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.

[RedBar]

How long will this hold I wonder?

I can answer my own question, the answer was 19.00 UK time yesterday. Traffic was completely normal and then almost off the edge of the cliff and back to the levels seen duing the updates.

Is this a rinse and repeat?

[christianz]

dianys, I have these links too. Every site has tons of crap links from auto generated spam.

Your particular links I call "k links", because they all end with "-k.html". I have thousands of domains of these K-links and have had for years. They are done by one spammer who keeps doing it because Google does nothing about it (if it didn't work for him, he wouldn't be doing it).

[Conro]

Hey, make yourselves heard and provide examples to show

[twitter.com...]

[BigKat]

make yourselves heard and provide examples to show

It's not worth my time to do Google's job for them for free. As more advertisers and users leave, Google will eventually figure out what they are returning in the SERPS serves none other than Google's desire to increase ad revenue.

[ErrlyBird]

It just all feels like a gamble. I now manage around 60 sites for clients all under the same niche. Half of them gained a lot, half of them lost a lot. They all pretty much use the same types of content just written differently. The only real separators are the local area pages. But it just never gets old watching things burn from Google updates. It at least gives me an excuse for clients and can make some changes and keep my job, but oh man is the ride a wild one.

Staying busy is never an issue with SEO though hm?

[Micha]

@Conro on Twitter, user Sean Kaye sums it up, very worth reading.

[Conro]

@Micha Sean Kaye I had already read it. The problem is that when they are backed into a corner, these Google folks run away and stop responding. In practice, to get useful content written by experts, should we now only rely on specialized websites? Suddenly, if I discuss many product guides on a website, the author doesn't understand any of these products, but if I create a separate website for each product, then I become a super expert. Or do useful content only refer to those that don't use SEO to rank in search engines? Honestly, I still don't quite understand these helpful (or unhelpful) updates, but Sean Kaye has provided a good summary, although Google doesn't seem to acknowledge it.

[haramamba]

[x.com ]

It’s impossible to take this line of reasoning about “helpful” content seriously when the New York Times, Forbes, and New York Magazine (LOL) rank in the top 5 spots terms like “Best Espresso Machines for Beginners”, “Best Wallets for Men”, and “Best Baby Wifi Monitor”.

There’s not a Mommy Blogger in sight for wifi baby monitors, a coffee connoisseur for best espresso machines for beginners, or a male fashion influencer for best wallets for men.

So, that double standard undermines your entire argument.

[Razorllama]

It was hilarious to see them try to weasel their out of a pretty accurate (and massive) example of their hypocrisy, yeah. Lots of truth spoken in the twitter thread, PR stunt aside, I doubt it's going to change anything, though.

I'm seeing increased volatility today. One hour I have traffic spikes, then declines sharply. The SERPs are brewing again?

[RedBar]

Wednesdays are traditionally my busiest day of the week however it's now stalled and almost at an abrupt halt. These violent swings are completely unnatural.

[Conro]

@Razorllama yes, New roulette

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today...

[Razorllama]

Yeah, I think it's another algorithmic chaos indeed. Two things I see:

1) GSC has a significant delay with processing info (16 hours+ as of this moment).

2) GA4 is buggy in the Realtime view. Users/Pages score huge discrepancies and data appears with delay and out of nothing, it's different than usual.

[dianys]

[seroundtable.com...]

Google Search Algorithm Ranking Update October 25 (Unconfirmed)

Again?!?!?!?!?! OMG...

[RedBar]

Am I living in an alternate universe, incredulous?

[ghostofseo]

@conro great idea! I just submitted example

Hey, make yourselves heard and provide examples to show

[twitter.com...]

[puckparches]

It seems that Facebook, Google, and other major publishers are showing increases in their revenue and earnings. In contrast, many of us here are experiencing a decline in both web traffic and revenue. It seems that these major publishers are squeezing most of the revenue from us

[Fluff_Nutz]

Yet the irony of it all is that all these major publishers, including Google, need us. If people stopped visiting these sites and stopped creating content then what? They did nothing but provide a platform to create from. It's our content and interactions that made them successful. Yet we, to them, are mere puppets. Its also because they think we cannot fight back. We should, don't know how but its in our best interest to do so. Teach these corporate pigs that we cannot be messed with. Do they not think that enticing more visitors to their platforms makes them more money? Also a better public image? Instead people are having to leave due to lost profits and corruption. Which brings me back to my original point.

Also, I did some research about G and their current court case and apparently even their staff are under paid. Morale is low. Not surprising. My brother works at Amazon and he says the management is terrible. The bigger the company the worse it gets.

Not checked my traffic for today. But past few days show an increase, alas, by the sounds of it this will end in the next few days. If it has not already done so. I'll find out later 2moro. When UA4 gives me my updates figures.

Off topic but I just created a new intro video for my Youtube channel and I like it. Took me an hour but I like the final product. Much better than my last ha!

[Micha]

Google Search Algorithm Ranking Update October 25 (Unconfirmed)

This explains why Sitrix just showed me that my website's visibility dropped another 30% overnight.

[Conro]

Honestly, I doubt that there are all these useless websites losing traffic continuously when, for many years, they were doing fine. My subdirectory with affiliate content has been hit very hard, and I think it's now affecting my main site as well. If Google doesn't find my affiliate subdirectory useful, it should explain why it earns me more with 500 daily visitors compared to 5000 with AdSense. Furthermore, returns are virtually non-existent. If my content were terrible, I wouldn't have sales commissions and a high return rate, but that's not the case

[Martin Ice Web]

I thought that keyword clouds would not work anymore and would rise penalty action.
But the last 3 updates shove sites with keyword clouds to the top for thousand of keywords.

[Conro]

Yet they say not to write for search engines. However, their poor updates have led to an 11% increase in revenue, so I think things will get even worse until self-destruction

[Razorllama]

@Conro,

You know, you piqued my curiosity and I investigated the posts I've seen drop out of Google altogether. 80% of them are affiliate-related (including some 'best of' articles). All of these went to 0 impressions and out of the SERPs between the 2nd of October and the 21st of October. None of them has returned yet.

Which is funny, because I still see some sites doing the typical Amazon listicle spam being served on the SERPs. My posts at least have original images, as I own the products...

The top positions of these 'best of' keywords have been overtaken by brands' official sites, though.

But yeah, lots of $$$ lost here too. These converted pretty well and people were actually writing to me to thank me for the breakdowns and reviews. Had a <4% return rate on my recommendations.

[Conro]

@Razorllama To confirm that they are useful and well-made content, otherwise, people won't buy, and certainly won't send you emails for compliments or to ask for further advice. But you see, affiliate sites are a hindrance to Google's spam ads that only waste money. That's why affiliate sites have been buried by e-commerce sites or even de-indexed under the pretext of "useful content" or other previous updates. I used to be contacted to review products sold by big brands, and I've always done them honestly, even turning down products that I already knew were not of high quality. If my website was so poor, they certainly wouldn't have contacted me. However, if I try to advertise with Google Ads, my site magically becomes the best of all, as long as I pay for it.

[superclown2]

Yet they say not to write for search engines. However, their poor updates have led to an 11% increase in revenue, so I think things will get even worse until self-destruction

They had an increase in revenue from advertising by populating the search results with ever increasing numbers and sizes of ads and googlespam. However their stock price fell because 'other bets' still lose a fortune and their cloud offering is still an also-ran.

Savvy investors realise that G is still a one-trick pony and their search dominance is under severe threat from multiple jurisdictions, not just in the USA where a single judge gets to decide on a case that has been largely hidden from the public. Here in the UK that would cause a huge scandal, but there it is.

My own results? Down yet again like pretty near everyone else's but this is not surprising when I can hardly find my sites myself amongst their ads and other clutter. Happily I can afford to sit tight for a few years until they are hopefully brought under control but by then I expect the Internet to be an entirely different place than it is now, after all the money has been squeezed out by this monopoly.

The top positions of these 'best of' keywords have been overtaken by brands' official sites, though.

I would normally see this as a good thing since the actual producers of goods and services should logically come at the top. However I still see aggregators (who, purely by coincidence, are heavy spenders on ads) dominate the top organic spots. The public pay the original producers who pay the aggregators who pay Google. Anyone who thinks Google is a "free" service really needs to do the maths.

[Conro]

@superclown2 These days, Google is all about advertising and tactics to harm websites by reducing their visibility, hoping that they'll buy their ads.Today from my desktop in Italy, I'm searching for "the best deep fryers." The result: 4 sponsored ads and a right-hand column filled with all sponsored shopping products that take up the entire page in front of me. The first organic result has seen a 44% drop in visits (it's a subdomain of a very famous cooking website). I wanted to post the screenshot here, but I couldn't manage it. All the organic results I see for the query have a significant decline, except for Wired, which is up by 51%.

[Dooku]

Yes, it's a one hour interview, the first 10 seconds however are a good summery.
But this interview explains in detail the fundamental underlying economic principles of how companies like G have come to pass and how through cloud capital they are extracting money from local economies and businesses.
So, if you want to understand why your traffic is behaving the way it is and why you are paying more and more each time to be seen or just to be able to sell your stuff or services........watch and learn:
[youtube.com...]

[Conro]

@Dooku It's easy to make money this way. It would have been enough to tax them like everyone else, instead of coming up with GDPR in Europe to be able to fine them and take a small portion of their earning.

But aside from that. I've been doing continuous research this morning on Google, and all the penalized sites have in common affiliate content 'the best...', product reviews, or they have other affiliate content. If someone else can confirm to see if this is a common factor, it helps

[superclown2]

But aside from that. I've been doing continuous research this morning on Google, and all the penalized sites have in common affiliate content 'the best...', product reviews, or they have other affiliate content. If someone else can confirm to see if this is a common factor, it helps

I can think back to at least a decade ago when a whole pile of my sits were penalised for having affiliate links. Though I say it myself they were good useful sites but Google destroyed them all overnight.

Affiliates take away money that Google believes is rightfully theirs.

[Micha]

@Conro I can honestly not confirm. The picture is quite mixed