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]

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today... It seems to me that these updates are eternal. We will never have stability in the SERPs.

[RubicCubed]

It seems to me that these updates are eternal. We will never have stability in the SERPs.

It appears these updates are a continuation of Google's pursuit to drain the organic well dry.

[Conro]

The beauty is that Google has been creating this chaos for months, with the result that the user finds less and less what he is looking for, those who have a website are now demotivated. How long can Google last? Will it survive 2024? No one is happy anymore

[rdscx]

next time you tell someone to "google it", remember that you're branding these a**holes...

[Conro]

I have an idea to give you for the next post to write in all your sites: 10 reasons to switch from Google to "name of search engine you like"

[Micha]

@conro Honestly, that's not a bad idea.

so update on the state of my website: Clinically dead, thanks Google.

[ami3810]

@Micha we are all dead around here :)

The SERPs are getting worse and worse by the day. Was playing with some terms today and the results are woah, are they bad!

On the top are:
1. sponsored
2. sponsored
3. sponsored
4. Youtube
5. Youtube
6. Youtube
7. People also ask
8 The first real website to appear
9. Website
10. Website
11. Places with a map (?)
12. Website
13. Website
14. Images
15. Website
16. Places without a map
17. Sponsored
18. Related searches
19. Sponsored
20. Sponsored
21. Website
etc.

So essentially, if you aren't in the first 3 sponsored - no chance.

Google has killed Google - Amen. That, or some lawsuits need to come... and come fast.

[Fluff_Nutz]

They should stick some more Youtube videos in there :P

I'm surprised publishers still fight against Google. I doubt anything will change. America laws are terrible. I also don't think that lawsuits will ever work neither. All anyone does is demand money from Google if a court claim is won and thus G just takes yet more revenue from publishers to help pay for it. This could be another reason why the SERPs are a mess. For Google to profit more to fix the lawsuit and court cases.
We need proper action. Which will likely never arrive.

It's time to divert or give up. What other option is there? So many people are used to using Google now that it will take a miracle for them to stop. Do they even care enough to look elsewhere? People are too used to their methods now. No one ever says I'll search the internet any more, its simply 'I'll Google it'. If something was ever going to be done it should have years ago. Before it got out of hand.
Now its too late.

Not even Bing can fight Google. No search can. A possible solution and perhaps our only life line is for something like Reddit or TikTok to take over. Though, this is unlikely. Google get majority of their profits from search so they play with that the most. Hence why its so unstable. They used it to fund everything. From making profits, paying fines, hiring staff etc..

Its sad really because every day for god knows how many months this forum has always had the same messages posted. Traffic loss and Google disappointment. Are our cries even worth it when nothing is being done? Game Over, sorry..

[honestman]

Search engines want you to miss the forest for the trees. With so many factors, unless your AI invention can outsmart its hundreds of factors with a daily doses of injections from teams on many different projects, often with competing goals and thumbs on scales, focusing on Discovery of any given update is a Sidiphysian task, IMO.

[christianz]

1. sponsored
2. sponsored
3. sponsored
4. Youtube
5. Youtube
6. Youtube
7. People also ask

When the average searcher goes to search engine to look up things, what they want to see (in this particular order) are:

1. Ads. Lots of ads.
2. Grifters and clickbaiters on youtube
3. What other people search for

There is no such thing as perfect search engine, but they are really damn close.

[ami3810]

From a user perspective, it feels like we are being pushed more and more towards AI. Because hell, I don't remember when was the last time the SERPs gave me better value than an AI and I usually just go to ChatGPT now to find the information I need because it is faster, more efficient and in most cases - more comprehensive, easier to understand and more accurate. Just googling it doesn't work anymore. From my side it seems as if Google is trying to get the last penny out from a dying horse and push its Gemini with Bard. And Bard is also horrid.

[Conro]

@ami3810 Bing use ChatGPT4 and is free. Have many function included the description of Images. The same of Gemini (of the video fake)

[superclown2]

From my side it seems as if Google is trying to get the last penny out from a dying horse and push its Gemini with Bard. And Bard is also horrid.

I don't know anyone who uses Bard, They even had to fake the Gemini video [bbc.com ] in an attempt to raise interest. ChatGPT is leaving them in their wake.

Yes they are using AI to maximise profits but (again, as the trial results show) there is a divide between the search team who want to produce better results and the advertising people who need to satisfy Wall Street with ever increasing profits. Guess who is winning? This is why the results are so bad for serious searches.

Mobile results here are particularly awful; the mass of 'People Also' type boxes, ads and ad filled videos are making it impossible to find answers to anything but the simplest queries. For the first time in years I am getting more hits from desktop than mobile for many search terms; this is because on a desktop with a decent sized screen people can actually see my pages amongst all the ad spam, but on mobile they are completely buried.

I am more and more seeing no organics at all on mobile that are above the PAA, PASF and other spam. So, even those with the very best answers to queries (as decided by Google of course) are unlikely to see much, if any, business.

Plus I see more ads that contain multiple boxes that look like separate search results but are not. Is this legal? Yes. Ethical? No. Next year Google will be regulated over here by the Competition and Marketing Authority. If they are as strict on ethics as the Financial Conduct Authority Google could be in trouble. Until then things are highly unlikely to improve IMO.

next time you tell someone to "google it", remember that you're branding these a**holes...

I still hoover my carpet with a Dyson. After a series of unethical promotions Hoover, which was once one of the most trusted brands in the world, went spectacularly insolvent in 1995. Perhaps we will still 'google it' on Bing, Ecosia, or other search engines yet to appear in the future.

www.bbc.com Google admits AI viral video was edited to look better Instead of the AI responding to voice and video, it was fed text prompts and still images.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Wow. Now that is hilarious. I had no idea about the Gemini video but shows how useless Google is in general. Can't get their SERPs right, fail to provide good customer satisfaction and fail at AI too. Haha! I'll admit I have used ChatGPT several times both for a few articles and I notice it a lot on sites such as Quora. It is both informative and easy to use. I'd never personally touch Bard or anything G release. But by the sounds of it I'm not missing out.

Also, I'm currently adding content to both my Youtube and website. Usually its just Youtube now but I have a writer still and decided to test my luck with the website traffic. Currently only one platform is gaining from the additional content, guess which one.. Really it does not take a genius to work that one out. Also, no its not because of the SERPs. The majority of the traffic comes from Youtube Search itself. Maybe people are actually noticing how garbage the SERPs are after all? At least in my niche they are.

[christianz]

Currently only one platform is gaining from the additional content, guess which one..

lol. I know. The self-dealing, self-preferencing of stuffing YouTube videos all over web search is really nauseating.

The YouTube search is terrible too. It's only better in sense that when you search for a video in YouTube you are not presented with junk widgets, web results, PAA etc. At least you are getting the type of content you are looking for - video. The problem is that you get very few real results. Maybe 5. After that it's useless, annoying recommendations, Shorts brain rot, "videos you already watched" (it's not a joke!) etc.

Filters are also heavily dumbed down - you can't get latest videos, for example. This is for censorship purposes. Other crappy big tech platforms are doing the same, of course.

And, of course, just like web, YouTube implements the policy of "boosting authority content", which means only giving fair traffic to large corporations with which Google has some sort of covert business relationship, and shafting all independent creators.

I don't remember what was your niche Fluff, but if it was pets, be prepared for "F**bes Pets" or "TimesOfI**** Cats&Dogs Edition" to take all traffic any time soon. Especially when partial AI generation of video content will improve.

[Fluff_Nutz]

Not really up to date on AI video. Looked into it a bit just now and saw that is mainly involves very basic features. It will be interesting to see what it turns into as it grows. If it has the potential to rip actual video content outside of simple AI avatars and text to speech then yeah, it could be worrying.

Also, I'm just happy that most of the Youtube traffic is from Youtube search and not Google. But, as you said, that is most likely down to the site not having other garbage such as PAA and other toxic ads. Makes me worry if anything could be implemented in the future. But I have been on Youtube for over 10 yrs and nothing really major has hit it. You would have thought it would have by now. Only real potential danger is AI but I would assume it would be much more limited in capabilities.

Whilst I also agree with the 'boosting of authority content'. Videos is still a much easier platform with less competition. I even read that Youtube still recommend and help smaller channels too. So overall its great for growth still. I think that is also my problem. There is too much competition on SERPs. Most copy paste or, now, use AI. There is barely any breathing room. Let alone the G adds too. So growth is very limited.

You have valid points but I really hope Youtube does not change much from what it is now. It's all I have left ha!

[RubicCubed]

At least you are getting the type of content you are looking for - video. The problem is that you get very few real results.

The problem that follows is an ad every 2-3 minutes in a 15 minute video, with some of the ads appearing to be as long as the video itself. Just like Google search, I find Youtube also frustratingly unusable because of excessive ad spam. Those who watch the videos will likely end up with carpal tunnel syndrome from having to click the ad skip option (when available) so often. All the CEO of Alphabet, and its underlying companies, knows how to do is spam ads and lie to the public like they did in that fraudulent/deceptive Gemini video.

[RedBar]

Have I missed a couple of weeks? Is it already Xmas Day_______________My traffic levels across all sites tell me it is!

[ichthyous]

From a user perspective, it feels like we are being pushed more and more towards AI. Because hell, I don't remember when was the last time the SERPs gave me better value than an AI and I usually just go to ChatGPT now to find the information I need because it is faster, more efficient and in most cases - more comprehensive, easier to understand and more accurate. Just googling it doesn't work anymore...

Most people still want to use search and not to have to go to chatGPT as it's not that quick of a process and it is also riddled with inaccuracies, at least when i have used it. Google is between a rock and a hard place...shareholders demand that the stock price increases and that the company appears to be competing and winning with the other tech companies. So Google is forced to canibalize the quality of search and force more revenue generation through pushing ads and degrading organic. But this is also the reason why more people are fleeing...they don't want to be served ads and terrible results. Google is playing for time with AI...it needs to replace the old search model with something that produces at least as much and more revenue. I would not count out Google at all...they have plenty of resources to pull off a competitor to ChatGPT no doubt at all in my mind. In the end will AI really be the huge revenue producer that they are all hoping? Meta, MS, OpenAI, Google, Apple, Amazon, Baidu, and everyone else in the world will soon have their own AI platforms so the pie will be split.

[ichthyous]

Traffic seems to be stabilizing this weekend, even though I have been steadily losing top 3 and top 10 results for two months now. I have lost 9% of my top 10 ranking terms and 11% of my top 3 ranking terms on desktop...yet traffic is better than when I was ranking higher. I have also seen some of my long-standing high ranking terms drop from #2/#3 to #/5-#7 and stay there this month. It seems that "local" service providers are being given a boost, even though most of them are not local at all, just mega sites with localized cookie cutter pages for every imaginable locality.

[Shepherd]

shows how useless Google is in general

Credit where credit is due, I personally think google is doing an amazing job with YouTube TV...

Everything, EVERYTHING else, absolute rubbish.

[Micha]

News traffic has increased significantly (+69 per cent yesterday), and today is off to a good start. It seems that Google has turned the screws again. Sistrix also shows a clear improvement. Let's see how long this lasts.

[superclown2]

Business is falling for us day by day but it's nearly Christmas so that's expected. However the last year has produced the lowest number of clicks on our sites for more than a decade, despite huge effort and investment. This is not down to fair competition since most of the people who competed with us in the past have gone out of business; as we all know it is almost all a result of Google's manipulation of ads and googlespam to push organic results out of sight.

We are hanging on in the hope that Europe and the UK will regulate Google properly but we have little faith in the USA, where massive sums are spent on 'lobbying' . However we shall wait and see.

In the meanwhile we have decided to optimise all our sites for desktop, and concentrate on business products and services where our target visitors are less likely to search on mobile. There is so much googlespam on Android now that sometimes I can't even find our sites myself. In many ways it feels like 2010 all over again.

next time you tell someone to "google it", remember that you're branding these a**holes...

There are dangers to Google in this. Their trade mark could become generic, like hoover, aspirin, cellophane, band aid and many others. No you can't use the word 'google' as part of your tradename but advertising "google it on newupstartsearchengine.com' could be an entirely different matter. Just a thought!

[Treud]

I feel too this downward trend since early December. The impressions are going down means I’m pushed behind all the crap Google is pushing on top of pages.

Also with all the AI request widgets I’m wandering if someone will find a way to cheese the system…

[Conro]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’. This is garbage, not a search engine.

[BigKat]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’.

@Conro
Spend some time reading the court documents being released to the public and you will have a better understanding. The PAA and PASF boxes are what Google calls "refinements" to get users to generate more queries. Google does this because the top of most queries are loaded with ads. These refinements are only part of Google's self-described "engagement hacking" techniques which are designed to maximize the monetization of each user by not answering their queries. Below is a link to the document where Google describes this in their own words.

We could increase queries quite easily in the short term in user negative ways (turn off spell correction, turn off ranking improvements, place refinements all over the page). If we, as a company, want to go there we should discuss that. It is possible that there are trade offs here between different kinds of user negativity caused by engagement hacking.

Quoted court document: [justice.gov...]

[mhansen]

I still can’t understand the point of a search engine like Google that instead of finding sites that answer a query, shows you as the first result ‘people also asked’ and immediately after ‘people also searched for’. This is garbage, not a search engine.

Google.com is no longer a search engine. It's a destination portal, being reworked daily to answer 100% of all queries without leaving and supporting those who feed it data.

Chrome is no longer a web browser. It's a personal assistant with tools and widgets slowly being baked into the browser, that eliminate the need for users to use 3rd party websites. (See latest Chrome update with deal finder, discount code tool, etc)

[ichthyous]

Another big drop in traffic today...USA -36% at 2pm. UK, Germany, Canada, Australia and UAE all down 10%-18%.

Also seeing a continual decline in top 3 and top 10 ranked terms. I've seen this movie before...your top ranked terms just drop off in a slow decline for months ending in a 15-20% loss. Then 6-12 months later they can start to climb again just as mysteriously. There's nothing anyone can do about it as it's a shift in which types of sites are being favored and that's it. I'll expect a lower 1st half of 2024 for sure, although really it has been two months already.

Interestingly, I've had four inquiries in a row since last night...typical of Google when it lets the traffic flow for about 12 hours before an update

[StoneSolid]

I didn't do it for a LONG time but last few days I checked google ranks for my sites and I used VPN so that I get USA based results...

It was honestly a 100% scary experience, as some have mentioned before. There is everything on google search results except actual search results (as in - site listings).
Search results pages look more like a spammy webshop with lots of ads than actual search results.

Funnily enough, if I was to build my website pages as google search results, I would probably get like 10 algo penalties and vanish from search all together.

Don't even know how to tackle such internet monopolization.

[Razorllama]

Lots of position drops here - not to other sites, but to the numerous widgets, YouTube thumbnail, PAA and other 'features'.

Of course, this translates into a -18% week on week. On some of these queries, I'm not seeing a legit site until well down into pos 7-8.

In 3 months Google managed to do a few years' worth of carnage. Personally, I'm already swapping to doing this part-time/as a side gig and looking for more standard employment opportunities from February onwards. It's been enough.