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]

[BigKat]

I'm starting to believe the throttling theory is in fact true.

Throttling is likely the consequence of Google rotating layouts. For example, I see Google has removed the right sidebar of product ads for a USA product related search on my desktop. This would normally result in a very small amount of organic traffic that has slipped through the rest of the ads above it but alas, Google has added a left "filter by" sidebar for users to filter by seller, price, brand, etc. As one would expect, smaller ecommerce sites get no visibility here either with marketplaces dominating the seller field, price filters going to marketplaces who are known to dump offshore goods at low costs and the brands field going to big brands everyone knows. If there's a way Google can slice the throat of a small business, they will find a way and are doing it with this new layout. In an hour, there may be a different layout displayed and another an hour after that, etc.

[Soulofmonk]

I am noticing two snippets more frequently in SERPS for most queries.
[ibb.co...]

ibb.co Q1 hosted at ImgBB Image Q1 hosted in ImgBB

[Micha]

I'm starting to believe the throttling theory is in fact true. My hourly traffic has been stuck on a number for days now, even during peak hours. I used to see a lot more up and downs.

I have also been observing this for weeks. In addition, the keywords are jumping. I monitor some with Xovi and every hour the ranking is completely different, usually even with 10 places difference.


p.s. RedBar thanks for the explanation with the quotes

[mhansen]

Give advantage to top tier sites like Forbes

Forbes decided to open a new section/ on their website that is displacing the entire industry who specialize in it. Literally, they went from no pages of content, 0 visitors / 0 KW's in this market in August 2022, to more than 2,500 pages of content, 5M estimated visitors and nearly 200,000 #1 positions out of 1.6m kw's in roughly 8 months (They displaced everyone 2-3 months ago). EAT is broken when specialists who are professionals in there market are displaced by a national business and finance leader, simply due to entering the market.

I am noticing two snippets more frequently in SERPS for most queries.

I have seen the same, but with 3 floating horizontally across the top.

[superclown2]

EAT is broken when specialists who are professionals in there market are displaced by a national business and finance leader, simply due to entering the market.

You are absolutely right but this is nothing new. Many years ago Eric Schmidt stated that 'Brands are the solution, not the problem' which had some merit at the time because the Web back then was a jungle with many dangerous beasties lurking in it. The problem now is that the concept that 'Might is Right' has been taken too far and big companies with zero expertise can easily soar above the real experts.

Google's much trumpeted artificial intelligence should be able to to sort out the quality sites from the big brand chancers but it isn't doing so yet. These same big brands are the ones that spend huge sums on Google ads (which are totally uneconomic for most smaller companies) but that is no doubt a coincidence.

[tangor]

As always ... just follow the money!

Not sure AI will make that much difference, but time will tell!

[ichthyous]

82% drop in UK traffic this morn...wow. USA is right behind at -38%, but it's early in the day. There is zero traffic from any western Euro country this morn...not one visit from the entire continent other than one visit from Croatia and Slovenia, WTF?

India
+178%
Malaysia
+640%
Republic Of Korea
+640%
Croatia
0%
The Philippines
+640%
Egypt
0%
Slovenia

[RubicCubed]

82% drop in UK traffic this morn...wow. USA is right behind at -38%, but it's early in the day. There is zero traffic from any western Euro country this morn...

Google has targeted western nations for economic exploitation. New ad filled layouts in the USA appear designed to capture more paid clicks for Google. IMO, soon even the current naysayers will declare SEO dead in the USA because of the ever shrinking visibility Google reserves for organic results.

[ichthyous]

IMO, soon even the current naysayers will declare SEO dead in the USA because of the ever shrinking visibility Google reserves for organic results

That has been evident for years now, so not sure how anyone can be a naysayer anymore...

Despite coming off the drastic lows of April, traffic is still quite a bit lower than prior to this change in early April. I am always assured to have multiple parts of my site with large drops in traffic on any given day, or traffic from a set of countries is always low on any given day. In that way Google assures that you never really perform well anymore and that you don't get enough new leads or conversions to actually stay in business.

[tangor]

But you (webmasters in general) get enough income, scattered here and there, to keep hope in the heart that things might change. Keeps the myth alive!

[mosxu]

Reality kicks as the ads formula is not able to work unless only 3-4 advertisers make #*$! lots of money!
And personalisation also kicks in terms of how many ads a persona clicks before buying!

Legal or Illegal?

[superclown2]

Legal or Illegal?

Laws throughout the world haven't kept up with the Internet so maybe it is legal. Ethical? That's another matter.

Google is quite used to interpreting laws in it's own way.

[christianz]

Ethical? That's another matter.

For a corporation whos entire business model is exploitation and manipulation, ethics probably is not a relevant concern.

[Martin Ice Web]

Pretty calm in here?

Yesterday we had pre April traffic. I knew it would last only for one day. Today traffic is again down to 45%.
As i can see, is, all of our competitors are demoted to page 2.. Page 1 has big players with irrelevant content.

Page 2 is the new page 1 for quality content.

[ichthyous]

As i can see, is, all of our competitors are demoted to page 2.. Page 1 has big players with irrelevant content. Page 2 is the new page 1 for quality content.

I am seeing the same thing...several sites are rising hugely across all terms and locations. One was dominant last year, it's basically a templated cookie-cutter directory of service providers. Then dropped a lot from Sept - May. Now it has risen quickly back at #1 for almost every single spot we compete on. Google is deciding for us which kind of content every last user must want to see at the top...no variation. I also think that these sites are probably buying massive numbers of links.

Meanwhile, my rank is still pretty high and USA traffic is starting the day -69%. The rest of the world (except for UAE) is average or strong.

[RedBar]

Pretty calm in here?

Past experience usually indicates that whenever I write "things are looking ok, traffic steadily increasing, enquiries up", then all the wheels fall off and traffic collapses!

[ichthyous]

USA traffic is still -56% at 1:30pm, UAE is -55%. UK is up 75% today, insane. Interesting how it's the same countries day after day...

[Nutterum]

@ichthyous - what you are describing feels like seasonality shift towards the interest of your content. What is the vertical of the website? To me what you describe so far does not seem that out of whack.

[ichthyous]

what you are describing feels like seasonality shift towards the interest of your content. What is the vertical of the website? To me what you describe so far does not seem that out of whack.

How would one country's traffic suddenly dropping off 50%+ in a matter of days reflect seasonality? That to me reflects the opposite of seasonality. USA is down exactly -56% again this morning at 9am. UK/Europe are all higher. And UAE is up 312% so far today, after being down strongly for several days. USA traffic is clearly being hugely suppressed. My direct traffic is down 50% this morning... which means google image traffic. My vertical is fine arts.

[RedBar]

Insofar as my global site is concerned since Monday 12th June I have experienced higher and more traditional traffic and especially more page views per visitor.

Since the 12th June I have received more genuine project enquiries than in the last couple of months combined but I must stress that not one is for a "Western" project, that market is dead, no one is committing to anything most probably through lack of confidence, shortage of money or existing over-supply. My enquiry box looks like an advert for BRICS countries!

Our UK hotel venue is still doing well however this weekend will be a test since it is our biggest event of the year with two days of live bands, charity raising plus local and regional arts festival promotion etc. The weather forecast is extremely good therefore it will be interesting to see fairly accurately just how well the local economy is fairing.

[BigKat]

Now that the FTC is suing Amazon for deceptive Prime signup and cancellation processes ( [msn.com...] ), I wonder if Google will demote them? Wishful thinking I'm sure, but being sued by the FTC sure doesn't put the "T" in EEAT now does it?

[ichthyous]

The gap between clicks and impressions keeps growing...more than three months now with declining clicks. Impressions have also dropped recently, but not nearly as much:

[ibb.co ]

ibb.co Screen-Shot-2023-06-21-at-12-34-39-PM hosted at ImgBB Image Screen-Shot-2023-06-21-at-12-34-39-PM hosted in ImgBB

[mosxu]

The click is double in price overnight! I doubt the competitors reacted like that!

Same problem no buyers with a credit card see my ads or organic!

[emperor2]

@ichthyous Same here too. Not a positive sign, in fact getting worse!
[ibb.co...]

ibb.co Traffic hosted at ImgBB Image Traffic hosted in ImgBB

[BigKat]

The gap between clicks and impressions keeps growing...

I wonder how the ever-scroll search result layouts impact impressions. Does Google consider an impression to have occurred if a page is buried in ever-scroll land even though the user did not invoke the scroll to even see the page? I also wonder how many users scroll in excess or hit the page down button a half dozen times out of frustration to only scroll back up? Regardless, I do feel the growing gap between impressions and clicks is symbolic of a poor user experience in Google Search and the confusion users experience when exposed to Google's excessive ads.

The click is double in price overnight! I doubt the competitors reacted like that!

It's nearing the end of the quarter so Google will try to empty advertiser's bank accounts as fast as they can. Might be best to pause ads. Google's earnings should be interesting to see since we can't see any organic results without doing a lot of scrolling.

[RedBar]

I was just checking and my June USA traffic is 72% of its long-term average plus for my top 10 most visited countries only 4 are from the "West" whereas my long-term data shows 6 from the "West".

Anyone else seeing similar?

[christianz]

Big drop today coinciding with Semrush sensor spike.

[Rlilly]

Constant fluctuations, nothing is stable, its seems like Google cannot make up its mind on which Algo to ever use again.. Fill in the blanks with Youtube videos

[ErrlyBird]

Yeah also seeing massive shifts. Feels like they rolled back the update or something, at least for our business. Visibility and keywords falling back into pre core update positions. Doubt it will last but for now the green numbers are a temporary relief.

[Micha]

the beginning of the week was really good, but now it's going down again. Slowly you feel like you're on a roller coaster.