August 2023 Google Search Observations

[RedBar]

Like many here my global overall traffic was down in July but looking at my metrics today very interestingly my Unique Visitors were at my 2023 average.

Is anyone else seeing this, i.e. page views per visitor were substantially less? Mine was -15%.

[superclown2]

Bing traffic is laughable at this point, I don't even bother to check.

I agree, I've seen no evidence of them increasing their market share substantially, despite their use of AI, but their conversion rate has stayed satisfactory, whilst that for inquiries via Google generic has nosedived, from an already low level. I put a lot of this down to the huge new PAA and other junk that they pollute the SERPs with, most of which is scarcely relevant to any but the most simple queries - in my UK vertical at least.

Google has either forgotten - or never learned - the KISS principle.

[Markedd]

Do any of you feel like Google is just .. less nowadays? Less images available, less websites shown. The exact phrase searching no longer works. They really severely limited the processing power at their server level when compared to the results we used to get like a few months ago, let alone years ago. I am curious if the general public will notice it.

[RubicCubed]

Do any of you feel like Google is just .. less nowadays? Less images available, less websites shown.

This depends how you look at it. Google is much more these days when it comes to ads, ads and more ads. Less images and less websites shown means more room for, you guessed it, more ads. It makes me wonder just how Google would squeeze AI into all the ads without losing all the revenue they get from ad spamming. Could it be we are in the early stages of the launch of a premium paid Google search option that gives users some control of the SERP layout when logged in so they can actually find what they are looking for without being spammed to death? I could see a paid service giving users a control panel to disable ads, the People Also Ask nonsense, Autocomplete and so forth. Who would even pay for such a service besides webmasters and SEOs?

You ask will the general public notice, and I think that likely depends on who is searching and what they are searching for. I think Google to a large degree dumbed down their search results over the years which has also dumbed down searchers to continually lower their expectations and condition them to accept Google's ad spam. I mean a People Also Ask box is present in the SERPS because Google thinks searchers are simply too stupid to enter a query to search for? We too, as webmasters and SEOs, have been dumbed down and conditioned to expect less as well. Look at me, I'm still talking about Google even though they don't send us sales anymore. But I'm reaching the end of this rope and plan on slipping out of Google's noose soon...

[RedBar]

Do any of you feel like Google is just .. less nowadays?

Not only less but also much slower to rank anything other than approved news headlines.

For several years DDG has been my default SE however I do know there are certain subjects that DDG doesn't even try to filter whereas G still does a pretty good job for that specific seach.

Does Joe Public notice it? We've now had 25+ years of public www usage, the first 5 years were realistically the geeks and interested public ... Initially most people were interested in so much information however these days it is very evident that more are interested in their social claptrap than informational education.

Obviously Google knows where the traffic is going these days and I very much doubt they'll tell any of us however does the slower ranking and lesser information actually indicate this in reality? Why spend lots of time, effort and money on delivering a relevant SERPs when so many advertisers are prepared to spend their budgets on G Ads ... In reality classified ads are the first page if you need anything different go to pages 2, 3 and 4 ... I'll bet G's data shows the majority do not leave page 1.

[RubicCubed]

I'll bet G's data shows the majority do not leave page 1.

I'll go one step further, I bet G's data shows the majority don't even scroll beyond the ads. I base this on historical data where we receive 90% less Google organic traffic from top ranks we've held for years.

[ichthyous]

I'll go one step further, I bet G's data shows the majority don't even scroll beyond the ads. I base this on historical data where we receive 90% less Google organic traffic from top ranks we've held for years.

I still think most people will avoid the ads if possible, but I have also seen these kinds of drops. From my observation it's usually when Google is using the new grid layout of presenting results...if you are ranking in the top 3-5 your site just gets lost in the incoherent jumble of thumbnail cards now and you get no traffic at all. Also, if you have an image carousel with your page result and Google suddenly takes it away, down goes traffic. This is due to the huge visual clutter...people's brains seek out anything on the page that might stand out or seem more prominent and image carousels do that.

Google went from squeezing everyone to death last year to see how they can force us all to pay for nonperforming junk ads, to this new strategy which is working better. The new strategy is to jumble the results and place so many ads that they confuse people into clicking on ads when they don't intend to. That is great for Google's revenue, and the user probably doesn't care which site they end up on, but the businesses paying for ads are getting screwed royally by all the misdirected clicks. Eventually, this will cause many advertisers to pull their ads, starting with the most cost-conscious businesses who watch everything, and moving up the chain until Google is only left with huge businesses that can afford to waste money on ads just to make sure they have every single platform covered by their marketing plan.

[RubicCubed]

The new strategy is to jumble the results and place so many ads that they confuse people into clicking on ads when they don't intend to. That is great for Google's revenue, and the user probably doesn't care which site they end up on, but the businesses paying for ads are getting screwed royally by all the misdirected clicks.

Advertisers aren't the only ones paying for Google's confused users. We're more likely to get some of the dumbest calls you could imagine from a potential customer coming from Google. Imagine a call from a guy saying he searched for "product" on Google and all he found was our product and wants to know if it would be good for "specific application." Now we can see where he is on the site and ask him to read the third sentence in the first paragraph of the product description which says this product is for use with his "specific application" only.

My favorite typical confused Google user calls and says "I found your product in Google and wonder if you have one for specific application." Now they could have just went to our store and found it on the storefront, or searched our site, but that would require too much effort/sense from a user Google has dumbed down with poor and ad spammed search results. Now instead of helping this user find the product page, I help this user to discover the obvious - there are better search results than Google's. I take the extra effort to stay with the potential customer as I have them search on Bing or Yahoo where our product is ranked at the top. Even Yandex ranks the correct page for this user's search phrase. Google could do it too, but answering the search accurately would mean less clicks on their ads.

We don't have to run ads on Google to get screwed royally trying to assist and even de-program users Google has confused to death. But if we were running ads, it would cost us even more to service Google's users who tend to need more hand holding and have a greater rate of returns. Honestly, I am my wits end with the poor quality from Google that includes their users. Just because we have a real phone number, and answer it, doesn't mean it's our job and expense to de-program Google's users which goes well beyond good customer service in many cases.

[superclown2]

The exact phrase searching no longer works. They really severely limited the processing power at their server level when compared to the results we used to get like a few months ago, let alone years ago. I am curious if the general public will notice it.

That only seems to be the case on Chrome (at least here, on my multiple computers in the UK). Ditto image search. I find that I can use them on FF and Opera with no problem. I also don't get the huge and useless PAA. Result? FF is now my default browser and I probably use Opera more than Chrome.

Long tail searches do of course use more processing power than throwing up plain vanilla ads but with their profits they should be able to afford to provide the results that people are looking for.

I wonder what on earth is going through their minds at Google? Is this deliberate or just incompetence? Come back Altavista, all is forgiven.

[oldog]

My traffic in July was almost 150% increased versus same time last year, it helped I recon tje continuous updates I do in high ranking topics

[Martin Ice Web]

worst weekend this year looking at 30% of traffic in realation to a "normal" weekend. But it was clear after friday was a very low day too.
Today started with 25% of "normal" traffic.

I wonder what on earth is going through their minds at Google? Is this deliberate or just incompetence? Come back Altavista, all is forgiven.

If you look at marketshare then you know what is going on. And 80% of the poeple donīt even realize that they click on ads.

[EditorialGuy]

And 80% of the poeple donīt even realize that they click on ads.

Or maybe they just don't care. In the heyday of Yellow Pages telephone books, people were happy to rely on whatever was most noticeable, whether it was a free business name and number listing or--more likely--a prominent ad.

In Steven Levy's 2011 book, IN THE PLEX, Levy quotes people at Google saying that ads are information. Google may feel that a "sponsored" result can be just as useful for a searcher as an organic result, if only because advertisers think their ads are highly relevant to specific keywords or keyphrases and are willing to say so with their wallets. (Don't get me wrong: I miss the days when a SERP meant "10 blue links," but times change--and not always for the better.)

[superclown2]

Or maybe they just don't care. In the heyday of Yellow Pages telephone books, people were happy to rely on whatever was most noticeable, whether it was a free business name and number listing or--more likely--a prominent ad.

Yes. Back in the old days of the Yellow Pages here in the UK it was interesting to see how many business names began with 'Aardvark' or 'A1' then it got really silly with names like 'AAAAAA1 Able Plumbers' and suchlike until Thomson put their foot down and insisted on businesses using their registered names. People assumed that what came first was best and it continues now with Google's ads. It's wrong but it's human nature.

[BigKat]

In Steven Levy's 2011 book, IN THE PLEX, Levy quotes people at Google saying that ads are information. Google may feel that a "sponsored" result can be just as useful for a searcher as an organic result, if only because advertisers think their ads are highly relevant to specific keywords or keyphrases and are willing to say so with their wallets.

Around the same time CNBC aired a special story on Google's advertising touting how great it was for businesses to pay only $0.05 a click to get targeted visitors. Fast forward 12 years and the landscape is much different, with Google having a greater stranglehold over the digital advertising market and those advertisers now paying $1+ per click if they want any traffic. Digital moves too quickly for what was said even a few years ago to apply to the current day. AFAIC, that CNBC story and the book you quoted are relics that belong in the Smithsonian.

[superclown2]

Google may feel that a "sponsored" result can be just as useful for a searcher as an organic result, if only because advertisers think their ads are highly relevant to specific keywords or keyphrases and are willing to say so with their wallets.

That may have had some merit back in the days when Google actually tried to show results that matched the search terms that the visitor typed in. Now they are accused (no doubt unfairly, because as we know they do no evil) that they simply show the results that make them the most money, and which they think the visitors, or at least most of them, will be reasonably satisfied with.

Advertisers are there to try to make a return on their investments. I've no doubt that many of them are fully aware that their ads are scarcely relevant to many of the exact search terms that are inputted, and that there are websites out there which are more likely to satisfy the visitor, but as always what matters is the bottom line. This is particularly the case with large companies with big advertising budgets to burn through.

[RedBar]

My global traffic for Monday was my 2023 average which was a pleasant change however whatever happened at 01.00 UK time? My traffic fell off the cliff edge and after 9+ hours I've had only 20% of average whereas I would normally expect at least 50%.

[ichthyous]

@Redbar...I saw the exact same thing happen at 9am EST on Monday. Traffic was humming after a fairly decent Saturday and Sunday. At 9am the traffic dropped off a cliff and stayed down the entire day until 4pm, then one peak and down again until the late eve. This was a reversion to whatever was causing very low traffic for the past two weeks, with the exact same pattern of drops across a wide range of high-traffic terms. Today my most visited landing pages are at -51%, -71%, and -83%. All of these same pages were up strongly this weekend. Most of the drop is in USA/CA traffic, and UAE has been down for weeks as well.

My ranking has not changed much and these huge drops are also not always correlating with page layout changes. In the last two weeks I was seeing 80% drops to landing pages that had the same placement and the page layout was not stuffed beyond the normal number of 4 sponsored ads at top. Summer vaca explains some of it, but not all of it...it's a bit of a mystery why these pages are dropping so much.

[renatovieira]

Yesterday, drop. Today, big drop....

[BigKat]

That may have had some merit back in the days when Google actually tried to show results that matched the search terms that the visitor typed in.

Back in 2011 Schmidt was still around, and I think Larry Page took over. Unfortunately with the old guard gone, along with their original values/vision, we're now forced to survive under the brutal reign of Sundar Pichai.

Advertisers are there to try to make a return on their investments.

Sundar should be on his way out soon, or at least I hope. Bing is crushing Google's ad growth, even with Sundar making the SERPS nothing but ads (USA product searches). The more Sundar devalues the SERPS with ads, which is reducing the ROI for advertisers, the faster advertisers will leave and place downward pressure on Google's ad revenue.

[System]

The following message was cut out to new thread by not2easy. New thread at: google/5091647.htm [webmasterworld.com]
1:27 pm on Aug 15, 2023 (atl -4)

[mosxu]

Big surprise in earnings reporting last month! I did not know people click on ads more when on vacation!

[BigKat]

I did not know people click on ads more when on vacation!

Google made sure there is nothing else to click on but ads. ;)

[ichthyous]

Traffic has improved this week, albeit with some very odd cliff-drops and surges. I am seeing a lot of traffic from India, it has become my 2nd or 3rd largest referrer some days. I already have India on a managed challenge from Cloudflare, but this traffic will never convert into sales and the copyright infringements of my work in India are mounting by the day...you can forget ever pursing that in India. I did receive one valid client request from the country pre-pandemic (from a huge corp conglomerate there) but it's not a source of leads or customers. I hate to block a huge source of young fans and also a country which is minting millionaires by the day, but is there really any value to traffic from India when the negatives are factored in? Have any of you blocked India?

[gatormark]

And 80% of the people donīt even realize that they click on ads.

This is 100% true; people no longer have the attention span to read beyond a few bullet points. I was a user experience engineer for the top HR and Payroll company in the United States for over a decade. The contrast between what we, as developers, assume and the reality of the user experience is unbelievable. It is even worse today than when I was in the UX industry. I get emails from people in my whiskey website community, thinking I'm the owner of a distillery because I have displayed and reviewed a product on my website.

Frankly, I am afraid my informational websites and communities are going the way of the dinosaur. I have yet to move to the video arena.

[ichthyous]

Not all of us want to watch videos. Perhaps it's a generational thing but I never seek out videos unless I can't find a written article. Videos are annoying...the youtubers make them intentionally long in order to keep people watching and the amount of ads is annoying. Half the time the video doesn't explain what it pretends to be all about and you click out half way through it. I do find some channels to be a viable alternative to the brainless TV programming out there...if you like watching science, history, design and other topics there is an endless supply and plenty of it is good enough. So I consume long form videos more on relax time and as background noise, and they tend to be from larger media sources like BBC, DW or very established YT channels

[gatormark]

@ichthyous

Yes, it is generational, and even the older crowd is being groomed in this direction. Whether we like it or not, it's reality and to survive, we need to adjust. We don't want to be typewriter repair men.

[gatormark]

@ichthyous

Also, I think of the money I was making 10 years ago. Much of that ad spending is now being spent in places other than informational text websites. Just from 2017 to 2022 Global YouTube advertising revenue has gone from 8.1 billion to 29.2 billion.

[ichthyous]

@gatormark There's no doubt that ad revenue has shifted to video and social media in general. But if you don't actually run ads on your site and sell a product instead, people are still finding you online at your website. Social media really doesn't work that well when it comes to higher priced items. I haven't tried youtube but I know that I should be working on it...it requires a lot of resources and time to produce good video content and if your time is spent on creating new products and staying at the top of search there is no time left. It requires a team.

[gatormark]

@ichthyous

Yeah, we have to wear many hats or pay people. For ten years, AdSense paid all of my bills. I lived the life! Now, I'm on the financial borderline. So, I'll be learning new video production skills.

[ichthyous]

Once again today a total halt in USA traffic from 11am to almost 4pm so far. On Monday it was 9am to 4pm. Last week the same. Almost down to zero usa traffic during these hours...anyone else seeing this as well?

[BigKat]

Almost down to zero usa traffic during these hours

Can't say I see any up hours for us, but see the halt in USA traffic pretty much every hour of every day for months. The suppression from excessive ads is ridiculous. To make up for the lack of traffic, Google does crawl our product pages heavily. For example, an unpopular product page has been crawled by Gbot 11 times today and there's still about eight hours left in the day. It's almost like Google knows they aren't sending squat for traffic but wants us to remind us Google is still alive.