June 2023 Google Search Observations

[Broaster]

I decided not to post any articles on my niche blog for a few days and on my stat counter I get 3 to 5 visits an hour on average. its hopeless.

[edited by: not2easy at 3:52 pm (utc) on Jun 1, 2023]
[edit reason] _{New month, new thread} [/edit]

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Meatboat

Perhaps the SERP instability is making users have to navigate using your internal search

Precisely my thought especially because specific popular widget keyword pages had, like many other non-USA businesses in my industry, have slowly slid down the SERPs.

[anubitez]

looks like Google owes some massive refunds, like 80%? worth billions.

serps up soon! tsunami will occur since they will need to make those refunds back fast, expect more a.d spam, high-paying customers ranking in irrelevant searches, and of course broken serps!

[RareBit]

@editorialGuy - you are not alone - Sunday moved to Monday for the big apparel products website since Covid. Not sure why people moved to Monday but the trend stayed even after the lockdowns are but a memory.

This is because a lot of people now work from home on a Monday, so indulge in a bit of online shopping on works time instead of their own.

[Meatboat]

Precisely my thought especially because specific popular widget keyword pages had, like many other non-USA businesses in my industry, have slowly slid down the SERPs.

That is a clear indicator that the new SERPs are bunk; Google should realize it's running a search engine, not a social media platform. That said, might be a good time (for everyone reading this), that your internal search, and hell, your site CX, is as tight as it can be, especially for key products. Might be worth looking into AI integration in some capacity as well...

[ichthyous]

Search is down 34% today at noon. USA is -48% and UAE is -55%. That follows the same pattern for more than a week now, no matter the ranking. My rank shot higher yesterday, but traffic is lower.

CNBC had a story about Google being under pressure for the poor quality of its search now...the company was just downgraded partly for that reason. Ad revenue is moving elsewhere and people are displeased with the number of ads on the page...the world is catching on that organic search is dead at Google.

[christianz]

Google should realize it's running a search engine, not a social media platform

Actually, they are convinced at the highest level that they are running a TickTock now.

[BigKat]

CNBC had a story about Google being under pressure for the poor quality of its search now...

It's really an interesting story and underscores the huge disconnect between Google executives and what their users want. One would think the Google employee discussing negative user feedback because of too many ads and irrelevant results would strike a chord with executives. Not at all. Google executive's answer to this is to provide a perspectives tab, likely to soon be another page of refined results that will also get loaded up with ads. Sundar's condescending comment about users not wanting blue links not only misses the mark but ignores user complaints to tell those upset users what they want. No Sundar, open your eyes and ears and see that users don't want to be spammed with ads or have to click on tabs to filter out irrelevant results for such basic queries.

the company was just downgraded partly for that reason

With a full screen of ads already, appearing so desperate to make a buck, I don't see how Google's profits can continue growing. Google will lose users as a result of the ad spam and their continued ignorance when it comes to ignoring their user's complaints.

[Meatboat]

Actually, they are convinced at the highest level that they are running a TickTock now.

Agreed, especially with the outcry about poopy SERPs and results in general. We'll see how long perspectives lasts as users flock away to traditional search engines. But who knows, maybe Google will actually capture a younger demographic with a UI that they're more used to (ala social media).

But why wouldn't the target demographic that wants a more SM UI just use their preferred social platform for that? Google is trying to leverage their brand and massive amount of data/results to appeal to a group that isn't interested.

Oh well, "money talks and people listen."

[not2easy]

But why wouldn't the target demographic that wants a more SM UI just use their preferred social platform for that?

Again, AI is not ready for dependable applications. FB is having some troubles recently and a lot of unhappy users of their "marketing tools" - see this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]
There are other threads in in our Meta/FB forum [webmasterworld.com] discussing the same problems.

[EditorialGuy]

It's really an interesting story and underscores the huge disconnect between Google executives and what their users want.

Or, more accurately, between Google executives and what publishers, e-commerce vendors, etc. want. Users don't seem to mind Google's increasingly cluttered SERPs, if we're to believe the publicly available statistics about Google's market share.

[RedBar]

underscores the huge disconnect between Google executives and what their users want.

Not only Google but almost every WEF supporter plus many other groups!

[BigKat]

Or, more accurately, between Google executives and what publishers, e-commerce vendors, etc. want.

Read the story mhansen was kind enough to post where you will see it references upset users along with Google's senior VP of search acknowledge "users are still not quite happy."

Surely if users can't find what they are looking for, we won't be happy either because they can't find us unless they use a different search engine, which some are thankfully doing in our case.

[ichthyous]

Huge drops today...30% lower search traffic. USA traffic is down 30%. DE, CA, AU, UAE all down between 15-45%. UK is the only bright spot, up 24%

[Soulofmonk]

Terrible traffic today. I am pretty sure it is due to Google pushing two or three featured snippets at the top, resulting in lower CTR. :(

[Martin Ice Web]

once again a big drop After 3 good days. It seems about 70%. Oh Boy, Google will have a great quater.

[RubicCubed]

Massive flux in the serps today, which has become quite typical from a lost company unable to find its sense of direction. The only constants I see are the paywall of ads above organic results and the lack of converting organic traffic these ads have consumed.

[Treud]

CTR tanking and tanking each weeks. Looks like now people just stay in Google and will never leave ….

[emperor2]

GA real time shows blank for few minutes and come back live with some visitors then it repeats. Usually we will see random number of visitors at any time and more visitors at peak time. Lost many keyword rankings this month. No algorithm updates confirmed yet. No idea what is happening, hope it is not permanent :(

[Nutterum]

OK an update about the shadow update. This comes from the apparel e-commerce space. Many of my colleagues repeat the same thing too. It seems this Google update is aimed at expediting the shift of rank results from summer/spring inventory and products/categories shown on the SERPs for these in to the summer apparel. I am talking entire categories getting straight up delisted or loosing 30-40 ranks in the SERPs. What is left are the behemoth websites like amazon or global apparel websites like Nike, or Hugo Boss etc. to show what they have for these "off-season" keywords. It's like someone at Google said , yeah lets dial the SERP relevancy to 11 and unless you are a huge websites with millions of backlinks , you are out of the search results.

I have seen this in the past but it was waaaay more smooth. Delisting entire categories from tens of big apparel e-commerce websites as a solution is..concerning.

[KaseyM]

Substantial drop midway through the month - recovered somewhat but still not good.

[ichthyous]

The huge drop in usa traffic continues...down 30% at 3:45pm. Fridays have been lower in general, but not a 30% decline. It seems USA is the only downer today...everyplace else that matters is up. This is while my ranking is higher.

[EditorialGuy]

The huge drop in usa traffic continues...down 30% at 3:45pm. Fridays have been lower in general, but not a 30% decline.

July 4 weekend, maybe?

[mosxu]

Where did my previous comment go?

I am very serious about bots! 70% of the traffic it may be bots that is a very big chunk of our economy!

[not2easy]

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