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.

[superclown2]

The term 'Google Quality' is an oxymoron.

I have found another search term dominated by one site: 33 out of the first 40, including the top five.

What a complete waste of bandwidth this advertising agency has become.

[mhansen]

Something funky happening with search results today. (Feels like every day)

I have a very old 15-page site and it pretty much lost relevance roughly 3-4 years ago for the tightly focused primary audience it was built for. Hasn't seen conversions or much traffic in the last 3-4 years. While I do continue to update the site, not much other effort aside from keeping it active has been done. It pretty much stayed in the mid 20's of serp positioning.

This morning and afternoon it's been on fire and a quick look in SEMR shows thousands of percentage points of visibility gain across hundreds of terms. No noticeable change in link profile or anything else, and no, I did not add 2024 to the pages or titles at the new year. I have not updated any of the content since before the Sept 23 HCU.

[insideout]

Google destroyed my website. From 10K per day to less than 300 and still dropping. My only source of income is vanishing away in front of my eyes.:(
Damn you google

[renatovieira]

Big drop today... Here we go again...

[BlueEyes82]

Bing now accounts for 60% of traffic for some projects and Google only accounts for 30%. Before the HCU update, this accounted for 90% of Google's traffic and 10% of all other search engines. The rankings on Bing have remained stable, normally they were similar to those on Google, but since HCU there have been enormous shifts. Luckily, Bing doesn't seem to take the same (wrong) route as Google...

The good thing is that Google can hardly get much less traffic....The traffic on some pages is already "irrelevant"

[BigKat]

The good thing is that Google can hardly get much less traffic....The traffic on some pages is already "irrelevant"

Google itself became largely irrelevant to us early last year. And yes, traffic really can't get much worse from Google and if it does we won't notice it in our sales because Google's traffic quality has become that bad. Fortunately our Bing and other sources of traffic continue to improve but it's unfortunately slow. Still I'm pleased to see shoppers out there dissatisfied with Google and using other engines so that what we lost with Google gets partially offset with much better converting traffic.

[Micha]

Now I was curious: Bing has now seen a 40% increase in my total traffic since December, and the trend is still rising. In November, the share was still at 20 percent. For a news site, it's bad that Google has dropped so much, but who's surprised?

[BigKat]

For a news site, it's bad that Google has dropped so much, but who's surprised?

@Micha

Maybe problems identified in the story "Google News Is Boosting Garbage AI-Generated Articles" [404media.co...] applies to you?

[christianz]

Big drop today... Here we go again...

Yes, today is looking rough..

Sunday was almost at prior week level.

[Micha]

@BigKat Yes, unfortunately that is absolutely true. I have also already found some articles that clearly use passages from my articles and were definitely written by an AI. So besides total trash, advertising etc. In my opinion, Google News is hardly usable anymore and I wonder why Google doesn't simply check news sources in advance again, as was the case before 2019, which would solve the problem.

Little fun fact: my website gets money from Google for being a source, but if this continues, the sum will run to almost 0 when a new contract is made in July.

[BlueEyes82]

@Micha

How high is your share of Bing's total search engine traffic?
On a site that is not affected by the HCU-update, Bing has 10% and Google 80%. Bing is up 3% here since December.

[BigKat]

@Micha

Sorry to hear some of your work is being used in AI generated articles. It's happening to a lot of big news sites too even the NY Post [nypost.com...] which references that 404 Media story in their own non-paywalled story titled "Google News searches ranked AI-generated ripoffs above real articles — including a Post exclusive."

The Post’s exclusive Jan. 8 story about Holyoak was listed lower in search results than a nearly identical ripoff – published by an outlet with the generic name “Business News” and the bizarre domain address “biz(dot)crast(dot)net” that seemingly cranks out troves of AI-generated articles.

I'm not seeing reports of these AI ripoffs overtaking Bing. I wonder why? Is it because Bing's marketshare is so low that few complain or is Bing dealing with AI content in a more responsible manner that protects publishers?

[Micha]

@BlueEyes82 Currently at 40 percent, the proportion has risen sharply in the last two weeks in particular.

@BigKat Yes, I can confirm what the website says. This is really annoying, but unfortunately it will continue and I suspect it will get worse. I'm worried about this development because good journalism costs money, and if the revenue decreases, the overall quality will also decrease.

As for Bing and AI, I think Microsoft simply has better control mechanisms. Google is trying to jump on the AI bandwagon by the skin of its teeth and, as usual, is being very rash. I wouldn't be surprised if some engineers at Google pointed out the problem and management ignored it because of the dollar signs in their eyes.

[BigKat]

@Micha

It seems Google is more focused on profits and cost cutting (all the layoffs), and I fear Google won't invest much if any money into solving the problem. Hopefully with the bigger media types getting outranked by AI articles stolen from them, Google will be prompted to take some action so you and other victimized publishers get some relief and the right to profit from your own work. Unfortunately Google profits either way, and money spent on solving this and other problems takes away from the revenue they report to shareholders. We don't have this problem in our ecommerce industry yet, but I suspect it will arrive soon enough. The only thing saving us from AI generated content, if you want to really call it saving, is there are four ads above the fold and a PAA box. Meaning there is little to no people even seeing organic results to produce any measurable amount of traffic. For example, we're still #1 for some searches and the low x,xxx daily visitors was saw just a year and a half ago produces a low xx number of daily visitors. It's definitely not worth our money/labor as humans to rank #1 and those producing AI content would have to pump out a lot, and I mean a lot, of pages to see a profit. Fortunately for them their cost is little, so they may try but will be disappointed there really isn't any organic traffic to product pages in Google anymore.

[renatovieira]

Something big is happening. This morning the drop is at -85%.

[ichthyous]

Something big is happening. This morning the drop is at -85%.

Yesterday I had a huge boost in traffic, but zero inquiries. I have noticed that's the new thing...high traffic days with no conversions at all. Today USA is -63% at 10:30am. That's the other new thing...poor USA traffic all the time, it's always sluggish even when the rest of the world is zooming. It seems that Google has placed all its eggs in the USA basket, taking advantage of what time it has left in manipulating the hell out of USA results to squeeze profits before the boobs in our Congress wake up and get a clue. If that even happens at all...

I do wish Bing referred more traffic, but it doesn't...still languishing at a negligible number for 15 years...

[Micha]

Something really seems to be going on, traffic from Google has plummeted since midday.

[jxlarrea]

Google traffic at an all time low this morning.

[mysitegothithard]

Just when I thought I was recovering, I took another beating from Google. Boy, I'm starting to think it's personal...

[londrum]

Been looking at my stats for the last few years trying to work out why I'm down 50%, and i was surprised to find my year on year stats are almost identical. dips and troughs are all in the same places (because of my niche’s season), CTR is the same, average position is the same. No signs of a penalty anywhere,

It just looks like google doesnt send as much traffic as it once did for the same position. You only have to go back one or two years to see the difference

I suppose if they continue to cram a load of extra gumph on the first page like ‘people also ask’ then you’re traffic is going to drop even if you’re actual ranking holds steady

[renatovieira]

Another day of massive drops here. It's so big, I went to check the seacrh console to see if there was any manual action. There is nothing, there is just a cliff in the data after January 23rd. Either I was penalized, or there was an update in progress...

[ichthyous]

I'm seeing the opposite so far today, a rise in traffic for the 2nd day, excluding USA + Canada, which ended yesterday -8%. Perhaps it will hit here later in the day. I have noticed that there have been ZERO new inquiries in a solid week now, despite some days with strong traffic. One week without a single person inquiring about purchasing anything...that's not normal.

[samwest]

Stopped in to verify the huge traffic loss... wasn't disappointed. It's real.
For twenty-plus years our seasonal peak lasted from Jan 1 to the end of April...and this year it's over already.
Break up the Google Ad engine.

[Markedd]

@renatovieira Yeah, the G Analytics did show a drop on Wednesday, but I think it's an error from their side because the search.google data shows otherwise, and Raptive is also weirdly lagging, kind of waiting for Google to get its #*$! together...
So I suspect it's a bug, error, or a new feature!

[renatovieira]

@Markedd - I agree. Analyzing today, the drop does not coincide with the data from search console and AdSense. The drop happened to all my websites. Clearly this is a bug in Analytics. Strange...

[Mark_A]

One week without a single person inquiring about purchasing anything...that's not normal.

@ichthyous
It might also indicate an over dependence on Google.

[RedBar]

Insofar as my global site is concerned Google is not driving any genuine new business traffic.

Two interesting statistics for this site as of today;

Overall genuine (non Huawei) PVs for January 2024 v January 2023 are -25%, this is not at all normal, since the late 1960s January to March has always been our busiest enquiry time of the year.

Secondly, Huawei Cloud / PetalBot / Singapore situation. As of today 25% of ALL PVs have been from this nuisance in Statcounter. Basically the inability to block this thing has skewed its metrics beyond pointless. None of my other analysis programmes seem to have been affected as yet! I'm leaving it to run until the 31st simply for for my statistical purposes.

[ichthyous]

@Mark A+ You bet it does, but unfortunately in the type of niche retail I'm in, where you are dependent on a low number of sales of high priced items nothing else has worked. I've tried the costly retail partnerships and ended them all, a total black hole of time and money. Social media simply does not work to sell higher priced items ( and I've heard same from my competitors)
I closed my physical location during the pandemic and am in a location where rents are so astronomically high it no longer makes sense to open one. There is no place left to turn except for very high priced options that do not perform well. There are trade fairs, but in my field that is a $30,000-$50,000 expense and quite often you don't break even. It's not a viable option for independent operators like me. So...website and search is everything for the last 20 years and there has been no way around it.

[BigKat]

website and search is everything for the last 20 years and there has been no way around it.

The over-dependence on Google is structural and shared by most of us in the ecommerce space. No amount of money tossed at Bing, Facebook, X, etc. can offset the structural problem we face with Google's excessive marketshare. Getting our goods in front of buyer's eyes can be accomplished by selling in marketplaces, but isn't suitable for many items due to the fees marketplaces charge, marketplace policies that hold sellers over a barrel and of course a type of marketplace customer that tends to be very problematic (mostly Amazon). I quit beating myself up a long time ago about being too over-reliant on Google for new customer acquisition because Google's marketshare is outside my control and has been solidified with pro-big tech policies, subsidies and tax breaks at every level of Government over a period of many years. The "free market" hand we've been dealt came from a stacked deck, and I see no improvement in the future unless the dealer is replaced.

[ichthyous]

No amount of money tossed at Bing, Facebook, X, etc. can offset the structural problem we face with Google's excessive marketshare. Getting our goods in front of buyer's eyes can be accomplished by selling in marketplaces, but isn't suitable for many items due to the fees marketplaces charge, marketplace policies that hold sellers over a barrel and of course a type of marketplace customer that tends to be very problematic (mostly Amazon).

Social media ads do not work to sell high priced items. They do work to sell lower priced lifestyle related items like clothes, shoes and makeup. I use social media to reinforce my brand and show off the quality of items, for press, and basically to show off what a big shot I am. That doesn't bring in sales, but it does help customers to decide if they believe that your product is worth the amount you are charging. It also helps bring in press I find.

With regards to marketplace...I don't sell on Amazon and places like that. I'm operating in a more rarified world where people are parting with $10,000+ per item and Amazon doesn't operate in my niche, it just wouldn't work. However there are other marketplace type sites with powerful brands. I tried the most important one, and at $650 per month for the account, plus fees on top of that I had very little to show for it. I eventually parted ways after 4 years when they stopped even allowing me to embed links in my items on their site.

In my experience most marketplaces are just smoke and mirrors, they make a profit and you get almost nothing in return. Same for social media experts, which I have also tried...all just complete BS artists who could not deliver. Like it or not, Google search has delivered customers handsomely for 20 years now. There is simply nothing more powerful than people who are looking for exactly what you have, being able to find you online. That is clearly diminishing now, it has become totally unreliable...but, in the short periods where Google is sending decent traffic you can still make a lot of sales in a short period. It's feast or famine now...long stretches with nothing, then a ton of customers all at once.

One other point...I am slowly tiptoeing into Youtube. If there is one social media platform I think might actually deliver it's youtube. But the amount of time and effort required is huge. If you are just posting clips and shorts you aren't going to get anywhere. I post shorts for each product showing the quality, etc. and embed it on my website. The views from within YT itself are very low...after a few hours nobody sees it anymore. If you want to excel on YT better have full-fledged (read: F/T) video production going on.

[edited by: ichthyous at 3:59 pm (utc) on Jan 26, 2024]