October 2023 Google Search Observations

[Cyril TechWebsites]

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System: The following 3 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5093320.htm [webmasterworld.com] by not2easy - 11:10 am on Oct 1, 2023 (atl -4)

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Seeing further drastical drop on Saturday. I stopped producing new content and updating the old content. There is no sense anymore for me, feeling awful to say that, but my website was fully destroyed with the "helpful" update.

[christianz]

I wouldn't make any assumptions about the results yet..we are still seeing movement and usually do until a week after the update has finished.

Well, if for the past 10-15 years updates on average have always made Google search worse and web more dead / rigged / manipulated / throttled / sucked out of revenue, I think it is prudent to assume that things will continue on this trajectory.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Here is my own example on what is Google today.

Here are 2 screenshots:

- One is my main website. Made with pure love, with heart and details, always updated content. Made the best for the visitors.
- The second one is my new website. Made "chatgpt + human review". No love, no heart, just a manipulation with the existing information on web, mixing it and work with ChatGPT.

[imgur.com...]

Guess which one has increasing traffic, and which one facing with a huge devastating drop? :) I guess, I understood what Google wants these days...

[Fluff_Nutz]

To be fair, depending on the age of the site, but newer ones don't get much of a hit, at first. In fact it took just over a year for my main site to get hit by its first real update. This is likely why so many AI sites are sitting at the top. They have yet to be caught by G's web. They will though, eventually. One would think.

My newer site, though abandoned, for now. Is still apparently doing well. Google keep giving me emails of congratulations. Whereas my main site gets none of these emails. It's all part of their plan. To reel new publishers in, get them thinking they will earn good money. Then BAM! Going by what happened to me and what I have read over the past year or so. It seems that it can take a good 2 years before a new site takes the inevitable walk off a cliff.

Anyway, back to traffic I guess. Despite my complaints towards G. So far everything is still stable and as expected. Not really lost much in any direction. Though, its slow growth as I only have a solo writer on it. At present.

[Sodero18]

Down another 30+%. Yes, older websites with a good reputation seem to be hit the hardest. A very bad decision.

[StupidIntelligent]

Google is wiping off older sites with a vengeance.

[RedBar]

Google is wiping off older sites with a vengeance.

Crazy question?

Are these sites being heavily demoted yet their information used / retained by Google for whatever purpose it deems useful?

[saladtosser]

My average position went from 5 to 10 on Thursday in google search console but traffic is still the same, very odd?! Anyone else seeing this? Bug?

[RareBit]

@saladtosser was that on a specific keyword or overall? I have had similar when 2 pages were ranking for the same keyword..check the pages tab.

[ichthyous]

Google is wiping off older sites with a vengeance.

According to whom? Perhaps older sites with lots of spammy backlinks? My site is 20 years old and not seeing this...yes, up and down but not a huge decline. Still much higher than 2022 traffic.

[ichthyous]

USA traffic is -39% at 11am...Canada -73%, Australia -59%. The drop in traffic AS USUAL is focused on traffic from anglophone countries to my site. That also happens to be the most converting traffic since these countries have high per capita income and spending similar to USA. My UK traffic has been much lower since these updates in general...although the UK traffic was extremely elevated all year and it may be returning to a more normal level for my site historically...i.e. 12-15% of traffic as opposed to almost 20-30% some days.

[RareBit]

1 of my sites is over 20 years old and seen some small gains over the past few days, the other is over 10 years old and after a sketchy couple of months it has seen some really good increases in the last week.

[Conro]

Today I notice that there is another very heavy movement on Google, and of course, it fills up with new garbage among videos, "People also asked," and "Related searches." These are increasingly at the top, right after the first position. Impossible to recover. One of my articles, right after the PAA, lost 70% of its visits.

[RareBit]

I guess the question is whether the results will stick! As I said before we still see movement even after the update has finished but at the moment it is looking a lot better than the past few weeks.

[Sodero18]

There has been an increase in sponsored posts in our niche in our area. Organizations who have never or rarely advertised before are now paying for ads as their organic listings dropped off page 1.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Curiosity. Is Google ads worth it? Just looking it up, $1000 - $10,000 a month? That's a lot so it must be, right? I don't know much about it to be honest. Still doing research but sheesh. Not sure if I'll ever make that kind of money per month. On top of writers too.

Anyone actually use Google Ads? Would you recommend it? If its good maybe I can make it a future goal or something.

[EditorialGuy]

There has been an increase in sponsored posts in our niche in our area. Organizations who have never or rarely advertised before are now paying for ads as their organic listings dropped off page 1.

I've also noticed an increase in pitches for sponsored posts (or, in some cases, "free content" without payment) from sketchy SEO and content-marketing agencies.

I simply delete the e-mails, although it would be nice if I could figure out a way to just filter out any incoming pitch that says something like: "Hi. I love your blog [our site isn't a blog] and would love to contribute a high-quality article on any topic in return for a link to cheapo-elbonian-cat-insurance dot com."

[EditorialGuy]

Google is wiping off older sites with a vengeance.

Isn't it possible that older sites used to get extra credit for longevity, and the "longevity" signal has simply been eliminated or dialed back?

[ichthyous]

Anyone actually use Google Ads? Would you recommend it? If its good maybe I can make it a future goal or something.

This has been commented on and discussed many many times here, do some searching and you will find. The consensus is that paying for google ads is akin to dousing your cash in lighter fluid and setting it aflame. I have tried numerous times over the years. 15 years ago it worked ok, but these days the clicks are almost pure fraud. Any other use of your money will be a better use. I think BigKat and some others on here have also concurred.

[Fluff_Nutz]

@ichthyous

Thanks man. Yeah, I had a hunch it would have been mentioned before somewhere. Just a quickfire question really, something I heard of but never looked or researched on. So, its not worth it and yet it costs anywhere between $1,000 - $10,000 a month? Wow. Just wow, and yet I'm not entirely surprised. Still, appreciate the feedback. Guess, I'll be giving it a miss then if I ever got that kind of money to begin with.

[adman]

Is Google ads worth it? Just looking it up, $1000 - $10,000 a month?

Just crossed my mind, did Google messed up search engine on purpose, just to get desperate people who were on top rankings to spend a lot of money on Google Ads to get back on the top?
Business like move from Google.

[superclown2]

Anyone actually use Google Ads? Would you recommend it? If its good maybe I can make it a future goal or something.

I've tried it a number of times over the last couple of decades but always lost money and I got fed up of arguing with Google over whether or not I should be charged for obviously bogus clicks. The last straw for me was when ten clicks were made on a very expensive search term within a few seconds with zero time on site and G refused point blank to refund me.

This was, by the way, after I had the benefit of extensive tutoring on how to use their ads, a massive keyword exclusion list, precise keyword and regional targeting, hundreds of blocked IP addresses (including just about every school and other learning establishment in the UK; kids would definitely not be interested in the services I was promoting so why did so many clicks come from Jane?) and a weekend at a training centre run by Google themselves.
Apart from that: who wants to voluntarily feed the monster that's devouring us? If nobody paid them anything they would soon cease to exist.

Just crossed my mind, did Google messed up search engine on purpose, just to get desperate people who were on top rankings to spend a lot of money on Google Ads to get back on the top?

What a cynical suggestion!

Yes, you may be right.

[ichthyous]

So, its not worth it and yet it costs anywhere between $1,000 - $10,000 a month?

You set the daily budget and the terms. The problem is that Google ensures that your daily budget is gobbled up immediately with fraudulent clicks from areas out of your parameters. Most of it fraudulent clicks from India in my experience. They refuse to accept your own proof of the fraud using your own site analytics and eventually if you threaten them enough they just send you a $100 credit to use for more ads.

My recent experience with Meta has been equally poor...I paid for highly targeted boosted posts on Instagram in ONE major US urban area. Instead I got clicks from Colombia and they charged me. Canceled the campaign and complained...Meta has zero customer service. These tech platforms are pure theft, period.

As many have noted here, the ads are now only for large corporations who can afford to burn money just to crowd out the serps, and also they just spread the money across every platform and medium...they don't have to worry about bang for the buck.

[RedBar]

Anyone actually use Google Ads?

Are you referring to arbitrage that used to be common in the 00s until G "sort of" banned it only to do similar itself?

The AdSense forum was full of it at that time.

[Shepherd]

Isn't it possible that older sites used to get extra credit for longevity, and the "longevity" signal has simply been eliminated or dialed back?

Also, possibly the highest accumulation of errors, bad/outdated code, poor UI/UX... it is amazing what can hide in a large website over the years...

[mosxu]

@Fluff_Nutz

Ads is the only thing I am doing because users are ongoing educated on clicking ads I suggest using ads for brand terms!

Other terms will probably not convert. We have even created a product that no one has and guess what the hate algorithm is refusing to show ads for it!

[superclown2]

Chaos here overnight. My main website which is aimed at the UK market only (particularly London) has had huge numbers of hits from Canada. Perhaps Google thinks that London is on the North American continent, it wouldn't surprise me.

Ads is the only thing I am doing because users are ongoing educated on clicking ads I suggest using ads for brand terms!

I remember many years ago when Google started allowing non-brand owners to bid on those brand names. It caused an uproar at first but they got away with it, just as they did with all their other 'envelope pushing' activities. Now if I want to find the site of a particular company I have to search through 'authority sites' first before I can find it, usually buried on page X.

This means of course that many companies have to pay heavily for clicks that rightfully should have come straight to them free of charge, but hey that's business, Google style.

[Juniya]

@Fluff_Nutz -- Well, for me, I used to use Google Ads quiet a lot especially years back, I would spend exactly $300 USD per month on ads, I remember I told myself I would never go above this limit lol, anyway, it worked for me back then I was able to gain back the money I lost by the subscriptions or even traffic that came from the ads. So for me, the experience was great, I had more conversions than my Facebook ads.

I haven't used Google ads in over 3-5 years so I am sure things have changed here and there but it can without a doubt help you if you know what you are doing. I can't say I had a bad experience with it, their support was nice and they offered me refunds whenever I had issues.

I also used to advertise on Bing Ads back then but Bing brought less traffic, that was the only difference, Bing traffic converted quiet well as well.

So I say YOU try it yourself, do not just take our words for it, I know plenty of people that run successful campaigns using Google Ads as we type, it might be good for some of us in here but it might just be perfect for you. I say go and try it, they have a free trial usually, even if they don't, email them and ask, they are flexible and might give you some free credits to test ads on there for a week or so.

[ichthyous]

Huge suppression of USA traffic continues day after day since these new updates...my USA traffic is -40% at 11am. My visibility is ticking upward very slightly on a daily basis, but traffic to many of my most important landing pages is down from 20% to 70% depending on the day. Meanwhile, lots of hits to single pages and traffic that seems unfocused and which doesn't convert at all.

[KaseyM]

"The rollout was complete as of October 19, 2023."

[twitter.com...]

[Micha]

According to Google, the core update is finished. Then let's wait for the next update, which will surely come in the next few days

[url] [twitter.com...]