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?

[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.

[Soulofmonk]

20% drop in a week.

[mosxu]

What to do about these zombies?

[dolcevita]

Drop 25% yesterday but fortunatelly it was mostly traffic from India. Traffic from USA, UK, Germany remains stable.

[EditorialGuy]

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....

Or maybe because so many users like videos. (More than 2.6 billion users per month, and that's just for YouTube.)

[superclown2]

Or maybe because so many users like videos. (More than 2.6 billion users per month, and that's just for YouTube.)

It seems Google has 90 billion users a month. 2.6 billion video users represent 3.2%. Hardly an overwhelming endorsement.

[christianz]

Or maybe because so many users like videos.

It's not just about videos vs web pages. If it was videos, I would see Facebook video, Rumble and other alternative platforms which are not YouTube. And more standalone hosted videos (admittedly those are really rare due to streaming bandwidth requirements and cost).

Instead it's 99.9% YouTube.

As for people "really liking videos" - I think it doesn't matter what they like. They consume what they are given. Gone are the days when Internet users were capable of choosing - entering and editing web addresses, subscribing to RSS feeds, adding favorites, changing browsers etc. It's all rocket science for this generation of user.

Also, web pages and web apps have become more spammy and ad stuffed recently. To the point they can be torturous to use - ad unit after every 3 paragraphs, popups etc. It makes the horrible ad-stuffed YouTube experience less of a downgrade and therefore more palatable.

Webmasters are stuffing more ads not because they are greedy, but because Google forces them by giving them less traffic. In effect, poor search engine makes entire web experience poor.

[BigKat]

As for people "really liking videos" - I think it doesn't matter what they like. They consume what they are given. Gone are the days when Internet users were capable of choosing

So very true. Before Google purchased Youtube, there were alternatives to Youtube videos in the SERPS. Many years later, Google continues to use their dominance restrict choice with a relentless concentration of ads. As you noted, a poor (I'll add greedy) search engine experience has broad implications across the entire spectrum.

[mhansen]

Google expands it's reach into the lead generation market, adding 70 new local business types who can now get quotes directly from Google search ads.

[blog.google ]

[superclown2]

Google expands it's reach into the lead generation market, adding 70 new local business types who can now get quotes directly from Google search ads.

So will this mean local ads on top of 'Sponsored Results' on top of YouTube, googlespam, etc etc? Will there be room for generics? And what's going to happen to the free existing local listings?

[tangor]

what's going to happen to the free existing local listings?

What has been happening since day one:

Pushed to the bottom.

G's search has become G's Ad Machine.

[superclown2]

Also, web pages and web apps have become more spammy and ad stuffed recently.

Back in the day when Google was a search engine they penalised sites that had ads above the fold. Now I see high 'authority' sites riding at the top of the SERPs with the thinnest of content but so many ads they are practically unusable. The ads are of course supplied by 'goooogle'. Enough said.

[Treud]

On my side what i'm seeing since a month is like traffic sent by waves. The daily hits remains pretty much the same, but instead of having a steady flow of users according to timezone, I alternate between very low traffic and high traffic.
Looks like Google decides : - This site is allowed to have this amount of traffic per hour and we take turns.
Also possible the ranking is totally changed by the amount of ads at a given time. If it's low ads time we are "up" if it's pic ads time we are pushed to the oblivion.

[engine]

Google's product Reviews Update [developers.google.com...] is now complete, as of March 7, 2023.

developers.google.com Google Search's Product Reviews System Google Search Central     What's new     Google Developers Learn more about how the product reviews system works, and what you can do to assess and improve your content.

[Martin Ice Web]

google's product Reviews Update is now complete

so one more step to make google useless has been finished.

[ErrlyBird]

Took a big crash on the 6th. SEMR is showing visibility, keywords, and traffic is up, but GSC is showing impressions and clicks taking a nosedive. No idea what is going on. Have not taken drops like this since I have started here. Wth is going on.

[RedBar]

With the first 7 days of March completed and at the time of year when traditionally real trade picks-up and web traffic with it, my global site is -15% so far. This is -62.5% v March 2021.

Since search engines are no longer a driver of relevant traffic I am considering the several options open to me.

[ichthyous]

Since search engines are no longer a driver of relevant traffic I am considering the several options open to me.

Me too:
1) Starting own search engine
2) Nailing those hot new Tik-Tok moves
3) Committing Suttee

[watesh]

I don't do product reviews but I took a hit of 15% from the update as of March 7th

[RubicCubed]

We suffer from Google's "ad penalty" which has pushed organic results well out of view. Doing some review searches in Google, I also see pages titled with the word "bespoke" which is not a word I recall any American using in natural conversation. It seems Google continues to have a persistent geolocation problem, though with organic results out of view many users will never see these location problems.

[christianz]

I also see pages titled with the word "bespoke" which is not a word I recall any American using in natural conversation.

Maybe ChatGPT has English accent.

[RedBar]

Now I haven't a clue how anyone is finding my most popular widget page!

Supposedly so far this month 78.7% of my traffic is from search however I have just been checking my SERPs for the USA, India and UK and my most popular widget page does not rank in the top 100 on any of the three.

Soooo ... I checked several other of my most popular pages and several of those were not featured too, what is going on?

[EditorialGuy]

Doing some review searches in Google, I also see pages titled with the word "bespoke" which is not a word I recall any American using in natural conversation

I see that word quite a bit these days in American media, and in American advertising. Sometimes it's merely pretentious or is used to communicate a classy image, a la British spellings in real-estate developments like "Harbour Estates." I don't think a search engine can reliably determine "this is British" or "this is American" from words or spellings.

(Similarly, "y'all" or "you all" is no longer an exclusively Southern expression--my 40-year-old son, who comes from the American Midwest and lives on the West Coast, uses it quite often.)

[BigKat]

what is going on?

Looking at the garbage Google is sending us, much of the traffic is either from outside the countries we serve and bot/cloud/server farm traffic. I suspect Google loosened some of their filters to block bots which makes it appear Google is still sending traffic. The layout these bots are served may look entirely different from Google will permit us to see ourselves. There's definitely some shady stuff going on.

[RubicCubed]

I see that word quite a bit these days in American media, and in American advertising.

Maybe on the BBC America channel, but I think christianz's theory that ChatGPT may have an English accent is more likely.

[EditorialGuy]

Maybe on the BBC America channel, but I think christianz's theory that ChatGPT may have an English accent is more likely.

I saw "bespoke" on an American tech site just this afternoon.

As for the English accent, if ChatGPT is drawing its source material from English-language sites without regard for where they're located, it stands to reason that some Britishisms are going to creep in.

[mosxu]

If there is a shrinking number of buyers searching how can a search engine sell these at a higher and higher price?

[ichthyous]

I'm definitely seeing what others have reported...very large sites have zoomed back up to the top and pushed smaller independent sites out of the SERPs. My site dropped from first to third, or gone completely for terms that I have been ranking first for months.

Traffic has been unusually high from everywhere except USA and Canada. USA traffic starts the day low and barely breaks even or up to 8% lower. Could it be that because of any lack of real barriers in the US the serps are totally stuffed and gamed here more than Europe UK and Australia? Or is there just more competition paying for ads in the US?

[BigKat]

If there is a shrinking number of buyers searching how can a search engine sell these at a higher and higher price?

I don't think they can, which is why Google instead chose to turn searchers into mass clickers by bombarding them with ads. The ad heavy layouts are a very short-term strategy to inflate profits and will likely have long-term consequences. In my industry, the excessive ads have driven out smaller domestic businesses which leaves nearly all ads above the fold from Amazon and other big marketplaces that peddle the same offshore goods. Maybe the big marketplaces have special pricing and/or can pass the cost of a greatly reduced ROI from Google's ads onto their sellers, but we can't. Maybe if our warehouse received some of the $5+ billion in local subsidies Amazon received we could compete in the ad marketplace a little better, but the deck has and continues to be stacked against us.

From a user's perspective, who wants to shop for a product by visiting Amazon first and not find it, then go to Google to be spammed with Amazon ads of the same products they already saw when they visited Amazon first? This is a poor user experience and completely defeats the principals behind search and helping people find information or items they otherwise wouldn't have found. By selling items not sold in any marketplace, we can see the slow but gradual shift in sales coming from other search engines (including Google search partners that don't display so many ads) and other sources. Long story short, consumers of products are being trained to avoid Google after first searching Amazon for products.

[mosxu]

@BigKat

Bombarding ads is not really how it is done!
Most of searchers are bored to death of clicking ads that do not bring value,

Not many searchers will click more than 3 ads in Google these days

[Treud]

@ichthyous
I feel the same, seems they pushed so many ads that the query results are just a 50% ads and 50% from huge store like Amazon. Pushing small businesses to the « scroll more » area. (And i don’t count the 10 links for YouTube videos)
As a user it’s also a poor user experience.

[ichthyous]

BIG drop this morning after several days of strong traffic...English language affected only it seems. US, UK, AU and CA all affected. Looks like one of Google's 1/2 or full day shakeups.

[edited by: ichthyous at 3:03 pm (utc) on Mar 12, 2023]

[RedBar]

Regional UK sites as normal, Global sites way down again or should I type "now at their much new lower levels" average?

For March my traffic sources and country-averages are still the same therefore it has been an across-the-board reduction not one specific region/country.

This suggests for my global site that this is a global "update/change" with it being so consistent therefore it is most probably related to the SERPs layout and/or an increase in G ads, most likely a combination of the two.

So, I am now averaging 40% of two years and it's plainly obvious that this is a continuation of pay to play with G if one relies upon the SERPs 100% for survival. I have already locked-down one of my non-.com sites to registered users from that specific country, free-of-charge however blocking ALL search engines. We'll see what happens :-)

[Martin Ice Web]

worst weekend for month.
And again google shows website/shops that i wouldn´t trust a foot long.

[Treud]

Everything stable on my side

[EditorialGuy]

Everything stable on my side

For our information site, too. Well within the normal range of daily ups and downs.

[ErrlyBird]

Starting to recover slightly. Will see if it continues. Long period of declines until the 8th. Not fully back up but hopefully we keep heading this direction.

[RedBar]

Right, a bit of Devil's Advocate from me, I haven't done this in quite awhile :-)

How much is our reduction in "traffic" actually the greater usage by Joe Public of "Do not track me" settings and of VPNs not being recorded by some analytical programmes / apps?

Are the metrics you are analysing actual server logs or external third-party analyses?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Your content is fine, it will pass sooner or later, and if not Google is not the only traffic source or search engine in town so focus on the others.

Google's share of search traffic continues to decline as well.

[ichthyous]

...Google is not the only traffic source or search engine in town so focus on the others.
Google's share of search traffic continues to decline as well.

On which planet? Google is 90+% of my search traffic and probably most others here as well. Bing / Yahoo bring in almost nothing, DDG even less. There is no substitute for Google search. When search traffic vanishes no money comes in. Social media post visibility is extremely low now if you don't pay to boost, so it's not like that's any kind of replacement for lost search traffic. I don't bother to boost posts because social only brings in the lowest level of visits and none of them convert...that has always been the case for my business which sells high price and unique items. Email marketing works, but it could never begin to replace the lost business from search. In 2022 my income dropped 75% due to customers no longer finding me in Google due to the increased manipulation and ad stuffing.

[tangor]

G will continue to tickle the market place, all towards upping their take on the gate. When they go too far they never admit it, but will eventually roll back to keep the cash cow alive.

If is the game. We all came to play, and the rules are their's not ours.

YMMV