April 2024 Google Search Observations

[Whitey]

@Micha

To me it looks more like the leading media outlets have too much trust from Google and the automated rating systems downgrade the trustworthiness of other sites because of this. But of course I can only speculate.

Could be. A contact of mine is complaining that Reddit is outranking the source content in their observations.

@EditorialGuy

My experience has been the opposite. In the current update, and especially in the last couple of weeks or so, our informational travel site's top pages seem to focus even more on "topical authority" than usual. Currently, the top 10 pages are almost always about [Destination 1] + [our most popular subtopic] and [Destination 2] + [our most popular subtopic].

A travel related site that I monitor uses a similar technique. It is ad heavy to the point of being a pain to enjoy reading the good content, but the content itself is about [Destination 1] + [popular subtopic's]. The traffic to this site grew very strongly since 2018 as content was added. Articles did not all rank straight away, but let's say 1 in 3 or 4 went straight into the top 10 within days or a few short weeks.

I wonder if these types of sites could be vulnerable to the ongoing march on AI where images, and subject matter can be written on all subjects and referenced to "headline authorities" (ie brand, Reddit's etc). Topical authority may be playing 2nd place to just "authority" in the eyes of G.

Again, just me saying as I don't know.

PS I think the current guidance from G is way too vague. Folks deserve not to be blindsided by this incredible life changing effect on business without a better level of accountability for webmasters to respond to. G is so pervasively dominant in the business World it needs to be brought into line with a better level of transparency IMO.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:28 pm (utc) on Apr 1, 2024]
[edit reason] April thread split cleanup [/edit]

[Micha]

@Markedd If it violates the Interstate Media Treaty, a great deal of pressure can be exerted, which Google must also bow to. They cannot simply do nothing in this case.

[Markedd]

@Micha See the concept of malicious compliance. But I don't want to be the cynical one and hopefully things will get better for the web.

[ichthyous]

USA and UK traffic has been awful for a week straight...yesterday USA started to improve at around 9am and was average by end of day, where UK was still well below normal. Today UK traffic is -50% again, USA -28% at 2pm. Canada is -39%. Here's my UK traffic:

[ibb.co ]

My most important converting and revenue producing categories are hit the hardest, as usual...Down 80% yesterday. Meanwhile, my visibility and number of ranking terms according to two metrics is increasing every day.

Now let's talk about customers...in 2024 all I am receiving is people who are delusional in their expectations, have budgets so low that they are not viable, or are just sending me junk. Never in my life have I just deleted so many inquiries unanswered. It is perfectly clear that Google has perfected skimming all of the cream and is leaving us not even with the milk...only the whey.

[l1fejosh]

Hit another all-time high!

[saladtosser]

@l1fejosh lines will do that to ya! 2morrow will be a low unless you have backup lines!

[sk7411]

Everything is temporary :)

[Treud]

Traffic metrics are « stable », but conversions are trash since 3 weeks. Looks like Google is sending me a customer base that is totally not in line with my business.
No inquiry nothing, Let’s see how things are going !

[Whitey]

@Treud - what’s the deeper GSC and GA data telling you with regards to your most active pages and markets?

This core update interacting with an early Easter period could be producing combined interference to patterns and making it difficult to analyze until things settle down.

[saladtosser]

I think the use of AI for content creation (text/images/music/video) that's been trained on data with out explicit approval/permission for every contributor should be banned worldwide, AI has enormous potential to better mankind in finding new medicines and other scientific breakthroughs but it seems online its just being used for getting around plagiarism to benefit a few off the hard work of the many, these tools should have never been release to the public IMO and companies like Google should have express permission from every website and every website forum member to digest their experiences/content/thoughts! I see HUGE lawsuits coming for plagiarism AI (PAI) in the coming years! It's all a bad joke!

[Treud]

@Whitey
I’ve lost rank 3rd to 6th in late February but the view seems « ok », but I was still receiving orders and requests after that. It’s really after the 10th of March that everything went super quiet and less inquiry.

What buzz me is although the GA/GSC seems rather stable (let’s say -10% +10% as usual), it’s my billed traffic from my host that went really weird, I can have 3 times « visitors » but with a smaller bandwidth. And 2 days after back to normal, I call normal what I had in the past.

Last month is really really weird pattern of visits, seems bot, but at WP Engine they are saying they don’t count bots.. So What are all these visits that do’nt appear on GSC/GA, but are billed ? AI Bots that scrap the website ?

[ichthyous]

I think the use of AI for content creation (text/images/music/video) that's been trained on data with out explicit approval/permission for every contributor should be banned worldwide

Banned by whom? If your work is registered at the copyright office you can just position yourself to sue and recover money that way. That's what's coming for AI...lots and lots of lawsuits. You'll never stop them from stealing it. I literally just got a $70k payment this week from my attorney for one online infringement. The company refused to respond, even after being served papers for a federal case (copyright is always a federal case in USA). They then didn't bother to show up for any pre-trial settlement conferences and didn't respond to any attempt at negotiation. The judge gave it to me by default and slammed them with 4X the initial amount in punitive damages and attorney fees. They of course never paid on the judgment and it became a game of cat and mouse. My attorney finally located their bank account in another state and the money was taken right out of their bank account after the court order was sent to the bank. Wash, rinse repeat. That's what's coming for AI too...they have zero grounds for stealing copyrighted work and the copyright holders still have the power. So, make sure your work is registered, assuming that it is unique enough to be registered. If not then I'm afraid there's not much you can do.

[ichthyous]

Traffic metrics are « stable », but conversions are trash since 3 weeks. Looks like Google is sending me a customer base that is totally not in line with my business. No inquiry nothing, Let’s see how things are going !

Same here since maybe beginning of March, or even February. The inquiries are ridiculous when they come in at all. I just deleted another one a few minutes ago. Nobody responds when you send a price quote...they are just completely delusional about what things cost. This is a big change from last year, when there were many periods without any inquiries but when the inquiries came they were at least reasonable. Google has gotten impressively good at stealing any real customers away...that's why I am no longer focusing on search. No matter how highly you rank you aren't going to get customers anymore.

[Treud]

Me started the last few days of February. Seems only bots are using Google.

Yes I switch to other ways of selling, good old forums etc etc, and totally write my content/products guides for customers first. Reputation is not that bad as I have past customers that comeback to me.

Google need to change its behavior or they are going straight to the wall.

Switching to other business that don’t require any search engine too !

[mosxu]

Anyone experiencing lots of zombies at the start of the month not just the end?

[Treud]

@mosxu Been a solid month with zombie traffic for me

[Micha]

@Treud A friend of mine runs a shop, until the 1st of April sales were normal, but on that very day it stopped. The number of visitors has remained the same, but sales have been almost 0 for 6 days. It may be due to the after-effects of Easter, but as the volume of spam has also increased significantly, he's also only talking about zombies.

[saladtosser]

@ichthyous good man! I'm glad you didn't let them get away with it! I would hope it will be banned by governments once they see a decline to their national GDP from abuse!

[Fluff_Nutz]

I think I just 'barfed'. Came across an AI snippet on the SERPs. First time seeing it and now I see where my traffic has trotted off to. I would have hoped that G would remove the snippet section at the top and replace it with the AI snippet. Include the sources, which they, of course, don't. To me there isn't much difference from the original top snippet and AI anyway, they both include large walls of text. But now we have both. Alongside the PAA and Youtube videos, which as a Youtuber I, selfishly, don't mind.

But this is meant to be a search engine and from this one search I did, well it tells me everything. Witnessing exactly what the world is suffering from. Something needs to be done. Hopefully this mess is enough to deter others from using Google. I see the search market decrease from earlier, hopefully it continues.

This is why we can't have nice things in life. It eventually gets ruined by corporate greed. To think I pay for articles and worn myself out when I first started just to, in theory, achieve something. Then this is the result. Ridiculous.

EDIT: Just had to walk off in order to de-stress myself as I was seconds away from breaking my computer screen. I seriously do not see any growth going by that search result mess in the SERP. It's over. Anyone sticking around hoping it will change are delusional. I don't see AI in every search term neither, so expect yet more traffic drops.

[Markedd]

@Fluff_Nutz Is your website completely gone? Or just partially slashed? Also, do you push the same content to the YouTube channel as a way to rank on the Google SERPs? I am just curious because I am doing something similar, as a full disclosure.

[saladtosser]

Markedd + being doing YouTube years now (33k subs), all my content shows on serps some above or just below my website!

[Fluff_Nutz]

@Markedd

Since 2022 (when I first started doing the website) I have managed to loose 90% of my traffic. So its practically dead. I created the site to go alongside the Youtube channel. So the majority of the articles do feature videos as well as images too. I just pay for the articles to get things done in a more timely manner. But alas rushing seems pointless now. I am also in a very competitive niche too, so its even more difficult to rank and the SERP situation obviously does not help.

[Conro]

@Fluff_Nutz My site is almost 10 years old, what should I say? Over time it dropped from about 8000 visits per day to less than 2000. A lot of work every day for nothing. I'm sure google is destroying sites just to save money for AI. By now everything revolves around that Stuff that gives worse answers than Homer Simpson drunk.

[ghostofseo]

@ichthyous just started copywriting our articles. I believe we are allowed to submit articles published within the last 60 days. Found a handful of sites that were pirating all my photos, reviews, and in many cases ranking higher than me, while running adsense. Aint life grand.

Got a few taken down with the DCMA tool with Google. Others are not as easy. Can you pass on your attorneys info or let me know what type of person to look at hiring if we see this again?

[RubicCubed]

Anyone experiencing lots of zombies at the start of the month not just the end?

Looks like Google is losing real users fast. Google's marketshare went from 86.94% in March to 81.8% this month so far. Google's net loss in marketshare is 5.14% in the USA. Fewer real people are using Google so bots will stand out even more now.
[gs.statcounter.com...]

[delorean]

Google MARCH 2024 Search Update In A Nutshell
REDDIT/QUORA/LINKEDIN = TOPPERS
BIG BRANDS = BOOST
SMALL INDEPENDENT SITES = RANK DROP

Overall, a trash update.

Do you guys agree?

[Treud]

@misha
I take my billed traffic as reference because it’s the more stable and was in line with my bandwith usage.

Until the end of February, it was roughly the same amount everyday with sometimes a surge for 1 day and also in bandwidth.

Since March, it’s swinging from the average number up to 3 times of it. And sometimes the bandwith usage is smaller than normal.

The GSC show me a normal count on visits but the impressions are swinging way more than usual, with CTR as well (looks like CTR adjusting to delivering me the same visits).

So sure something is happening for more than a month, and it’s not a regular update because it’s the first time I see this behaviour for my site over quite few years now.

[Micha]

@treud

The GSC show me a normal count on visits but the impressions are swinging way more than usual, with CTR as well (looks like CTR adjusting to delivering me the same visits).

You can see exactly the same thing with my friend's shop, only since 1 April. I took a look at his ranking yesterday and for some keywords he lost position 1 to an empty website. Also, Google seems to have been pushing a brand new shop for a few days.

In general, I wonder if Google is no longer paying attention to EEAT. I see this with my website, more and more websites that only marginally report on my subject area are suddenly ranking at the top and some with false claims. I'm really losing the desire to do research for my articles.

[Conro]

"Guys your sites suck, they're pure spam and they'll never recover because again, they suck. Change jobs because you don't have a place on Google. Anyway I want to do you a favor, if you want I'll buy your sites for a few cents and I'm also losing out with that garbage you've been writing for years."

I was joking, but beware that there are "seo" who now want to buy sites penalized by hcu for a few pennies. Keep your eyes open

[ichthyous]

@ichthyous just started copywriting our articles. I believe we are allowed to submit articles published within the last 60 days. Found a handful of sites that were pirating all my photos, reviews, and in many cases ranking higher than me, while running adsense. Aint life grand.

Got a few taken down with the DCMA tool with Google. Others are not as easy. Can you pass on your attorneys info or let me know what type of person to look at hiring if we see this again?

You have 90 days from date of publication to register the article in a timely fashion. After that it can still be registered, but no damages can be awarded if you file a case and win and they prove that you didn't file it within this time period. Keep in mind that unless you add a date to all of your articles, how can anyone know the date of actual publication? I don't put dates on any content on my site publicly. I wouldn't worry about not filing strictly within 90 days unless the publication of your work can be tracked. Otherwise, the infringer's attorney will catch it and will use it against you.

DMCA is another matter...sites to do not have the right to republish your work. If this is user generated content and the users of the site are reposting your work then it's a bit more difficult. But infringers try to use the excuse of UGC all the time when it's not really the case. You can forget about pursuing infringements in places like China, India or Vietnam...you'll just be wasting your time. In the USA you will need an attorney admitted to the federal court system in the circuit where the infringement happened. So, you will need a different attorney for each territory. You will also need others for each country...I have one in Canada, Australia, and the UK. Pursuing the UAE now, but the attorneys ask for a fortune up front, and the way the law works it's very risky because the infringer can try to invalidate your claim in many more ways than in the US.

Handling copyright infringement is almost a full time job. Find good reliable and hard-working attorneys...it takes time and they aren't all that great or that hard working. Also, keep in mind that the attorneys typically want to take on the most lucrative cases...if you have a lot of small cases it can add up for you, but not every attorney wants that. I have made a tidy sum every year since 2016 pursuing claims...it was well worth it for me to put in all this work.

[oldog]

So what news from the famous core update ?