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]

[Conro]

The update is still in progress. More and more sites I'm noticing that they are stopping, I also wrote an article today but I didn't want to publish it

[Martin Ice Web]

nothing more to say, in short: -50%

[Conro]

@Martin Ice Web - 50% today?

[Fluff_Nutz]

@Conro

Same here. In fact I haven't published anything of my own work for either of my sites in over a month now. I have 2 writers but I even cut down on their work too. I just feel so demotivated, fed up and depressed. So many dreams, goals ruined. I had plans and its all basically over. I visit Reddit and its also the same, so many people have been impacted by this. This is why something as big as the internet should never be ran by one company. I think a lot of it is due to AI.

But I also read that the dust won't be settled until June. That is still a long way off. By that time a lot of sites won't have money to keep their site going. Myself included. It's the uncertainty. Even if I had motivation what is it all for if it gets shot down again?

Its the same with Youtube. Traffic influxuations are really bad right now. Some are going from 320k views per day to 260k. It's really bad for content creators that rely on Google right now. This is why I moved platforms to something completely different. With a heap of growth still going for it. In fact within 3-4 months I have almost reached the requirement for monetization.

What is also funny is that my Youtube channel is over 10yrs old. It gets barely £100 a month. Whereas this new platform I recently joined someone within less than a year is getting over that with way more daily views for running looped content 24/7. I'd say its my content but its a platform owned by Google, who I know are manipulating both the SERP and the site right now. Plus getting more revenue and views for looped content? Seriously?

I'll admit my niche for both the site and Youtube has terrible RPM. I'm probably better off leaving the Google platforms as gaining growth is bad as it is already without these ridiculous corrupted games too. With on-going updates and cookies being removed its safe to say this is a really bad year for small website and Youtube content creators.

[RedBar]

As I have reported before I am doing ok to this extent:

January & February 2024 v 2023 average 105.7%
March 2024 v 2023 average 123.7%
First week April 2024 v 2023 average 148.1%

This last week has really surprised me since I normally see a drop after Easter.

My traffic increases have been from my usual widget trade areas plus realworld business enquiries are also up significantly. My USA traffic is at its normal level, African & Eurasian traffic is notably up.

What have I done to this global site? Absolutely nothing whatsoever therefore I can only conclude that G has "changed" something however I have zero idea what unless it was to adjust more to W3C guidelines and my 30 years "working experiences".

I have posted this many times, if you are absolutely positive there is nothing wrong with your site then leave it alone until "things" become more stable ... BTW, I have no idea if and when that may possibly be!

[Conro]

@Fluff_Nutz On YouTube, there are those who make money even without putting ads. I think of those who start arguing with each other in live shows in exchange for money. 500€ for a live broadcast and Threatening each other for 30 minutes is not bad :D

[Conro]

@RedBar Is your site also informative, or do you sell something?

[l1fejosh]

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

tomorrow has came and went, a dip down but still increasing.

[Martin Ice Web]

@Conro, yesterday was even worse, today we are heading towards -40% to -50%.
And like someone posted before, its all the main traffic/sales pages that got hit. So no doubt this update was aiming convertional traffic.

[Treud]

The CTR and impressions swings are starting to stabilize and an important webpage of my site is indexed again…. Don’t know why Google removed it really…
On the Bing side, I have a 20% increase over the month.

[RedBar]

@RedBar Is your site also informative, or do you sell something?

It's a specialist widget site for the global construction industry and associated trades with peocessing factories in several different countries. It features in-depth information and images for architects and specifiers plus details for regular bulk buyers in the associated industries.

We do sell but do not incorporate prices on the site since nearly every buyer's specific requirements are different, project work no matter how large or small, is bespoke, however there are many global purchasers who buy semi and part finished peoducts for their own national, or international, production.

[oldog]

Does anyone who suffers from depression ( and as I see many members here do) because Google destroyed his/hers business,........
How about suing Google for personal and physical damage ? I'm talking about ppl who had well designed and high ranking white hut websites.

[Whitey]

@oldog - there is a huge underreported social consequence in the lack of accountability and responsibility by Google for these shifts without transparency that destroy business’ and people’s lives.

Recently the spotlight was put on FB in a senate hearing, but nothing with Google.

Why has there has been no Senate enquiry or EU investigation into these practices?

Sometimes I wonder why people just accept powers (Governments, big business etc) to be sending them into the abyss. Like lambs to the slaughter.

And nobody says anything. Weird.

[Micha]

@Whitey

Why has there has been no Senate enquiry or EU investigation into these practices?

I can tell you, because practically no politician in an important position in Europe knows what's going on and they don't care. A small example from Germany: In our country, politicians only ever talk about "helping big companies with subsidies etc." and hardly anyone talks about small companies, and the Internet is actually "new territory" for many of these old geezers, because apart from social media and a handful of large, well-known websites, they know and use nothing. (Excuse the "old geezer", but unfortunately this applies to most of our politicians in important positions).

[ghostofseo]

The Verge just wrote a fluff piece with AI and is ranking at top of Google #1 for best printer.
[theverge.com...]

Video - [x.com...]

[ichthyous]

Two decent days of traffic, and today down we go again:

The United States
-12%
The United Kingdom
-24%
Australia
-35%
Germany
-17%
The Philippines
+454%
Canada
-31%
The United Arab Emirates
-37%

Noticing a pattern here? Traffic from anyplace Google can monetize (read: rich countries) is seeing traffic drop like a stone. First Canada vanished, then Australia, then UAE, then USA, and now UK traffic. All have dropped considerably, but my ranking is stable and even higher.

[delorean]

Just wanna make a slight update on my post.

Google MARCH 2024 Search Update In A Nutshell
REDDIT/QUORA/LINKEDIN = TOPPERS
YOUTUBE/TIKTOK = APPLE OF GOOGLE'S EYE
BIG BRANDS = BOOST
SMALL INDEPENDENT SITES = RANK DROP/SOME PAGES DEINDEX

Overall, a trash update.

Do you guys agree?

[Conro]

The update is still in progress. There are still small and medium-sized sites left to disappear or replace with expert forums

[Conro]

I keep saying that our sites don't have anything. Here's how Google is set up now :D
[twitter.com...]

[exploria]

Similar here. It seems that tracking tools out there are still seeing instability going on though, so..... :

[Martin Ice Web]

@Conro,

german serps are now flooded with Kleinanzeigen ( former ebay Kleinanzeigen), Aliexpress, marketplaces from big companies, shops i would never ever buy from.
I realy can´t see how this could help users to find what they want. Very sad move from google.

[Conro]

@Martin Ice Web It seems that now the small and medium-sized site is only good for plugging the holes, sometimes not even that because there are websites in their place that have nothing to do with the search query. I'm waiting for the update to finish, but at the moment I really don't know what to do because the traffic is going down day by day

[renatovieira]

Very high volatility on all my sites. Local and global websites, in several languages. End of the march core update?

[ichthyous]

Looks like USA and UK traffic are clamped down hard again this morning...-54% and -30% at 9:30am. Traffic to my home page is -76%! Let's see if it suddenly shoots upward toward the latter part of the day as has been the trend. These 'updates' are killing off my business for weeks at a time...

[ichthyous]

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.

Google is depending on lack of transparency and confusion to capture it all. Why would Google ever provide anyone with clarity or speak honestly about it, so that governments will investigate them? What Google is doing is pure monopolistic playbook but the laws are written for older types of corporations which produce physical goods...coal, steel, oil etc. Nobody sees that search and data are our modern equivalent. The members of congress here are pathetically clueless and small business doesn't have a seat at the table. Plan for life post-search as Google clearly plans to kill organic search off dead as a doornail.

[Conro]

@renatovieira It looks like the update will end when traffic reaches zero for small and medium-sized sites

[mhansen]

Plan for life post-search as Google clearly plans to kill organic search off dead as a doornail.

I firmly believe this to be the truth many of us need to face as the new reality. I've never subscribed to the "SEO is dead" mantra before, but organic, informational search results are quickly being displaced by AI generated answers that have trained on our content and pushed us off the search result pages. We see Forbes and Bankrate in places where we all once existed, but those too will be gone as quickly as SGE/Gemini have fully rolled out. (I'd predict early May, when they roll out the domain abuse algo.)

I'm guessing, but I believe most of US (Dev, SEO, Publishers, etc) live in a full-screen web browser on a PC or Mac desktop device. At the same time, a majority of the USERS of our websites are on mobile devices. Have you seen a Google SERP on a mobile device lately? Especially one that has SGE active for those queries. Organic results are simply nowhere to be found, even if you have a #1 organic position.

This is going to be the same very quickly for ALL search engines. It is what it is and it's eventually going to affect everyone.

[Conro]

I believe that the solution is to create content that is not useful to artificial intelligence, in this way you avoid sge and paa. Queries on some adult content are an example, not necessarily po*n

[NeapTide]

Once small websites are dead AI will be feeding outdated garbage because large websites can't give every solution.

People at Quora, Reddit etc often get bored and stop posting new answers because they are not making any money.. And if they do answer they often need to research on smaller websites to find proper solutions and post a link as reference.

What large corporations like Google are not understanding is that in the long run their SGE and Gemini will become useless once smaller websites with millions of professional solutions are gone.

Currently smaller pro websites are buried under Google Garbage boxes (PAA, PAS, Featured Box, SGE box) and repeated irrelevant results from large websites. Once they are gone, their AI will be searching quora reddit and some forums like idiots to find answers for newly discovered issues and they will often not find it.

[NeapTide]

At the moment I am doing following stuff

- updating website navigation and design
- removing garbage and dead backlinks with disavow tool
- posting new content
- updating old content
- redirecting old posts permalinks to new permalinks.
- categorising posts
- enabled breadcumbs (because google now show breadcrumbs in serps if they are available)
- fixing core web vitals of websites [INP can't be fixed because it depends on user screen quality and even google. com is failing INP]

- most importantly started working on alternate source of income.