February 2024 Google Search Observations

[borishar]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5099651.htm [webmasterworld.com] by engine - 9:30 am on Feb 1, 2024 (utc 0)

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Well it all makes sense if you think about it. The US traffic is lower, overseas traffic higher probably because the ads business isn't as big overseas as it is in US, so they've been jamming ads at the top for US search results but not so much so in other countries. I can also confirm very abnormal drops in traffic starting around 12pm. I am not going off of google analytics, which is horrible nowadays, instead using my locally installed analytics based on nginx data.

[Conro]

@superclown2 Lucky you, but no offense I don't believe it 😉 because I know very closely a person with a site with hundreds of recipes, created more than a year ago and makes 1 or 2 visits a day. Entirely White site and goes straight to the point with description and photos, but nothing is now a project that has never been successful

[EditorialGuy]

Although I did wonder why google didn't just do a 301 straight to reddit for all google searches, bypassing their own spam, now it makes sense ..... Build the reddit database and community with increased visibility ready to harvest for AI! Then dump reddit for the AI later on?!

Maybe we'd all be better off if they'd just bought Reddit and run it into the ground like Google+.

[Micha]

Although I did wonder why google didn't just do a 301 straight to reddit for all google searches, bypassing their own spam, now it makes sense ..... Build the reddit database and community with increased visibility ready to harvest for AI! Then dump reddit for the AI later on?!

So where are they supposed to put their advertising?

@EditorialGuy I'd like to see that, just to see the outcry from users. However, Google's board of directors may be completely haphazard, but even they are not crazy enough to come up with the idea of buying Redit.

Edit: Okay, I take it all back. Google is expanding its partnership with Reddit even further than just using the data for their AI. So we can look forward to Reddit content becoming even more present in search. It's not that far removed from "we'll buy the store".
[blog.google ]

[KaseyM]

Haven't found the bottom yet.

Reddit posts with my articles linked are doing well though!

[ichthyous]

USA traffic continues to be whacked...starting -70% today. Meanwhile:

Locale
The United Kingdom
+122%
The United States
-66%
Germany
+225%
Thailand
+941%
Canada
+30%
Australia
+56%
Denmark
+681%
Turkey
+421%
France
+30%

This is not the result of more ads on the page. I am checking from various locations and I am seeing some searches with no ads and no blocks at the top of the page, yet traffic is down massively this week for those landing pages. I checked to see if related terms that link to that page from Google have all dropped in tandem...some yes, some increased. I am at a loss to explain how Google is managing this feat...siphoning off 2/3 of the traffic for specific terms without visible changes. Anyone else seeing this?

[Markedd]

@ichthyous I am fairly sure that you're one of the few still getting traffic from Google regardless of the region.. In my case, US traffic is almost zero (15 % from 80%) and the rest is kind of the same I guess. Traffic has dropped from 4K a day to barely scrapping 1K now. But a lot is just bots since payment-wise, the real traffic seems to be about 400-500. And ... that's how a 90% reduction looks like.

[ichthyous]

@Markedd Sorry to hear it but this seems like a penalty to me. Traffic for specific sets of semantically related terms can vary a lot these days but the kind of drop you're reporting is not just the ups and downs, it's a site wide issue. What kind if content is it?

[Markedd]

@ichthyous Most definitely it's a penalty. The site got very mildly hit in September after which the keywords bleed started. That's the HCU one. Then it got hit badly in December (HCU 2?), but I recovered it partially after a schema adjustment. And then In February it got hit once again (HCU 3?) leading to the current situation. The content is a mix between info articles and reviews, which doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. I know.

[saladtosser]

I'm coining a new phrase right here, right now. "Check your google privilege".

[BigKat]

Wow, what an interesting week! I'm seeing all time traffic lows from Google, the Reddit and Google partnership deal announced along with Google's AI getting temporarily unplugged and many calling it "woke." Should be interesting to see what disasters occur next week.

[EditorialGuy]

Re the Google-Reddit AI training deal:

According to a WASHINGTON POST article from last April, Reddit is often used for AI training, and it charges a license fee for having its public-facing content used in AI training. (Presumably companies like Google that use that data pay up because they don't want to be sued or blocked by Reddit.) So maybe the $60 million Google-Reddit "partnership" isn't worthy of a blockbuster news story, but is simply an "all you can eat" license to save Google the trouble of negotiating with Reddit every time it wants to crawl Reddit's content.

(Note that I said "maybe." I don't presume to know Google or Reddit's motives in agreeing on a $60 million fee.)

[BigKat]

I don't presume to know Google or Reddit's motives in agreeing on a $60 million fee.

I don't presume to know why Reddit only accepted $60 million a year, but seeing this deal announced gave me a very clear reason to assume why Reddit has risen so fast in Google's SERPS. Maybe in lieu of cash Google negotiated a huge bump in otherwise unmonetized (for now) organic traffic?

[EditorialGuy]

Maybe in lieu of cash Google negotiated a huge bump in otherwise unmonetized (for now) organic traffic?

Or maybe favoring Reddit, Quora, etc. is just a stopgap measure to keep millions of AI-generated spam pages from dominating the top spots in the organic SERPs until Google finds a better solution?

(Disclaimer: That isn't even a serious guess, let alone a hypothesis or theory. I don't pretend to know what Google's search honchos are thinking.)

[hatre]

@Markedd And so it is with me. Since registering the domain in 2012, the site has never been affected by a Google update. I have been actively working on it since 2016. Since 2014 I've never had less than 1k, since 2016 3-4k. A small site for movie news. To write a news story I combine information from several sites, paraphrasing a lot. Now there are sites with identical content, sites with no content (tags, categories), absurd blogs with spammy links and big news sites. From 2016 to August 2023, my site was ahead of them, always with asterisks from the voting rating, with a picture or triangle from the youtube video. Now it's all over - 1.2 - 0.7k traffic.
Unlike a lot of people I read very difficult and despite everything, I spent the last 8 years on this site, writing codes for it, codes for localhost programs to help me. Many of the articles I edit them 5 times in 6 months to have correct and up to date information and where is the payoff? Now the sites that did nothing for so many years are popping up - putting up movie trailers with 5 lines of text. I was convinced that one day google would appreciate the work. Too bad I put in all my effort, even my diopters increased, but I'll give it a chance 3-6 months before I change domain, no redirect from old one. Links from forums and imdb, apparently it means nothing...

[Conro]

@EditorialeGuy Reddit and Quora are full of spam, and useful content should be searched with a lantern. Especially on Quora, I find identical answers in different posts. Google has only rewarded useful content to make it useful with AI. Our sites don't have anything, we've just been unlucky.

[RubicCubed]

Reddit and Quora are full of spam

The spam will get much worse very quickly. I see services offering creation of subreddits, posts on reddit and promotion of posts is exploding in popularity. For Google's AI to learn from Reddit posts, I think an existing user base will need to be tagged for training purposes instead of all the new garbage that is now rushing in.

[insideout]

Something is happening now. Google algo is going crazy again. Is anyone else noticing?

[sk7411]

Something is happening now. Google algo is going crazy again. Is anyone else noticing?

Google algorithm tools are on fire . It's coming!

[Micha]

Something is happening now. Google algo is going crazy again. Is anyone else noticing?

Since every Saturday at 12 noon the Google traffic completely disappears until Sunday, everything looks normal to me.

[Conro]

@RubicCubed gli spammers di fiverr stanno per diventare ricchi

[Conro]

@insideout Semrush Reports Earthquake Everywhere

[RubicCubed]

gli spammers di fiverr stanno per diventare ricchi

Yes, Fiverr spammers are about to get rich and Reddit will have to dip into that $60 million to cleanup the huge mess of spam that's coming. This was a given since most things Google is involved with these days turns to doo doo rather quickly.

[Markedd]

@hatre I honestly get what you're going through especially if this was your main way to put food on the table. All I can say is to write content for the user and I know that it has been said many times, but actually stop thinking about what Google wants or cares for. Then push every article on all social media websites, eventually blocking Google altogether if it becomes like 5-10 percent of the traffic. Why feed the AIs? The titles need to be clickbait-y. I am going to do this experiment for the next months. And I also started a YouTube channel not long ago and the users seem to love the content. I knew they would.

[EditorialGuy]

For Google's AI to learn from Reddit posts, I think an existing user base will need to be tagged for training purposes instead of all the new garbage that is now rushing in.

Remember when we used to talk about the "Google sandbox" (never confirmed by Google) that supposedly made new sites spend some time percolating before appearing in the search results? The idea was to discourage instant-gratification spam sites. It still makes sense to me, whether for the SERPs or for AI training.

[oldog]

pinterest becomes G's best friend .....go figure out..every Tom Dick and Harry can pin every Tom Dick and Harry anb rank on top ten ;-)

[RubicCubed]

pinterest becomes G's best friend

Maybe the recently announced ad deal between Pinterest and Google ( [techcrunch.com...] ) has something to do with it? I've seen both traffic from and and Google ranking Pinterest, and am left underwhelmed. I see absolutely no value in ranking pins, yet we see them in Google's serps. I guess ranking pins is another way Google keeps users from getting an answer to their search. For what it's worth, the traffic we get from Pinterest is of a very low quality and doesn't convert into sales. Maybe I should just block the Pinterest bot...

[MayankParmar]

[imgur.com...]

Sudden spike in crawled but not indexed (sitemap)

Anyone else?

[saladtosser]

RubicCubed That's so they can use Pinterest's stolen images directly in serp features instead of getting them from websites. Reddit for the data and Pinterest for the images, they already have YouTube for the videos!

[Markedd]

@RubicCubed So much for the free web where even the smaller sites could thrive. We're now seeing the consolidation between a few large corporations which will then provide all the info curated in a 'proper' manner. I am looking forward to see how they'll go about YouTube since there are some signs that the small independent creators may be pushed out completely from that platform as well.

[McKJudoChop]

USA traffic continues to be down over 50%, impressions continue to climb, and positioning remains mostly flat with some peaks and valleys. Our direct traffic is beating our organic traffic for the first time since August. I am starting to lose my hair over this. I don't come to the table with developer experience like many of you; I am an SEO with around 8-10 years of experience. I have never seen impressions climb, the position stays flat, and traffic tanks at an existential rate. It has always been a staircase up or a staircase down. I am beginning to question my knowledge and feel a bit flat as I cannot figure out this episode of Google.

[edited by: not2easy at 1:03 pm (utc) on Mar 5, 2024]
[edit reason] typo [/edit]

[Conro]

@McKJudoChop Could your site have appeared in the images in the serp?

[Micha]

Google traffic was better than usual on Sunday and Monday, normally traffic is almost dead from Saturday to Monday. Today, however, things are looking bad. Google traffic so far is significantly lower than usual on a Tuesday. This back and forth is really getting on my nerves.

[Conro]

@Micha On Sunday I also noticed uphill traffic, then today when I woke up it was -20% and now -7%. They just move a paa higher or lower and the traffic suffers

[christianz]

Google traffic was better than usual on Sunday and Monday

Same thing. Great traffic for 2 days.

[ichthyous]

Same here...Sunday and Monday very strong traffic. Tuesday off a cliff again. USA traffic is -22% at 4:30pm. The question is, when traffic is high is it converting?

[Fluff_Nutz]

Its funny I have been on Youtube for over 10+yrs now and traffic has always been stable. It was my favourite platform. Now these past few weeks I have seen traffic drop way below the normal average. I ran away from the site to avoid Google and their terrible instability that they are currently doing with websites, are they turning their attention to Youtube too now? It seems I am not alone in loosing a great deal of traffic over on the video platform. Why? What exactly is going on right now? I'm hoping its just a temporary glitch.

As for website traffic it was great for a few days. Now its dropped anywhere between 7-13%. Whatever is going on seems to be never ending.

[Micha]

@Fluff_Nutz Yesterday there were some tweets on X reporting the same thing, apparently it's YouTube's turn now. Incidentally, Reddit has also lost visibility (not a big deal given the sharp rise).

Yesterday was a miserable day for me, as I expected. -43% compared to Sunday and Monday. Sistrix shows a drop of 5.1% for my website in its visibility index today. A look on my direct competitors shows that they have been hit even harder. Other websites that I monitor have also fallen sharply.

So the downward trend continues and I don't expect anything to improve in the foreseeable future.

[Markedd]

If anyone is interested in some traffic loss pr0n: [imgur.com...]
Mind you, this is the only purely white hat project that I worked on for about a decade. If my calculations are correct, in about a week, the organic traffic from google should reach 0. Hell of a ride.

[morpheus83]

@Markedd I can see it was the HCU, but did you guys go for thin / AI content?

[RubicCubed]

If anyone is interested in some traffic loss

Very similar graph to info sites that have seen Google divert nearly all of their traffic to Reddit.

[superclown2]

A certain newspaper in the UK is now in the top ten for a whole lot of money terms with articles that appear to have been written by AI. They list their editorial team but strangely I can find out nothing about any of them. Is this what Google has come to after 20+ years experience of running so-called search engine?

[Markedd]

@morpheus83 Of course not. Most article are detailed tech analysis and tests that you don't find anywhere on the web. Neither thin, nor AI content.

@RubicCubed Yes, I have been outranked by forums for the most part (like 90+% of the time).
A few of the topics are even funny. Something like 'I can't find anything about this piece of hardware. Where are the articles?' Way below the forums and the Google products, my dude..

[BigKat]

I have been outranked by forums for the most part (like 90+% of the time).
A few of the topics are even funny.

As it pertains to the type of products we sell, which must meet safety requirements, Google's desire to rank forum posts is at the detriment of consumer safety. It's amazing how some discuss using our types of products in such dangerous ways. Since Google is largely immune from liability, they are free to display almost any page including those with information how to use a product in such a way that may cause death.

At a minimum, there needs to be some transparency in the SERPS. If Google has a contract, financial interest in, etc. with an organization's page displayed in the SERPS, it should be labeled accordingly. As it is now, consumers are being duped and in some cases being fed information that may cause them serious harm.

[RubicCubed]

similar graph to info sites that have seen Google divert nearly all of their traffic to Reddit.

I just post this in another thread - showing how massive of an increase Google gave Reddit after entering the $60 million a year AI training contract. I don't think we will ever rank above a contractual deal Google has made with another party, that possibly gives that party a guaranteed amount of organic (non-paid) traffic, but details of this secretive deal are not disclosed. Still we see Reddit rise unnaturally fast in Google's serps as our own traffic plummets.

[statista.com...]

[Micha]

@RubicCubed I am not familiar with the laws in the USA, but in Europe this is a reason for an investigation, as it can be assumed that competition is being distorted.

By the way, in Europe some publishers have sued Google for distortion of competition and, according to initial estimates, they may be successful. (The linked article is in German) [golem.de ]

[RubicCubed]

@Micha
Investigations and lawsuits against Google take years. Meanwhile, Google can increase profits with a simple keystroke in a matter of milliseconds. Past settlements, and changes Google has been forced to make, are so small they provide no punitive deterrent to compel Google to play fair in the future. I see no solution to the problems we face on the horizon. Google's deal with Reddit wiped out a lot of traffic by Google giving Reddit such preferential placement in the serps. Possibly the next step is for the Gemini chat box to appear and links to our sites removed except when absolutely necessary (to buy a product, download a file, etc.).

[Fluff_Nutz]

Pfft. On the 27th the site managed to gain a 50% traffic increase. Just for it to fall the next day. Either we created a really good article that day or Google left something unplugged. Knew it would fall and its most likely the latter as growth shouldn't fall that much in a single day. At least I'd assume not anyway. Not really surprised knowing who is behind the wheel. But I, like many others, are sick and tired of this.

Also my Youtube traffic is also tumbling still with each passing day. Which definitely does seem strange. Though the videos I post are still getting some retention, probably not enough, and the revenue hasn't dipped too much. So maybe an issue with the analytics? Data seems really strange. I'll let it slide for now though as I'm not seeing too many complaints from others any more. So could be my own channel or a bug that I'm unaware of. I'd really hate and dread to think its a similar situation as with websites.

Since Reddit is getting love from Google I am seeing an increase of traffic from that platform. Almost on par with Google traffic. Good or bad thing? Who knows..

[Micha]

@RubicCubed And that will cost many companies their heads.

Incidentally, the next step has already been taken. Google is paying some publishers to use an AI to create a summary of competitor articles and then publish them. Of course, the original authors are not asked.

I'm beginning to think that Google is working towards delivering articles themselves and is still testing when their AI is good enough for this.

[engadget.com ]

[System]

New March 2024 thread at: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: not2easy at 2:13 pm (utc) on Mar 1, 2024]
[edit reason] new month.. [/edit]