January 2023 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

Happy New Year

What will G brings us, stability or even more mayhem?

Here's one for you, this will be my 30th year of web development, seriously, in 1993 I launched two websites and they both still exist today although they do look a lot different :-)

[mosxu]

Since this update they brought local high street stores up we are getting same traffic but is not the same in the way that it is full zombies!

Needless to say that the bill is the same,

[christianz]

Big drop on 19th.

Google seems to be getting increasingly confused since about the 14th. They started the year well but now are really struggling with basics again.

[Nutterum]

Big Gain since 11-th of Jan on certain Central European Markets. Greece, Hungary and Czech Republic got 60% YoY increase. Culprit - Google utterly destroyed the traffic of 6-7 competitors with their link quality update. They did appear..fishy on Ahrefs if I can at-a-glance see that, Google Algo definitely saw that.

Gambling space is always at the mercy of these algo updates, but boy the link-spamming affiliates got the hammer this time. Several top ranking affiliates in that space in Germany, Sweden, Hungary got destroyed.

[BigKat]

Looking back at this week...

Though Google smothered the SERPS with ads, making us extremely difficult to find, our weekly sales held up strong. We saw numerous sales coming from the lesser known search engines as well. It's good to see people looking elsewhere if they can't find what they want on Amazon or Google. Google may be misjudging their dominance as it pertains to searcher loyalty. From what our data is telling me, searcher flight from Google is happening rather quickly.

[superclown2]

From what our data is telling me, searcher flight from Google is happening rather quickly.

Expect more of the same as they go for broke.

India's supreme court ruled last week that they have to stop insisting on Android phones (97% of smartphones in India) being packed with their own apps, so other search engines will soon be on those phones - in one of Google's biggest markets - instead. Meanwhile Europe is figuring out a way to re-write the law they passed which tried to do the same thing, but which allowed a big loophole for G to exploit.

In the meanwhile here in the UK organic results are not so slowly disappearing from the first page. Firstly they went from ten to nine, then to five for certain key phrases, and a search on mobile this morning for a popular term revealed just three. Even these were sites that had ads as well. Desperation seems to be setting in, as they shed staff.

I remember other search engines trying to become ad-only 20 years ago; none of them exist now.

[mosxu]

Zombies replaced half of my traffic

[Martin Ice Web]

After getting hit by HCU und GSU i realized that it want get better in future. So a toke the decision to make some very big changes. I allways hesitated to do it because i knew first off it would cause a big drop.
Nevertheless i did it. Rankings were like i expected. The Site dropped for several Weeks and it was a pain.
After some weeks i noticed a Slow But steady uptick in traffic. Engagement seems to geht better, too.
Since about 2 weeks we are gaining traffic and we are now up to 144%. We are now at Levels from before may 2022 when Google decided to Push several harmfull updates. Sales picked up and we see steady traffic throughout the day. There are only one or two short times with traffic dents.

[ichthyous]

@MartinIceWeb What changes did you make?

I am seeing traffic steady most days, and then it will suddenly drop off a cliff for a full day and return back to where it was. Some big jumps up in visibility lately and a slow steady return of top 3-10 ranking terms after a solid six months of losing top ranking terms. It seems that the increase and decrease in top ten terms has a steady pattern of about six months. Interestingly, in that time period I have lost a considerable number of repetitive backlinks from several high domain authority sites in the last 6-7 months and it seems to have helped, not hurt me.

[anubitez]

Apparently, from the google search console, I got hundreds of ranks 1 to 3s on super popular keywords and checked data on SEO tools, including Google; they still generate lots of traffic and used to be my highest traffic points. But when I search 50 to 75% of the time I am not listed, sometimes I am for an hour. and it is like this in all different regions, sometimes it appears in this part of the world and the next, but Google's data insists I am always in these top spot for this keyword, it makes zero sense.

I am affected by the October spam update, as some here know. Is this a result of Google testing my site or something if I did get pinged? Have I fixed it or something? I would have thought all my keywords and posts would be in a spot 50 to 100 by now, as it's January, and I got affected in October 2022. All the other competitor listings seem okay, so I believe it is not google reshuffling and just my site.

Has anyone seen this and can provide any info?

[Martin Ice Web]

ichthyous,

i realy had a wrong understanding of what quality realy means. I had, as many of us, some widgets with realy good description, pictures a.s.o. Objectively considered they were better than all pages on page #1. One site was buried on page 3. No matter what i did to the site, it didnīt move a step up or down. I examined the site on search page #1 on suddenly had the enlightenment. They all had some things that my pages misses. I added these things and made the other big changes. It has now moved up to #4 on page #1.
I donīt know if it sticks but i defently did something wrong in the past.And this is due to the way i gorwed up with the internet. But things have changed and also we have been on high quality content we dindīt trigger the right switch.
And it took a lot of time to see things moving. It toke about 3 month while constantly upgrading our site.

From google i wish that there was a version without amazon links or amazon affiliates. It is hard to find real information or tests regarding widgets. Accepted sources are not to find but fake testing sites with a lot of wubble text and a link to amazon. That doesnīt help.

[Jez123]

It's early days, but I have a nice uptick in traffic (but not many conversions, but iffy time of year and economy etc) [prnt.sc...] My traffic has been declining from last year coinciding with the end of lockdowns, which was to be expected.

I haven't changed anything. May be short loved and just google shuffling?

[anubitez]

holy cr**, that bing algo must be real my duckduckgo, yahoo and bing traffic has surged like crazy.

off-topic a little, but i would seriously suggest to people struggling with traffic to look at bing compliance.

[christianz]

Big drop at 10 PM GMT. But bounce rate jumped - suggesting more irrelevance and intent mismatch in the SERPs.

[christianz]

i realy had a wrong understanding of what quality realy means.

I think you have it backwards. Google has wrong understanding (no understanding) of what quality means.

There is no automated way of scoring webpage quality. It is too abstract, too nuanced. Short anonymous forum post can be more quality than lengthy manicured made-for-SEO article in a corporate site with US street address and author bio with PhD.

Links used to take care of this - humans backlinked to what was truly the quality content. But now that backlinking (and to large degree the whole Web) is dead (only spam and only paid backlinks), Google no longer knows what is quality and their search results are crap.

By the way - I am now getting on average 3 paid link exchange requests per day (not even counting those who land in my spam folder). That's what linking has become. Pure spam, pure manipulation and it works.

[RedBar]

For the last 5 days my global traffic has dropped dramatically and well behind Jan '22 at about 77.5% so far for the month.

[ichthyous]

I had a huge increase in traffic over the last two days...yesterday search was up 140% the first part of the day and direct was up around the same. Then at 1pm sharp traffic literally dropped off a cliff and declined every hour after that. Today my USA traffic is -62% and search is down 32% compared to yesterday at this hour. Notably...during this period of very high traffic on Sat, Sun and Monday I got no new inquiries. Not one. So not sure what that was all about, but the traffic was much higher globally, and it seemed real, not bots. My ranking is up considerably over the last few days as well...gaining back top ten ranking terms at a nice clip.

[ichthyous]

By the way - I am now getting on average 3 paid link exchange requests per day (not even counting those who land in my spam folder). That's what linking has become. Pure spam, pure manipulation and it works.

I think many would agree that a new model has been needed for a long time since linking is badly abused. But it seems that Google may be fundamentally adjusting HOW links are valued and what kinds. As I have mentioned here, I terminated two non-performing partnerships over the last six months. Those had about 1200 links from two very high DA sites pointing to my site. I expected a bloodbath losing that many links overnight. Instead I am ranking higher and better traffic than the first half of 2022 when the links were in place. Perhaps the volume of links from any one site is being discounted now...more important to get a single link from a very high DA site like an article from a magazine or newspaper etc. Those cannot he purchased or scammed for the most part. Links still do count, but are not quite as important as before and it has to be the right kind of link.

[nickZ]

for the 5 to 7 years Google has devaluated forum links, blog links and all other easy to do linking.

But it seems that Google may be fundamentally adjusting HOW links are valued and what kinds.

[christianz]

for the 5 to 7 years Google has devaluated forum links, blog links and all other easy to do linking.

Ironically, that's where there is least amount of paid links / spam links.

As far as easy / not easy - try to post irrelevant or obviously promotional links out of the blue in any decent forum. Your posts will be deleted and your accounts(s) banned.

[Martin Ice Web]

@christianz,

i didnīt say that google delivers quality sites. Maby i had better said i had that wrong understanding what google counts as quality.
By the way, we are playing a game on a big pitch and unfortunatelly we donīt make the rules.

[Jez123]

My site has been climbing rankings all week and yet today the traffic has been dismal (UK). Do I smell an update?

My ranks as I said have been getting better after being in decline steadily since this time last year. I haven't done anything to improve. Could this mean that google are indeed looking at different ranking signals, not just links? I could have gained a link or two that has turned it around I suppose but no evidence so far.

[nickZ]

Well only 3 places in a SERP see a little more traffic. Being on SERP 2 is next to 0

My ranks as I said have been getting better after being in decline steadily since this time last year.

[BigKat]

Being on SERP 2 is next to 0

For us, being number 1 brings about 12% of the traffic as it did a few months ago. It's pitiful...

What gives with Google's Gbot crawl spam? I just checked a couple of our products, and Google crawled one six times today and another seven. Is Google trying to replace some of the traffic these pages lost, because of the ads in Google's SERPS, with crawling? It makes no sense to me why Google would crawl these product pages so often when they are buried under ads in the SERPS.

[nickZ]

if a popular search term many competitors have also worked hard, Users go used to longer keyphrases if you will.
Nowadays the know to search better, instead of searching for a cellphone, the look for cheapest cellphne in i.e. new hamshere.

For us, being number 1 brings about 12% of the traffic as it did a few months ago. It's pitiful..

[ViktorN]

after great improvement over the month of January, got a big bang down since January 24 onwards. Changes again?

[insideout]

Definitely, something is wrong with Google. My traffic is going down without any reason. Are there any delays with Analytics ?

[mhansen]

I just spotted a new feature in Google SERP (New for me, in my corner of the serps, anyhow). A simple 4 word, commercial intent query with roughly 5,500 monthly demand, per SEMRush. The usual ads were there, as well as the featured snippet and plenty of PAA boxes stuffing the results page to push the organics below the fold of a 1440 tall monitor.

What was new, is that on the right-hand side of the desktop screen, there was a "Things to Know" panel with 5 alternative ways of asking the same question, with very thorough, exact answers, with an arrow to expand the answer.

Each "Thing to Know" was roughly 800 pixels tall, with images, tables, etc, showing a full-section of the website with that specific answer, along with a link to a website at the bottom.
Edited to add: Some of the answers showed 2 website thumbnails inside, to different websites who also covered that question/answer.

There was a "See More" button on the very bottom of the full panel, which loaded 4 more alternate questions with complete answers.

Ex query: "What do widgets cost?"

Ex: "Things to Know"

- Calculate the cost of a widget today.

[800 pixel tall answer with images, tables, etc, explaining how to calculate the cost]

- What is the current price of widgets in [my city] >
- How much do widgets cost near you >
- Where can you buy widgets in [my city] >
- How to estimate your widget cost >

< View More Answers >

[ViktorN]

I think everyone left G for ChatGPT

[BigKat]

I think everyone left G

The shoppers have and judging by the lack of sales from Google, I bet many businesses will jump ship too. Here we are at the end of another work week, and Google's relevance is next to nothing....

Have a good weekend everyone!

[Micha]

I don't know what's going on, but my website has been in free fall for a week now. And it's the usual picture again, old news articles or meaningless keyword spam ranks in my area on the top places. It's really no fun anymore ....

[christianz]

I don't know what's going on, but my website has been in free fall for a week now. And it's the usual picture again, old news articles or meaningless keyword spam ranks in my area on the top places.

It's what happens when they let AI do the ranking. Imagine how much worse it will get with the influx of AI generated content.

[Micha]

I think we all know that this is going to be bad.

[nickZ]

I don't know what's going on, but my website has been in free fall for a week now. And it's the usual picture again, old news articles or meaningless keyword spam ranks in my area on the top places. It's really no fun anymore

Internet is getiing bigger and bigger every day, and the search engines have to react, which is slow when your system is big, it becomes slower when its huge. There have been quite a lot of updates. Only way to see if Google's querry is going down is over trends.google.com (for better results use your country extension) or well if you sitting at a desk a little higher at Google.

[edited by: not2easy at 1:44 pm (utc) on Jan 29, 2023]
[edit reason] Please see Charter [/edit]

[RedBar]

My global site is seeing Haimalayan-type peaks and troughs, again western counties are noticeabe by their enquiry absence whereas many other regions are looking "normal".

What on earth is occurring on our UK-focussed hotal site I have no idea. Yesterday, Saturday 28th Jan, saw it's highest day since 28th Sept 2021, yes 2021. The place was busy all day serving hundreds of fresh meals, the bars were busy from 10.00 till 24.00 and with a good mix of people and generations.

Some local shops are doing well, some are dying, most local factories etc are reporting good trade meanwhile I know of several local, mostly small family businesses that are intending closure because they can no longer compete and their "children" have zero interest principally because it involves "work"! Nothing new there.

Interesting times.

[ichthyous]

Traffic is all over the place these days. For the last 5 days or so it has been lower than the previous weeks and there were very few new inquiries or sales. Today both direct and search traffic shot up again and so did ranking / visibility.

I haven't made much of an effort to track it, but it seems that the only thing that could cause this very targeted type of traffic manipulation is the number of ads and widgets in the search layout.

Unlike some of you, I am finding bring in the #1 spot to result in quite a bit more traffic. Once you slip down to 2-3 it pretty much vanishes unless you have a large prominent image block under your result.

[EditorialGuy]

Our 20+-year-old information site has been doing pretty well lately, both in terms of Google rankings and user demand.We seem to be doing best with subtopics where we have a lot of content, history, and expertise. Most of our bread-and-butter pages on those popular subtopics are up noticeably (in some cases, sharply).

[christianz]

For my 17 year old information site its exactly the opposite. Since mid January it's gradual decline with constant "A/B testing type" ups and downs.

Interestingly, yesterday, my traffic shot up exactly for 24 hours (midnight to midnight) and now its back to garbage again. But it seems like some kind of scheduled test or pre-update reset.

It seems that content quality doesn't matter, site age doesn't matter, links don't matter and nothing matters IF your site content doesn't "tickle" the AI in right way. My site happens to NOT be article-based and AI simply doesn't understand it.

[muniz900]

Hi, nothing is moving in the Google serp yet, the September core update is long gone, they should do an update soon, I thought they would do it in January but February has also arrived, does anyone know anything about it?

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld muniz900

does anyone know anything about it?

Would it make any difference if someone did? The SERPs for popular keywords is so full of ads now that trying to find "real" results is an almost impossibility plus your acceptable real results would most likely not be the same as my preferred result.

Localised and regional businesses can still do ok however national and international is altogether a different ball game and can cost a fortune with zero ROI.

[ichthyous]

Huge jumps in traffic for two days with many new inquiries...then today, whammo! USA traffic down 30% compared to yesterday. Canada is down 70%. Clearly Google is loading up the ads in North America today

[RedBar]

Clearly Google is loading up the ads in North America today

End of the month budget blow-outs? I have no idea !

[RedBar]

Metrics for my global site show:
January v December Page Views the same!
2023 January v 2022 January Page Views -20.1%
Daily average expectation -26.3%

The good news hotel
January v December Page Views +10.6%
2023 January v 2022 January Page Views +8.5%
Daily average expectation +21.7%

[Atomic]

Time for some February search observations?

[not2easy]

The discussion continues for February 2023: [webmasterworld.com...]