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.

[anubitez]

Well, after september 2023 hcu update which at the end my whitehat site that was hit from oct 2022 spam update recovered to pre 2022 spam update levels and more, seems to be holding steady after a week of oct 2023 spam and core update.

actually, i seen 30% rise, but this morning i see its calming back down but could be just today, personally overall its now like a 400% increase this month.

i know just like sept hcu that within the last hours i got given an almighty boost, in the last few hours of oct 2023 spam or core update it will be reversed and I'll be back to oct 2022 click rate penalities, I'm riding a cloud that i should be on but google loves to not give these things.

i need to do another round of dmca's, many parasites cloning my sites still and ranking well with bad u.x, more a.ds and you know typical crap these fakers do.

[EditorialGuy]

World events such as wars have zero negative effect on total amount of Internet traffic.

Nobody's talking about the "total amount of Internet traffic." We're talking about the effect on individual sites' traffic, which is a whole different thing. In my sector (travel), things like wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, etc. often have a significant impact on aspiring travelers' behavior, depending on where the unrest is taking place and where the people hope to travel.

In any case, I doubt if anyone here is in denial about Google's updates and the effects (whether positive or negative) that those updates can have on traffic.

[Maximiliam]

We are still down a lot. Traffic cut in half. This is the first time since panda we got hit this bad and it has been a roller coaster between updates ever since. Have no idea what we are doing wrong. All of our content is moderated and we have been removing a lot of junk over the years. Cleaning things up sort to speak. As we have been a strong believer in good and helpful content. I guess we have been punished for that. I have no idea. No spam is ever on our forums. So it can't be that right?. I am just wondering why does it still think we are spammy? When there are none? We do not even allow outgoing links. Other than the adsense ads we have on our website and a few amazon links. And why at this time? Why has it been fine up until now.

I am starting to think we are being punished for the plethora of sites copying our content that we have nothing to do with. We have been copied a lot over the years. Those sites might be spammy. But they are not related to us whatsoever. Who knows what is going on. We sure don't. Sometimes it would be helpful to know a little bit more than is being said.

We are a legacy site and have had 30 - 40k users daily to it. Now that number is cut in half. We are talking about 20+ years here. Same owners even. That means nothing?

[pavf6]

I am seeing a lot of my good-ranking pages just disappear from the SERP in the last 2 days which led to traffic loss even with everything showing normal in GSC. The article won't show up and as per GSC it is indexed, but ranking nowhere.

[StupidIntelligent]

@pavf6

This happens when Google considers the pages as spam.

Happened to me several times for many sites and pages, that have been ranking for years at top 1 and 2, with millions of impressions daily.

Chances of it coming back are slim, and even they do come back, the page(s) will disappear again - this time forever - exactly 10 to 15 days post-update.

[Conro]

Have you still not understood that the problem doesn't lie with your website but with Google? If Google fills the SERP with PAA (People Also Ask) at the top, YouTube videos, questions, shopping boxes, related content, how can you expect to always have the same traffic? Traffic naturally decreases. Google is using our websites to keep users on Google by directly answering questions taken from our sites without giving us a dime, so the user no longer visits the website if they find the solution directly in the SERP. This is unfair on Google's part

[pavf6]

@StupidIntelligent

We have a team of content writers and the article was originally written by us. Now the Spam sites are ranking higher and we (the original) on the other hand are being removed from SERP altogether. What kind of HELPFUL CONTENT UPDATE is this? And now that the SPAM update rolling out I see more SPAM and AI sites ranking above my other original articles. We have taken action via DMCA which google recommended but there seems to be no takedown there as well. I am confused if Google wants actual content or SPAM.

[superclown2]

I am confused if Google wants actual content or SPAM.

The worse the organic results are, the more people will click on ads. Not that this is deliberate on Google's part, obviously.

[Fluff_Nutz]

I'd like to think that the worse the organic results are, the more people will move away from Google and start realizing that other search engines exist.

Back to traffic levels. It would seem that Google calmed down from last Sunday. Perhaps, they thought they gave me too much traffic as I have now dropped back to August levels of traffic. Knew it wouldn't last. Sunday was too good and yet it makes me wonder, if G weren't so greedy would those numbers actually be my normal? Shame. But as I have come to realize now, traffic being that high is just never going to be a normality with Google around. I unfortunately expect drops rather than success at this point.

[Razorllama]

Anybody get their affected pages re-appear in the SERPs already?

Two of my main traffic pages are still nowhere to be found. One of them is only one of two website-based (not forum-based) results for this particular query, so I don't see why it would be out of the SERPs. It's not a repetition of what's already out there in any way.

[Martin Ice Web]

The worse the organic results are, the more people will click on ads. Not that this is deliberate on Google's part, obviously.

I am with you. Most poeple donīt know bing, duckduckgo or anything else even exist.

Traffic today: 50% drop. All rubbish traffic. No user engagement.

[superclown2]

it makes me wonder, if G weren't so greedy would those numbers actually be my normal? Shame.

Speaking as someone who was in this business before Google even existed: no they wouldn't. You would in fact have many times more.

The overwhelming majority of people still click on the top one or two results whether they are labelled ad, sponsored, or whatever. Position 1 in the SERPs is still position 5 when there are four ads above it and position infinity when it is buried under the rest of the usual Googlespam.

We are all getting a tiny fraction of the business we would have got before Wall Street took over Google; but then again there would be a lot more competition too, since new entrants don't really have snowball's chance of making money right now. It would be far better for the visitors though since they would have a much larger choice of sites to look at; but a lot of great ideas out there will never get a chance to be seen online unless their creators are able and willing to feed the hunger (gluttony?) of Google.

So; Google's dominance is not only bad for us but bad for The Internet as a whole. That's the real shame.

[christianz]

Spamcore update observations over last few days:

My large legacy site - up, seems to be recovering modestly (probably will crash soon anyway).
My second biggest and oldest site - hammered. Its top level domain was in some kind of penalty box for 1.5 years and it climbed out of it briefly since the HCU. Now its back in the box, possibly worse than before.
My youngest site - wrecked.

To be honest my smaller sites have nowhere near the backlinks and history/presence that my oldest does. But they are nice honest info sites made with genuine interest/passion of the subject. Especially the youngest site.

[RedBar]

Now my hotel site's been hit! After 14 hours it's at 15% of average whereas it usually cruises through everythng.

But ... so far today my global site seems to be fairly "normal" and has already surpassed Monday's numbers with half the uniques, I wonder how long this will last?

[ichthyous]

So I just read that two updates are now running in tandem, and that follows three other updates in quick succession. My traffic has gone from skyrocketing (and tons of conversions) to stone cold dead for weeks now, and then since yesterday traffic drops like I have never seen in 20 years.

My USA traffic is -70% this morning and many other locations down as well. I can only hope this is temporary while the dust settles...but we are now at the point where Google ensures that you get absolutely no business, not for days or weeks, but for months at a time. Google is the vampire squid stuck to the face of the internet trying to drag it to the bottom of the sea.

These updates **might** be credible as being necessary to combat spam and AI generated content if it weren't for the fact that in the end they just destroy people's traffic and conversions and the spam remains. My ranking has barely shifted this entire time, but the traffic has gone up in smoke again.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Could it be that they know they are going to loose the current on-going court case and are milking the system as much as possible before the Google Search is finished and the ship sinks? Is lady luck finally siding with us and the consumer, for once? But we don't know it yet?

Yeah I know. Wishful thinking. I did some reading regarding the court case and come across Section 230 and, to now surprise, the court sided with Google. Old news I know. These articles were posted back in May. Still it's funny and it makes me think. What is the point of laws and authorities if its okay to let Google do whatever they want? None of it applies to them? The system is a joke.

If this current court case ultimately sides with G, no real surprise AGAIN. Then what was it all for exactly? If the answer was already, most likely, made before the court end. All I see it as is G stealing our revenue to pay for this court and them ultimately winning it at the end. Yet, we all know they are doing lawful activities. But none of it applies to them, of course.

Make it make sense. Still, its the way its ran that is the issue. Microsoft pay $100 billion into Bing over the years and still cannot do any damage. What hope do we have? Its a nasty vicious and un-ending cycle. Up and down. Not knowing what is happening one day to the next.

[ichthyous]

Could it be that they know they are going to loose the current on-going court case and are milking the system as much as possible before the Google Search is finished and the ship sinks? Is lady luck finally siding with us and the consumer, for once?

I doubt it's the case...even if the goverment finds fault, they will simply impose a penalty and Google will continue to do what it does. The problem is that the government and courts do not really have the capacity to judge the full scope of Google's actions, nor are the people handling prosecution savvy enough to connect all the dots. There would need to be a huge, almost traumatic division of Google's business into smaller parts...that would be very difficult to accomplish with a tech company...it's not like the land line telephone industry in the 80's. At some point a real competitor needs to be funded by a government source, or a non-profit organization which takes the profit out of search. Search is a utility and it is a necessity for the public...it is no longer a place where the world can tolerate having just one company control it all for profit.

[renatovieira]

@ichthyous - Here too, worst morning in years. It remains very low.

My rankings are intact too, however, without traffic.

[RedBar]

My global site's continued with "normal" PVs and at 14.00 UK time the hotel site lit up and has continued in its usual way.

I find the hotel site situation as very unusual since many people use their phones and pads to read the meus before ordering. According to the manager everything was as usual yet my actual logs do show hardly any traffic whatsoever until 14.00 and for eveyone to have the menus in their cache would be highly unusual or for everyone to have "do not track" enabled ... I am very puzzled.

[EditorialGuy]

Overall pageviews yesterday for our editorial travel-planning site were down a staggering 24 percent, but the percentage changes for our most popular individual pages varied wildly (from up 100+ percent to down by 60 percent or more).

In terms of subject matter or categories, our two top categories were down by 27 and 33 percent respectively. Yet our top 10 individual pages were pretty much the same as usual. (All but one top 10 pages were from our two top categories.)

FWIW, I've noticed that, for some of our more popular queries, content-marketing pages and outright sales pages have crept into Google's "10 blue links" lately, which seems a bit odd since it's hard to see how Google benefits from treating informational queries as commercial or transactional queries in the organic results. (The person who's searching for information on Widgetville oxcart tokens probably isn't looking to buy an oxcart token online.)

ADDENDUM: I just checked our daily stats (now that the day is over in Europe), and our pageviews have been down by exactly the same percentage for three days in a row. That's just weird.

[puckparches]

We are all in the same boat, or at least, most of us are. It's been more than a month, and I doubt my site will recover anytime soon. I have to come to terms with that. But is there something we can do? Instead of continually writing depressing stories about how detrimental the new update is, let's brainstorm ideas on how to increase our traffic or entice Google to send more our way. The only thing I've been doing, apart from continually adding more content, is reviewing my pages and removing those with poor or low-quality content. Any more ideas?

[superclown2]

Search is a utility and it is a necessity for the public...it is no longer a place where the world can tolerate having just one company control it all for profit.

As so often happens, this morning I searched google for, shall we say, the magnetic characteristics of red square widgets, but could only find sites selling widgets, full stop. I found what I wanted on Duck of course; but how many people know they even exist?

I am now finding it harder to search for what I really want, than I did 20+ years ago. The reason is the commercialization of search, and the biases of the search engines.

A search engine is just a database that can be queried using variable criteria. Would it be possible to go back to first principles? Have a database or many databases, that searchers can query from their own devices using their own criteria? Website owners could pay to have their sites included on these databases which would eliminate many of the spammy garbage sites out there; and ads (and bias) could be eliminated completely.

Yahoo went in this direction decades ago; we had to pay a considerable fee to have our sites included in their database and and many of us did, and still made good money as a result. When Google first began it provided both the database and the means to query it; and having your site included in the database was free so it became wildly popular. Their initial interface was ad free and contained none of the googlespam which now stops visitors from finding the information they are looking for. Unfortunately the money men took over and the rest is history.

So; in my dream I see Google - which after all would be completely unnecessary - sidestepped; and the web become a medium for the easy interchange of ideas and information, rather than a private money spinner for a huge (and, commercially, very astute) single business.

Any thoughts?

[Juniya]

Issue is more and more people are getting online each day, meaning Google and other search engines are seeing more potential customers come in the door. More people are using Google Search today, than last year, just think about that.

This creates a problem for Google as people have already noted, the money men, politicians, sports companies, gambling companies and corporations have an open checkbook for Google, that is the issue, the OPEN checkbook.

Google can scale back on the amount of ads are shown per query, this would drive revenue down perhaps but it would boost the customer experience and at the same time boost the cost of each ad displayed on the results, that sounds good but it would mean the rich advertisers can just outbid the smaller companies and claim the top spot(s).

Google has a a moral decision to make in the next couple of years.

[morpheus83]

Not sure, but I think its the first G is running two updates in tandem.

[RareBit]

After a rough couple of weeks (dropping from top 3 to the bottom of the 1st page) all is well again. I have made no changes to the site but we have lost around 10k in revenue due to the updates...I assume G will send a cheque to compensate..

[Helix Online]

None of my disappeared pages have returned to Google. They are not spam. Actually, competitors copy many of them but their posts didn't disappear.

Traffic keeps dropping. I wonder what will be left in the end. And will I ever recover. I just got into Mediavine on May and had just started to make some real money. Didn't last long. Back to poverty.

[Fluff_Nutz]

^ Sounds so much like me last year but with Adthrive/Raptive. I am already part of Mediavine but sessions have never been my strong point when it comes to traffic, despite all the interlinks. I think its the niche. People are always in a rush to find the info and then run off.

So anyway, long story short, I had just about managed to reach the necessary 100k pageviews before October 2022 arrived. Then SLAP! Lost all of my traffic. A good 70-80% of it. Never managed to reach or get even close to 100k since. It's been nothing but negative updates. Never ending updates. So, I was wondering, when it comes to writing a CV out for an outside job. Is it okay to put that I worked for Google? Lets be honest we are working for them. They are in control of our revenues, just like a boss and dictate what goes on.

I'll be honest I probably also help towards the negative messages on here. But G make it difficult to sound or be positive. Most companies, including their Youtube platform have revenue splits. Can we not have something similar in place? Rather than loose an unknown % of both traffic and revenue every time an update arrives. I'm not sure how or what will work but I'm down for anything. I just want some stability in the system. We all deserve it and we all need it. To think that this is what the internet will be like for many more years to come is, well... I really don't want to think about it.

EDIT: I should have added this to my original message without making edits. But it really is the amount of updates. As said before, they take too long and there is just so many of them. Non-stop this year since August. Usually companies only perform updates once every six months. This is the usual normal with most companies but G seems to be the odd exception. This is the problem. It's a no brainer really. When, if ever, will it slow down? Also the vast quantity is really showing themselves and that the whole 'Spam' and 'Helpful Content' are just cover names. The SERPs, itself, is never updated for the better to align with anything but more G spam. So, anyone still in denial are idiots. They are just making it messier and a lot worse. So the opposite of improving it
Also, is it not funny how these updates have occurred during peak Ads season. When the RPMs are at the highest? Perfect timing. G know they are in no real danger. 90% of the net share. Fines and court cases are all paid by the publishers. What do they have to worry about? Sucks.

[edited by: Fluff_Nutz at 12:35 pm (utc) on Oct 11, 2023]

[RedBar]

Google has a a moral decision to make in the next couple of years.

Why?

G is a commercial company with its responsibilities towards shareholders and employees. Whether one agrees with this or not is open for discussion however I very much doubt that any personal objection to its planned trajectory would have any effect whatsoever.

G search has accomplished turning itself into a very profitable classified ads website that also features free, alternative links, period.

I'm not defending G's current mission, it's simply the reality of what's happening and we / everyone have to live with that or get people to change their obsessive default behaviour of using G for much of what they do.

[Helix Online]

@Fluff_Nutz Did some of your posts also disappear from Google altogether when you lost 70% of traffic? Or did your positions just drop?

I've never seen posts actually disappearing before, not that I've been in the game that long. I lost around 20% of traffic in the March core update 2023 but recovered and gained more. Now I've lost like 66% already. I was so excited about this website but it's hard to be anymore. I don't know how do you recover from a traffic loss like this. Especially since posts are disappearing and Google seems to think my site is spam.

I'm taking a break from website stuff and now I'm making ASMR videos again. Yes, on YouTube (owned by Google too). But Google doesn't seem to hammer YouTube channels with these updates. They don't seem to affect YouTube at all. Not that I want to put all my eggs on YouTube either because Google can close your channel anytime if they choose to.

[Fluff_Nutz]

@RedBar

That is the problem. G has their search in everything. Phones and Desktop. It's smart play and you have to give them credit and lets be honest. Though you know you are wrecking other businesses, would you do anything different if it was working for you? I think a lot of it is the uncertainty. Which then builds on anxiety and stress. A sense of urgent panic. Are you going to be hit? Will you be spared. How much will you loose? What kind of damage will it be this time around? All of that causes a great deal of negative emotions. This all involves livelihoods and a great deal of money too on both sides. So no matter what it really is easier said than done to just accept G and their antics when so much is riding on it. But I do agree. As there is very little we can do. Moving on is an option but the money is still much better when compared to many other platforms.

Also, it would be nice to make others realise the other search engines and that they do exist. But how can we do that exactly? Before I did research I thought well maybe Bing could do a deal with Apple. Make them more interested in giving G more competition. Alas, turns out they tried. Were even willing to pay more than Google but, unfortunately were not remotely interested. We are caught in a web. Right in the clutches. G, I dislike their monopoly but I can't deny, when you really think about it. I have respect too. It's a business and you have to do whatever it takes to survive.

@Helix
Yes, I did loose. A lot of articles actually. I remember having over 4 pages of articles when searching up my site on Google. I also had plenty of images too. The site was doing really great. Then when the hit came I noticed the obvious decline. So I searched again and it went from 4 pages worth of articles to only 2. I don't know why I lost so many. Bard maybe? Perhaps they were, indeed, spam. As I never knew SEO back then. Also, some articles were barely 30 words. Knowing what I know now. I feel like I deserved that hit. Can't say if it was due to SEO and, a lack of. But if I were G I would have binned them too. Could have even been competition as anyone could have out ranked those articles. But, its doubtful due to the SERPs being so empty of my content.

Alas, it was also my first update too and I read that for a new site, mine is technically only 2yrs old. The first update is usually a big one. So my plan is to do exactly what you mentioned. Go to Youtube, where I have been for the past 10 years. Though, unfortunately, the traffic and revenue is worse. Mainly due to a lack of consistency on my part. But, as you said, it is also more consistent too. Never in 10 years have I noticed anything like the SERPs. Which is why I was never really prepared for the October 2022 hit.

Personally G and being hit last year, my first real hit, has taught me a lot. Its made me research more on SEO and that maintaining a website is very different to most other platforms. It's also taught me that G rely a lot more on search than any other section of their monopoly when it comes to profit making. Not all sunshine and rainbows, unfortunately. But still, as mentioned, trying to simply accept hits is not easy either. I would literally do anything for more competition, less updates. Anything for a more stable journey in blogging but alas..

At present I have a solo writer on the site, they were going to leave but thought otherwise, so whatever. They can stay but I'm heading to Youtube. Build on some income to play with G and their jedi mind tricks.