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?

[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 wouldnīt 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

[Martin Ice Web]

50% drop this morning. Seems another quality ad update is on the road.

And, as i donīt use google, i yesterday realized that google switched from yellow ad sign to simple text gesponsert (sponsored) design in germany. And the "sponsored text" is so far away from the link, that a users donīt even realize that they belong together.
it seems that users are more willing to click on a sponsored link as on an ad link.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Facing a slow recovery since yesterday morning. Right now it's +7%. Realized, that after 8+ years in the industry, I can't even find a place for happiness because of recovery — because you never know if it sticks or not. And you can't be sure that in a month another update won't kill your website again...

[Dooku]

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?

I check raw Nginx server logs on all my Digital Ocean droplets. Most webmasters have never seen a raw server log file. And I doubt most members here have either. On any shared hosting account you do not have the option for raw server log files. Even most webmasters using a VPS or dedicated server do not check the raw log files.......all those analytical trackers are way easier of course.

However, there is BIG difference in what you will see between raw server log files and ANY other kind of tracker/apps. Especially if you connect your website to Cloudflare and use their WAF, and also use the Digitial Ocean firewall BESIDES the normal UFW firewall of Ubuntu on a droplet.

The amount of hacking attempts these days is just INSANE. Every Tom, Dick and Harry trying to ransomware you or something else, from the sh|t they learned from all the youtube "ethical hacking courses".......yea right!

None of the analytical apps or services are correct in what they show as "normal" traffic. And the error margin is actually larger then you think. But who wants to sift through raw server log files? However I find the raw server log files in combination with the cloudflare and digital ocean logs more useful and when used right you can improve your SEO considerably.

[ichthyous]

I check raw Nginx server logs on all my Digital Ocean droplets. Most webmasters have never seen a raw server log file. And I doubt most members here have either.
However, there is BIG difference in what you will see between raw server log files and ANY other kind of tracker/apps. Especially if you connect your website to Cloudflare and use their WAF, and also use the Digitial Ocean firewall BESIDES the normal UFW firewall of Ubuntu on a droplet. The amount of hacking attempts these days is just INSANE. None of the analytical apps or services are correct in what they show as "normal" traffic. And the error margin is actually larger then you think.

I don't know about most, but I check my raw log files and CF and I see the attempts coming in all day long from all over the world. It helps to block the attempts at the WAF level before ever hitting your server, but some will always get through. I have blocked searches for all kinds of filename endings and URL patterns as well as directories. I serve images from a subdomain so it becomes more complex, but I did catch that the images were being directly accessed from a directory where they never should be accessed and it was all coming from China. I still don't understand why that's the case but I had to block all Chinese hits for this reason. I get very few visits to my actual pages from mainland China, yet thousands of hits each day to my images from the root folder just slowing my server down. Similarly, other countries that send nothing but form spam bots or real humans looking over the site to send me solicitations are issued challenges...

[ichthyous]

Traffic dropped overnight and starts the day with USA -60% and search is -20%. Is anyone else seeing a big drop in visits starting ~March 6-8? Every day after that my traffic search declined in a straight line with almost every country participating. This time it did coincide with a drop in visibility but no major loss of terms.

[dolcevita]

@Sgt_Kickaxe

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

Unfortunately, it is not true. Google continued in 2023, still, with a dominant position:
[statista.com...]

[RedBar]

@Dooku & ichthyous

I must admit I have a perverse enjoyment of going through raw logs :-)

The amount of hacking attempts these days is just INSANE.

Insofar as my sites are concerned it is 90+% WordPress hacking attempts which are all doomed to failure since I do not use WP.

[mosxu]

We do look into raw server logs! Absolutely!

[mosxu]

But it would be misleading to say that just because there are hacking attempts the traffic we get is real!

[Emmaalin]

I think might be a new update is on its ways. As GPT 4 will be on the toes so this time it is taking the time for new algorithm update.

[insideout]

Again, something is brewing right now. I feel google is about to push another update !

[Treud]

I’m not sure they push update. I think they try to maximize the ADS revenues, so organic results are pushed to oblivion.

[Mestrick]

today morning 4 ads were showing on mobile.

[RedBar]

So far today 90% single page views direct to selected widget page, country sources as normal.

[BigKat]

Unfortunately, it is not true. Google continued in 2023, still, with a dominant position

Dominant in terms of total traffic, but at the back of the pack when compared with other major search engines for us in terms of total daily conversions. It's those sales, and successful sales at that, which ultimately pay the bills. By "successful sales" I'm referring to post-sale issues such as returns, claims of not receiving their orders (losses), etc. Google leads the pack in post-sale problems of all major search engines. This all factors into traffic quality, and with the least daily conversions and more problems then other search engines, Google is dead last. If I had a choice to double traffic from either DDG, Yahoo or Bing, I'd take one of those over doubling our traffic from Google.

I’m not sure they push update. I think they try to maximize the ADS revenues, so organic results are pushed to oblivion

Oddly enough on desktop I see Google removed the top sidebar product ad block for some product searches. This might be temporary, but I don't see any change in traffic whether it be more visits and/or conversions. Organic results remain buried deep under ads. I am seeing Google sending us traffic from other countries that we don't serve, but this has been a continual problem with Google and further diminishes Google's traffic quality.

[RedBar]

today morning 4 ads were showing on mobile

Is that new for you? I've seen this for ages and usually a lot more.

[Micha]

Let's go to the next round, Google plays out the next core update.: [twitter.com...]

[RedBar]

Good catch Micha ... More garbage to come :-(

[BigKat]

Google plays out the next core update

I think these non-stop updates are designed to make us focus on something other than all the ads. To keep us chasing our tails so to speak.

I see no movement and no change in Google's depressed traffic. And with all the ads, I don't expect this core update to even be noticeable from our side regardless of the outcome.

[Dalnoon]

No changes so far for me.