September 2023 Google Search Observations

[mosxu]

So you guys you don’t spend in ads much? The cheese is moving even more if you spend on ads!

[edited by: not2easy at 6:49 pm (utc) on Sep 1, 2023]
[edit reason] New month, new thread [/edit]

[Micha]

@Martin Ice Web

I talked to some German store owners yesterday and they all said exactly the same thing you are reporting here. I see this in a friend's store as well. If you search specifically for products he has on offer, complete nonsense appears on the first page of Google (after the even more nonsensical advertising).

[superclown2]

I don't know if others have noticed this already but I'm seeing PAA now labelled 'Others Want To Know' (they may well do: I don't) on desktop. This seems to go on for ever and it's full of stuff that's hardly relevant to the search term I put in, so I scroll right past all four blocks of it; which means I completely miss the first two genuine SERPs, which are hidden between the ads (which fill a full screen on my monitor) and the 'OWTK'. So: to me the third real search result is the first one I look at.

What a mess this once-brilliant search engine has become.

[Conro]

@superclown2 probably google remove the paa and use owtk. All is for new search and new clic to ads 🤮

[Martin Ice Web]

Yeah, if google search would go through their own algo it would probably not reach the end because i is so spammy and full of ads.

Oh, hold my beer, that is just what the current algo spits out.

[ErrlyBird]

Anyone else seeing massive traffic drops on SEMrush? Not seeing drastic changes in traffic on UA.

[tom_010101]

What I don't understand is, if Google really 'kills' the 'relevant websites', then Adsense should hardly run anymore and consequently Adwords too, since no one would book ads anymore, right?

[Conro]

@tom_010101 for Google adsense and adwords is necessary a intermediary or all is "for trust". You have trust in google? I not

[RedBar]

no one would book ads anymore, right?

Wrong, G is already a classified ads site and many users seem to accept it as such therefore those advertisers paying to be there will continue paying IF they get a return on their investment.

The big difference between traditional newspaper and online classified ads is that online the effectiveness can be evaluated so much more accurately.

[mhansen]

Anyone else seeing massive traffic drops on SEMrush?

I've seen roughly a 25% increase in exposure in SEMRush since this latest update began (SEMR reporting tends to lag real-world), and looking through GSC it's a 34% increase in impressions, and 13% increase in CTR.

Note: I only measured a 4 day period from US Labor Day through Friday (9/5 - 9/8) and compared it to the same weekdays before the update was announced. (A Tues-Fri in mid-August).

[BigKat]

G is already a classified ads site and many users seem to accept it as such therefore those advertisers paying to be there will continue paying IF they get a return on their investment.

And with a limited number of advertisers, all selling similar rebranded products in our industry, shoppers will continue to search elsewhere. Hopefully some of these shoppers will realize Google's search results are the thin spammy pages I and others see them as. I have and will continue pruning products from our free Google product feed. Being a manufacturer and retailer, I'm sure our prices will increase because of Google's games which will also be passed along to taxpayers as we also sell B2G.

Nothing is really new for us since the core update. SERPS for product queries require scrolling to see organic results. Between text ads and product ads visible, shoppers have 4 companies to choose from with Amazon consuming the largest percentage of these ads.

[mhansen]

SERPS for product queries

My wife has had a small single product-type wholesale site for roughly 15 years, selling a specific type of product to boutique retailers, but only in bulk since she is a wholesaler and doesn't mess around with single item sales. She's never been into SEO and gets a majority of her traffic from her own FB groups, Insta, repeat buyers and other social media venues where she is active.

I have however, kept watch on the organic traffic and over the last 2 years she's seen nearly all organic traffic to her site dry up, even though it appears well positioned in SERP's, and even when people search for very specific things, adding her business name to the query. The reason (that I came to) is that Google no longer cares about the query match and shows the user what it wants them to find. If someone searches for "her business + wholesale + product-type", she gains the organic #1 position, but after the full page of ads, then very well mixed into the rest of the product ads for the "product-type".

I handle PPC for a client who's in a specific SaaS market, and over the same period, Google no longer allows us to target the [exact match] of their business name with their specific SaaS product or product type. Even when someone searches for their exact brand + their 25 yr branded software, their ads do not show unless we also target the broad match version of the sotware-type with an ad to spawn the higher cost PPC ads.

Basically, Google knows where it's money is and will always defer to that stream above all else, including the users and what they really want. Kind of like a grocery store putting the highest profit margin items at eye level.

[ErrlyBird]

@mhansen

It appears to be industry wide for my niche. All competitors have taken the plunge as well. Firearms niche. Im talking 30+% drops industry wide.

[mhansen]

@Errlybird -

I have a client (SEO and site management only, WordPress/WooCommerce) in the same market (firearm accessories) who saw an 8% gain in SEMR, slightly more in GA4. The site is SLOW due to heavy graphics, video, etc. They do have a heavy YT presence as well. US based.

[renatovieira]

Veeeery slow today....

[Fluff_Nutz]

I can only agree with everyone else. I thought last Thursday was the worst day for traffic but nope. Despite constantly publishing new content, Monday seems to be real slow and I am probably right in saying it will be the worst day of the month, thus far. For me anyway. Very slow and disappointing. It's funny because last Monday was the best day of the month. What a complete turn around in a... negative direction. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[Martin Ice Web]

this last core update for sure targeted transactional queries and explicit traffic to unique seller items has completly vanished. ( bad for users).
For now we are seeing amazon sales rising and rising since the core update.

As a user i don´t like the UI from google anymore. It is confusing and littered with unimportant "subcontent". with all the ads and stupid content between the results it feels more like i am on "Bild" website.

[RubicCubed]

For now we are seeing amazon sales rising and rising since the core update.

I would expect this as Amazon captures most of the traffic and sales from Google search results that are mostly Amazon ads with organic results hidden deep below the ads.

[jellyfish]

Something definitely occurred at the very end of the Core update, if SEMrush competitor data in my niche is to be believed, some sites experienced up to 60% organic traffic reduction. Few sites have appeared to recover yet too. It appeared to target independent sites including larger independent sites too, however the giants/brands of my niche barely moved. For my site, it has seen a 25% organic traffic drop from the 8-11th Sep, which has yet to recover.

[RedBar]

IMHO this update is not yet quite finished, some things still seem to be rolling-out / finalising. I say that simply because I am not seeing consistent traffic compared to pre-update, I'm still seeing unusual spikes and troughs.

For our UK venue site traffic for September so far v August is at 80% BUT is at 110% v September 2022. Sept is always an unpredictable month after school holidays and back to work etc. Some of our other localised UK sites are seeing very simllar yet no disaster zones as yet.

For my main global site multiple page views have been improving with overall PVs incresing BUT I have seen some periods of almost zero traffic when this site would traditionally be extremely busy thus making me feel the update is not yet completed across all data centres.

[mosxu]

I notice traffic on brand name being played with!
Almost half of branded traffic is filled with secret ingredients now!

[mhansen]

IMHO this update is not yet quite finished, some things still seem to be rolling-out / finalising. I say that simply because I am not seeing consistent traffic compared to pre-update, I'm still seeing unusual spikes and troughs.

If I recall, right in the midst of the core update, Google also rolled out SGE to several other countries. (India, Japan, etc). It's likely that anything with a global flavor is going to be seeing some unpredictable metrics due to the SGE adoption of others outside the USA.

From Google [blog.google], August 30th - SGE rolls out to Japan and India.

[RedBar]

Aha ... Good point, the majority of my business is Eurasia, Middle East, Far East and, interestingly, I had an Australian 50+ PVs this morning, the first from there since the update.

[ichthyous]

Traffic has continued to increase considerably this month. I haven't seen traffic like this in years. Search was up 112% and direct traffic was up 68% yesterday...it's been increasing for almost two weeks now:
[ibb.co ]

I have been focusing on adding new content since last fall, and my Domain Authority has increased to 50 according ahrefs, which is the highest it has ever been...I imagine that is why the jumps up.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today...

[tom_010101]

On my page its Google discover, its since the update very very Low...

[Conro]

Today + 2000 keywords but - 8% of traffic. Mah

[Fluff_Nutz]

10,000 keywords and currently -35% of traffic. I win..

There is definitely no way these clowns are done with their never ending update. Too much fluctuation. AGAIN. Every single update my site is hit with a downward spiral.

[ichthyous]

Maybe you guys are trying to cover too many keywords with content that isn't very focused? I mean how can you possibly be relevant across 10,000 keywords? Who is gaining the traffic you are losing, smaller sites with a narrower thematic focus, or mega publisher sites with huge authority?

[Fluff_Nutz]

Meh I just suffer with a lack of patience. In truth, my older content is terrible. No SEO. Some even had 30 words to an article. Embarrassing really. Alas though I know a lot LOT more than I ever did before. It's my own fault. But to answer your question, I am in a very highly competitive niche. I have tried others but alas, this current niche is the only one that interests me. I need to learn patience more than anything. It is my Achilles heel.

Funny though as I started to learn more about blogging I actually ended up doing rather well. Nailing upwards of £3,000 in one month working solo. Still my highest accomplishment. What took the wind out of my sails was the October 2022 update. I was depressed after that, lost 80% of the traffic. Was almost about to quit. Abandoned the website for several months. Lost my DA, which at the time was around 47. Now it is at a mere DA 9.

I also tried something different and finally recruited some writers. It wasn't really working but one of these workers is very consistent. Through her I learn to keep battling on. I now plan to go back to how I did things before October but with additional help, instead of going solo. I think we were a bit slow to begin with. Our articles were not drawing attention as we were too slow. See how things go from here on. But yes, patience is required massively. I just suck at it.

[Fluff_Nutz]

This site seems glitchy, can't even edit my last post. On top of that I can't even give others thumbs up, it just tells me to login. But I'm already logged in O.o Is this something to do with being a 'New User'?. Don't even know if my last post is even showing since I can't even edit it. Very glitchy on my end. Yet, with one of my other posts I could edit it just fine.

Anyway I might want to retract my last message anyway, regardless if it exists or not, as I don't think its competition. Yes, it is a highly competitive niche but the drop I just received in traffic seems very much more Google related. Knew they had not finished messing around. Oh it's finished now, yeah right! Finished yesterday on -20%. Definitely smells more of Google.

[christianz]

Huge drop today...

Same for me today.

[Fluff_Nutz]

So if this is Google messing around, which it likely is. Then this means that their 'so called update' has last over a month. Longer than their proposed 2 weeks. I say this because before I joined this glitched messageboard/forum I remember losing 15% traffic. Done research and noticed I was not alone. A few days later G announced the update and now we are still going through it. Its mental. I'll admit I haven't been blogging for long but it all feels like a joke.

Today, like those above me, I am once again suffering a loss of traffic. It continues in the usual downhill trend. I'm beginning to wonder if this is related to their court case, hmm..

[Micha]

@Fluu_Nutz This has nothing to do with litigation.

It's mainly due to the increasing number of ads, etc. that are displayed before the organic results. Also, Google relies more and more on AI and therefore tries to rank websites by authority, which leads to a ranking drop especially for smaller websites.

See Helpful Content: well-researched articles rank better. That Google's assessment is not so good, however, can be seen when you look at the first page, a lot of what ranks well there is simply nonsense.

[RedBar]

Tuesday my traffic was beginning to look more normal with my page view ratios of 1:2.3 until UK 17.00, then I had a 12 hour period until 05.00 this morning with every site visitor on a 1:1 ratio, since 05.00 it has returned to 1:2.3

Bear in mind that UK 17.00 is 12.00 EDT therefore my lowest traffic period for 12 hours was US prime time for me! Barmy, utterly barmy!

[RareBit]

We are bouncing all over the place today. 4th, 2nd, back to 4th, 3rd.. I am hoping it's just the post update shuffle..

[RedBar]

I am hoping it's just the post update shuffle..

Oh, the update that's completed you mean? :-)

[Micha]

So until 4pm today was really bad, but since then the visitor numbers have literally exploded. Is Google playing the update game again?

[Fluff_Nutz]

Don't think they ever stopped tbh. But yes, for most of today the traffic has been slow and poor. Had a sudden spike this past hour but really doubt it will last.

[mhansen]

I was browsing Twitter and saw someone post about a huge improvement on their site with results of a 1-word query, sharing a GSC screenshot. Since they included the query in the image, I decided to see if I could find their site at the listed 1.8 position. In using the single word to search Google, I assumed their site was likely in the PAA section so that is where I clicked. The title of the PAA was "What is [onewordquery] 1 About?"

When I clicked that PAA, Google showed an answer from "itself". When I clicked it again within the content, it brought me right back to another search result page, showing slightly different results that the previous one, but again, loaded with more ads.

They linked to a different search query and it's results directly within the PAA, or as they are now called, "Others want to know".

Has anyone seen this before?

[l1fejosh]

Yesterday, seen a nice increase of converting traffic.

Today, traffic has dropped nearly 50% with no converting traffic.

[superclown2]

Is Google playing the update game again?

They seem to be testing layouts, at least over here (I'm near London). The huge OWTK has, at the moment, gone, a short PAA is back, and there is a long scroll of 60 or so SERPs (including the usual ads and junk) showing favicons on desktop Chrome. Firefox, which I never saw OWTK on, is showing the usual layout. So, I reckon it's just a temporary blip whilst they work out how to squeeze even more money before the axe falls.

[Dooku]

The huge OWTK has, at the moment, gone, a short PAA is back

Currently at my location and also using VPN at several US cities I see "More to Ask" instead of PPA or OWTK.

[Martin Ice Web]

big drop over night. Again about 50%. That makes a total of -82% since this update ( that is not over again or is now beeing adjusted ) And again low content sites are gaining rankings.

I hope that the bad charma will strike back....

[Dooku]

For anyone wanting to see the current volatility of google I have compiled 9 google algo tracking tools
You can copy and paste the simple code below into a Notepad file and then change it's file extension from txt to cmd.
So for example save it as serpflux.cmd (or whatever) to your desktop.
When you run it, the file will open Firefox with 9 tabs opening all the tools.
This is good to get a feel of the current google algo state and flux and to compare it with your own traffic stat tools.
You will quickly see trends and recognize what is going on when comparing these.


@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
start "Firefox!" "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -url "https://moz.com/mozcast/" -url "https://mangools.com/insights/serp" -url "https://www.advancedwebranking.com/google-algorithm-changes/" -url "https://algoroo.com/" -url "https://www.rankranger.com/rank-risk-index" -url "https://serpmetrics.com/flux/" -url "https://www.semrush.com/sensor/" -url "https://www.accuranker.com/grump/" -url "https://www.brightlocal.com/free-local-seo-tools/local-rankflux/"

[christianz]

big drop over night. Again about 50%.

Yes. We are finally seeing the business end of the August update.

[shadowlight]

Huge drop for me for past few days, I am now seeing this layout:

AD
AD
AD
AD
Organic
PAA
Organic
Organic
Organic
AD

50% of the first 10 positions devoted to ADs. First time I've ever seen 5 ads in the top ten, disregarding the product ad carousel when that shows up. This is only up to halfway on the first page, that is if you can even call it that anymore.

Was browsing other sections of the forum and someone reporting adsense clawing back 99% monthly earnings and someone else reporting adwords completely ignoring their CPC and charging them over 5X their max CPC amount per click, then refusing to refund. G have the audacity to then talk about trustworthiness. Slightly off topic I know but ties in with the whole cash grab we see in the SERPS.

Must be desperate to increase their quarterly/yearly profits.

[superclown2]

First time I've ever seen 5 ads in the top ten, disregarding the product ad carousel when that shows up.

I've seen that here in the UK for a while now - plus a block of youtube videos (all packed with ads of course). This really is becoming ridiculous.

Still, according to a Google spokesman it's quite easy to change your default search engine (if you can still call Google that) in four clicks. What a shame most people (including me probably!) would really struggle with finding the first link, let alone all four.

[RedBar]

I've seen that here in the UK for a while now - plus a block of youtube videos (all packed with ads of course).

Yep, I've been seeing similar all this year and have posted about it at least two times, maybe three. The strange thing is that the first organic is quite often not even noticeable with the #2 organic often being perceived as #1.

[BigKat]

Huge drop for me for past few days, I am now seeing this layout:

AD
AD
AD
AD
Organic
PAA
Organic
Organic
Organic
AD

Sadly we've been dealing with this ad layout for months, so don't expect it to go away and don't expect to get much organic traffic either. As I and others have predicted, Google will expand these ad spam layouts to other queries, industries and countries. Google has to offset the losses from advertisers leaving them, as my company has, and ad spam is the only trick Google has in their magic hat.

[RedBar]

It's coming up to UK 18.00 time with traffic today having been consistent however very low in volume.