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?

[mhansen]

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

I have a page right now that has ranked #1 organic for several years. It's a low volume transactional query, with roughly 290-320 monthly search volume (SEMR) and GSC shows roughly the same number of impressions for that demand.

I'm a lead-gen guy, so I measure results not by search placement, but by conversions and attracting the right visitor with the right content at the right time in their buying funnel. This page used to see a stupid-high conversion rate because the target visitor, those for which it ranks #1 still today, used to come, learn and convert. Now... not so much.

Regardless, our page still ranks in #1 organic.

Feb 2021: 410 PV's, 92 conversions.
Feb 2022: 385 PV's, 56 conversions.
Feb 2023: 220 PV's, 16 conversions.
Feb 2024: 4 PV's (on 220 impressions), 0 conversions.

In 2021, Google still had not figured out how to monetize the query since it was longtail.
In 2022, they started showing ads for just 2 of the words in the 5-word query. Next came product widgets/panels, even though you MUST be licensed to work with what is discussed in the query.
In 2023, 4 ads, snippets, PAA widgets, PAS, product widgets, and other Google activities to keep the user on Google.

So far in 2024, this page has stayed at #1 organic position and still sees an occasional visitor regardless of the HCU/Core updates, but they simply do not send any traffic and those they do, don't convert any longer.

Google has harvested/hijacked any query of commercial value to themselves and advertisers. I literally saw 4 page views from this page in Feb 2024 from Google. Same #1 position as 2021.

[londrum]

I think a lot of people are thinking they've been penalised when really its just a general decline in traffic from google, because of all the extra gumph they're inserting into the serps -- all the ads and carousels and videos and PAA boxes etc, not to mention all the reddit and quora and forbes-type stuff.

if you look over the last two years, and definitely over the last five, then nobody is getting the same traffic as they once did for the same positions.

In only takes google putting one or two extra things above you for your traffic to completely disappear.

We used to say being on page 2 was a waste of time, but now its anything below position 2

[ichthyous]

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.

Don't expect to suddenly start building a huge following on social media, it's all pay to play now. I'm getting rid of my Instagram verification badge...it's useless and doesn't help to gain visibility or followers. Having said that, your field may be something that creates more of a buzz on social than mine. For me both Instagram and Facebook have just become places where I post important updates about my brand, new releases etc but it's basically DOA.

I believe in YouTube a lot more than any Meta product for sure, but if you expect to earn a living from revenue on YouTube ads don't hold your breath, they're all complaining about revenue dropping like a stone.

It's the age of monopolies again and they all have use where they want us and they know it...they don't intend to share the wealth anymore.

TikTok seems to be thriving if you're up on your dance moves, I don't use it and won't use it, and it will probably end up being banned in usa if usa / China relations continue as they are.

[Conro]

@mhansen Just think that the seo gurus They still haven't noticed that traffic collapses if there are 4 ads, people also ask, People search,, YouTube, google forum, still haven't noticed it. If you want to give it a try, on your site, put a dozen related posts on top of an advertising banner, you will see that the subsequent ads will have a collapse in views

[Markedd]

@ichthyous I was a black hatter in my teens and then I got clean to build a brand and offer actual value. I did so until the HCU after which my revenue went close to zero. I will put my black hat back on and will conquer this new horizon once again. People will always make money on the Internet. I am currently using social media and YouTube to see if it's worth going the legit way. Then again, there are many ways to convince people that your content is actually popular without paying a dime. We're in the era of the AI, didn't you hear? :D

[ichthyous]

Google has harvested/hijacked any query of commercial value to themselves and advertisers. I literally saw 4 page views from this page in Feb 2024 from Google. Same #1 position as 2021.

That's exactly right...and most people simply ascribe it to the amount of ads and widgets on the page. It's not that simple. I am seeing traffic decline dramatically to the top parts of my site for 20 years now. The terms driving traffic to that page are mostly still ranking, and I am not seeing tons of ads. So it's not always the case that the results are overstuffed so nobody finds you...they have found some other way to siphon off converting traffic.

I should mention that in 2024 when these tactics have really started to kick in, I have also noticed that the customers who are making inquiries are not converting at all. They just won't buy anything. To me that's an indication that we are being handed the leftovers in terms of search. It's not due to a recession, the markets are roaring and we have full employments and people are spending (in the USA).

[RedBar]

At the mpment my traffic is still going well, a good Monday, a strong Tuesday and so far today looking similar. The traffic sources are all my tradtionally strong areas BUT real world business enquiries are still very thin on the ground especially from, you guessed it, the West.

The next 2-3 months see several big international widget fairs, they will be interesting.

Currently the hotel site is at 112.2% v 2023, this weekend's looking very good.

[christianz]

"move to YouTube" crowd are jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. You have no options and no pricing power on YouTube. Expect your rev share to go to 0 and make content for Google for free in near future :)

That's if your entire livelihood (channel) does not get deleted due to some bad thing you wrote on social media when you were 15. Or some ideological or political differences with Google. Or just that you have too many enemies constantly flagging your stuff.

Never mind all that. Video can't replace websites anyway. Video is a small subset of what websites can do.

YouTube is not legitimate competition for websites. It is inferior alternative that gets promoted over websites because A) Google wants more money B) spam is bigger problem on the web than on YouTube at the moment (subject to change).

[Fluff_Nutz]

Granted Youtube is far from perfect but it's not like G are giving people many options with their constant and consistent traffic drops. At least its more stable over on Youtube, most of the time anyway. That latter part is very open for dispute. But its a safer bet than websites. Also, most of my traffic anyway, comes from Youtube search itself. I think my issue is the competition which I'm working on right now just in case. Using a change of tactic and, of course, diversifying and promoting on another platform.

Granted the only real issue with Youtube, for me, is the revenue is not that great in comparison but it isn't with search right now neither. You can still do affiliates, many Youtubers do. But yes, I did read that Google are losing profits on the platform so time will tell..

But clinging to websites is a waste of time unless G change, not very likely. I do agree with copyright claims I have been hounded for months now for a music track I used. It was promoted as a 'Free to Use' track, now I'm having doubts. But copyright is not as bad as it used to be. Just block the track used by replacing it or dispute depending on the situation. Its not as bad as it used to be. Trust me it was bad once I got a good channel terminated once because of a false copyright. Never did get it back, sadly. But many years on from that my current channel is much bigger and better than my last so its no real biggie any more.

Anyway I have come across many posts asking if this update is the worst one released by Google. A lot of people are saying no and that Panda and Penguin were worse. I wasn't around for those but if they were worse. Well the good thing is people did learn to adapt and people were still able to make a living for themselves through websites. So maybe not all is doom and gloom after all? We can all hope but these constant hits certainly don't help with motivation.

[Conro]

@Fluff_Nutz Panda and penguin came like a tsunami, but at least you knew what was wrong. With hcu things are very different, sites Curated and well written, interesting have been penalized and it is difficult to find a common cause between penalized sites

[christianz]

HCU did get rid of a TON of copycat / SEO sites ripping off old original sites. There's a lot that they got right with HCU. The problem is collateral damage is too big. Biggest in history of Google. And - they have not addressed parasite SEO / EAT farming at all. It has become even more prominent.

[samwest]

Why should Google send me free traffic?

Because you give them free content.

[Shepherd]

That's cute how google is trying to make ads look like social media posts now...

Also dig the notice they sent out about how their "definitions" have changed:

We’re updating our definitions related to top ads: top ads can appear above organic results and can also appear below organic results for certain queries.

google, just like the real world only without reason or accountability.

[Conro]

In some queries out of the top 10 results, only 4 are organic. This is what I see now for a query:
1 people also ask (4 questions)
2 google community
3 play store
4 Related Searches
5 organic
6 organic
7 YouTube (5 video)
8 organic
9 related searches
10 organic

"Write content and awesome"

[ubound]

The traffic has been dropping slowly since March 2023, but today looks like another big drop.

[MayankParmar]

"Write for people, not Google" is the worst propaganda campaign of this decade.

[Martin Ice Web]

The traffic has been dropping slowly since March 2023, but today looks like another big drop.

We saw the first big drop last thursday. It took away about about 30% traffic, while converting traffic from google went against Zero.
Today - 7 days later - we see another drop from about 30% , while converting traffic is zero.
So this quality update to find more and better information took away ~60%. But this 60% are almost converting traffic

[RubicCubed]

In 2023, 4 ads, snippets, PAA widgets, PAS, product widgets, and other Google activities to keep the user on Google.

@mhansen

I experienced the same though I think the excessive ads and widgets are now common among all ecom searches I've performed. Our #1 ranks aren't seen for all the ads and widgets which explains the collapse in traffic and conversions we experienced over a year ago. The traffic loss is expected to get much worse with SGE as this study [authoritas.com...] points out - clicking on the show more link pushes the #1 organic result down the page by 1,255 pixels on average.

Google hasn't been much of a contributing factor for our business since they added the 4th ad in the SERPS, which was around early February of 2023. The current core update, and HCU, didn't have much of an impact because the traffic/conversion needle from Google was already stuck near zero. Unless those ads get trimmed down, and SGE becomes a feature ignored by users, Google will remain a non-factor in organic ecom.

[Mark_A]

Nothing is for free. If you add up your costs for achieving a first organic placement there will be significant cost. But 1) the payment didn't go to Google so they don't have any reason to put you top of the page, which after all is what matters from a clicks POV. and 2) only paying Google can reserve you that top slot and it can often be expensive to get that no 1 position.

People saying they have a no 1 organic position, unless there are no ads and other Google properties on your keywords, it is just irrelevant.

[Conro]

@Mark_A You've described google exactly like affiliate hosting sites, where when you enter you already know that those aren't the best hostings, but they're only there because they allow you to make money on them. In the end, when the user knows this, he ignores certain sites and the same happens with Google advertising

[mosxu]

“Google targets the most valuable converting traffic first, like a sniper”

Actually that is so true and they also encourage that with drop down snippets in the search box before you know 90% of buyers have already gone not even allowing the classic keyword to be clicked!

Underlying problem is the continuous disappearance of buyers! Amazon done a good job now you have temu.com that is less than half price compared to Amazon!

Temu is using Chinese overstock to make a sale and grab the customer data! Now they may still pay for ads but not for long soon most of customers will get app offers or email and direct search in temu app!

Googlers do not see where the money is just keep looking at big data and organising it will end up with a giant nothing.

Small guys don’t know it yet but the big guys do!

[Whitey]

One thing I am noticing is that on our .com site all pages that do not directly correlate to what we are about, have been ditched at a page level. They previously ranked strongly. To date our overall traffic to .com is still climbing, although there are spikes in clicks and impressions. Also big dips.

A well publicised site that i previously referred to, specialising in subject "x" drifted over the last few years and published anything that could rank, and it did. It had at peak over 500 staff, mainly journalists and writers. It has been hit hard over last year and is continuing to decline with this update.

So a key observation, I think I'm making, is that if a site publishes content outside of "what it is defined by Google as about" it's content may be considered by Google as manipulating traffic and unhelpful.

I'm sure that doesn't answer a lot of other scenarios that folks are seeing and personally experiencing, but i hope it helps.

[MayankParmar]

Here's a good thread exposing the "Write for people, not Google" propaganda campaign: [twitter.com...]

[ichthyous]

Huge drop this morning, search is -45% and direct is -48% from an average Thursday. Most of that is from USA -85% / UK -38%. My ranking went higher this week, but traffic is abysmal and zero conversions.

If the update is over then what is this latest drop?

[Conro]

@ichthyous The major update is not finished yet. It should end Around April 5

[saladtosser]

Mark_A + without free content from webmasters google has no content to wrap their ads around, its called a "symbiont relationship" one can't exists without the other (although websites could exist with any other Search engine if they were dominant whereas Google couldn't exist if it was blocked from all domains), without the symbiont relationship Google wouldn't have had a search engine to begin with. Google has now turned that **symbiont relationship** into a **symbiont parasites relationship***

Symbiont parasites relationship = "A symbiotic relationship in which a symbiont lives all or part of its life in or on a living host, usually benefiting while harming the host in some way and usually having a higher reproductive potential than the host." We are the hosts from which the parasite google feeds until it is big enough to kill the host (which we are watching in real time with the launch of SGE)!

[Mark_A]

@Mark_A You've described google exactly like affiliate hosting sites, where when you enter you already know that those aren't the best hostings, but they're only there because they allow you to make money on them. In the end, when the user knows this, he ignores certain sites and the same happens with Google advertising

Hi Conro, I am not so familiar with the affiliate hosting market but I can imagine other sectors being similar.

I wonder if there is any similarity with my relations with Nikon. I own a Nikon camera and 5 lenses, but I only bought one Nikon item new, meaning that only in one case did Nikon see any money directly from me, minus the retailer's cut of course. All the rest I bought used. I suppose supporting the used market is a positive thing for Nikon and perhaps my buying someone else's cast offs might enable them to buy something new but I have at best an arms length relationship with Nikon.

When I was doing websites fulltime I could do the SEO myself (and it was much easier back then) and charge the customer for my time, or I could pay Google directly for Adwords traffic and my customer's money would flow more directly to Google rather than to me. At that time SEO was definitely worth it but my feeling is that the balance has moved in favour of PPC since then.

[ghostofseo]

@whitey

Stay in your lane. If Google is indeed classifying sites this bad all around. I run a mountain news site that covers everything from outdoor sports, music, culture. Turns out people like myself that live in the mountains have a lot of passions. So I started writing about the activities I do. Like skiing and mountain biking and climbing and hunting. All of which I not only participate at but excel at. Having been a professional athlete before I feel capable of talking about the gear and activities I do. As we have moved into new verticals like hunting. Perhaps Google thinks Im trying to game the system? Well I shot 2 elk and a mule deer last year and have a freezer full or meat if anyone on this forum wants some. But Im equally as skilled on skis or a mountain bike. So now my little website cant talk about all the things I love because Google classified us as a ski site? Or a bike site?

[Mark_A]

@saladtosser, I haven't come across "symbiont" but I can certainly agree the relationship is now quite parasitic. And if the parasite goes too far it will kill the host.

[RedBar]

I haven't come across "symbiont"

I assume that you are not a sci-fi buff ?