Google Update: September 2023

[Micha]

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5092521.htm [webmasterworld.com] by brett_tabke - 7:25 pm on Sep 14, 2023 (cst -5)

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And the next update is running ... [status.search.google.com ]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 12:27 am (utc) on Sep 15, 2023]
[edit reason] Update deserved it's own thread [/edit]

[RedBar]

Fine if you are in the U.S., or want sites from the region. Importantly, if you've not got a U.S. based site you're not going to get any traffic.

Yep, localisation, something I have been writing about here for several years now. I do understand G's reasoning for it however, especially for bulk B2B importer/exporter searchers, this makes G extremely poor, I'll not say useless since drilling down can get to some semi-reasonable results, nontheless, and especially so in the USA, it currently delivers extremely skewed result.

For example I have seen the situation of #2-10 results were all the same product from the same supplier ranked at #1 BUT sold through different distributors and all were using the same image and on-page text. IF that had been an exclusive product I could understand it however it is one of the top 3 products in my industry, no one else got a look in anywhere.

[oldog]

One thing I know 100%, is that within a couple of years and when all people learn to use it....GPT will become the only trusted search...remember me....
As for those praying for Bing ....its a waste of time...

[ichthyous]

I also believe there is a psychological aspect to these updates as well. Updates typically run for two weeks. Many may see a substantial loss in traffic/sales initially for a period of time then Google returns a percentage of that lost traffic back when the update is over. In doing this Google shows us how bad it could be and leaves us relieved when most (but not all) of that traffic returns. It calms our outrage while at the same time chips away at more of our traffic. What happens between the start and end of these updates, IMO is mostly Google's profit gouging.

I have never seen such a wide swing as these past two updates. Conversions were awful, then several weeks of very high traffic with what I would consider a normal rate of conversion that I haven't seen since perhaps 2019. And then all of it reversed, big drops in very targeted sets of terms, and zero conversions for a solid week. We are left to try and make sales during very brief periods of the year, and those are becoming less often and shorter in duration as the years progress. We are at a point now where most of the year is spent in a Google stranglehold and only during very brief periods when Google stops choking the business do we get a glimpse of how many customers there really are out there.

I hope that the US govt taking action against Amazon might portend further action against Google as well, they are both new forms of monopolies, although in different ways.

[RubicCubed]

I hope that the US govt taking action against Amazon might portend further action against Google as well, they are both new forms of monopolies, although in different ways.

To me it looks like they are working together. I can't find any of the products I sell for all the Amazon ads above it. For about any product search, the cycle is mostly the same - Google displays many Amazon ads that directs consumer spending to Amazon then Amazon returns some of that money back to Google in purchasing ads. It's as if they have their own economy that most of us are excluded from.

I don't expect much action against Amazon. Look at the states that hopped onto the lawsuit. New York is suing Amazon with the FTC, despite having given them over $670 million in subsidies including the $120 million subsidized distribution center in Niagara, NY last year. All the states are likely in the same boat as NY, subsidizing Amazon, and I think their involvement is nothing more than public posturing. Nonetheless, taxpayer support is helping Amazon to pay for the many ads we see in Google for which we can't compete because we ourselves are not subsidized by the taxpayer and organic results are not viewable without scrolling.

I continue to see an erosion in traffic and the quality of that traffic from Google this Saturday. In looking at our orders, even Duck is sending more sales then Google with Yahoo and Bing above both.

[Conro]

In my opinion, Amazon and Google have an agreement. E-commerce websites find it very difficult to stay afloat because Google immediately takes them down, citing content present on other sites or content that is too short. Amazon, on the other hand, is always at the top with its advertising. Amazon's advertising on google also has a tracking ID how to the one used by affiliates

[RubicCubed]

Amazon's advertising on google also has a tracking ID how to the one used by affiliates

It's entirely possible that Google is Amazon's top earning affiliate and possibly earning much more (percentage of transaction) then other affiliates. It's also possible such an agreement between Amazon and Google doesn't use a standard Amazon tracking ID, which may help explain why Amazon is often ranked #1 in organic product searches too. As ichthyous noted, maybe something will come out with both Amazon and Google in the hot seat but I'm not counting on it.

[RedBar]

I'm curious, what type of products are Amazon promoting that quite a few of you are referring to? TVs, white goods, clothing, phones ...surely not pencil and paper? Branded / unbranded?

Personally I doubt I buy one cheap product a year from Amazon, whenever I've checked / compared A's pricing v other sources, A is never competitive or is not available, this has been very common for me in the past, however I doubt I am very representatrive of most purchasers, I buy very little!

[RubicCubed]

I'm curious, what type of products are Amazon promoting that quite a few of you are referring to?

Say the home goods item I just searched for displays 10 entries in Google without scrolling:

(6) Amazon
(2) Walmart
(2) Target

Not entirely Amazon for this specific search, but a very robust 60%.

A is never competitive

I see you are a senior member from GB. Has GB given Amazon over $6 billion in subsidies like they have here in the USA? This gives Amazon much more freedom to spend on ads, discount prices, etc. then us as competitors could ever hope for.

[ichthyous]

I continue to see an erosion in traffic and the quality of that traffic from Google this Saturday. In looking at our orders, even Duck is sending more sales then Google with Yahoo and Bing above both.

Traffic started eroding about ten days ago when the last update was announced...I noticed an immediate change in traffic patterns, or rather a reversion to the past patterns. Yesterday and today are much worse, big drops in USA traffic and also big drops to my most important landing pages and terms. I am still ranking exactly the same. The number of ads has not really changed that I can see.

I wish I had more traffic from Bing, but it's 1.5% of my search traffic. Now with Meta AI assistant on Whatsapp pulling from Bing, the Bing search might see a bump up. I used it today and I found that it bases responses on ONE single article so the responses are highly inaccurate at times. If you challenge it it just pulls another bing article...

[RedBar]

Has GB given Amazon over $6 billion in subsidies like they have here in the USA?

Precisely how much I have no idea but there have been many controversies in the UK regarding subsidies / incentives etc, there are many huge A warehouses here. One of A's biggest customers is actually the UK Govt which has drawn a lot of criticism from many different groups ... I "think" the UK Govt actually hosts all its stuff on AWS as well as buying loads of "whatever".

[swright]

This update is the biggest joke of an update I've seen so far. I thought last year's HCU in December was bad - that one wiped out ALL my competitors, including the ones with great content - but this one takes the cake. I'm seeing great sites outranked by content that is WAY WORSE. I mean if at least the outranking content was better, I'd give it to G that perhaps this update makes sense to an extent. However, the pages that moved to the top spots not only aren't better than the demoted content, but they are actually much poorer in terms of content and UX. Some of them are so poorly written that they read like spun content. They don't have better visual aids, or any at all, they don't have more information, most of them don't have any authorship information, they don't have better design, and they don't answer the query better.

And one example: I searched for "X vs. Y" and the results returned "All about X", "Guide to Y", "What are X, Y, Z". The first page that actually writes about "X vs. Y" is demoted to a 10-20 spot.

This is why people append "reddit" to their searches. Not because reddit is so great, but because the results returned are so poor and irrelevant that threads on reddit are better. And this update doesn't improve things.

[RubicCubed]

This update is the biggest joke of an update I've seen so far.

It's definitely bad, but we were hit many months ago when Google put 4 text ads above organic. #1 ranks in organic can't be viewed without scrolling, and being #1 no longer gets much traffic to even be worthwhile.

[christianz]

This update is the biggest joke of an update I've seen so far

I think we have a real candidate for worst update in history of Google. Let's see how it plays out.

[System]

The following 3 messages were cut out to new thread by not2easy. New thread at: google/5094497.htm [webmasterworld.com]
11:10 am on Oct 1, 2023 (atl -4)