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.

[Razorllama]

Two more posts disappeared :(
So far the ratio is 3 disappeared-to-returned within 2 weeks, and then 14 disappeared altogether from the 2nd of October until today.
Generally, 2 posts disappear every 3 days or so.

Considering I have ~100 posts on my site, that's quite a bit. :/ Never had this happen, I wonder if some parts of the site got hit with a penalty or something.

Despite this, traffic is stabilized week over week.

[Shepherd]

Just saw a Bing SERP listed in google's search results...

[tom_010101]

I've been monitoring 4 websites with Sistrix for a few weeks that are comparable to mine but essentially have nothing to do with each other. All websites behave completely identically... Whether it's keywords, visibility, top-ten rankings, or backlinks, all record identical losses and declines. For me, this further confirms that it simply doesn't have to do with any issues on the website, but rather with the whims of Google 🤷‍♂️.

[Conro]

@tom_010101 the sites continue lost keywords everyday.

[Micha]

I too have Sitrix showing that my site continues to lose visibility, but traffic is increasing daily. It hasn't been running as well as it is now for months. This is all very strange.

[RedBar]

Since the completion of update(s) I have some new metrics for my global site:

October until completion v 2023 average 74.2%
Since completion v 2023 average 136.8%

For my UK hotel site little has changed:

All October v 2023 average 101.13%

How long will this hold I wonder?

[gatormark]

Was there a SERP update recently? The reason I ask is because my traffic has jumped about 23%. However, I don’t know of any updates.

[not2easy]

@gatormark - We're in the aftermath of the core update which was announced as finished 10/19.

[dianys]

Hello, I'm encountering an issue. In addition to the over 60% decrease in traffic following the updates at the beginning of the month, I've identified several links appearing in AHREF's New Backlinks section for about 2 months now. Many of these links become unavailable very quickly, but I'm concerned that this could be causing a -60% traffic drop due to the SPAM UPDATE. What's your opinion? How can I address this situation?

<snip>

[edited by: not2easy at 12:36 pm (utc) on Oct 31, 2023]
[edit reason] Please see Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[dianys]

Edit: When I use site:domain.com, my homepage only appears occasionally, often requiring multiple refreshes. This might be a clue in my situation.

[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

[morpheus83]

@Micha I agree the websites affected are across the spectrum.

[Conro]

It's impossible to find something in common among all the websites that have lost traffic. When you ask Google for explanations, they respond as if they were algorithms rather than people. I really don't know what to do.

[Juniya]

@Cyril, you should keep updating and adding new content, Google is STILL trying to fix the issue, they know they f'd up and just because an update is done, doesn't mean they have stopped changing things behind the scene.

They are clearly using a newer version of their AI on their search algorithm and it's not working as expected but if you give up now, your website might never recover when Google does stablize itself, which might take a few more days, weeks or months.

[Sodero18]

As with everyone, we're trying to figure out what these messed up algorithms are doing. When we add or change dates for events on event pages, the pages go down in Google SERPs but go up in Bing and DDG for our key words (top of Bing and DDG below the ads). Presumably because the changes are "minor", they go down in Google. Unfortunately, DDG does have ads but it's not the Google ad storm. We simply have to update pages / posts whether they are minor or not and will have to continue doing that. Event date changes used to be perceived a fresh. Minor changes, typos etc. need to be changed as well.

Since September, we've regularly used Bing and DDG and have downloaded Firefox (which I think is changing to Mozilla in November).

As another poster mentioned, this is significantly affecting web designers, developers, SEO experts etc. and in turn is affecting SMBs which I believe comprise 98% to 99% of businesses in the US and Canada and I'm assuming this is the same elsewhere.

[System]

The following 3 messages were spliced on to an existing thread about Google's Anti-Trust court case: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 4:24 pm (utc) on Oct 26, 2023]
[edit reason] correcting link to split off discussion [/edit]

[aabid099]

I Have a Question, I have Lost Complete Traffic From Google Discover Having (Millions of Impressions) but now zero, it started happening after 10 October any one having the same issue?

[not2easy]

Hi aabid099 and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

At least you are not alone, there is a thread nearby about that issue where you might find helpful info: [webmasterworld.com...]

[mosxu]

I have to say that the increase they had after the “quality” update this summer just came back to hunt them!

Well that’s because people are not stupid and on the other side everything AI is doing is fricking obvious!

[renatovieira]

Very slow today...

[tom_010101]

@aabid0099 Exactly the same for me... Discover 18 clicks yesterday and videos also crashed extremely.