RedBar]

what time it will update.

Do you mean the next core update or "whatever" update?

Who knows, does G ? For sure G will have something planned but for when, place your bets.

[Neohippy]

Not on holiday, just... is there even anything to say any more?

[RedBar]

is there even anything to say any more?

Yep, although traffic is down my realworld business enquiries from new contacts are up and the reason for me saying this is that nearly all these enquiries are from countries where we realistically do less business. I'm wondering why and can think of several possible reasons however I "think" the main one could possibly be raw widget supplies.

I need to wait a few days before asking why!

[ichthyous]

Traffic has been unusually low all day...search is down 25% and direct is down 32% compared to an average Tuesday. USA is -20% and UK is -48%. Canada is at zero visits today and Australia is -14%. Europe and Asia also below the norm. So basically, the entire world seems to be sleeping today. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop...either a big drop in rank is coming tomorrow or it will snap right back to a more normal pattern, as I have seen happen a lot this summer.

[SteveWrz]

Unusually good traffic numbers today. Started last evening. Something is brewing.

[immrrobot]

No change in serps apparently. however, search traffic down by 25%. Don't have any clue what's going on.

[tangor]

Consumer interest is diminishing, and that is also world wide, as fears of imminent (or already here) recession is in the wind.

I expect things to slim/diminish over the next few months, and perhaps into 2023 as users are consumers and costs are rising everywhere. Higher costs? Less money in pockets.

Sometimes it's not the serps that change.

[renatovieira]

Over here huge drop yesterday.

[BigKat]

For us, Monday and Tuesday were actually OK days for sales coming from Google with no change in traffic (higher conversions with no increase/decrease in traffic). This morning both traffic and conversions crashed. It's still early in the day, so we will see how the day progresses.

[ichthyous]

Monday was sluggish, especially USA traffic...Tuesday there was simply no traffic throughout all hours of the day from anywhere. Today it's much stronger, so if you see a big drop don't despair yet. As usual, USA traffic is the laggard...overall traffic is +25% today so far, but USA is -22%. That will crawl up all day and probably end up slightly positive, but USA traffic is rarely very strong anymore.

I'm also noticing a lot of hits to obscure pages on my site from a wider set of locations...while it's nice to have traffic, this kind of traffic is generally non-performing and doesn't ever amount to anything. Meanwhile the quality converting traffic for high-volume terms never really recovered from the 2021 updates.

[MayankParmar]

There's an indexing issue and Google is not doing anything about it. Amazing.

[JesterMagic]

Since the Product Reviews update I've seen a drop of 5 to 10%. Had started finally see a rise in traffic for a few weeks in July after loosing 40% traffic over the last year.

Doesn't seem to affect my 3 main competitors. 2 have poorly written content that primarily pushes people using made up facts to click on affiliate links.

[ichthyous]

Another big drop after a fairly strong day yesterday. Search is down 31% and direct traffic is down 23% today. That's after finishing up 6% and 4% yesterday. These days where traffic mysteriously vanishes all day long are becoming more common and I have noticed that referral traffic is also down on those days. I don't understand how that can be the case. I do know that this is not just normal summer doldrums or worries about the economy...people don't all just flip on and off like that from day to day.

[RedBar]

For my global site even for a "holiday" August my traffic is extremely low, my current projections would suggest traffic at about 53% of August 2021 :-(

For the UK hotel / pub July was the best month of the year however I cannot compare to a year ago because of the crazy "eat out to help out" / unlocked down situatio however against 2019 was up 15%. Current daily traffic is achieving just over its average.

Insofar as realworld business is concerned project enquiries are still arriving, in fact a couple of massive ones including Taiwan!

I have mentioned it before but the biggest inflationary element for almost the past year has been the cost of international seafreight which way pre-dates the Ukraine / sanctions influence. For instance some of my popular widgets which have NOT changed in their FOB export cost are now +67% on a CIF delivered to the customer price.

I repeat, the export cost is the same, the seafreight cost alone is hiking these prices.

[ichthyous]

UK traffic is very low this week...yesterday it finished -41%. Australia was -57%. USA was slightly up. Today again UK traffic is weak at -35%. I have noticed that UK traffic tends to turn negative on Fridays this entire summer. Perhaps its a shake-up in the UK serps or the announcement by the Bank of England that they are expecting a 5 quarter recession in the UK? The strength of the US dollar isn't helping.

[RedBar]

@ichthyous - Apart from holidays some European countries / populations are whipping-up themselves into a frenzy over the forthcoming energy price increases. Whilst I understand the concerns it would help their cause if they directed their protests at the culprits and not the messengers.

[ichthyous]

Tremendous drop in USA search traffic today...down 30%

[cr1m]

For me it's a joyful weekend, after seeing a 50% drop on July 15 and staying that way until August 5 we're now seeing a full recovery. I hope Google fixed their mistake and we will see our website on these positions in the future as well.

[Alex_1729]

I had the lowest traffic yesterday (Saturday) since the core update that ruined my site. Today seems a bit better, but only a few percent.

[RedBar]

I'm coming up to 15 hours of my Googleday and traffic is at 13% of my old weekday average and 19% of my old weekend average.

Since August is usually one of my lowest months owing to holidays etc, I shall be adjusting my average expectations at the end of August based upon June, July and August which is looking about the -30% mark.

Meanwhile the UK pub / hotel is still averaging about +10% with the accommodation and restaurant leading the way in the realworld.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic is -40% at 1pm. Search is -18%. I do think it's probably the low point of summer traffic and perhaps people are just not out there looking to shop as much. I have friends in other fields like real estate and they are busy as ever. It seems that retail is being hit harder than anything else. Perhaps the theory that the pandemic "pulled forward" a lot of demand for goods is proving to be true.

[RedBar]

Perhaps the theory that the pandemic "pulled forward" a lot of demand for goods is proving to be true.

Not too sure what you mean by this? I have read many "crazy" ideas about shipping by journos / people who haven't a clue as to how international shipping / transport actually works. For sure the "pandemic" created huge logistical problems with tens of thousands of containers globally out of position and stuck in container ports since they could not be unloaded.

[ichthyous]

@RedBar "Pulled forward" means that a huge demand was created because people basically stayed home and did not spend their money, so they spend it on physical goods instead. In the US they also got multiple checks from the government, unemployment was extended for many months and given to many more people, businesses were given tons of cash to retain employees etc. In the US, people paid down their debt at historic rates and savings reached historic rates. Pulling demand forward means they spent what they were going to spend replacing old items and buying new stuff for the house and now the demand is a lot lower. Sure freight shipping costs are factor but so are higher energy prices and the huge amount of money that got printed and pumped into the US, Japanese, and Euro economies

[RedBar]

Ah ok, never heard it called that before however I know what you mean since almost precisely the same happened in the UK.

Sure freight shipping costs are factor but so are higher energy price

The higher shipping prices occurred way before the enrgy price hikes, about 6 months IIRC. I have some very popular export widgets that have not increased in price BUT with their new shipping and delivered costs have increased the product by an average of 67%, not 10-15%, a massive 67%.

These increases mean we are now actually looking very closely at the possibility of moving production locations ... It's the 70s/80s all over again for me!

Whilst to some this may seem to be off-topic, as a significant realworld widget producer any / all changes have unseen effects both short and long-term across a business.

[BigKat]

they spent what they were going to spend replacing old items and buying new stuff for the house and now the demand is a lot lower.

This certainly could be true in some industries and product types. We produce/sell some need-based products that no other in the world produces, yet they are buried in Google. Go to any other search engine and we're at or very near the top. In Google, relevance is taking a far back seat to domain authority. Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. all have become permanent fixtures at the top of the search results despite them not having the products. Makes me wonder if Google actually ranks product pages anymore or simply domains.

[RedBar]

@BigKat - Are your products FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods)?

Does Amazon / Walmart etc appear near the top / anywhere in the "other" search emgines?

Does Amazon / Walmart etc have similar / alternative products?

[Wilburforce]

Meanwhile the UK pub / hotel is still averaging about +10%

Yes, I'm not experiencing any downturn - far from it - in the events sector at the moment, although I'm sure a 15-month recession will sort that out.

Some of what's being reported here is very likely sector-driven.