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]

@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]