May 2023 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

Here we go, will anything improve after a very poor April for many or will traffic continue to be hoovered-up by the G ad machine? No prizes for guessing correctly!

[RedBar]

It's early Saturday afternoon UK time, perchance has the www been switched off?

Off to check my logs !

[RedBar]

Okie dokie, like many others I use Statcounter as a quick, generalised view of my sites but have noticed this past year or two how far it has been diverging lower from my actual logs, yesterday and today Statcounter is considerably different.

Did they have an outage, anyone else seeing these big differences?

[RubicCubed]

How many of you in the USA actually write to your representatives and senators to express your complaints and concerns?

Such effort results in no action except canned responses. The average age of politicians in congress is 58 and senate 64 years old. I doubt they understand technology much and have aides do everything for them. I bet many don't even cook their own meals or drive themselves anywhere. These people, many with political careers spanning decades, have been detached from their constituents for a very long time.

From what I see, USA has the most ad aggressive serp layout of any nation. It will be tough for us in the USA to survive this as there appears to be little resistance for Google to encounter as they serve more ads that deal blow after blow to organic.

[ichthyous]

Today I am seeing an 80% drop in traffic not just to my top referring search, but now to the 2nd most important term for referring traffic to my site as well...they are semantically very close. Is anyone else seeing semantically similar groups of terms all being taken out together?

It seems clear that Google is going to work its way through the index experimenting on which terms it can monetize at 100% (0% for any of us) until all of the traffic is gone. In 2022 I saw a 75% drop in business from their tactics, then a short period of decent traffic from Sept. 2022 to March 2023, and now this...we all knew it was coming but it has been impossible to steer my ship away from the iceberg after 19 years of depending on search.

[Dooku]

@Redbar, I have been using Statcounter for a long time on almost all of my websites. And I regularly compare their stats with the actual access logs on my Ubuntu servers. The "usual" difference between the server access logs and statcounter is now becoming quite a bit too much. I also compare both with a more overall statistics service as another check.

I am now beginning to test Matomo hosted version on one of my hosting accounts as I feel this is a more accurate system. Statcounter, although I do love to use it because it provides enough info for me, has been having more problems due to ddos attacks and other technical issues in the last 12 months. Since about 1 or 2 months I noticed Statcounter is using Cloudflare in "I am under attack mode".......so that is also telling.

[ichthyous]

Such effort results in no action except canned responses. The average age of politicians in congress is 58 and senate 64 years old. I doubt they understand technology much and have aides do everything for them. I bet many don't even cook their own meals or drive themselves anywhere. These people, many with political careers spanning decades, have been detached from their constituents for a very long time.

From what I see, USA has the most ad aggressive serp layout of any nation. It will be tough for us in the USA to survive this as there appears to be little resistance for Google to encounter as they serve more ads that deal blow after blow to organic.

What you are saying is correct in terms of demographics, except that it comes to a false conclusion...that conclusion really is just an excuse for apathy and inaction. I have personally seen how numbers of motivated individuals calling and emailing their Reps and Senators have absolutely moved the needle and gotten things done. Is it easy? no...Is it quick? no. But look at it this way, you're going to have a lot more free time on your hands with no business coming in so you'll have the time to write. You cannot expect people to simply understand your situation and line of business...you need to actually explain it to them. I find that being a member of a trade group helps...they generate the script and send you the info so that calling and emailing takes minimal work.

I think people are not seeing the forest for the trees here...this is going to be a huge shift the likes of which none of us have seen since the internet came into being. This is going to require organizing and collective effort on the part of those affected...it's not about us as individuals.

We are basically back at the same point the USA was at in the late 1800's and early 1900's when a few robber barons controlled all the industry and hired thugs to beat up and machine gun the workers. People don't see it that way yet, but they will.

[Soulofmonk]

CNBC, The Verge, and Forbes on Google's AI integration into the search
Google Is About To Turn The Online Publishing Industry Upside Down[[forbes.com ]]
Google wants you to forget the 10 blue links[[theverge.com ]]
Google’s new A.I. search could hurt traffic to websites, publishers worry[[cnbc.com ]]

I think this will be the last year for my site :(

www.forbes.com Google Is About To Turn The Online Publishing Industry Upside Down Google plans to change the way it presents search engine results by using artificial intelligence. And, at the risk of overstating the potential consequences, it will be like dropping a nuclear bomb on an online publishing industry that's already struggling to survive.

[superclown2]

I think this will be the last year for my site :(

It will be if you allow it to be. I have switched all my friends to Duck and perhaps you could do the same. Google was built in the early days on the recommendations of webmasters and the reverse can happen.

In the meanwhile; the business I'm getting from G has fallen to such a level that it's simply not worth building any more content. All my images are unique ones that I have created myself so I have been busy today blocking them from Google in robots.txt. I would be livid if I saw them rehashed by Bard and used on another site.

[RubicCubed]

@ichthyous

What you are saying is correct in terms of demographics, except that it comes to a false conclusion...that conclusion really is just an excuse for apathy and inaction.

I've done my share of submitting informal and formal complaints - enough to blow through reams of paper. Seeing no results, and things only get worse, I decided to move on. I'm simply getting too old to fight this battle with methods that have proven to be ineffective. In the current political environment, it's even worse because both political parties are so focused on going at the other party's jugular they ignore most everything else including proper oversight of regulators.

I sell goods. Knowing any positive change in Google would take many years to come, if ever, more of my time is focused on other search engines and avenues of targeted buyer traffic. Most of us smaller businesses simply can't be seen in Google now with all the ads, and we can't afford to struggle for years pushing a solution that will likely never come or be too late in it's arrival. Ultimately it's about survival in a very challenging market.

[Mentat]

organic search is dying in front of our eyes, and it was killed by the company that birthed it, not a competitor.

@ichthyous - great quote

It all started a few years ago, with different strategies to keep the users on google services:
- google image search modifications
- rich snippets
- youtube display on SERP
- airplay tickets on SERP
- booking on SERP
- etc

Now, the SERP looks like an search engine for ads!

Remember when the ads in SERP were few and clearly marked, on separated boxes?

We, publishers, are slaves on masters domain.

Now BART it will keep users more and more on Google.

[Micha]

You shouldn't take Google so seriously. Sure, you can't get around the ecosystem, but it's been the case for years that Google likes to help itself to content, but website operators have less and less of it.

There are other ways to stay in the game, those who only rely on Google are doing something wrong in my eyes anyway.

[superclown2]

There are other ways to stay in the game

Care to expand on that? I'm sure there are many who would love to do so without Google.

[Micha]

I don't know what the best way is either, and we are a news site in Germany. That makes it easier for us than an online store.

For example, we started two podcasts that significantly increased our audience, then we entered into collaborations (with events, etc.) to be more present outside of the Internet, and we changed our whole look and communication. We are small, but this has given us much better opportunities to be closer to the reader. All of this has led to better reader engagement and us being found more and more without Google.

On the financial side, we kicked out Google advertising and started marketing our ad space ourselves, since then we've had stable revenue.

We are only a very small player and don't have the financial capabilities of the big players in our country (especially since I still maintain that Google gives preferential treatment to the so-called leading media). But we have accepted that. Therefore, we can completely ignore the fluctuations caused by Google, because the business is going anyway and we are still growing.

[yollo03]

Based on my findings and others have said it as well, a new AI was introduced or the previous AI was refined. I am actually seeing an improvement after all the hard work I put into the websites.

[ichthyous]

In the meanwhile; the business I'm getting from G has fallen to such a level that it's simply not worth building any more content. All my images are unique ones that I have created myself so I have been busy today blocking them from Google in robots.txt. I would be livid if I saw them rehashed by Bard and used on another site.

They have probably already been added to numerous datasets, Bard is not the only generative AI platform...you can check the largest dataset and request removal here: [haveibeentrained.com ].

Unfortunately, it's image by image, they don't have a system set up to upload multiple images for removal. I am paying attention to more activity that appears to be unidentified crawling on my site and banning the IP. I have seen that from Europe and Canada as well. so I expect that there will be a mad rush to build many AI platforms. There is a 'noai' tag that you can add to your meta tags for the page, but it's not clear if any AI bots are honoring it.

And ditto on the drop in business...it had already fallen drastically in 2022 and had a brief return in 2023, but now I fear that's it for Google. My only hope is that people get completely fed up and just move on, but my gut tells me that they won't...Google has built a sticky ecosystem and will retain a lot of people and convert them to using AI search instead of the old blue links.

[superclown2]

And ditto on the drop in business...it had already fallen drastically in 2022 and had a brief return in 2023, but now I fear that's it for Google. My only hope is that people get completely fed up and just move on, but my gut tells me that they won't...Google has built a sticky ecosystem and will retain a lot of people and convert them to using AI search instead of the old blue links.

It's hardly believable that a single company can dictate the fortunes of businesses all over the world. They keep their monopoly, as you so rightly say, because of their sticky ecosystem in which they are the default search engine on all the major browsers - which they pay for - and which many legislators consider to be illegal. This situation will not last for ever.

Frankly most people I've spoken to about Google don't even know that there are excellent alternatives! Google used to be far and away the best search engine but that was then and this is now. Perhaps the newspapers, which are likely to be badly affected by all this, can help to educate the public.

Let us not forget that AI is nowhere near perfect; it's shortcomings will be heavily publicised when the inevitable personal disasters are caused to users who believed what it told them. And no-one really knows whether or not the use of AI (which is incredibly expensive to run) will be all that popular anyway - I have certainly not known of any of my friends or colleagues shifting to Bing because of it. Plus: a lot of legislators are terrified of it.

Google is betting the company on this switch to AI. They have a system at the moment that makes the kind of profits that defy belief, and are they really going to abandon it to take a leap into the dark? Wow.

I think it's too early to predict the end of online publishing, and the free interchange of knowledge that the Internet once promised. We may just witness the end of a company that has done so much to destroy it already.

[RedBar]

As if we have not had enough of scraping sites and their members posting our images and information, I have just seen a TikTok post ranking #6 for one of my specialised widgets with the usual moronic "designer" questions ... FFS Google, you are now the purveyor of the lowest common denominator "information" products on the planet.

Is it not time to examine your own E-A-T ?

Why are you giving me an answer to a question I did not ask?

Oh yeah, I forgot, you know what I want, don't you?

[superclown2]

Why are you giving me an answer to a question I did not ask?

Possibly because they sacked so many staff then switched most of the rest to their kamikaze project. Quality was never great, too much bias towards authority at the expense of relevance as we all know, but it seems to have gone completely out of the window since the Great AI Panic.

[Dooku]

but it seems to have gone completely out of the window since the Great AI Panic.

Which is good :-) Because everyone and their mom are now on ChatGPT doing everything from writing a thesis to creating video scenario's to site content.....etc...etc...
Google has missed the boat, those people will never return to google as they are now familiar with ChatGPT and have set up their workflow around it. And those users are also finding new ways EVERY HOUR to make money using ChatGPT for which they will not be needing google anymore soon. Second half of this year is going to get very interesting.

[Treud]

There is indeed a huge shift in the search behaviour and Google is finding a way to retain them on their services.

Yesterday was playing a game with a friend and during a record/stream we had an issue with a setup. Instead of « Googling it » my friend said « Let me ask ChatGPT »

He didn’t found the answer right away but his experience was the answers were far better that what he could find on a search engine and he ended by a « soon all search engine will be dead »

This AI is for me as big as the invention of the internet. I wouldn’t’ imagine a few years ago that’s something would come from nowhere and change the searching behaviour so quickly.

[superclown2]

This AI is for me as big as the invention of the internet. I wouldn’t’ imagine a few years ago that’s something would come from nowhere and change the searching behaviour so quickly.

Yes Google will undoubtedly lose a lot of business to chatbots but for a lot of commercial queries they will be unsuitable. Would they for instance be able (legally or ethically) to tell which company provided the cheapest green widgets, or the best insurance for your pet unicorn?

Another question I am asking myself is: if Bard is going to be so good, why should visitors to Google click on ads?

Just what advantage putting a chatbot on a search results page would give Google is a mystery to me, whilst the potential pitfalls are many and deep. I foresee more layoffs there soon.

As for the current search results: I am seeing a flood of 'authority' sites bubbling to the top of countless search results with content that is clearly AI generated, and which is completely divorced from the expertise of these sites. This is a result of many years of Google preferring 'authority' (ie high spending on ads) over specialisation which from their point of view is logical; the actual creator of the product or service pays the authority site a commission, the authority site pays Google for the clicks, the customer who buys the product or service pays for everything. There is a Google tax on practically everything bought on the Internet.

If AI can destroy this system, which is so harmful to the public as well as businesses, then roll on.

[li7chang]

My traffic has been declining since April 28th, I don't know why

[Cyril TechWebsites]

The first part of “The Grand Robbery update” continues rolling out. They are destroying my niche as a whole. Here are the screenshots of the best websites with “how-to” tutorials and guides for sysadmins. This so-called “helpful” update marks your website as “bad” and nothing will help you: your authority, your backlinks, or the quality of the content.

That’s how the traffic for my best competitors is looking in the last year:
[imgur.com...]

My theory is that Google is preparing the room for its AI Generative update (the second part of “The Grand Robbery update”). It will finalize the destruction of all the websites using which the Bard can make a “mistake” and leave only “good” (from Google’s point of view) websites in the SERPs. I believe G needs this to keep users within Google’s system and won’t leave it to other websites. They will be just showing our content rephrased by Bard to their users and making money on ads. They are trying to own the content all over the Internet with AI. That’s what it looks like for me.

[Alex_1729]

My sites are dropping as well. I'd prefer not to draw any conclusions, but it seems like Google is doing what Google does best: increasing organic traffic to the worst pages I have, with lowest ad revenue, and no transaction value. At the same time, they seem to be reducing organic visits to the pages of higher ad revenue, and transaction opportunities. Are they slowly draining us until there's nothing left? Is that why they introduce everything so slowly, since slow death won't cause any fuss? Once again, I don't have a lot of data to support this or draw any definitive conclusions, so time will tell.

[superclown2]

Are they slowly draining us until there's nothing left? Is that why they introduce everything so slowly, since slow death won't cause any fuss?

I think you're absolutely right. Eric Schmidt stated years ago that Google would keep 'pushing the envelope' a little at a time until they were stopped. If they had introduced all their googlespam at once it would have caused uproar.

This is another reason why I'm wondering about why they are proposing switching to an AI system after so many years of refining the current one. OK ChatGPT has taken business from them but I don't see people flocking to Bing; so why introduce Bard, which could be just another (second runner) competitor to their 'search' (read: 'advertising') business? I may be naive but to me it doesn't make sense.

[Alex_1729]

why introduce Bard

Drive up stock price? Increase value of the company? Get more users?
[i.imgur.com...]
Could it be as simple as it seems? Google is the main company on the net, they need to be where things are hot. And right now, gpt is hot.

[Treud]

My traffic is declining, but the quality I receive is better. (Inquiry and orders), so I’ll take that :D

[JesterMagic]

A real game changer is when ChatGPT gets real time access to the internet. This will allow users to perform more traditional searches. This is when Googles business will be truly threatened.

I rather pay a subscription per month to get results than trust a company that is based solely on Ad revenue.

We also need at least 3 big players in the search/ai space to ensure proper competition so companies are more about retaining their customers.

[samwest]

Sorry, but at this point I could not have more disgust with gorg. I started a new site, and after nearly a year, they started indexing pages...about 8k pages in the sitemap, all with decent rank math scores. They were steadily adding pages to the index, then stopped cold at 900 and have begun reversing all indexing and heading back to zero. The way they use AI is ridiculous and always punitive. I've dumped their search and now use ChatGPT exclusively. You can find exactly what you want without having to trudge through a mountain of ad filled "partner" pages.

[RedBar]

After several days of extremely low traffic levels at 07.00 UK time this morning my global site suddenly had a few more page loads and then from 08.00 until 13.00 completely normal page views making it already +122% v my new average ... No doubt that's just killed it!