July 2023 Google Search Observations

[superclown2]

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.

With the greatest respect - do you not think that Google's monopoly of search has something to do with that? They are the default on just about every major browser and device (something they pay billions of dollars for) and most people out there don't even know that real search engines exist, let alone how to change defaults.

It is easy to be top dog when you're the only one in town. Even if you're a very poor and greedy one.

[edited by: not2easy at 6:34 pm (utc) on Jul 1, 2023]
[edit reason] End of month/New Month split cleanup [/edit]

[superclown2]

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. :(

Here in the UK PAA has a new layout on desktop, taking up far more space - two complete scrolls on my screen. So with 4 ads, taking up one complete scroll, 1 generic (a high ad spender, naturally) PAA, local results (most of which are irrelevant to my search terms) taking up another full scroll and 'related searches' (largely featuring American companies whilst I'm in London) and 4 more ads at the bottom the generics are drowned. Personally I've given up optimising for Google, my time is too valuable to waste.

CEO Sundar Pichai chimed in to to say that users don’t want “blue links” as much as they want “more comprehensive answers.”

I remember when Google first began. Results put up by long-dead search engines often resembled the clutter and junk that we are now all too familiar with. Along came Google with a clean interface and those same ten blue links and they wiped out the opposition.

No, it isn't users that dislike the blue links. It's Wall Street.

[christianz]

CEO Sundar Pichai chimed in to to say that users don’t want “blue links” as much as they want “more comprehensive answers.”

10 blue links used to represent 10 different genuine resources with 10 different perspectives and 10 different people or organisations running them. Nowadays you are lucky if you get 1 in Google.

[ichthyous]

Yesterday traffic soared and it stayed high all day...in fact the traffic kept building until the end of the day peaking at 11pm, which is definitely not a natural pattern. USA traffic was up 36% after two weeks of being down sharply.

Today traffic is average, except that my home page traffic is -74%! Traffic to the rest of the site is higher, so compensating. Did we just see our bi-monthly 18 hour trafffic surge yesterday and now it's already over? The last upward burst of traffic for me was on Saturday June 12th...so actually three weeks ago!

[RedBar]

You have traffic !

Ok, I understand it's a long holiday weekend in the USA however so far for the two days of this month I have a first for me ... My hotel venue site has had 23.5% more traffic than my global site.

My global site is for a potential ~8 billion

My hotal site is for a potential ~142,000

Just where did my old ~100,000 per day go to?

[RedBar]

What on earth is going on with traffic? I am 9 hours into my Googleday with traffic at 10% of its new and much lower traffic level average.

More than 50% of my realworld business is in Eurasia and "normally" by this time of day I have had my usual quota of visitors, today almost nothing.

Anyone else?

[superclown2]

What on earth is going on with traffic?

You're in the UK - are you seeing the huge mess that I'm seeing on desktop?

There is this enormous PAA with, mainly, completely irrelevant options to scroll through before I get to anything resembling search results. I can't specify an exact search string or a date range without going into advanced search (which didn't work at all over weekend), something most visitors won't have a clue about. It's as though an intern has been let loose to re-design a search page with the help of lots of mind altering substances.

If this is an attempt to destroy search it's a good one. Have these super-intelligent people never heard of the KISS principle?

[Micha]

Meanwhile, is there actually a logical reason why the results are so erratic? Google itself has said that they have not installed an update, but the movement does not stop.

[Dalnoon]

You're in the UK - are you seeing the huge mess that I'm seeing on desktop?

My desktop traffic has been on a roller coaster for the past 2 weeks, which shows Google is experimenting with a new layout or algo. Some days I see ~50% drop and some days it goes up way more than usual. (UK website)

[RedBar]

@superclown2

You're in the UK - are you seeing the huge mess that I'm seeing on desktop?

An interesting question therefore off I went to look as follows on a squeaky clean Chrome browser:

2 x run-of-the-mill widget keywords - Normal G layout, looked perfectly acceptable for a class ads site plus the results were ok for a B2C searcher.

2 x premium widget keywords - Again normal G layout with regular B2C results HOWEVER, and this is important for my widget searches, ALL the pointless USA widget sites had gone. I've been complaining about this for years since they are totally unable to supply therefore something must have changed for me to see this.

I'll have an in-depth later on today to see if this is across more keywords in the UK BUT I do know that for my widgets non-USA businesses in the US SERPs are all sliding past the 30-40 position now, hence ever-reducing US traffic meanwhile checking G.IN SERPs, where all four of the ketword widgets emanate, all four have top 5 rankings.

This appears to be G making localisation even more important for retail customers meanwhile making it more and more difficult for those seeking international trade supplies much more difficult ... And before anyone suggests using one of the huge trade directory sites for a specific country ... You've gotta be joking, in general they are a simply a huge mess of look-a-like BS!

[engine]

Has localisation taken over, but is not working properly?

I'll need to do some research into local traffic levels and compare to see if they are holding up.

[superclown2]

HOWEVER, and this is important for my widget searches, ALL the pointless USA widget sites had gone. I've been complaining about this for years since they are totally unable to supply therefore something must have changed for me to see this.

I'm only getting this new layout on Chrome. Firefox and Edge are normal (ie horrible) results. I am still getting lots of American results though.

Incidentally I clear cookies and search history constantly. My Chrome installation is pretty standard and up to date.

[RedBar]

Has localisation taken over, but is not working properly?

For my widget market areas I am definitely seeing changes, if these are permanent or not I would not like to say.

@superclown2

I forgot to mention, all my searches are done through a VPN and I'm pretty sure this does make a difference.

[RedBar]

My global trafic is still extremely low today, after 19+ hours I have just reached 50% of my new, lower average, therefore I decided to check the G USA SERPs with a squeaky clean Chrome browswer using a VPN.

For my specific premium widget keyword the results were horrific, the first page was splattered with so many ads, in total there were:

8 traditional blue links
1 traditional blue link with 6 images ... how did they do that?
20 image sales links
PAA
Related searches
Plus on the RHS an almost full length scroll column ad with images by the USA's largest importer listing their stockists with blue links PLUS a share link... I have never seen such an ad in my industry. This column took up 1/3 the page width.

That's the bad news for me, I have to say once I got away from the top 5% of keywords that the layout was good and the results pertinent.

I shall state the blatantly obvious that G is trying to monetise as much as it possibly can my most keyword product searches, likewise in many other industries G is doing similar which we read about here all the time.

Is there a solution? Not really since G is in the business of being a classified ads site and will attempt to leverage it as much as it can. Can you go local? Promote not so popular keyword products?

My business model is very different to probably 95+% here but one thing is certain, if G continues to be the almost sole search resource for many users then it may be time to take a realistic look at the efforts and risks one puts in for the rewards one receives.

[rdscx]

My ranks are down a bit, it happened before and it reverted, however I have a new issue I haven't faced before: I can't index new pages.

I have a lot of new pages in this period of the year and almost no new pages are indexed. Also seeing (many) spam results again, buried sites got resurrected - it's a sign of a core update in my niche.

[mosxu]

Big G needs to reinvent itself as it is being outsmarted by Amazon and others!

Asking the exact hand that feeds you for more money it is happening only down is Sicily!

There is a need for transparency on personalisation of search results and ads!

[Nutterum]

What ever G did was either :

1) Demote direct brand keywords e.g. <business>.com and heavily push personalized search where when you advertise above yourself , the organic results get demoted in favour of competitors - which is a BLATANT CASH GRAB and Anti User experience. It has been pushed since the 25-th so much so that we have competitors call us and asked how the hell did we outrank them for their own brand keywords, while we see the exact same but opposite. I mean seriously G what the ACTUAL F . I get you want more traffic to click on your ads, but this?! And lets be clear the team handling this particuler sites google ads operates with a DAILY budget of 100k Euros, so its not a mom-and-dad small traffic gig.

2) Image and Youtube content being HEAVILY pushed. Ahrefs shows 60% increasde for top 1000 keywords for several verticals of showing either youtube or google image search fields. Again, G pushing their own #*$! in results. I haven't seen such a massive search real estate grab since the big update of of Dec 2020 and the 4 ads change before that.

I don't know but if G keeps this up they will kill their own golden goose. Hell, I am already rarely using their #*$!ty service, because bing offers me much cleaner results and chat GPT on top.

Just saying guys, G is walking sick and their shareholder greed is the poison that is causing this.

[renatovieira]

Big drop today...

[RubicCubed]

G is walking sick and their shareholder greed is the poison that is causing this.

We sell in the USA and Google sends us traffic from google.co.id. Maybe because this country is not loaded with ads like the USA? I'm not sure, but I have no reason to like Google. Many of us that are tech focused will be talking about the sad state of Google and their ad spam at our July 4th gatherings. Google is just a garbage dump of ads, but will give us techie types something to talk about around the grill.

[RedBar]

@Nutterum

Whilst I empathise with your statements we all have to keep reminding ourslves that G is a classified ads website and their focus is on generating as much business for their clients. The more their clients pay for expensive converting ads the more they will potentially spend on G ads.

Their layouts are designed to "hopefully" display enticing / alternative product ads. G's millions of tests probably take away the "hope" part however as long as millions of users keep clicking there will be no change.

What I do not not comprehend is the supposed volume of willing ad hoc clickers. Do many clickers not actually do any research these days?

[mosxu]

It is very unlikely that searchers do that much research!

For answers many go to ChatGPT and buyers do not have the time and patience to click more than 3 ads!

But also most buyers only use amazon website no need to research with a search engine before! About 15-20% of buyers every year stop using a search engine!

And the buyers who are willing to use the credit card in 3 ads do not see our ads even if we bid high enough and as Nutterum put it they do not even show your brand in order to remove any revenue you may get!

[Treud]

Since 3rd I’m seeing improvement, selling products I wasn’t selling for years, but good ! , more conversions in the Euro Zone !

Let’s see if it’s not a holiday browsing mood (CTR increased, not the Impressions)

[Nutterum]

@redbar - It's a "learned" behavior, as in Google is a verb in the dictionary for a decade now. People who want to search something just "google" it. They don't think about the results they are presented with. They want their answer. And more and more the product searching users are just skipping this and go to Amazon instead. Soon the rest will just go to the whatever version of recursive chat GPT or however it will be branded(yes this is already being developed by the way and yes it is a HUGE game changer) and just search there.

Let me give you a glimpse of the future, that if Google keeps this up will _not_ involve them. " GPT , I'm searching for a wedding attendance dress. The dress code is spring green. Please suggest me a dress and elegant boots combination for the occasion. " and while typing the prompt, GPT will recursive refine it adding, "do you want to add your size and leg size? Do you want new or reused? Do you want dual color or a single green dress?" and will just give you a list of products pulled from the databases of the top X e-commerce websites.

And Google will be no where in this conversation.

[BigKat]

But also most buyers only use amazon website no need to research with a search engine before! About 15-20% of buyers every year stop using a search engine!

Consumers have been corralled like sheep by Amazon with Amazon given billions in tax subsidies to help pay for their warehouses, utilities, shipping, etc. to import/store/deliver what are mostly Chinese seller's goods. What consumers Amazon doesn't capture, Google snags them and forward most of them to Amazon to keep the US Dollars flowing to China. Yet we hear in the news all the time China is a threat? If that were the case, then American politicians and regulators would do something to protect what manufacturing remains instead of continually handing out millions and billions of subsidies to the largest importer/seller of Chinese goods. I'm disgusted. Use Google for a product related search in our industry, and it's just basically a reprint of Amazon because of all the Amazon ads Google is displaying.

[RedBar]

People who want to search something just "google" it.

Believe this or not ... I was watching a "film" the other night, I think it was the new Star Trek Strange New Worlds, and for whatever reason, DuckDuckGo was referred to ... I'm fairly sure it was the episode where they went back 200+ years, nonetheless I was really surprised that DDG was mentioned. </end diversion>

[mhansen]

Google updated it's privacy policy over the weekend to include AI and LLM usage. Basically, if you publish anything online and its publicly accessible, they are going to scrape and use it for training their AI systems.

“For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities.”

Trigger meme: "All your content are belong to us!"

Link to Gizmodo article [gizmodo.com]

[ichthyous]

Google updated it's privacy policy over the weekend to include AI and LLM usage. Basically, if you publish anything online and its publicly accessible, they are going to scrape and use it for training their AI systems.

“For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities.”

Trigger meme: "All your content are belong to us!"

No, content is copyrighted when it is created. Any unique and original content is always the property of the owner. If you take the extra step of registering your work then you can get damages and attorney fees covered if you sue for infringement.

It's important to understand that Google has ZERO ownership rights to work scraped from third party sources. The recent SCOTUS case of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith has now strengthened creator rights and weakened the case that tech platforms make that stealing our work is just Fair Use...that won't work anymore. So Google Bard, OpenAI, Microsoft and all of them are wide open to being sued now and are being sued as we speak for infringement of others work via generative AI platforms. Stop seeing yourselves as perpetual victims...register your articles and images with the US copyright office or your own copyright office in your home country...it takes work and determination, but might pay off in a big way.

[mhansen]

register your articles and images with the US copyright office or your own copyright office

Any chance you have a guide, link, or a quick walk-through of doing this for multiple pages of content? I've been to the Copyright website after seeing you mention this once before and got lost within 5 minutes. :)

And thanks again for suggesting this. I've got a TM for the branding, and this is definitely needed.

Feel free to DM if it's more appropriate.

[christianz]

Google TOS are only relevant to usage of Google products. Doesn't mean anything outside of Google's products.

[ichthyous]

Any chance you have a guide, link, or a quick walk-through of doing this for multiple pages of content? I've been to the Copyright website after seeing you mention this once before and got lost within 5 minutes. :)

@mhansen The copyright office's own website explains how to register. Visual works use one application, written articles use another. It also matters whether the work is published or unpublished. In the case of photos you can submit up to 750 in one registration as long as they are created in the same year. It's more work than it used to be as you have to use their form and submit info about each work, but I don't imagine you have that many articles that you want to submit. The online system to register works is ECO: [eservice.eco.loc.gov...]

Please also consider that a copyright small claims process has been introduced which allows you to skip the courts and the attorneys and file cases against infringers directly. The awards are limited to a maximum of $30,000 instead of the typical $150,000 limit. Also, the infringer must opt in to the process, which is not often the case...so I have not used this yet. A good attorney will get you a lot further I find. You can file a claim here: [ccb.gov...]