December 2023 Google Search Observations

[Martin Ice Web]

After 3 very good weeks we see a 50% drop for all sites we manage started right at midnight. Seems google started Xmas shopping revenue season.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:39 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2023]
[edit reason] split cleanup - New month, new thread [/edit]

[Conro]

Nowadays, even the most famous SEOs struggle to recover websites. This is because you can't revive a site when the search engine results pages (SERP) are filled with "people also asked," "people also searched," "YouTube videos," and ads, all occupying top positions. Additionally, some sites have inexplicably been excluded from Google News and Discovery, penalized at a site-wide level, allowing spammers and AI-driven sites to surface more easily. The only ones who haven't realized how terrible the SERPs have become are those at Google

[Micha]

@conro Well, as long as Google users don't care, Google will chalk it up as a success and keep it that way.

[Conro]

I don't think the user is satisfied with the search experience. After asking a question, they immediately encounter a box with "people also asked" questions. When they search for something else, they find 2 or 3 websites and another box for related searches, followed by more "people also asked." On mobile, this is chaotic and entirely unhelpful. Essentially, the user clicks on what Google puts at the top and doesn't find answers but rather what Google wants them to believe is relevant. Quite a different experience.

[Micha]

Of course, but I don't think Google is aimed at finding anything anymore. Of course, I don't know the user numbers, but I suspect that many people who don't like the results continue to use Google, Chrome etc. simply because it's a habit. This should change so that Google puts quality back at the forefront.

[superclown2]

Of course, but I don't think Google is aimed at finding anything anymore

This is certainly the case (at least for the results here in the UK that I'm interested in) where more than plain vanilla searches are concerned. Type in more than three keywords and only the commonest will be used, the rest ignored. I hardly ever see the 'must include' link either now (which should never have been necessary anyway. Of course it must! That's why I typed it in!).

Google has become more and more a "well, that's good enough for most visitors" advertising agency, that encourages visitors to search further than the first page so that they can be exposed to more ads and googlespam.

And there are still people who claim it is the best 'search engine'!

The only ones who haven't realized how terrible the SERPs have become are those at Google

Oh they are well aware of that. Thanks to their monopoly they can put up poor results, knowing that most people (many of whom don't realise that real search engines exist) won't go elsewhere. They will keep 'pushing the envelope', as they have always done.

[mhansen]

The only ones who haven't realized how terrible the SERPs have become are those at Google

I think the ones at Google who are monitoring search are now doing so through a different lens of set of KPI's. What used to be geared to user experience and search quality, is now geared toward user monetization and journey optimization. Google is simply doing all it can to lengthen and monetize each "user journey" (session) as much as possible at the expense of the user experience and quality, ie: delivering quality answers.

You can see it in the docs from the court case as they mention in late 2019, wanting to "extend the user journey" with Shopping widgets, PAA, PAS, Local Service ads, YouTube, ANY other Google property, etc. Basically, ANYTHING other than clicking off of a Google property via organic competitor, because we ARE competitors to the money users spend and Google wants ALL of that money to flow through itself.

With the HCU knocking out so many large content sites that used MediaVine and other preferred "Google Ad Partners" that effectively hurts their bottom line due to the traffic (and ad click) drop, they are taking the "user journey" even farther. If you use mobile to search, scroll past the second/third swipe page and it's nothing but Youtube and discover with tons of ads scattered throughout. There is no infinite scroll (ie: more than 20-25) of organic search anymore on mobile devices. Well, not for me anyhow. Now it just shows a very non-descript button that asks if you want to see more search results, then rolls right into tons of youtube videos, more ads, etc.

As I recently said: Google has jumped the shark and put profit far higher, likely at the top in it's list of priorities, over the quality search product with targeted users for ads that they built their reputation on. Even advertisers see this as CPC has double/tripled and click quality has dropped.

[renatovieira]

One more day... Huge drop today

[RedBar]

Bear in mind I supply my global widgets in bulk therefore my experiences probably do not match with many others here.

Without a doubt I am seeing a marked difference between "East" and "West" markets. Apart from long-term regular supplies to Western bulk purchasers for specific widgets I am not experiencing any demand for small, medium or even large project supplies. This is hardly surprising when looking at office vacancy rates etc.

On the other hand the "East" is finding me since I tend to do quite well in the Google global SERPs and I am getting good quality enquiries and confirmed orders from previously unkown buyers to me.

Traffic the last few days is trending at -30% which is very low for this time of year and I suspect that after the 16th/17th weekend that may be it until January.

[Markedd]

I am going to whine a lot these next few days, so bear with me. I am looking at a current drop of 80% and it continues to go down. No major changes in the traditional SERPS, the ones where the Google properties weren't everywhere. Checked on Google console and all is pristine. I did see some weird black hat links attack, but that happens all the time, ever since I built the website, so no biggie. My two cents for now, stop writing articles.

[RedBar]

@Markedd

You're in Germany I believe? I have several very large widget importers/wholesalers there and all of them have been experiencing massive reductions in sales the past 18+ months. They do not have any Amazon / Ebay competition, these are not low-cost through the post widgets.

[Markedd]

@RedBar No, I do my business mainly in the US, but I am not American. It's sad to hear that large German sites are getting pummeled by the petty likes of Google and no reaction from their government.

[BigKat]

You can see it in the docs from the court case as they mention in late 2019, wanting to "extend the user journey" with Shopping widgets, PAA, PAS, Local Service ads,

Internally Google has referenced this in documents to be "engagement hacking" where they essentially dummy down the SERPS to keep users within Google where they can be further monetized. By the looks of Google's SERPS, they have taken this engagement hacking to an extreme. I wonder how many users think Google is plain stupid after doing a search and leave to use a different search engine?

[Razorllama]

The drop continues - what is happening this time, the dashboard shows no new updates running?

[Conro]

It's the Christmas season, and even last year there was a decline during this period for me. The strange thing is that on Semrush, the keywords are increasing again, but the visits are still decreasing. Of course, the People Also Ask results are increasing, and they are in the first position, causing a significant loss of traffic for all the sites below the PAA. I also notice that several once very active sites are now publishing less frequently. Without sites, Google will cease to exist, especially if it relies entirely on SGE, but they are too blinded by money to understand this.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop on all my sites. Something going on...

[christianz]

Huge drop on all my sites

Yes. December looks like will be lethal for those few remaining organic sites that survived October and November.

For my large site past 7 days have been flat compared to previous 7. A victory of sorts..... However, Ahrefs finally is showing clear downtrend in rankings starting on December 1st when this BS December update kicked off. So weeks ahead will be nonstop decline for that site too.

My other sites are losing 10-20% per week every week. Only positive here is that they can't be killed by Google anymore because they are already dead.

On more positive (comical) side - someone just inquired to buy my largest website. I get these emails maybe once a year, but in 2023? What a dummy! I would rather use money as fire-starter for a wood stove than spend it on buying a website, considering what Google is doing and what's coming with genAI.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Yeah, I too used to get those emails alongside guest posts requests but ignored them all. Don't get them as much any more as I, now, neglect the site a lot more than I used to. Went from posting daily to not doing anything at all. Even with writers that I still have, one of now, I just lost motivation in both working on it and putting money into it. Glad that others are feeling the same way, glad because if by some miracle publishers did reduce. A lot. Then perhaps G will eventually wake up.

I agree I think its more practical to sell Youtube accounts than it is websites. I think a lot of people are hoping that whatever is going on is just brief and will settle. But that is wishful thinking. We would all love to have stability and, though I missed it, the early train back when the revenue was apparently amazing. Sad times. Really regret missing it. Could have benefitted my other two platforms really well. A huge boost. Now whatever boost you get is very short lived.

[christianz]

Yeah, I too used to get those emails alongside guest posts requests but ignored them all.

I get guest post / link buying emails literally every single day, nonstop. Never bought or sold a link in my life. Seems like something only #*$! sites like TimesOfYouknowwhat or some of those regional newspaper sites would do.

[mhansen]

Same here on guest post inquiries. It's a non-stop effort but thankfully, most go directly into a spam folder. I have also noticed quite a few very legitimate phishing emails coming in through to gmail lately, and not being sent to spam.

Side note - has anyone seen the hubbub over Google groups today? Apparently, groups.google.com has exploded in popularity and ranking #1 for many queries. A lot of the content on the group pages has been found to be scams, illegal, etc. I pulled up the subdomain in SEMRush and since late Sept, the groups sub has gone from 2m, to 28m in organic traffic. The majority of this is for nude leaks, crypto scams, etc.

Really making Google look like a fool with this content doing so well and being obvious spam on their own domain.

[Micha]

I add "AI writing service" to the list. I get up to 200 spam emails a day with this crud. I also noticed the groups, in addition to the webstories in Discover, another good way to put spam at Big G.
Addendum, it gets better and better, Google Maps is also flooded with spam. Oh Google, it's getting really embarrassing

[mhansen]

@Micha - Examples being shared on Twitter are completely embarrassing to Google for sure.

[ichthyous]

Huge drop on all my sites. Something going on...

I finally am seeing a recover in US traffic, however, UK, Australia, UAE, and much EU traffic started to drop like a stone around 3pm. UK is -21% today. European countries are down 21-65%. UAE is -77% and has been far below average since mid-November. German traffic first skyrocketed for about ten days, then it dropped down to nothing.

[watesh]

Another huge drop today. 6,000 articles and 5 years of work have gone down the drain in a year. I have gone 70% down in traffic in 12 months after 5 years of steady growth. With each update Google pushes out, it chips away 15 - 25% of what is remaining.

[Treud]

I see quite a drop today as well, probably something is coming again for Christmas.

[renatovieira]

Third day of huge drops... Here we go...

[rdscx]

I'm just waiting for the total annihilation. From 120k/month in the spring to 19k/month in November (google organic only). Three years of work and lots of money invested. We did nothing wrong, it was quite the opposite, we did nothing really. I did not want to pump my branded traffic with shady black hat techniques, even though there are many options available.

The sad thing is, spam is getting pushed up. All my competitors are losing, but parasite spam is gaining. This is either a silly childish mistake from a team of devs (at Google) that we thing are top notch (but they aren't), or deliberate. Either way, Google's gain from this strategy is only going to help them in the short run (and only financially).

And the other sad thing is, absolutely nobody dares to make a move against this huge brand that is Google. With all the LLMs and AIs and everything...

[Conro]

In first 10 results
1 people also ask
2 site web (google)
3 people also search
4 site
5 site
6 site
7 site
8 site
9 People also search (again)
10 site

[mysitegothithard]

Its over for me I guess. Trying to work some side projects but I can say that for me its over. Never seen nothing like that in 14 years working with blogs/seo/adsense

[Conro]

Even Adsense has very low CPC. ;y earnings are down by 70% compared to the same period last year. Today, I made just over 3 euros because the CPC is very low, yet the SERP is full of ads. Something doesn't add up, especially because typically, during this period, Adsense revenues are higher, but instead, it's worse than other months.

[ichthyous]

Too early to tell here today...traffic is definitely lower than trend, but not far below trend like most of November. Google has managed to completely destroy my sales since early Nov, though. There are prolonged gaps with no inquiries at all...there was a 10 day gap in early November with zero new inquiries. And several more 2-5 day gaps since then. People can't inquire if Google is making your traffic disappear every other day.