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]

[RedBar]

Considering the quantity of people who are supposed to be financially struggling there seems to be a heck of a lot of them in Europe going away on much more expensive holidays / flights!

My global traffic has been flat on its back the last couple of days, this years has been like a bad movie that never ends or a continual garbage so-called reality show.

[christianz]

Google link preview

Ha ha ha. It's like they have gone full psycho and there is nobody to tell them to stop and think.

[Dooku]

Many articles on this "lawyer get's fined for using non existing precedents made up by chatgpt" already, but this one is more relevant also to google besides Chatgpt, and the way multinational monopolists think:
[theguardian.com...]

Employees of such tech companies can not say "ich habe es nicht gewusst", we are way past that point now. As member Chritianz already said....they are completely psychotic now and will stop at nothing to destroy millions of small businesses just to fulfill shareholder value.

[RedBar]

For me global sites are dead, not yet in their death throes however if September were to be like this then I would say the genera public interest in my products will be negligible. Genuine real-world specifying / purchasing businesses are still using the sites for their informational purposes.

UK localised sites are mostly doing ok and surviving however higher-priced ticket items in the UK STG 1-5K range have slowed considerably. Socialising is evidently still a priority which is a bonus..

[ichthyous]

And another huge 54% drop in USA traffic this morning...you can watch it dropping in a straight line down hour by hour and see exactly at what time the change took place. Only USA and Canada which is at 0 visits today.

From what I see this is due to the new 6x9 page layout expanding to more searches. Using 54 image links to throw such a huge array of results at people that nobody will get any traffic. Wherever it is being used my traffic has dropped 70-80%. For example, where I was ranking in the top five "one-column" text results previously, now my site is just one of 54 image links...and what is worse, the new results don't actually reflect the text link rank very closely, with some unranked sites on the top row and the ranked sites shifting around.

I have some searches where my site appears 4-5x out of 54 results and all of the traffic is still gone for these searches. It is clearly being rotated, judging from the massive day-to-day (or intraday) swings in traffic for each result. Google's AI is testing and comparing layouts. If it drives higher revenue for Google it will become the new norm and spread to more results very soon.

The question is, how does this really help Google? My hunch is that Google prefers to randomize the results rather than having the same sites dominate due to their content, link profile, age, or quality. If some of those top sites aren't running adsense (like my site) then it's just a loss for google if people click out to them. Better to trick and confuse people into clicking randomly and eventually more sites running ads will just percolate to the top of these results. Google doesn't care which site is actually getting the traffic, only that it's running ads.

[ichthyous]

they are completely psychotic now and will stop at nothing to destroy millions of small businesses just to fulfill shareholder value.

AI has been a dream for generations and is now here. It is going to displace a lot of jobs and a lot of people will lose out because of it, but there is no way to stop progress. What is going to happen for sure is that the US government is going to crack down hard and start regulating the tech giants. It's a long time in coming, but even their hordes of lobbyists and flood of campaign contributions won't be able to stop that. The public is very quickly beginning to see these companies as a threat, and that's about to get a lot worse when the jobs dry up due to AI.

As for the content creators...the soon to be a torrent of lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft, Google et al over their outright theft of copyrighted work for generative AI may result in some form of solution, but in my experience these solutions are usually just a fraction of the former revenue. It's ironic that Getty images is one of the first to sue OpenAI and MS here, since Getty singlehandedly destroyed a very profitable stock photo industry due to its own greed.

[RedBar]

@ichthyous

I'm going to link to a post I made this morning and wondering what has happened. Look at the date where this suddenly happened, the end of November 2022 ... What happened about then? ChatGPT, is this one of the reasons for USA interaction?

[webmasterworld.com...]

Something happened, ChatGPT, consumer confidence, why such a huge change in the USA?

[superclown2]

I'm getting initial clicks on 'page 2 - 3' minor pages now; and they are converting well. Has the Great British Public realised at last that Page 1 with all it's googlespam is a mess and a waste of time?

[ichthyous]

I'm going to link to a post I made this morning and wondering what has happened. Look at the date where this suddenly happened, the end of November 2022 ... What happened about then? ChatGPT, is this one of the reasons for USA interaction?

@Redbar I just checked my stats for the last year. It's stable at 65% desktop 35% mobile the entire time. Desktop traffic has dropped since May while mobile is steady...that's just summer I believe. I have no idea why you are seeing what you're seeing, but it seems impossible to me. Maybe statcounter is not tracking correctly?

[Martin Ice Web]

Yesterday was a complete off day. Today lots of mobil traffic from all over the world. All one-hit-wonders.

[Priyank Shah]

Hi, I am also seeing my website impressions going down literally 50% from July 26 to July 29. Can anyone tell me if this is still happening with any of you?

[RedBar]

@ichthyous

I have no idea why you are seeing what you're seeing, but it seems impossible to me.

These are Statcounter's overall, combined global metrics, not mine, if you check back on their previous USA yearly stats you will see that desktop and mobile tracked each other around the 48% mark, sometimes more destop sometimes more mobile, until the end of November 2022 when desktop surges into its now more than double lead in June 2023.

The most significant computing "event" I can think of at that time was ChatGPT.

[Dooku]

The most significant computing "event" I can think of at that time was ChatGPT

Maybe that increase is due to the use of many chatgpt plugins that are used to go online and perform all kinds of tasks on web pages?

[RedBar]

@Dooku ... My initial thoughts too but why only the USA? All other countries have continued within their normal ranges including next door neighbour Canada ... I am truly perplexed at the moment.

[rogrmartn]

Friends

Google Not Showing All the keywords for my website Since 31st July 2023

[RubicCubed]

What is going to happen for sure is that the US government is going to crack down hard and start regulating the tech giants.

American politicians are too old to understand technology. The average age in the House of Representatives is 57.9 and 64 in the Senate. Imagine calling on Senator Feinstein to lead a committee on AI and what a mess that would be. These career politicians haven't done anything for themselves in years with some likely requiring help getting dressed. Considering how wealthy many of these career politicians became after entering public service, I think they will do what they do best - position themselves to get rich at the expense of everyone else.

[superclown2]

What is going to happen for sure is that the US government is going to crack down hard and start regulating the tech giants.

Unfortunately I'm not convinced of that, the power of USA 'lobbyists' is great and their pockets are deep.

However the EU Digital Markets Act comes into force later this year and no amount of 'campaign contributions' and future job promises will stop it.

[not2easy]

New thread for August is open: [webmasterworld.com...]