October 2023 Google Search Observations

[Cyril TechWebsites]

---

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)

---

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.

[ichthyous]

Traffic is truly all over the map now...one day normal, the next day extremely low. This weekend it was decent, but this morning USA is -60% and UK is -36%.

After months of very high UK traffic Google has seen fit to reduce that back to previous levels. I had the same thing happen a couple of years ago with traffic from Australia...it was on fire for almost a year and then vanished after an update and never returned back to the highs. Conversions were already poor before the war started, now nil despite the higher traffic on some days.

[Fluff_Nutz]

It all adds up too.

Releasing many of their employees over the years. Replacing them with in-experienced ones to save costs.
More updates that take longer to roll out. I no longer see messages of a random joe suddenly nailing $10k a month, out of no where. It's mostly now just hits and low blows.
It could be a lack of time to work on these things but, as has already been pointed out, the SERPs are terrible. Worse than ever, for many. I searched for a guide only a few days ago. Came across a website that is huge in the niche. Very high authority. Alas, their article had less than 50 words and none of it was helpful. No images and zer0 videos. But, alas, the exact same site had 2 articles with very little content in the top 10. More and more of these bigger sites, with very little helpful content are nailing multiple positions in the top 10. Just like this site has.
Bard is new and expensive. It too must be maintained.
Alphabet has been struggling for many years now.
They are mending to the Youtube ads come November to further their revenue.
More yearly, monthly fines and court cases.
The SERPs is just a nesting ground for even more G spam.

There is likely even more that I can add to this list but, right now, my mind is at a blank. Alas, it all points to Google and either their greed or struggles. Likely both because of the latter, because why the sudden change? If they were doing okay financially then these changes with increased updates. Would not be necessary. These updates also do not really fix anything. As far as I am aware they never have. They are just cover names for what is really happening. More and more information regarding their true agenda is being released in this latest court case. Keyword fiddling and search manipulation.

Knowing all of this also helps give me my motivation back for the site once again too. Thinking, believing that, one day, Google and their monopoly will end. That, just maybe, the SERPs will become an actual search once again. I want to believe in this. As we all do. We have had enough of G and their monopoly. It's time to end it. This latest court case is releasing crucial information. They have the ability to grant us our miracle. After all it is said to be the biggest court case in decades for the company, that statement must mean something.

I know, when G does eventually loose its ability to manipulate and steal both traffic and revenue. The future may not be as bright as we hope but I don't think it will be worse than this. At least not straight away. So, perhaps there is still a chance for stable income. Once the elephant has been dealt with. One can only hope.

I have so many dreams and ambitions with two of my sites. Both are awaiting stable income. One minute it has it and the next.. Its like placing my goals on hold but screaming out because you want to achieve them so much. In truth, the search should be a stable environment. Not a mess of terrible articles at the top just because they have authority in the niche. Authority is a joke. Bigger sites means nothing most of the time. They are just older, not wiser. G should know this and do nothing. Again, profiting due to their struggles. Just die already. Also, older sites should never be at the top because they, as I have mentioned before, have already gained establishment. Thus will always have visitors. Newer sites will never see this. There is no growth without newer sites and newer competition.

G are dying. Facts. It's just a waiting game. Then a long overdue party after.

[renatovieira]

Big drop today.

[RedBar]

G are dying. Facts. It's just a waiting game. Then a long overdue party after.

Historically most companies eventually die or are taken over and split up.

What would your party be for?

The possible appearance of a brand new search enngine?

The hope that more may use Bing / DDG / Y ?

G's search split-off and taken-over by "someone" else? FWIW even as a "dying" entity it would have pretty good value and the total closure of G's search would be most unlikely therfore, bearing this in mind, would its "new" owner do things much differently?

It would still have to financially support itself to some degree surely?

[Fluff_Nutz]

With a weakened Google comes some hopeful competition into the search. Thus, in theory, bringing stability across for publishers and an overall better search experience for everyone else. There would be no more dominance. This is why G are so greedy, their monopoly. They use the SERPs to fund it all, everything. Its their biggest money earner and that is why there is no stability.

If searchers still prefer to use Google, for whatever reason. Then I would still like to think that the search would remain stable. After the fall of their monopoly they couldn't re-create it. If they tried to redo what they lost, it would take time and, perhaps, risk them losing their search next. After all they are still the same business, going under the same business name and model.

So, I guess the way I see it. I'll be partying because of a huge pressure being removed. Personal reasons but I put a lot of effort into my site last year. As do most publishers. We should not have to see it being removed and lost due to company greed and dominance.

Yes, the future is uncertain but what I do know is that, if Google's monopoly ever falls, we will all be a lot better off. Why run a service that goes in the opposite direction of its original purpose? Why is every other platform that G owns stable and yet the search is not? It smells like the blame is on the monopoly. Get rid of it to get rid of the problem.

[mhansen]

I know this is about search results, but has anyone else that uses Gmail or the chrome browser to write/edit email/content noticed that their spell-checking feature is not doing so well lately also? (Maybe it's just my poor grammar?!) Misspelling common words like "your" (as yuor) etc, triggers all types of odd alternatives, but none of them are the correct "your" version a user would expect. I believe Google integrates their features together fairly tightly as to make best use of all the data, so it makes me wonder if all of their integrated systems are just very confused right now.

[Micha]

Yes, the future is uncertain but what I do know is that, if Google's monopoly ever falls, we will all be a lot better off.

Aren't you getting your hopes up? Just because people suddenly don't use Google so much doesn't mean you can sleep better.

Take Bing: it's damn hard for small websites to rank well there, and it's not easy with Yahoo and co. either.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can relax either, because at first the search engines will have to rely on big, very well-known websites to keep users happy.

What's more, it's unlikely that Google will lose its monopoly, because the company is so broadly positioned that you can't get past it. The only thing that would help, at least in my opinion, would be a new management level that sees the search engine for what it really is and not a money printing machine.

[RedBar]

@Fluff_Nutz

Whilst your hopes are understandable I feel that they would be dashed. Any new independent owner would need to justify their investment therefore unless a benevolent buyer could be found I would have thought it would be more of the same. Certainly a reduction of so many ads may be preferred but what reaction woulld publishers have if, say, localisation were not given so much prominence?

One of the major balancing acts all SEs have is to try and perform is that of sifting through local, national and international sites with only a 2/3/4 words query. How many companies are there in your industry in your country, how many are retail, how many wholesale, how many manufacturing, then multiply that by however many there are in all the country's in the world ... and SEs have to predict from a 2/3/4 word query what it is someone is searching for.

Granted history and cookies etc help in this task IF one allows them but how many do not these days?

[Razorllama]

I know this is about search results, but has anyone else that uses Gmail or the chrome browser to write/edit email/content noticed that their spell-checking feature is not doing so well lately also?

I've had hiccups there, too. I feel a lot of Google products have been all over the place. Google Ads were iffy for a few days without a fix, then we've got the search results fiasco, the indexing issues, and on top of that I see some design lack of polish on some features Google are testing out in the serps (eCommerce brand 'inserts'). I even got bugged containers on their 'Feedback' boxes and couldn't submit any over the weekend. Clicking didn't register at all.

So, yeah, seems to span across some of their services/branches.

[HUnch]

We should stop complaining now and start to analyse the site ranking at top (non ugc sites).

In my understanding till now.. I see low DA sites are ranking well everywhere. It’s because backlinks is not one of the top 3 ranking factors, and it is confirmed.

So what could be the top 3 ranking factors? Social media presence? EEAT? And On point content without BS?

What you all guys think?

[Micha]

So what could be the top 3 ranking factors? Social media presence? EEAT? And On point content without BS?

I don't think we can do anything, because Google does what it wants anyway. For example, since yesterday my traffic has increased again, but we haven't changed anything. The only way I can explain it all is that Google simply has problems ranking websites properly because they rely too much on AI and the mass of websites has simply become too big. In my field, for example, it seems that Google gives journalists a credibility bonus because the background is easy to understand. That doesn't work for us. We are all not trained journalists, but we know a lot about our subject, but we don't have such an easy-to-follow background.

[christianz]

So what could be the top 3 ranking factors? Social media presence? EEAT? And On point content without BS?

Both of those can be exploited/faked more easily than links. Unless by "EEAT" you mean very strict form of EEAT where you have to be one of handpicked whitelist of large media companies/platforms.

Ideally EEAT should be abolished completely and entirely. And Social media shouldn't even be mentioned in this conversation. I don't have any social media for myself or my websites (other than placeholder accounts) and why should I. Not interested, don't care.

I am building websites. I am not building audiences on some other folk's websites. Only reason I could see social media useful is to literally bombard it and spam it with links to your own website.

[adman]

I am building websites. I am not building audiences on some other folk's websites.

If you look at it that way, Google has build it's empire on other folk's websites.

Only reason I could see social media useful is to literally bombard it and spam it with links to your own website.

I think that Google has never valued social media for ranking, so bombarding it with links can only harm your site.

[christianz]

I think that Google has never valued social media for ranking, so bombarding it with links can only harm your site.

But you never know what they do or plan to do these days. Relying on links for ranking is becoming super difficult due to huge amount of spam. They are (unfortunately) exploring other (external) factors.

[Razorllama]

First time in my history I've had a full hour without ANY sessions. I guess that's the logical conclusion of a 50% initial drop followed up by -15% bleeds every passing week.

Articles still missing from the SERPs (coincidentally, the majority of them being my top conversion/earning sources). The silver lining is that at least two have returned miraculously after 3 full weeks of absence.

I'm done with this for the time being, removing GA4, and unplugging. This is unreal.

[adman]

@Razorllama

How much visitors/visits you had before update?

[Sodero18]

Another drop today (-13% on top of previous losses). I guess G is messing around more with the flawed algorithms without success. Changes in event pages which have previously resulted in pages going up are now going down when a date changes (and dates have to change for events). Many of our pages are still on the first page of Bing and DDG for our keywords. New articles are showing up on the first page of both Bing and DDG.

[Razorllama]

How much visitors/visits you had before update?

My hourly average users were 80 or so. 35-40 in lower-traffic hours to 120++ in peak hours. Traffic decline aside, my conversions are still crap - I literally had better days in my site's semi-infancy when it had half of the CURRENT (declined) traffic. I haven't seen anything like this.

[RareBit]

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.

[ichthyous]

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.

The constant updates are merely a cover for the perpetual assault on traffic. If Google keeps blaming it on updates people will keep believing that a normal state exists, and one day they may return to normality. Normality is long gone...there will only be perpetual chaos and big drops in traffic as Google experiments with how to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of the internet. There is no concern for anything else, not even the quality of their own search product.

<speculation>Perhaps Google sees search as the last technology and is focusing on the next one...it doesn't care about the quality of search since it has 90% of the market. It is cannibalizing the old tech to fund the new one.</speculation>

[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...]