March 2023 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

Are we having another shake-up or have ads taken-over the SERPs almost completely?

It is a Wednesday, I have some sites flatlining and some 50% down today, how bad are your sites?

[superclown2]

Looking at the Google SERPs for various different products and services yesterday, I was impressed by how awful they now are. Using more than three words to get a long (surely that is short?) tail search was a waste of time (how many people will click on a 'missing, please include' link: If I type a search term in, it means that's what I'm looking for, for goodness sake), and many results were completely irrelevant. The specialist sites I used to find the most valuable are nowhere, replaced by 'high authority' sites with zero expertise. If this is what AI is producing, why on earth has Google abandoned a system which, although not perfect, was far better than this?

If it's any consolation Bing results are even worse. Foreign sites were everywhere (how can an Italian or American site help me in London with a commercial search?) and I found searches with just a couple of organic results on them; the rest were PAA type junk, videos, and ads, which were cleverly hidden within the body of the results by their use of microscopic 'ad' or 'web' notices. At least Google are now labelling some of their ads prominently with 'Sponsored' labels here in the UK; no doubt they have been forced into this, although a 'Paid Advertisement' label would be more accurate (some hope).

If Google is to be regulated then Bing deserve it even more. However if their results remain the confused mess they are now they will never be a serious player no matter how much they hype their AI.

[RedBar]

Whilst I agree with most of your points I have to respond to this one:

(how can an Italian or American site help me in London with a commercial search?)

Whilst I am currently personally based in the UK I have several country offices including China, India, Italy, Turkey and the UAE with associate offices in several other countries.

For my widgets, and forgetting the USA where most results seem to be localised, using a local G plus region (starting to get into longer tail here) G has no way of knowing whether that commercial search term is for a single or multiple number of widgets meaning is one searching for local, national or a full container load wholesale purchase from a manufacturer?

This is precisely the problem I have these days with G USA, it assumes I am a retail purchaser simply because, quite rightly, globally there are many more retail purchasers than bulk buyers and this is evidently the audience G is catering to plus this is also precisely how Bing/DDG also have their focus BUT this is where myself and many other producers / manufacturers / exporters are "penalised" since we are not as "relevant" even though we always, not generally, have more information and images than any retail sites.

My business depends upon meeting people at international trade fairs since these days although I rank extremely well, these buyers have told me they have mostly stopped using search simply because they cannot find their potential international sources since it is so full of, for their purposes, irrelevant / non-applicable results.

Sure 20 years ago G served me up as #1 for almost every widget I had however over the years the algo has been refined to be more locally-focussed plus there has been an explosion in the number of widget websites plus Joe Retailer has become very accustomed to the Google classified ads website, sometimes it is called a search engine.

Yes, I know it's frustrating but until such time whereby we have a separate business search function, it's going to continue as a mish-mash mess ...

[ichthyous]

I saw the biggest drop in ranking in months yesterday...it looks like a big shakeup. I dropped like a stone from #1 to #3 while the former top two regained their spots. It seems that Google is favoring huge sites again. I checked today and it seems that I am still where I was, albeit in 2nd spot...so looks like it might have been temporary.

I also noticed that my backlink count dropped quite a bit but still tons of BS spam links being reported. I haven't bothered to submit a disavow in more than a year now...is anyone still doing this?

[superclown2]

I haven't bothered to submit a disavow in more than a year now...is anyone still doing this?

Haven't Google stated that they ignore bad links, rather than penalise them (which would open the door to negative SEO)? I haven't seen any real evidence for or against the advantages or disadvantages of submitting a disavow list, and sometimes the strangest looking links can give your site a boost so it may be counter productive to lose them.

[edited by: superclown2 at 8:13 pm (utc) on Mar 5, 2023]

[superclown2]

G has no way of knowing whether that commercial search term is for a single or multiple number of widgets meaning is one searching for local, national or a full container load wholesale purchase from a manufacturer?

I take your point but it was Bing that gave these foreign results, not G, and there was a lot of them. I can't give you the search term but take it from me, the service I was looking for could only be obtained in the UK <BWG>!

[EditorialGuy]

Google seems to be spitting out updates lately, and it's hard to tell which one is influencing our traffic at any given time. In any case, our Google traffic for the past week is running about 29 percent ahead of where it was before the mid-February update, and average positions in Google Search Console have also improved. (This is more drama than we usually see. Most Google updates have very little impact on us, whether negative or positive.)

[Dalnoon]

@ichthyous, yeah, I still manually disavow spammy backlinks occasionally - Google says you don't need to because they can detect spammy backlinks which I highly doubt, so I'd rather do it manually.

[EditorialGuy]

I still manually disavow spammy backlinks occasionally - Google says you don't need to because they can detect spammy backlinks which I highly doubt, so I'd rather do it manually.

Unless I'm mistaken, Google stated (when introducing the disavow tool) that the tool was intended to let site owners disavow spammy backlinks that they'd bought or created. In other words, it was kind of like Catholic confession: "Forgive me, Father, I have sinned." "Okay, use the disavow tool and sin no more."

The problem with disavowing junky links from other third-party sites (even crappy sites) is that, in some cases, they might actually bestow a smidgen of PageRank.

[Atomic]

The problem with disavowing junky links from other third-party sites (even crappy sites) is that, in some cases, they might actually bestow a smidgen of PageRank.

I still add domains to my disavow file when they redirect to nefarious download pages. It just makes sense to me.

[christianz]

If it's any consolation Bing results are even worse.

As much as we (some of us) like to criticize Google on this thread, I must also agree that Bing/Duck results are generally even worse. What I like about them, however, is that they do not spam YouTube like crazy and there is less widget junk (googlespam) overall. Hence why I use Duck.

My traffic from Bing/Duck is also not declining but steadily increasing, although it is still totally insignificant.

In general, any search engine from 10-15 years ago would wipe the floor with the current UX we get from modern search engines.

[superclown2]

In general, any search engine from 10-15 years ago would wipe the floor with the current UX we get from modern search engines.

Absolutely. Google in particular, ages ago, was a breath of fresh air, but look at them now. Unfortunately 'search' can be so profitable when it is used as an excuse for massive advertising that it has been completely degraded. Hopefully the new crop of real search engines can become popular - at least until Wall Street get hold of them, then the whole pantomime can start again.

There are few of us that wouldn't like to see Google knocked off their perch but as the old saying goes, beware of what you wish for - you might get it.

[Nutterum]

There has been some algo reverts from what I see since the last few days of February continuing in to March. Big websites that took a nosedive in end of Jan and Feb have returned to their previous SERPs, some niche websites have plummeted to the depths of the SERPs again where they shouldn't . I think Google saw something with their general update and either reverted to something old or tweaked to get it right. Whatever the case, my traffic is stable at the sites I work on. Some seasonal // holidays (in some countries) situations that were accounted for but not anything major.

The travel and apparel sections in general though, yeah those got the "switch" for SURE.

[Nutterum]

Ranking and comparison websites in the apparel sector definitely saw a bump. EU Markets here. Maybe the only exception being Germany and France where there is so much overoptimisation that there is wiggle room. Eastern Europe saw some shifts 100% .

[Mestrick]

Today's traffic is equal to zero, for my niche as compared to the previous analysis Monday I used to have heavy traffic and many leads but today it is nothing.

[RedBar]

@superclown

I take your point but it was Bing that gave these foreign results

I did realise that however this is the experience that has worsened for me at G over the past few years. I sometimes wonder whether G/D/B/Y have given-up trying to serve peoducers / manufacturers / exporters altogether and have left it to the various large country-specific trade directory sites etc?

If so then admit it and those of us who do not want retail enquiries can lockdown our sites to bona-fide visitors and concentrate on those directories since,hardly any of these trade-only suppliers spend advertising money with G/D/B/Y

[Martin Ice Web]

I think Google saw something with their general update and either reverted to something old or tweaked to get it right.

Ha, yes. They tweaked it to the point that we gained even more traffic whiile conversoin are heading towards Zero.
We know from traffic before this update that google is able to show users the correct results but they are not willing to do so.

with alle the updates and penalties for good old websites google while promoting amazon results google raised a system based on creating websites with spun content to generate amazon clicks. Now they can only decide who get the money from amazon tfor the clicks. All the quality nonsens did leaded to nothing but affiliate sites.

[RedBar]

We know from traffic before this update that google is able to show users the correct results but they are not willing to do so.

Precisely, pay us ad money for keyword1keyword2keyword3 and the maximum payer will get the #1 position however for organics we'll simply show many irrelevant sites since we know they're irrelevant because we have their info and non-relevancy ... The major relevancy appears to be localisation and a shopping cart or pricing page with specific keywords.

[RedBar]

@EG

our Google traffic for the past week is running about 29 percent ahead of where it was before the mid-February update

Coincidentally the US Govt announced in February a change in the Covid vaccination rules for the US. Surely this must have had an effect on your travel site more than G ? Just an educated guess:-)

[superclown2]

I sometimes wonder whether G/D/B/Y have given-up trying to serve producers / manufacturers / exporters altogether

The results are those that create them the most profit, and there are far more retail buyers than heads of businesses. This is the problem when something as vital as search is left to commercial enterprises.

[RedBar]

I absolutely agree, for example one of my most popular UK widgets ships at 150 units per container load. That specific widget is not shared, it is a single one-off retail sale ... Quite simply G goes for the 150:1 potential eyeball market however it is rare for an importer to change supplier therefore even a small importer of one container a week equates to 150 x 52 = 7,800:1 pa.

[shadowlight]

Just had to look at a Youtube video for something.

30 second un-skippable ad followed by an ad skippable after first 5 seconds.

Content I wanted to see was more than half way though the video so skipped directly to the part I needed. A repeat of the same ads above.

On the second lot of ads, after pressing skip to content the ads then repeated again! Same as above.

Had to watch 1 minute and 45 seconds of ads to view content that lasted a minute, unbelievable.

[RedBar]

@shadowlight
I see this every day on several sites I visit for a current topical subject. It used to annoy me however I have subsequently become completely ad-blind ... Congrats to G :-)

[superclown2]

Had to watch 1 minute and 45 seconds of ads to view content that lasted a minute, unbelievable.

I avoid Youtube videos like the plague for that very reason. I wonder if the people at Google have read the story of the golden goose?

[RedBar]

As a matter of principle those video channels I do visit I always check to see if they've got a Rumble or Locals channel I can use instead, many have these days.

[tangor]

Might sound like heresy, but when on youtube, my ad blocker(s) are in place, and there is blissful viewing.

YMMV

[RedBar]

Sometimes I find Firefox and its "blocker" stops access altogether, I have one TV channel I use that will not allow me access whatsoever because of this ... Strange

[mhansen]

Has anyone here watched/monitored regularly the "Winners / Losers" page at SEMRush? I'm trying to see if this is something you've noticed in the past, or if it is a new thing. I never really visit the page, so I don't know if this has been common.

I just wandered through the page and sorted by the winners with the largest increase in visibility within Google search. The top 15-20 domains they show are all some sort of spam site with either auto-generated content, or risky clicks to a series of redirects. The #1 winner has more than 28k pages and jumped from no keyphrases ranking last week, to more than 7 million this week.

[EditorialGuy]

Coincidentally the US Govt announced in February a change in the Covid vaccination rules for the US. Surely this must have had an effect on your travel site more than G ? Just an educated guess:-)

I don't think so. Most of our audience isn't affected by any U.S. entry requirements, and in any case, our average rankings in Google Search Console have also gone up quite a bit.

[EditorialGuy]

In general, any search engine from 10-15 years ago would wipe the floor with the current UX we get from modern search engines.

That's probably true, but we also have to remember that the Web isn't as simple as it was 10 or 15 years ago. Video is a much bigger deal nowadays, for example, so today's search engines need to built video results into the SERPs. And a lot of the other clutter (answer boxes and such) probably reflects user preferences. The person who wants to know the capital of North Dakota while playing a trivia game would just as soon get the answer directly from the SERP than from a linked Web site (which may not be good for the owner of us-state-capitals dot com, but that's a different issue altogether).

Side note: I wish Google would offer a "Web Pages" option along with "News," "Books," "Images," "Video," etc. for users who just want to see links to traditional Web content instead of the cluttered SERPs that we get now. (As a searcher, I hate it when news stories--many of them outdated--push non-news informational content down the page. If I'm entering a query for "tides in Widgetstan," for example, I'm probably interested in the phenomenon, not in a freak high or low tide that occurred in March of 2021.)

[superclown2]

That's probably true, but we also have to remember that the Web isn't as simple as it was 10 or 15 years ago. Video is a much bigger deal nowadays, for example, so today's search engines need to built video results into the SERPs.

As far back as I can remember, Google had a 'video' option in the SERPs. Now they force them on to us because they contain ads, and Google is now an advertising company, not a search engine. Simple.