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.

[RedBar]

Fingers crossed I've just found some filters in Statcounter, we'll see if this works.

[ichthyous]

The decline continues for me too. Almost 1,000 keywords have been lost this week. I find it particularly annoying that some of the top-ranked websites have been replaced by off-topic websites that have nothing to do with the search term.

I've had a steady loss in top ranking terms since early November. That followed a steady climb for months starting in March 2023. It strikes me that this is some sort of cycling as the terms that are being shed are the ones gained over the previous six months. In my case it coincides with losing a lot of high powered inbound links. Perhaps you can check to see if you have also lost some important links from high DA sites. It's a lot of work but replacing them helps to turn the trend around.

[Micha]

@Ichthyos I had a look, my links are okay, a few high-quality backlinks have gone, but some have also been added. I assume it's the usual Google nonsense that G doesn't even understand himself.

[Dooku]

@Redbar, Would you mind explaining why you are filtering in Statcounter if your aim is to block that bot altogether?
I mean Statcounter filters just remove that entry from your stats.....while that bot is still hitting your website.
I might be completely wrong....still, so just asking.

[NeapTide]

After few days of getting good traffic the same PAA boxes issue has started again pushing down serps. 1 organic result followed by PAA then 1 or 2 results followed by big PAA box then 2 or 3 results and another PAA box.

Google is now search engine for just 1 or 2 organic results. Rest can just go to hell (google's new motive)

[RubicCubed]

1 organic result followed by PAA then 1 or 2 results followed by big PAA box then 2 or 3 results and another PAA box.

The PAA box now appears above the first organic result for many of our keywords, though its impact on traffic is negligible since the four ads above it are siphoning off most of the traffic. Technically SEO isn't dead, but the traffic rewards for being ranked #1 are so insignificant only those who use AI/automation to generate mass quantities of pages will realize any profit from it.

[superclown2]

Just as I thought results couldn't get worse Google proves me wrong again. It's as though they are playing bingo and picking results out of a hat.

Just one example; a search for 'best red widgets' (where red widgets is a popular search term). The organic results are:

1) Review site 1
2) Review site 2
3) A site that is faintly related to the search term but which doesn't say anything about it
4) Review site 2 again
5) Review site 3 (a German site with over 8 million super spammy backlinks; I'm in London)
6) Review site 3 again
7) A major newspaper with an article about a slightly related but otherwise different subject
8) Reddit
9) A site that sells widgets but not red ones
10) A site providing customer service addresses and phone numbers

Page two was almost as bad with not a single site about the search term I entered. I gave up at this stage.

I stress that the search term I entered was 'Best (Very Popular Search Term)'; I didn't add any more words and I'd deleted cookies beforehand.

No doubt they are in panic mode to hit their earnings target this quarter.

[RedBar]

@Dooku

@Redbar, Would you mind explaining why you are filtering in Statcounter if your aim is to block that bot altogether?

Quite simply because it was significatly skewing those stats.

I tried for a couple of days filtering through Statcounter, nothing whatsoever worked therefore Statcounter has been removed.

I have tried for some 7-10 days now through htaccess and robots.txt, nothing whatsoever has worked, even blocking the Singaporean IP completely has failed, nothing is taking any notice of what I am doing.

I have read more suggestions and ideas about what to do that it is simply becoming ridiculous, some of these companies are ignoring all "supposed" rules and agreements.

To say I am pi$$ed off with the entire culture of all this cr@p at present would be an understatement.

Plus you will be seeing a lot, lot less of me here simply because no matter what any one of us, or collectively, says or does, no one is listening, no one will do anything, we're all just pi$$ing into the wind trying to vent our frustrations as we sink into their abyss.

[ichthyous]

I am seeing stronger traffic in general, despite more bleeding of top 3/10 ranking terms. It had stopped for a week, but now the loss of terms has started again. One thing I see is that non-USA traffic has pretty much returned to normal or surpassing previous highs, while USA traffic remains stuck at much lower levels since early November and has never recovered.

Upon further inspection I see that is mostly due to an 80% drop in traffic from a specific set of terms that was brining in a lot of daily visits. However, my ranking has not changed at all for these terms. I did make some sitewide changes during this time, increasing the number of related posts on the page from 6 to 10...which caused the pages to drop from green to yellow in Core Web Vitals, but it's also getting visitors looking at more content.

And I updated every single page with new titles and sometimes descriptions to conform with limits on the length. So often shorter and more specific titles. That took two months of work as I did each one by hand to ensure that it wasn't cookie cutter, and made sure the related posts were truly semantically related.

[Micha]

Oh well, today is another one of those days when you wonder whether Google still lists your website at all. G's traffic almost came to a standstill from yesterday to today, and I'm still losing keywords.

So it's business as usual, it goes up for a few days, then it goes down again and so on. Overall, however, the number of visitors remains at a constant level, albeit significantly lower than in January 2023.

[superclown2]

no one is listening, no one will do anything, we're all just pi$$ing into the wind trying to vent our frustrations as we sink into their abyss.

I wouldn't get too downhearted. This year the EU Digital Marketing Act and the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill come into full force and they both have real sharp teeth. OK the USA litigation will probably drag on for years but the rest of the world (including, now, Japan) are not as patient or prone to 'lobbying'.

I am now finding ChatGPT is failing to answer a lot of queries that they were perfectly happy with a short while ago. I'm wondering if this is as a result of all the copyright issues that are going through the courts. Perhaps AI will prove to be a damp squib, as far as search is concerned, after all.

In the meanwhile I am seeing huge swings in the Google SERPs from day to day with many of my search terms oscillating, seemingly, between the top of page one to buried in page 3. Big difference between mobile and desktop too. However this doesn't seem to make the slightest difference to click-through rate so I am wondering if the influence of localised searching has been ratcheted up. My mobile IP address, along with it's apparent location, changes whenever I turn the phone off then back on again (and I constantly delete cookies); one minute Google says I'm in London then the next I'm in Glasgow.

[Micha]

Meanwhile, a study from Germany proves that Google search really has gotten worse. In other words, it confirms what we have often said. Link to the study: https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

[edited by: not2easy at 2:28 pm (utc) on Jan 17, 2024]
[edit reason] delinked for pdf clarity [/edit]

[christianz]

Oh well, today is another one of those days when you wonder whether Google still lists your website at all. G's traffic almost came to a standstill from yesterday to today, and I'm still losing keywords.

Can confirm. Yesterday and today so far are really bad. Just like last week.

[Dooku]

@Redbar..... I know what you mean :-(
But still want to provide some help, also for other members coping with the same problems.
IP addresses of some bots or malicious actors often are not blocked by htaccess or even the linux firewall on your server.
In that case ad the IP address to the Nginx blocklist if you are using an Nginx based webserver......often this will work.

But over the course of several months I have added almost all my websites to Cloudflare and have created extensive WAV security rules in it's firewall.
The free version of cloudflare is enough for this for most users. It's a lot of work at first yes, but from then on it needs minor up keep when you notice a new bad bot or malicious actor.

I suggest blocking all countries that are just not relevant first.....from there go down in more detail from ASN network numbers, ip address ranges, user agents etc...etc...
You can see easily from the server's raw logs if anything is malicious or not or is just useless. If in doubt copy and paste its IP address in abuseipdb.com and you will quickly see if you need to block it or not. For more detail use any Whois tool you like and from their any IP to ASN converter tool for their network range.

I have noticed a major decrease in load on the servers because of this as the amount of bad bots, scrapers and especially script kiddies and hackers have increased exponentially over the last 10 years......thanks to youtube "tutorials".
But according to my stats it also improves the bounce rates by removing all those "1 to 3 second one page" visits from useless non-human visitors. And because of that, but this I can not prove, I have the impression many pages got ranking improvements as the overall visit length increased and maybe google thinks the page is now more relevant?(without changing any content).

I am just providing this info from my own experience, maybe it will help some of you. We need every little bit to stay afloat in the current SE landscape.

[christianz]

Lower bounce rate and higher average session time can potentially mean your content is worse not better than some other content with bouncy traffic and short sessions...

Maybe it is filled with ads, popups, confusing navigation and content that you have to click at least once (in hope) to see what you were actually looking for versus straight-to-the-point page that immediately provides what you want and, therefore, generates mostly single page view (bouncy) traffic...

[EditorialGuy]

Lower bounce rate and higher average session time can potentially mean your content is worse not better than some other content with bouncy traffic and short sessions...

As with most things, it depends--not only on the content, but also on the visitor's intentions or interests. That's why Google has said for years that bounce rate is a "noisy" metric.

To put it another way, how is Google supposed to know whether Bubba spent five minutes on a page about Widgetville pedicab fares because (a) he had trouble finding the information, (b) he was interested in the details [fares for kids, fares for disabled people, day passes, etc.], or (c) he stopped to brew a cup of coffee before looking at another search result?

[ichthyous]

Yep another big drop in traffic...you could see it kick in yesterday eve as European traffic dropped first, then today USA traffic is -33% from an average Wednesday...and it has stayed at exactly -33% since 11am, so seven hours in a row. That is statistically impossible, so it's all just complete manipulation. It looks like a new pattern of one day on, one day off is becoming the norm.

[KaseyM]

Dropping ever since October and no sign of slowing down.

I've never seen the results as bad as they are now. A complete mess and some Indian newspaper is just ripping my content and ranking about me within hours of publishing.

Helpless.

[ichthyous]

@KaseyM Perhaps block all traffic from India and they won't be able to reach your site to rip it off? May not work entirely but will slow them down. I have blocked China entirely due to concerns that their AI bots will just completely rip my content. About 6 other countries totally blocked as well, and the list is growing. I don't block India, but I do have them on "managed challenge" via cloudflare. A lot of Indian traffic is just scouting for contact forms etc

[christianz]

Helpless.

There is nothing we can do and nothing we should do. It's up to Google to get their act together.

[superclown2]

I've never seen the results as bad as they are now. A complete mess

On mobile I'm now seeing a block of three YouTube videos (full of ads of course) in the middle of the SERPs, pushing organics further down to oblivion. For enquiries like 'how to assemble a widget' I could see some logic but "cheap widget" type enquiries?

Personally I avoid these videos like the plague, I want quick information and I haven't time to sit through ads, a clever-clever intro then some rambling youth with verbal incontinence asking me to subscribe to a channel.

That of course is under the 'businesses" block of local-ish businesses, most of which either no longer exist or promote something completely different to what I'm looking for. Which in turn is under PAA and PASF but above 'Related Searches' most of which feature companies in the USA (useless to me in the UK).

As a search engine Google is abysmal.

[BigKat]

As a search engine Google is abysmal.

I wonder if Google even utilizes focus groups to evaluate the UX before pushing these SERP layouts live or do the changes get a rubber stamp of approval for the sake of revenue? There are reasons why Google is sitting in a courtroom and laying off a lot of employees, and it's not because they are a good company doing good things for their customers. Google's confusing SERP layouts, ad spam, strategically placed refinement boxes and poor organic results that are difficult to find are driving everyone away from Google. I get that Google wants to increase their revenue, but all they have done as of late is counterproductive to their long-term viability as a company.

[engine]

I've been working on performance of well positioned pages and it's interesting that traffic has tailed off in the last 6 months.
I'm sure the ads and other non organic clutter in the SERPs are making those well ranked pages perform less well. They are not all ads. Many are expanded views of organic.

What can be done about it?

Optimising for just the standard link is where it's tripping up.

Gotta get my thinking cap on again.

Any top tips?

[superclown2]

I get that Google wants to increase their revenue, but all they have done as of late is counterproductive to their long-term viability as a company.

This year they have laid off people working on 'other bets' which I completely understand since they have consistently failed, overall, to make money from them, and in fact they have run up eye watering losses. System engineers? Sadly AI can do much of their job so much more cheaply.

They have also, however, released people from recruitment and ad sales. This means that (a) they will not be bringing in much, if any, new talent in the near future and (b) they are expecting lower levels of business in the future as regulation starts to bite.

I have always believed that Google would go for broke by maximising income at the risk of destroying the quality of their "search engine" (read: advertising agency) and that I reckon that this is exactly what is happening.

And no, I don't buy their claim that they are slimming down so that they can concentrate on "significant opportunities ahead". If they mean AI, then they are way behind the leaders and there is no guarantee that they will ever really make money from it. Let's face it, does anyone really prefer Bard over ChatGPT? I never even hear a mention of Google AI products here in the UK.

[ichthyous]

The terrible USA traffic continues...incredible how Google is just removing it completely. I think this is the final leg of the plan to turn the search engine into an ad directory and not refer any more traffic at all. More top ten ranking terms dropping out of the blue and fewer and fewer customer inquiries again. And it's incredible the imbecilic leads that are coming in...people asking to purchase something that costs almost $5000 for $200, or people contacting me from half a world away to provide a service I don't provide, have never provided and there is nothing on my site that states that I do. I have been at this over 20 years now...there always were clueless leads, but not this many. The cream is being skimmed off the top for sure!

[l1fejosh]

Past few days, we've seen a slight increase of traffic. No increase in conversions, in fact, conversions have dwindled down.

Looked into this and saw that our Google Discovery has seen a rather large increase. Our blogs have been performing well as of late, but our CTA's must not be so compelling because they will read the article (I'm assuming for their answer) and then leave our site without performing any other actions. Been keeping an eye on Microsoft Clarity.

Nearly half of our traffic now comes from our blogs now.

[EditorialGuy]

Our traffic has been up noticeably (and sometimes significantly) on most days recently, using week-over-week comparisons. I'd credit most of that to our normal seasonal upward curve, but we've also been creeping up in year-over-year comparisons. We're still nearly 50 percent below this time last year, however.

[christianz]

I think the HCU update was biggest in history of Google, beating Penguin and all the rest. Carnage was unprecedented.

To me it seemed like a blunt weapon that got a lot of things wrong, but it was the first update that actually had effect on SEO spam - not just in name but actually real and so far (barely) lasting effect.

Whatever Google does next I hope they show no mercy to "niche sites" and "affiliate sites". By affiliate I don't mean sites that have affiliate links. But sites that were conceived from day one to be dressing for affiliate links.

Someone in SERoundtable comments wrote that there are now low quality "niche tutorials" or "essays" for everything including "how to open a door".

How long until we see the first specialized niche portal for the art of door opening? Telling in great detail the history of doors, door knobs and different techniques for how to open them etc.

In all its blatant mistakes HCU actually had a nice muting effect on these type of "websites".

I just wish they didn't stuff results with YouTubes, PAA and "authority" spam. Which is a whole different type of spam, but equally dreadful.

Back on topic: the traffic for last 3 days is weak. Down WoW but nothing too dramatic yet.

[Shepherd]

What can be done about it?

Optimising for just the standard link is where it's tripping up.

For organic traffic, nothing. It's a waiting game at this point but likely it's gone forever. For it to come back there will have to be a shift. Either by google (not likely), by searchers, or by advertisers.

Moving on is likely the best move. Away from google. Easy to say...

I would not recommend google Ads, the level of greed and shenanigans from google is mind-blowing. Honestly I think they have moved from civil (grey area clicks) to criminal (outright theft and fraud) level but time will tell.

[ichthyous]

Honestly I think they have moved from civil (grey area clicks) to criminal (outright theft and fraud) level but time will tell.

Google's ad traffic has been exceedingly deceptive for years now. At this point anyone still paying them deserves what they get. If you are not able to discern fairly quickly that you are being defrauded by google's clicks then you should not be let near an ad budget

[mosxu]

“And it's incredible the imbecilic leads that are coming in...people asking to purchase something that costs almost $5000 for $200,”

Ain’t that funny? It does explain how some people are profiled and to which websites are sent to!

P.S last 2 days everything is dead

[watesh]

Today there has been a 15% drop in the little traffic remaining on my site. The road from 1.5 million hits to almost 0 continues.

[superclown2]

Google is having to comply with the European Digital Marketing Act but I'm not sure I like the sound of this:

"We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites" Google said in its blogpost.

[BlueEyes82]

@Superclown2
This could also explain why comparison sites have lost so much visibility in Google searches since the HCU update. Even if you search specifically for it, you will first find 10-20 brand hits. Finding comparable offers is currently extremely difficult.

@christianz
I can only partially agree with you. Many sites with affiliate links compare different offers that do not exist on the brand sites or are not communicated. If visitors are currently specifically looking for offers, they can hardly find them anymore since the HCU update. In addition, the respective tariffs/functions of the products are examined more closely than on the respective brand page. Since the update, it has become significantly more difficult for users to receive extensive information and comparison offers.

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today...

[RedBar]

A quick update with my Statcounter Singaporean Huawei Petalbot issue I've been unable to block.

All 2023 Singapore visits 2% of PVs

Jan 1-18 2024 so far 25.4%

[christianz]

@BlueEyes82

There are some (very tiny fraction) of "made for affiliate business" sites that are very useful and valuable. For example - sites that compare products in small country-specific e-shops. I use them all the time myself. There are also global aggregators of product data that offer generic data-based comparison pages that are much richer in facts and figures than any manufacturer site. Many of those latter category are not affiliate-based though (they are ads based).

But your average AI generated "Top 10 best X 2024" Amazon affiliate sites with no information other than what's scraped from Amazon, are obviously junk and they are 99.999% of the total population of aff sites.

[l1fejosh]

A quick update with my Statcounter Singaporean Huawei Petalbot issue I've been unable to block.

Same here - it's crawling our site every 10 minutes or so.

[saladtosser]

I'm still baffled why in my niche a non mobile friendly site (desktop only) ranks number 1 on mobile in 2024! Pretty sure the owner died as it hasn't been updated since 2007 and the forum on the site was overtaken by #*$! link spammers and still is on a daily basis. The site is impossible to use on a mobile device, any ideas why Google keeps this site at #1 for 1000's of searches on mobile? I assume backlinks from way back when the internet started?!

[superclown2]

Thursday was our best day for months, Friday the worst.

It seems that Google is running experiments to maximise earnings whilst still staying within the new EU rules - at least in their own eyes. Turbulent times ahead.

[christianz]

The "-k" spammer is back and has been accelerating his "k-link" production over the past few weeks/months. Getting about 100 new backlinking domains per day now, all hosting "k-links" to my images.

[ichthyous]

It seems that Google is running experiments to maximise earnings whilst still staying within the new EU rules - at least in their own eyes. Turbulent times ahead.

I have been saying the same thing...it has really been noticeable since early November. One day on, one day off. Wild swings up and down...even within the course of the same day. It's all about maximizing how to keep as much of the traffic for themselves and not refer anything out. Google is destroying the golden egg without having any other eggs in the nest...that we know of. I doubt they are betting it all on Bard and AI. Perhaps YouTube revenue is so strong that search is just an afterthought now? In any case...Google search needs a real competitor now...hello Apple can you hear us?

[RubicCubed]

I think the only experiment Google is running is how to beat Q3's net profit of $152,006.17 per minute. The traffic quality from Google has and continues to be terrible because they match that of Google's terrible search results. If Google were experimenting with anything other than profits, we would at least see some improvement in what Google is sending but it only gets worse.

[BlueEyes82]

The massive updates since the HCU update are mostly aimed at AI content and spam. I don't know why Google re-evaluates all pages and not just content since AI is used. 95% of the content already existed before the AI ​​and since then there have only been minor updates - if at all.

Why do you have to shoot sparrows with a shotgun and destroy everything?

[Micha]

@BlueEyes82 something big is supposed to come along in the next few weeks to solve the problem. However, the statement that we should fasten our seatbelts sounds more like a threat.

[ichthyous]

Huge drop in USA traffic AGAIN today...-40% at 6pm. Almost every other country is higher...

[BlueEyes82]

@Micha
Either there is a good "stab in the back" or this update would improve things for the first time since September. The rankings are still falling week after week, and at this rate there shouldn't be any traffic left in 3-6 months anyway. But somehow 80% of the pages I check show this tendency because brands sometimes have 10-20 subpages in the first positions.

[superclown2]

brands sometimes have 10-20 subpages in the first positions.

Yes I've just found an example of that here in the UK. For a certain partly geographical search term a brand has 20 pages in the first 25. I'm not surprised though. Perhaps they sacked a few people too many?

[Micha]

@BlueEyes82 Of course it can get better, but to be honest, I don't think it will. I expect it to get worse, because the spam in the search results continues to increase, and knowing Google, I fear that future updates will again hit small sites that play by the rules.

By the way, it's funny with my website: from Friday there's a drop and on Mondays it returns to Thursday's level. This has been going on for weeks now, so no growth, but no further decline either. Well, and of course I keep losing keywords, but so far only old articles are affected, which hardly get any hits anyway.

By the way, I just read that google has canceled its biggest partner for the quality rating.

[londrum]

Human raters are probably working against their goal, because they dont want the serps to reflect the best sites