January 2024 Google Search Observations

[Micha]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5098123.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 9:24 am on Jan 2, 2024 (utc 0)

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Happy New Year

I hope you survived New Year's Eve well and that your websites did too.

Apparently the upswing continues, I continue to see a slight improvement in the ranking and the number of readers. (on average +11.2 percent more per day at the moment).

It may be slow, but I hope it continues.

[Shepherd]

Answers and Ads is the future of google. They will fail on both fronts.

Subscription AI (read: paid) is how we will discover the interweb.

[NirthaK]

Hi,

does anyone else face the problem that in the Search Console all URLs seem to be indexed but in fact the impressions and clicks for them are zero? They have completely disappeared in the SERPs. My site is vanishing in that way. From week to week more keywords and impressions are gone. Never coming Back...

NirthaK

[superclown2]

Has Google given up all pretence of being a proper search engine?

I tried some three and four word searches today; let's say an example was 'red unicorns with widgets'. In just about every entry I got 'Missing: widgets ‎| Show results with: widgets.' It was page 2 or even 3/4 before I found what I was looking for.

I am also detecting instances of the search terms I enter being changed. Let's again imagine I entered 'red unicorns with widgets'; the search term miraculously changed to something like 'brown unicorns with horns'.

They are obviously dumbing down their results considerably. Is this for the benefit of searchers? Or Google's bottom line? You decide.

The Web was originally meant as a medium for finding accurate information. Google are destroying that in their greed for profits.

[Bloggerist]

@NirthaK Seeing same as well. A lot of my articles have dropped out of the serps / lost a lot of main keyword rankings they were on before but still ranking for one or two sub keywords

[Mark_A]

@superclown2

I also find it increasingly hard to find specific things in google.

You are not alone!

[christianz]

Me too. I feel like a noob who doesn't know how to use search properly. I used to be efficient with creating sequences of keywords that describe what I am looking for. Now Google just takes those words and spits out something roughly related.

Efficiency of Google has been dumbed down for expert users to noob user level.

I don't want search engine that nudges me into directions it thinks I should go. I want to be in control and I will make sure I do.

By the way - I am not using Google as default search and haven't for many years. I just occasionally use it for some deeper searches that Duck doesn't have the index depth for. And for things like Image search with refinements etc.

That's when I notice how frustrating Google has become.

[superclown2]

I also find it increasingly hard to find specific things in google.

Google's entire business plan relies on them constantly improving profits. Since they don't pay a dividend to shareholders, capital growth is the only way that these people can be encouraged to invest in the company.

It seemed like a good idea at the time since it freed them to re-invest earnings rather than pay them out. The problem is that since 'other bets' have overall been a dismal failure they have to keep earning more and more from search. They are doing this now by degrading the search experience, forcing people to spend more time searching, giving them more incentive to click on ads.

They are currently relying on their monopoly to prevent searchers from going elsewhere but that is unlikely to last as litigation worldwide forces them to behave in a less unethical manner. There is only so much they can achieve by 'lobbying' despite the massive sums they spend on it so eventually their whole system will implode, unless they can make a lot of money from AI (which is by no means certain).

It's simple really. They are caught like rabbits in a car's headlights so things will get worse before they get better.

[ichthyous]

I notice intense movement in the SERPs. Lots of volatility. Something going on...

I had a huge surge in traffic two days ago on the 8th. Then it all started dropping off a cliff by mid day on the 9th. By today (10th) traffic is right back down to much lower levels. Search is -29% at 11am, USA is -53%. This is now the norm...I am seeing the traffic get sucked away into a black hole about every other day now. I am also seeing my ranking jump around drastically depending on how I search, and that explains why some categories on my site can be strong one day and then drop by 50%+ the next day. I think Google is rotating the traffic between more sites now.

Also...direct traffic fell off a cliff in mid November and never returned. It is at half the daily level it used to be at...and that is simply all the graphical changes with Google images. I hate the new images results...why do we need six large images at top. It was fine the way it was with a block of small thumbnails on the page.

[l1fejosh]

Nothing but foreign, non-converting zombie traffic today...what a joke. Huge influx of a bot from Singapore just loading the page and exiting once it's loaded...weird.

[RedBar]

I had a huge surge in traffic two days ago on the 8th.

Since New Year I saw traffic increasing specifically from two areas, Singapore and Brazil. After going through my various log programmes I found both culprits were bots. The Brazilian one was from one specific IP and I seem to have put a stop to that however the Singaporean one I have so far been unable to stop completely as yet even though I have tried blocking within the IP Geolocation as well as the block ranges.

The Singapore one is noticeable in that it has been coming through solely as single page views sometimes 2-4 times an hour sometimes 10-12 times and hour.

[RedBar]

Huge influx of a bot from Singapore just loading the page and exiting once it's loaded...weird

And I just posted about this, PetalBot from Huawei by any chance?

[l1fejosh]

And I just posted about this, PetalBot from Huawei by any chance?

I just took a brief look and it wasn't PetalBot as far as I know... we (hatefully) use Wix, so it's difficult to discern what bots come and go. Usually labelled as "unknown".

I have the same problem with this Singapore bot though, it will just do 1 page view with no engagement and leave once the page has loaded. Happened over 10 times already today.

[BigKat]

Just dropped in to see if anyone is experiencing anything positive, which doesn't seem to be the case. Same for us - four ads above the fold and their PAA box leave very little traffic seeing organic results. I don't expect any improvements really because there is nobody to stand in Google's way as they choke of the entire digital economy except for their preferred partners (eg Amazon). We're still doing ok though as our sales continue rising from other sources. The best I can hope for, since I have zero confidence in politicians/regulators/courts, is Google's user base continues to defect.

[RedBar]

I just took a brief look and it wasn't PetalBot as far as I know

PetalBot is also known as AspiegelBot. This used to be a problem bot and insofar as I know had actually been "disabled" by Huawei, however it seems mightily strange that as soon as the New Year began that this bot suddenly appeared on my global site, likewise with the Brazilian bot.

we (hatefully) use Wix,

Are you allowed your own .htaccess?

[superclown2]

Huge influx of a bot from Singapore just loading the page and exiting once it's loaded...weird

I've been blocking bots from Singapore on a daily basis recently. Most of them are hosted by Amazon.

[Micha]

In addition to the bots, the volume of spam has also increased considerably. Otherwise: traffic has been dropping again since Sunday. But that was to be expected.

[Razorllama]

Since around 2 days ago or so, I'm seeing increasingly irrelevant results for my queries. Not talking as a webmaster here, I'm talking as a user. It's all over the place.

[Bloggerist]

Is it possible to beat the reddit, quora and tiktok taking the first three positions on the serps. If so, how will you go about it?

[Fluff_Nutz]

The cards have fallen. Holidays are officially over. Both my sites and Youtube have now lost traffic. Its expected for sure. They only thrive on holidays and weekends. But I'll admit during the holidays all of my sites and Youtube were stable and the traffic was great. I selfishly want the US back in lockdown :P

I wonder what 2024 has in store. For me I have recruited more people to the team but on a different platform. I still only have the single writer who, for now, has agreed to write on both of my websites. Though my smaller site was created on a whim I don't have the urge to delete it at present. Though that could change in the future. Depends. Time will tell on that one. It is also the one to suffer the most now that the holidays are officially over, with a -50% traffic drop. My main site is still going strong with a +9% increase on January 9th.

I do plan on doing more content with my main site and have set a separate budget for that. I have learnt never to trust any revenue or income from either website. This is also the year I expect to receive a large drop this coming October since I was, thankfully, spared last year. But if I am correct in this then am I right to assume these drops are based on rotation rather than it being random? It will be interesting when the time comes. Its doubtful and I'm most likely just trying to find ways for this to become more stable.

[l1fejosh]

Is it possible to beat the reddit, quora and tiktok taking the first three positions on the serps. If so, how will you go about it?

It's not so promising with Google... but you can try to research your content well and make sure the content is unique, readable and informative. I've managed to take some top positions from LinkedIn and Quora by doing so.

You can also try Quora marketing, just answer the questions and drop a relevant link to your website in the answer. Maybe you'll take the first position because it's Quora...no promises though. Good luck.

[mosxu]

I wished for genuine traffic in 2024 but unfortunately it does not seem to be the case!

Last 3 days zombies are up x 2

[bebopandrocksteady]

the serps are just flat awful. a lot of shuffling going on and many queries are completely irrelevant and missing the mark bad. I'm convinced they've got ai running the show, and it's doing an awful job.

[superclown2]

I'm convinced they've got ai running the show, and it's doing an awful job

There could be a very different reason.

It was revealed during the trial that they are aware that providing poor results makes searchers spend more time on their site and click on more ads. More money for Google.

Was it Sergey or Larry who stated a couple of decades ago that making money from advertising was incompatible to running a search engine?

[ChokenBako]

In my niche for a specific keyword only big brands appear or very large sites. All smaller sites, including mine, appear at positions where noone will ever click...

[BigKat]

It was revealed during the trial that they are aware that providing poor results makes searchers spend more time on their site and click on more ads. More money for Google.

Exactly. Below is what Google said:

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.

Full redacted PDF document presented in court at: [justice.gov...]

Google's public statements and guidance for webmasters (eg create quality content) directly conflicts with internal documents showing leadership within Google exploring ways to reduce search quality to force users to search more. I believe this single document provides all the evidence we need to explain why Google's search results are so extremely poor. Also in the document Google leadership talked about adding refinements all over the page. In our ecom industry, that People Also Ask (PAA) refinement has pushed out the #1 organic results for most queries. It's clear Google wants users to see and click on only ads.

[RedBar]

I've been blocking bots from Singapore on a daily basis recently.

Despite denying with htaccess and robots.txt and enabling IP Blocker in CPanel, PetalBot is ignoring all rules visiting every five minutes. It would seem that many others are having issues with this Huawei bot and, as yet, no simple solution to stopping it has been found, it's annoying since it is distorting my metrics.

[mhansen]

Interesting tweet about the latest SGE layout/function that prompts you to "Learn More" directly under the listed source name, but when you click the "learn more" feature, it just creates a new SGE instance with more information, instead of taking you to the source itself.

Nom nom, SGE eats all the content and keeps users in the Google ecosystem forever.

FWIW, I believe this is the future of Google search. Not sure how badly it's going to hurt their bottom line, but once they stop referring traffic I'll be the first to block anything related to Googlebot and it's AI completely. I already block a ton of the listed AI bots, but Google stated that the ONLY way to prevent SGE from using your information, is by blocking Googlebot completely.

Link to tweet by Andy Simpson. [twitter.com]

[superclown2]

It's clear Google wants users to see and click on only ads.

Perhaps those who claim they made Google the default because they produced the best results will now think again. After all it wouldn't be the billions that Google pays them that affects that decision, would it.

[BigKat]

I believe this is the future of Google search. Not sure how badly it's going to hurt their bottom line, but once they stop referring traffic I'll be the first to block anything related to Googlebot and it's AI completely.

A couple days ago Google announced another round of layoffs, impacting hundreds of workers. I suspect Google will continue downsizing their payroll to help offset losses moving to SGE along with advertisers and users leaving. I'm in the same camp as you - when Google quits sending traffic I will recommend blocking them entirely. As it is now, we get very few sales from Google anymore and providing their users with free information so Google alone can monetize that doesn't sit well with me and those within our company.

Perhaps those who claim they made Google the default because they produced the best results will now think again.

As you noted, it's all about the money and has nothing to do with being the "best" or because of Google's "quality."

[superclown2]

A couple days ago Google announced another round of layoffs, impacting hundreds of workers

Most of those being laid off seem to be involved with Google's 'other bets' which collectively have been an economic disaster. It has been clear for years that without advertising the company would have been out of business ages ago.

The popular opinion is that they want to put all their efforts into AI (in which they are still an also ran). I wonder if this will prove to be another 'other bet' eventually?