March 2024 Google Search Observations

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Over the years, Google's principle seems to have shifted from its original "Don't be evil" to "Be a pure evil"... I guess if some authorities or government will stop it? They are just stealing our content, destroying the Internet prioritizing user-generated content (UGC) pages with a lack of quality and expertise, destroying teams and content creators behind the websites.

A lot of you are saying that they are after money. But what's their goal for the future? What result will they have in 2 or 3 years more? Internet will die, it's obvious that Reddit forum's pages aren't answering the majority of people's searches. What will they do when no one will continue publishing and updating content? Aren't they face a deep stagnation because of this? I just can't get what they are doing - I understand they are trying to steal everything is possible, but what's next step? How will they survive in the circumstances they are creating?

[ichthyous]

Does anyone else also advertise and sees the same sort of results?

No, when I have run Google ads numerous times over the years from ~2010 to 2022 it had no impact whatsoever on my organic ranking that I could discern. But it did make me a lot poorer and Google charged me for blatantly fraudulent clicks from places I had specifically excluded. I also got clicks for keywords that were excluded. They basically don't honor any of that, and that's why they try to push the automated adwords on unuspecting newbies now, so they don't have to respond to the irate customer messages. I calculated that 1/100 clicks turned into a lead on my site...and most of those were useless leads. So Google adwords is basically just setting your cash on fire.

[ghostofseo]

@Mark_A I used to many moons ago when I had a digital marketing agency recommend to my clients to along with hiring me for SEO services to also take out a small Google ad spend.

Business partnerships are a thing. Now is Google ranking a site higher or lower due to ad spend, doubtful. But at the end of the day partnering with a business isn't always a bad thing and perhaps there is some metric hidden way down low that gives a little bump to businesses that are also helping Google's profits grow.

At the end of the day SEO is a thread to Google. 80% of the traffic coming to my website is organic from Google. That's a great metric on my end. But for Google's end they might want a share of the pie too. Why should Google send me free traffic? So far the AI can't create product reviews the way my team and I can.

However the days of listicle type content seem to be long over. Since Google can just show that in SGE or whatever AI based search function they roll out.

So to circle back. If you have the money to support Google and want to do so by all means. At this point I feel like we are in a fight with Google so I won't be giving them any money anytime soon. Well Maybe if I get the 96% of traffic back we once had. Looking at Ahrefs for my site and seeing how we were in top 3 for most every review we did for years and then boom, down to place 60 or not even seen. Just with the snap of a finger.

Thanks Big G.

[mhansen]

Does anyone else also advertise and sees the same sort of results?

I run an exact match "Branding" campaign that targets our relevant users, along with our TM'd Brand Name. Ex: "Big Red Widgets Brandname". The reason for this is that many people search for our "Brandname", but Google automatically changes the query results with one of those "Did you mean?" tricks and shows results for a set of high CPC value words instead.

We see roughly 1,200 branded searches per month right now and none of them would show our business/website without these CPC branded ads.

FWIW, our average CPC is only $0.67 cents for something like "Big Red Widgets Brandname", but a broad match or without the Brandname attached, they are $45-$75 CPC. Also worth noting that G automatically limits many of these due to "low volume", but we then use Facebook to prod people into searching. We do this by posting on the socials, and use a hook that includes "Search Google for Topic Brandname to learn more". Using this strategy, our branded search volume has risen considerably in the last 6-8 months and many of the longtail queries with brandname have started to show activity.

[ichthyous]

At this point I feel like we are in a fight with Google so I won't be giving them any money anytime soon. Well Maybe if I get the 96% of traffic back we once had.

Not to mention that Google ads just don't work. I would pay if they did and not waste years of my life on trying to stay at the top, so would many of you I'm sure. But adwords are actually 1/2 notch above scam. And I don't say that lightly or because I am disgruntled with Google for losing business...I say it because I have tested it over and over, and for most of us it's easy to see that the traffic referred from Google adwords does not conform to the settings on the ads...they send useless, poorly targeted clicks from India, etc and then hand you the bill. No thanks, I won't be shaken down by either Google or Meta for their useless clicks. Their goal is to get anyone to click on that ad to charge you, if they have to trick people to do it they will.

Looking at Ahrefs for my site and seeing how we were in top 3 for most every review we did for years and then boom, down to place 60 or not even seen. Just with the snap of a finger.

Ouch, that's bad. Were your reviews unique content that other sites didn't provide? Also, there are so many sites providing things like reviews and listicles that I can see how it would become almost impossible to rank for that. I am also seeing that a few of my most important categories dropped off a cliff this year...they were bringing in about 3.5X more traffic last year and a lot of sales. It strikes me that Google targets the most valuable converting traffic first, like a sniper.

[samwest]

$45-$75 CPC

Seriously? per CLICK?
That's highway robbery.

Just stopped back in to see what happened, again. Haven't had a single paying customer in the past 6 days. Settling new records of poor performance with Google results. This is to be expected with their self-serving platform. Nothing surprises me anymore. Their work of 100% assimilation appears to be complete...at least from where I'm standing.

[mhansen]

Seriously? per CLICK?

My son is a licensed HVAC/Plumber/Electrician and has his own services business. Some queries for his most popular services are well above $80 cpc.

[ghostofseo]

I wonder what percentage of Adwords users go in there with no real knowledge on what to do, its a very complicated backend. From people I know that have "tried" advertising with Google for their plumbing, yoga, painting type business unless you have budgets set it would be really easy for you to get in a bidding war with others and not even know it until you get your bill showing hundreds if not thousands of dollars with very few clicks. Or maybe the clicks come but they aren't good leads.

Ask yourself this. As an SEO or even web user when is the last time you clicked an advertisement online? We know better

[Juniya]

An interesting post from NEIL Patel just a few minutes ago on Twitter/X -- It looks like AI DID make Google lose their minds. It is costing them way too much for their little bot to crawl the content! It's all starting to make sense now, right?

3 content marketing stats that will change how you create content…

1. 94.29% of the web pages indexed in Google got 0 traffic from SEO in the last 30 days.

2. Within 5 months of human-written and AI-generated content being published on the web the human-written content generated 5.44X more traffic.

3. 59.41% of the content we analyzed over the last 30 days had no engagement on social media. No likes, no shares, no comments.

So, what does all this mean?

To sum it up, for now at least, make sure your content is written by humans, you use tools like Answer the Public and Ubersuggest to do keyword research so your content gets SEO traffic, and you talk about new stuff that people have seen before as that tends to generate more social engagement.

[EditorialGuy]

But for Google's end they might want a share of the pie too. Why should Google send me free traffic?

I can think of two reasons off the top of my head:

1) Google wants to keep searchers coming back. If Google stops delivering search results from the World Wide Web (and not just its own properties), its core business will be at risk.

2) In the case of information sites, Google earns money from ads. Every referral to a site that uses AdSense, Google Ad Manager, etc. generates advertising revenue for Google.

[Whitey]

Semrush is heated - anyone here seeing huge swings in the past several hours?

@rustybrick - yes huge swings in last 24-36 hrs. Clicks 135-150% up. Impressions 200% spike. That’s on our .com. 2x CcTLD’s zero for a week now.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

It seems my story is finished.

I tried everything I could, nothing could stop it. Many of you are saying to start looking for a new job instead of creating website and content, but it's seems that I won't be able to do so because of the war. I believe my personal story is ended too.

Here is what they did with my 10+ years project:
[imgur.com...]

I reached 14k USD per month at the peak, and now I even can't pay my bills. In 2 years my website became fully unhelpful (but I, personally, don't believe a a single word from those liars and criminals from Google).

That's the end for me, no chances. No job, no ability to leave the country, the death is everywhere. Now I'm finished.

Wish you all a good luck! Be strong, and know you were great SEO neighbours for me.

[Conro]

@Cyril TechWebsites I would make one last attempt by changing the domain and with a 301 redirect. I've seen a site recover, but I don't know if it works in the long run and the penalty then passes to the new domain as well. Changing the domain takes a short time, if you try let us know if it works

[christianz]

GA seems to be super broken today, showing only fraction of actual visitors in real time.

[Markedd]

@Cyril TechWebsites Don't be stupid. File for unemployment, then take a camera and start migrating all your content to YouTube (it will take months before seeing results). Cut them in pieces and spread them to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and so on.
Also, start a new blog and move the content there. There is life after Google.

[Martin Ice Web]

After a big surge yesterday the drop came over night. -40%. Remaining traffic is all rubbish. Even though as our rankings are much more better than before this update.
Very strange.
-Amazon is NOT #1 for every search in our niche ! That is realy new
-3 out of the 10 first website are look abandoned beeing programmed in the 90s.
-all websites have one in common: 1 picture and nearly no content

seems like the update does the complete opposite of what it is supposed to do. ( if u believe what google is saying )

[Whitey]

@Cyril TechWebsites Don't be stupid. File for unemployment, then take a camera and start migrating all your content to YouTube (it will take months before seeing results). Cut them in pieces and spread them to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and so on.
Also, start a new blog and move the content there. There is life after Google.

Exactly. Google is moving fast and clumsily because it is faced with enormous changes itself. Engage with the AI evolution, Pivot away from dependence on Google using other channels and methods. AI is a behemoth.

Google has never been sustainable from a business point of view, but its constant dilemmas could give you the clues. For a long time yet :)

That’s not to say the current situation isn’t painful. I absolutely get it. Hopefully you’ll find a way through it.

[Micha]

@Martin Ice Web I can underline that, ranking is better, but traffic collapsed from yesterday to today. And the results on Google are, well, let's say "special"

[Juniya]

@Cyril - I get you 201%, I am virtually in the same window and I have been depressed for the past month after my main sites both got HIT but at this point you just have to give it one final try. The goal now is to get traffic from other sources and that traffic whether we like it or not, is via Social Media. People DO use Social media to search for similar things they might also search on Google/Search engines so that is what I am focusing on.

Google has destroyed a lot of us financially and more importantly/unfortunately mentally but imagine the reward at the end. If/when you can be able to drive traffic to your website(s) without caring about Google's policies and scams, the freedom in that is almost priceless.

I say give it one last try, one last FU to Google.

[christianz]

GA realtime stopped working entirely. Showing 0 users. It failed gradually over period of ~6 hours.

[saladtosser]

@EditorialGuy >>>> 2) In the case of information sites, Google earns money from ads. Every referral to a site that uses AdSense, Google Ad Manager, etc. generates advertising revenue for Google.<<

They will weave the ads into the AI results scrapped from your website and instead of splitting the ad revenue with you, they will keep it all by cutting out the middleman! They will earn MORE if you think about it that way! I bet Media vine and the rest of the ad networks are in complete panic mode!

[christianz]

They will weave the ads into the AI results scrapped from your website and instead of splitting the ad revenue with you, they will keep it all by cutting out the middleman!

That is not a viable business model. AI results don't materialize out of thin air. We have to build them first by providing information (websites). If Google did this (and I doubt they will) they would effectively exit the search market. They would only have a front end for a handful of large publishers with which they have signed agreements. A niche product, not universal search.

[christianz]

@Cyril TechWebsites

Your traffic growth does not look "natural" (heavy SEO?). You should not have assumed that it will continue like this. On the other hand - the decline is not natural either - Google should not be blanket-demoting your content like that. It is going from one extreme to the other.

[saladtosser]

@christianz I hope you are right and I am wrong as every information website is fooked! Sadly I think I am right but time will tell. It seems obvious to me they will cannibalise everything evergreen and do deals with a few big players to keep up to date as they have so far with Reddit, Stack Overflow, Wikepedia, probably a couple of big news corps coming soon! As I say I dearly hope I am wrong!

[Billy85]

I just noticed, that Big G is adding now 2 big Ads boxes inside the images section on Desktop.
Basically first row are ads, then some organic images, then the Ad box with irrelevant ads, few more organic images and then another box of ads with irrelevant ads.

I've never seen a company pushing Ads this hard and it's especially ironic, because that Sergey Brin (or Larry Page) mentions early in his career, that Ads are the problem with other search engines.

[ichthyous]

Your traffic growth does not look "natural" (heavy SEO?). You should not have assumed that it will continue like this. On the other hand - the decline is not natural either - Google should not be blanket-demoting your content like that. It is going from one extreme to the other.

I agree, I took one look and thought the same. This is not the product of slow steady organic growth. It's normal to have some of your categories increase rapidly over the course of maybe a month or two and drop just as rapidly these days, but not all of your content. The problem is google targets the highest traffic volume terms and highest converting terms these days I find. And it's not due to ranking, my rank has remained fairly stable but google has managed to stop referring the traffic nonetheless and there is nothing anyone can do about that.

[Juniya]

@Ichthyous - Hmm, if that is the case, then that means Google is changing your rankings, at least for the major keywords/volume terms you are referring to.

Google itself doesn't force users to click certain links on the ranking, if you are #2 on the ranking, you are SUPPOSED to get a good decent amount of traffic, but if suddenly you are not getting traffic despite still ranking #2 or #3 or #1, it means Google has deranked you, it might not show on your screens but it means on the majority of people browsing the web, your "#2 rank" for example, is actually NOT #2 rank; let's not forget the rankings are sometimes dynamic meaning someone in New York might see you #1, while someone in Florida might see you at #5 for the same exact keyword.

So google does manipulate rankings, it's dynamic whenever they see fit for whatever reasons.

[ichthyous]

Hmm, if that is the case, then that means Google is changing your rankings, at least for the major keywords/volume terms you are referring to.

Google itself doesn't force users to click certain links on the ranking, if you are #2 on the ranking, you are SUPPOSED to get a good decent amount of traffic, but if suddenly you are not getting traffic despite still ranking #2 or #3 or #1, it means Google has deranked you, it might not show on your screens but it means on the majority of people browsing the web, your "#2 rank" for example, is actually NOT #2 rank; let's not forget the rankings are sometimes dynamic meaning someone in New York might see you #1, while someone in Florida might see you at #5 for the same exact keyword.

@Juniya that is actually a very simplistic, old fashioned take on what is happening with Google since 2023 or so. Read the threads on here and you will find many long-term members here experiencing the same as what I am reporting. They remain at the top but the traffic is just gone.

I use several rank trackers for desktop and mobile. I also check manually using different IP for different locations, different browsers, incognito, etc. I'm still sitting there at the top when I check these locations but there might be very little traffic for that search that day. The next day it might snap back to normal. So what you are saying above, while it seems to be a given, isn't actually always the case these days...it's easy to check these things manually.

if you are #2 on the ranking, you are SUPPOSED to get a good decent amount of traffic,

Supposed to and actuality have nothing to do with each other anymore with Google. It hasn't been this way for a while now. One thing that absolutely does make a huge difference is the actual layout of the result. If you are #2, #3 etc with a big image carousel under your link then you will get a ton of traffic. Google has stopped showing those, switching back to one small image or perhaps a small block of three images at right. That simply doesn't get the clicks.

[Conro]

Many my articles that were in the first position are now under Google forums and YouTube videos. Digital Market Act was supposed to avoid just that, but it's worse than before

[Fluff_Nutz]

I'm trying not to get too alarmed about this ''update''. I have been hit twice now in the space of 3 years, so every year that my site has been active, bar its first year when I was surprisingly left alone. Because I just happened to make the site bang on the release of AI, typical timing. Its been rough and I am yet, if ever, to see any real potential. The most I have ever made is $4,000 on a one-off fluke month. So I'm envious about anyone making upwards of $4,000 on a regular basis for as long as they have/did.

I created my site with tons of plans for it and to, of course, diversify. I saw tons of potential and, before starting, read a lot of positive messages on Reddit. Many were making a nice living from it all. Needless to say its been rocky and many of my plans have not come to any kind of fruition. I no longer see positivity on Reddit. In fact, this place and Reddit have become rather doom and gloom. Understandable.

Being hit and loosing your revenue is not fun. Especially since its due to G's incompetence. Bing have their co-pilot installed months go and no one mentions that being rocky. In fact it seems like their job of placing AI into the search went rather smoothly. This is why having Google with 95% share on the internet is a joke. The American Government should be ashamed but they are most likely doing deals with Google behind the scenes. Hence why G have lasted so long and the possibility of TikTok being banned. Which gives Youtube no competition, another platform owned by Google.

Speaking of Youtube, that is just as broken as the Search. You upload videos and eventually you loose traffic. Perhaps its assuming that I'm spamming and thus I am being penalized? But I see quite a few creators no longer being as consistent as they once were, and, instead, opt to upload once a month. The fact that notifications don't work is also something I dislike and find to be an issue. Its ironic, whilst some creators have calmed down on their daily uploads others are still uploading many videos a day and still getting good traffic. It really makes no sense.

It's no longer a fun place when it comes to creating content on a Google platform and no wonder many people are flocking to TikTok. However, despite all this I'm trying to remain somewhat hopeful. As I got hit with the 2023 September update. I panicked and told my writers it was over. After they had left though, the update ended and I got my traffic back. Not all of it. Just the amount I seemingly lost during that update. So I'm still 80% down from when the site was in its peak.

Now I'm being hit again with this update. March 2024. I have managed to loose a further 70%. But its been stable despite the drop. This happened last September. Stable but a huge drop. So I'm assuming the traffic will return to where it was before the update.

What is annoying, as I have said before, is how long these updates take and how often they occur. People, expectantly, don't have an the patience or time to wait forever on Google. Especially when money is concerned. Bing are done and dusted and G are still p***ng about many MANY months and years after. Their come back to this is 'Just wait and don't change anything' apparently. We have been waiting though.. too long in fact.

I do believe that a lot of people, such as normal regular users, are flocking to Bing. Going by a post on Reddit. Which I hope is the case. I do also see Bing trying hard to gain people's attentions, even including ads of their own into the Google SERP. Further evidence may/may not be seen on my monthly traffic data. Both Reddit and Bing have increased traffic to my site, whilst G have decreased considerably.

Its true though due to the consistent updates and traffic drops and manipulation, you are not given a chance to grow. But, to think, that Google are trying to remove websites is terrible. Relying 100% on AI. It will backfire. Greed has blinded them and I'm forever reading that their CEO isn't the best at long-term plans. It's just sad that we are barely clinging on due to a corporation that should never have this much power. Glory to Europe for at least trying to conquer these issues, it should be the American Government. But alas..

[edited by: Fluff_Nutz at 3:33 pm (utc) on Mar 27, 2024]

[Markedd]

@Fluff_Nutz Yeah no, I made peace with the fact that the website is dead. Even if Google moves around and pushes it back up, I am not playing this game anymore. I am currently working hard on my YouTube channel and starting to have a presence on the social media as well, so a few months of grinding should get me out of this mess. Hope is good but follow the patterns, Google will push SGE results in the following months everywhere, effectively pushing out most organic results. Will people move to Bing or DDG? Maybe a few, others will just assume that they need to adapt to this new change in the search engine without checking that the Internet is as it was before on other search engines and Google is just a pathetic gatekeeper.