April 2023 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

I'll kick it off ... Early this morning I had a genuine trade visitor view 500+ pages on their phone ... I guess they were bored:-)

I know they were genuine since they actually sent me an enquiry and told me they'd spent 2 hours on the site.

[BigKat]

I'm seeing a new desktop layout for buyer queries that has 0 organic results without scrolling. What I see is a single expanded text ad at the top, block of 9 products in the right sidebar and a block of 8 products below. After scrolling, there is one organic result and then immediately followed by the people also ask box. This layout explains why our #1 listings are generating so little traffic - because #1 is hidden. Once we get beyond the people also ask box, organic results #2-10 are grouped together. I believe #2-10 is where we want to rank as we stand a better chance of getting some traffic from those searchers who jump beyond ads. Still, we have ranks within the #2-10 positions and those aren't producing much traffic either. It's sad watching SEO and organic Google die, but that's what's happening. I doubt Google will let searchers get too comfortable with this layout so they don't learn to quickly jump beyond the ads.

I can't say other search engines are much better. I think organic search is nearing its end of life and already dead for some of us. I can only hope a new player will step up and provide consumers a product that helps them find what they are looking for instead of turning them into mad ad clickers.

[RedBar]

I think organic search is nearing its end of life and already dead for some of us.

I've been of that opinion since 2016 which was the year many of my competitors and trade friends actually stopped updating their global supply sites and these days most of them only have a simple single info and contact page.

Honestly, and this may sound crazy, if one does not know the url of a potential global widget supplier it's very unlikely one would find it by searching.

[ichthyous]

Google is definitely loading up on ads at the top of both mobile and desktop, and the number of widget boxes is incredible. I have started to lose top 3 ranking terms...10 yesterday alone. What I am seeing is the formerly ranking sites moving back to the top and crowding everyone else out. These are the same two or three large sites at the top of every single search now. One was at #1 last year for everything and then vanished, now back again. Another one is making its debut at #2 for all of the same searches. Google is very much pushing the largest sites to the top so perhaps its the ones that spend on ads, or the ones that have highest trust factor.

USA traffic has been affected badly, but UK, Europe and rest of world are still zooming for me. My UK traffic is double my US traffic this morning...crazy. The USA serps are being gamed very badly and Google knows nobody is prepared to stop them here.

I think organic search is nearing its end of life and already dead for some of us.

I would not agree since about 70% of my traffic is from organic search on any given day (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DDG combined). Depending on search for conversions and sales is what is going bye-bye. People will not start using AI chat for searches that quickly, and they may never abandon the current search model at all.

[mhansen]

I think organic search is nearing its end of life and already dead for some of us.

I feel you are very correct. If a query has any monetary value, the search engines are doing all they can to monetize it for themselves, or at best, their largest ad partners who spend the most with them. (Likely the most relevant EAT branding signal) The higher the value, the more obfuscation of organics you'll find in the various SERP layouts.

Branding or trademark does not seem to matter to search either. We created a brand and service around a portmanteau word and trademarked it with the USPTO. Google simply breaks the brand-name word into what the 2-word combination means and shows its high CPC ads, regardless of our efforts.

[BigKat]

I've been of that opinion since 2016

Surely some sectors have fallen quicker then others. I don't think there is much ad revenue left for Google to extract out of my industry as Google has driven all the non-marketplace sellers out of their ads. I expect Google to load up info searches with ad spam next.

With all of these recent updates, our ranks haven't changed that much but SERP layouts most certainly have. As I noted with the new desktop layout above, during this review update Google removed the single organic result that once appeared in the desktop SERPS without scrolling. I think these updates are more about Google trying to hide the fact they are killing off organic results with layout changes. This is why I look for and expect subtle SERP layout changes with every Google update these days. IMO, Google is solely focused on revenue.

Honestly, and this may sound crazy, if one does not know the url of a potential global widget supplier it's very unlikely one would find it by searching.

Not crazy at all. My company sells B2G and I've seen a good number of B2C sales originate from the backend systems of Government agencies we sell to. Finding anything with a public search engine anymore is difficult for the majority of consumers who lack the patience and determination to find something outside of what they are being fed in ads.

Edit:

@ichthyous

I would not agree since about 70% of my traffic is from organic search on any given day (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DDG combined). Depending on search for conversions and sales is what is going bye-bye.

As it relates to traffic, we still get a lot of "traffic" from Google. Look at the last hit we received from Google search:

IP: 72.14.201.205 Hostname: 72-14-201-205.v4.fetch.tunnel.googlezip.net
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/112.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36

These are prefetches, and we get a lot of them because we have good ranks. The problem is all the ads appearing above our good ranks have siphoned off all the actual human visits and sales from organic traffic. Real human visitors, with real ISP IP addresses and credit cards, is what is in short supply from Google.

[ichthyous]

I think these updates are more about Google trying to hide the fact they are killing off organic results with layout changes.

Absolutely...they are trying every method at their disposal to make sure organic loses out while ads win. But they can never get around the most important issue: almost everyone in the world prefers organic results to sponsored ones. Hence all the angry chatter about Google's debased index these days. Google is working at cross purposes, and more than any tech giant its model is vulnerable to a better way/model/paradigm to replace it...and they know it.

[BigKat]

But they can never get around the most important issue: almost everyone in the world prefers organic results to sponsored ones.

Exactly. The excessive number of ads has become a substantial impediment for searchers who want to find what they are looking for quickly.

Google is working at cross purposes, and more than any tech giant its model is vulnerable to a better way/model/paradigm to replace it...and they know it.

Agreed, and I can only hope it happens soon because there is so much pain going around. Apple has been crawling all our pages and I see them crawling everyday. Come on Apple, get off your behind!

[EditorialGuy]

Exactly. The excessive number of ads has become a substantial impediment for searchers who want to find what they are looking for quickly.

For those of us who are informational (a.k.a. editorial) publishers, ads aren't the issue--at least, not most of the time. Many of our SERPs don't even have ads, so we're more concerned with answer boxes, "People also ask," and all the other visual clutter that distracts search users from the traditional ten blue links.

If Google were concerned solely with monetization, it would run ads--such as behaviorally targeted display ads--on SERPs that don't involve the sale of goods and services.

[yollo03]

Im not sure is this was posted already, google is making changes to the page experience:

[developers.google.com...]

The last parts are the most important:

'The helpful content system is primarily focused on signals related to content, rather than presentation and page experience. However, just as our core ranking systems consider signals that align with good page experience, so does the helpful content system, to a degree.'

Google Search always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par. But for many queries, there is lots of helpful content available. Having a great page experience can contribute to success in Search, in such cases.'

[superclown2]

If Google were concerned solely with monetization, it would run ads--such as behaviorally targeted display ads--on SERPs that don't involve the sale of goods and services.

Would you pay for an ad on SERPs like these?

[ichthyous]

I am trying to determine what happened ~April 15th to cause such a massive drop in clicks for my most important term and all 4 of its semantically similar variants. They all vanished overnight at the same time:
[ibb.co ]

The image above shows the decline in web clicks, while impressions hold relatively steady. Image clicks for the same term have a similar drop, but impressions also drop. Apply the same pattern across all the similar terms and my traffic is now -75% to the landing page those terms sent traffic to. If I search for myself I am still there on page one...I float up and down a spot from day to day so no major changes in rank, but the clicks have just gone POOF! Almost all of that decline in clicks seems to be localized in the USA/Canada market.

This is my single most important set of terms regarding conversions and sales, so Google just sent a precision-guided missile to hurt my business in the most finely targeted way possible. Has anyone else seen this for a set of semantically similar terms in April?

[yollo03]

Start checking if anything new you added or updated is causing a heavier page load for certain countries (maybe you cdn?).

Look into what countries you stopped getting clicks from. It's possible you were downranked in one country but raised in another?

If thats not the case, certain keywords are reserved for the big boys, at least in my niche. If the same is in your case, work your way on new keywords until the next core update (which gives nothing but hope but its your only chance).

Edit: Its possible there were fluctuations during that big update rollout and that it will balance itself out (if it hasnt already) later today or in a few days. GSC is not updated for me.

[Martin Ice Web]

This is my single most important set of terms regarding conversions and sales, so Google just sent a precision-guided missile to hurt my business in the most finely targeted way possible. Has anyone else seen this for a set of semantically similar terms in April?

Yes, we saw it and it is still in progress.
And the sales that come in are items that we never sold for years.

[superclown2]

The excessive number of ads has become a substantial impediment for searchers who want to find what they are looking for quickly.

Despite the increased number of ads Google's income from them dropped again in Q1 for the second time in succession. The golden goose may not be dead but it is certainly being slowly strangled.

[ichthyous]

@MartinIceWeb Yes! I have had a lot of small sales for obscure older items this year too!

Start checking if anything new you added or updated is causing a heavier page load for certain countries (maybe you cdn?).

No, and all my pages are green Core Web Vitals and 100% good page experience

Look into what countries you stopped getting clicks from. It's possible you were downranked in one country but raised in another?

So I checked country by country...here's what I found:
1) Loss in clicks mostly concentrated in USA
2) USA impressions did not go down at all for half of the semantically related terms, only clicks declined
3) For other terms where impressions did drop I checked USA/UK/CA/AU/DE/FR and the impressions all dropped to almost zero, then shot back up and recovered about half. Clicks are not recovering with impressions at all...clicks are still essentially 0
4) Clicks for all of these semantically related terms did not increase in any country, only dropped or stayed the same

If thats not the case, certain keywords are reserved for the big boys, at least in my niche. If the same is in your case, work your way on new keywords until the next core update (which gives nothing but hope but its your only chance).

There are no other keywords...Google dropped every possible variation at the same time, and this set of keywords is what drives about 1/3 of my sales in reality. All I can do is hope for a recovery and try to get new links to these pages.

Edit: Its possible there were fluctuations during that big update rollout and that it will balance itself out (if it hasnt already) later today or in a few days. GSC is not updated for me.

It appears that this also affected a few other sets of terms early on, and those have recovered. This one set however is by far the largest source of traffic to my site and have not recovered in any way since they started to drop ~April 12th. No sign of any recovery

My USA traffic is around -28% every day now, but UK and much of Europe are strongly higher. Most days my UK traffic is 2/3 of my USA traffic, which is absurd for a country 1/6th the population.

Now, I happen to be adding o sh!tload of new content related to London/UK steadily since last fall. What I theorize is happening is not only is that getting indexed and bringing in more traffic because of the content, but Google is counting the overall composition of my site's words / phrases and references to things in the UK has gone way up as percentage of the total. It is also more current, so now it's dropping me for the previous terms, which are no longer as dominant nor are they as current. So clearly the algo places a strong emphasis on the trend in content on your site in what you will rank for.

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - April last year was a terrible month. Now in 2023 the month of april repeats itself, but much worse. Since april 1st, everything is in full drop.

The 2022 december update launched my website in the top positions in dozens of terms and keywords. It's been an incredible 4 months. But it seems to me that Google reversed this update and those who benefited, went back.

And along with that, AdSense with the worst earnings since I started monetizing.

I don't see coincidences, but an rollback update, clearly.

Just an opinion.

[ichthyous]

@renatovieira I am seeing similar in terms of which sites are once again occupying the top few spots. But I have not lost much ranking yet...what I have lot are clicks and in some cases impressions are heading down. I just checked term by term and it is much more widespread than I thought...many landing pages have lost 25%-40% of their traffic. It's USA, Canada that has dropped like a stone, but France and a few other countries are also down. In the meantime, traffic to my homepage has doubled in the last week...

[anubitez]

I just cannot get over how Bollywood-named and themed websites are beating legit websites in my niche........ Even if it is the hardware manufacturer themselves... Has anyone else noticed Indian spam sites going nuts? half of them appear to be news, but in my niche that is tech info related, its now Bollywood sites ranking in the spots. I've seen it all now.

[Martin Ice Web]

Today: full zombie attack

[SakshamSingh]

Site was hit by March update but is gradually reaching to that level till yesterday. But today Rankings are fluctuating a lot and keywords that were high up yesterday are dropping with every hour passing.

[ubound]

I was hit so hard by the March core update. I went from a very comfortable life to not being able to pay my son's university tuition fees. I only do Adsense, just an informational website. A couple of days ago, I noticed spikes in traffic from Singapore and the Philippines at times when the traffic is at its lowest level. It would last for a few hours and then go back to my new normal after the March update. But today's Philippines traffic is on another level, and it has been going on much longer than the previous days. If this goes on, I might reach the numbers before the hit, only number-wise, of course, not money-wise.

[Micha]

Well, I can unfortunately confirm what is reported here. Ranking is falling, Google results are a disaster in my niche (completely outdated info dominates). But it was clear that something like this happens, because after a recovery by a core update, as we know, does not last long.

I'm really glad that we don't depend on Adsene or something, otherwise we wouldn't be able to finance the website for a long time.

[RedBar]

Obviously I don't know for how long however I am seeing what I would describe as normal traffic levels and visitor patterns plus thoughout a couple of 24 hour periods.

Today: full zombie attack

And today is my regular monthly email spam attack from France ... It's as regular as clockwork.

[ichthyous]

This is insane...I am ranking #1 for the entire set of terms that Google is somehow managing to refer up to 90% less traffic for depending on the term. In some cases I have both the #1 organic spot AND the #1 local spot, but the traffic is still down 75%! I am seeing a set of 3 large ads at top of page...but those were always there. How is Google managing to steal ALL of the traffic if I am ranking #1 for these terms? I had more traffic from Italy this morning than from the USA...that is just insane. Google has turned into a straight up mafia syndicate now.

[mosxu]

“Today: full zombie attack”

Same here and for paid traffic…

[yollo03]

My gsc was finally updated, Most impressions yesterday per country were slashed by 50%. I dont know how its today but I can tell its not that good either. The impact is greater than I thought,,, I hope it is temporary.

I am going to increase my focus on other platforms more than I have so far. I did a quick check on a few keywords and noticed something interesting. If I were to search for work tools and then best work tools, usually a lot of the sites that would appear under work tools would also appear under best work tools. What I noticed is that some sites do not appear at all, at least not in the top 4 pages (only looked up US).

Whether it was intentional or not, I think it will be modified in another update.

Edit; Another thing I am starting to notice and this is new for me. When you scroll down (used desktop) and stall, google figures what website you are focusing on with great accuracy. It will then continue showing you that site in different rankings a few times. If you dont click on it, it disappears and replaced with a different site.

This was only 1 website, tested in incognito. It's a great way to kill traffic and why the description must be really attractive.

I am certain it is more sophisticated than I described and many other factors are involved.

[RedBar]

Obviously I don't know for how long

Right on cue, mid-day and since then traffic has consistently halved ... No surprise there, obviously no one is up at 07.00 US time!

[anubitez]

Is it me or are the serps getting so bad you see the "GOOD" competitors you know are good even getting bombed out and now random obsolete articles or spam ranking?

I see so many articles from 2019 that are poorly done or from random sites ranking, Google can keep playing dumb I do not care, my DDG and Bing traffic is surging amongst other randoms I never heard of and starting to gain traction. While most here pray for Google to turn around, I do not I want them to continue doing the bad updates and not reverse anything! The only way for Google to get taken out is what they are doing right now, destroying themselves as no one can put up the capital to take them out :)

[yollo03]

I think there is regular ranking as we know it and there is dynamic ranking (at least this is what I am thinking). The mess you are seeing is perhaps due to this dynamic ranking, which is personalized.

[superclown2]

The mess you are seeing is perhaps due to this dynamic ranking, which is personalized.

I delete cookies and change my IP address several times a day but I still see the same appalling results. Sites that don't load, old outdated content, missing CSS files, you name it. I seriously wonder if Google is gradually abandoning search quality in favour of AI; which *could* be a great money spinner in the future. Having sacked many of their staff (and it is rumoured more may be on their way out) they have still switched a lot of them to try to improve their Bard product; that speaks volumes.

Their attempt to get the US antitrust case kicked out has just failed and they must know that the writing is on the wall, so it sounds logical to accept the inevitable and concentrate on yet another 'other bet'. Maybe, unlike so many others, they can make a success of this one.